Road Cycling 2019 Discussion Thread

[Olympian1010 8,004]

Just now, heywoodu said:

Excellent finish in the Brussels Cycling Classic*

 

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*which is just a very generic race, as is pretty much every race that wants to make itself look big by putting 'Classic' in the name even though nobody actually sees it as a classic.

Reminds me of the Tokyo 64 road race. Probably the best (or closest) Olympic road races in history. You can find the finish on YouTube if you haven’t seen it.

[heywoodu 15,181]

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

Reminds me of the Tokyo 64 road race. Probably the best (or closest) Olympic road races in history. You can find the finish on YouTube if you haven’t seen it.

That's pretty close indeed, basically like you often see nowadays in bunch sprints in races where the best sprinters are (almost) all present

 

[heywoodu 15,181]

Dowsett with an impressive solo in the 2nd stage of the Tour of Britain, but the peloton caught him 75 meters before the finish  

[heywoodu 15,181]

Not surprisingly the ever so agressive Bouhanni was involved in a....controversial situation, this time leading to his pretty weird crash at the GP Fourmies finish. Seems like he got away well.

 

 

[heywoodu 15,181]

Africa's Team signs Spaniard Carlos Barbero and Austrian Michael Gogl, two riders with basically no significant experience who they call very exciting and experienced additions to their team!  

 

 

 

Nobody has a clue what on earth their plan is, stuffing Africa's Team full with second-hand dumped Europeans, but sure. It's just a little sad, there are quite a lot of actually African riders who would be able to perform just as much (as little, actually) or better and with whom they'd stay somewhat true to their completely abandoned philosophy...what a ridiculous joke of a team it has become, and every year they manage to make it worse.

Edited September 9, 2019 by heywoodu

[heywoodu 15,181]

No U23 nonsense for Remco the Great. Belgium is still looking for three riders to complete their road race men's team. Based on previous years, one can assume they are trying to look for three riders from different teams who don't want to spend a single second working for each other.

 

 

[dcro 10,210]

3 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

No U23 nonsense for Remco the Great. Belgium is still looking for three riders to complete their road race men's team. Based on previous years, one can assume they are trying to look for three riders from different teams who don't want to spend a single second working for each other.

 

As if WT riders are even eligible to start at U23 races...

[dcro 10,210]

33 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

Africa's Team signs Spaniard Carlos Barbero and Austrian Michael Gogl, two riders with basically no significant experience who they call very exciting and experienced additions to their team!  

 

Why such obsession about African team not having African riders? I mean, surely not every member of Rabobank had an account opened there.

[heywoodu 15,181]

Just now, dcro said:

 

Why such obsession about African team not having African riders? I mean, surely not every member of Rabobank had an account opened there.

But Rabobank never introduced itself as 'the banking team' or something, or BORA as 'the cooking team' (sure, there's Sagan's commercials), or Sunweb as 'the travelling team' or INEOS as 'the chemical team'. Dimension Data/MTN Qhubeka branded itself as Africa's Team since it started and always, always was talking about giving all those young talented Africans chances at the highest levels. Now all they do in that regard is give an accidental African here or there a small chance, but mostly rely on either old Europeans that used to be good or middle-aged (from a sports perspective) Europeans who never really have been very good at all, and present them like the next awesome big thing. 

 

It's not about 'Team from X doesn't have a lot of riders from X', it's about how it's sad to see a promising philosophy going down the drain into obscurity. Especially in a time when one could have quite a decent team with Africans only...at least Amanuel is still doing something good for Dimension Data, pretty much their only bright spot at the moment.

 

Also, apart from the whole Africa thing, it's kinda laughable how time and time again they manage to make their team even less impressive with their new signings. I really don't know any other team that manages to go downhill so fast, year after year, in terms of who they sign.

Edited September 9, 2019 by heywoodu

[heywoodu 15,181]

Just now, dcro said:

 

As if WT riders are even eligible to start at U23 races...

Apparently so, yes.