Fan clubs are an important part of cycling in Europe. You don’t have to be European to have a fan club.
Jayco made a mistake in the final of today’s stage. After Groenewegen struggled in the early part of the stage, they needed to go for Bling in the final, especially as Groenewegen could not hold the wheel in the final. Grmay has hit a purple patch of form, but, realistically the sprint field is weak with no Milan, Merlier or Kooij. I doubt Grmay would have won a stage in the Giro.
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He’s decided no more, in the TDF at least.
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Jayco had an awful day in stage 13. Missed a break of 21 and then killed themselves in the chase. had Mezgec and Matthews in the final and they decided to sprint independently. In what i saw in stage 11, S.Yates can just aboyt win one of the next two stages from the break.
Pidcock the second one to pull out with Covid.
Pogacar far too good on last night stage.
Vingegaard did well to limit his losses to 39 and a few time bonuses.
Women’s Giro, Australia’s Neve Bradbury had an outstanding win on the queen stage. Attacking out of the GC group she put 50 seconds into the best of the rest and puts her into 3rd in GC with one stage to go, Borghini has a 1 second lead over Kopecky in a very exciting race.
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Bradbury has to be a target for Jayco. I’m still peeved that she was not selected as under 23 rider for the 2022 World’s in Wollongong. SD Worx has to control the last stage of the Giro but the question is how much support will they get from other teams. Quiz question about the Giro Donne. Who is leading the teams classification?
Apparently, 3 or 4 Jayco riders at the TDF got COVID. Three were definitely Yates, Harper and Matthews. Bling and Yates are now OK while Harper is still not right.
Finally, in a strange move Jayco will announce their TDF squad on Monday which is a full three weeks before the race.
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Pogačar did 6.98 ᵉW/Kg for 39:50 min, which is by far the greatest climbing performance ever, taking into account conditions and the stage difficulty. Sea normalised power for this historic effort is 7.27 ᵉW/Kg. Pogačar’s adjusted altitude score was 696, which means this performance was equivalent to pushing 6.96 ᵉW/Kg for 60 minutes at sea level.
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So what is the gear of choice in 2024? I guess we find out in about 2028?
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l know nothing of bike racing apart from tuning into the TDF once a year, but Pogacar’s performance was indeed most impressive. He just flicked a switch and powered away from Vingegaard.
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Realistically, they should be going much quicker than 25 years with natural evolution. When you include better equipment, aero, nutrition, altitude trainin etc. And of course any expert professional team will be sourcing products ( that are not on the WADA banned list ) to improve performance.
Harper out of the TDF with COVID. Posted a few days ago that he caught COVID and his recovery had been slower than expected.
Come on Yaco I’ve seen you post over in the clinic.
They had altitude training in the 90’s and nutrition and training programs can’t have changed that much. Bikes have definitely improved.
To be faster than an extremely juiced Pantani is a massive red flag. There is noway nutrition can make up for full bore EPO
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It’s also much more tactical in the way a team conserves the energy of the designated team winner, as well as in team composition, the interplay between teams.
There is legal doping and illegal doping which confuses most. Any serious professional athlete will experiment with legal substances to improve their performance. I can assure you that athletes and their advisors will try some of the wackiest substances on earth to gain an edge. So I have no doubt that the leading performers have found substances ( which are legal ) to enhance their performance.
Some context is needed when discussing Pogacar’s performance on Sunday. When Pantani set the climbing record Plateaua De Belle they were riding into a headwind, then Ulrich punctured at the bottom of the climb, so they waited for him and finally, they soft paced the first 40% of the climb, whereas, on Sunday they hard paced the climb from the beginning. You underestimate at your peril, the development of aero bikes, the use of skinsuits which are so tight that riders have to use suncream, a more disciplined approach to training and preparation, loner periods of altitude training,and of course nutrition with the use of supplements and gels etc,etc,etc which has to make for faster times. Finally, I often read the Clinic, but rarely post in that forum because its full of nutcases.
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Aha. Yesterday, I discussed doping legal and Illegal with an emphasis on legal doping. Now we have a report about teams using a Carbon Monoxide rebreather when training at altitude. As I pointed out, professional teams/athletes will try any new fangled product or service to improve performance, and of course some will choose the illegal path.
Oh come on. They don’t even bring the aero bikes and super tight skin suits out for climbing stages.
History suggests whenever cyclist put out massive Watts/Kg for long periods that they were juiced up. It’s pretty reasonable to have some scepticism when they do it again.
I’ll assume that it’s all good, but I’m not going to discount that they’re on more than beetroot juice.
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Some will choose the illegal path, and most of those will be cyclists, perhaps.
The thing is, when someone produces a ride too good to be true compared to what has historically been seen in the sport it has so often turned out to have been based on “the illegal path” historically, that even if a rider might just be the greatest rider to ever don the Lycra, he will forever be questioned and tainted by the work of his predecessors.
Actually, all the bikes they ride now are aero. Eg Trek dropped their climbing bike, the Emonda, because the Madone (their aero bike) is just as light now. That’s pretty much across the board.