Road Cycling 2019 Discussion Thread

[heywoodu 15,181]

As is usually the case with US races and especially those centered around a city, Tour of Utah organizers were a bit out of inspiration for yesterday's 4th stage   They had this lap of straight, straight, climb + downhill, straight, straight and just did it 8 times  

 

[heywoodu 15,181]

Just watching it now and yay! As is tradition in events like the Tour of Utah, Colorado, California and so on, we've got ourselves a rider making a fool of himself by cheering 'for the win' one lap too early   

 

This time Team BridgeLane's Hayden McCormick of Australia went on the attack in the final lap and soloed across the finish, only to realize that wasn't actually the last lap  

[Olympian1010 8,003]

Just now, heywoodu said:

Just watching it now and yay! As is tradition in events like the Tour of Utah, Colorado, California and so on, we've got ourselves a rider making a fool of himself by cheering 'for the win' one lap too early   

 

This time Team BridgeLane's Hayden McCormick of Australia went on the attack in the final lap and soloed across the finish, only to realize that wasn't actually the last lap  

At least my states tour gets some actual world class riders. The tour of California stages could be better though. Only 6 and 7 were interesting this year. Also, I want the Solvang time trial stage back.

[heywoodu 15,181]

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

At least my states tour gets some actual world class riders. The tour of California stages could be better though. Only 6 and 7 were interesting this year. Also, I want the Solvang time trial stage back.

Because California is World Tour, so quite a lot of teams are obligated to go there. Generally for the diehard cycling fan races like Utah are more fun though, since you see riders you normally don't see that often. I'm disappointed I haven't seen attacks by Rob Britton yet, which he usually does as soon as the roads start rising in any of these races. Last year it was Sep Kuss who didn't just 'cycle', he gave everyone else cycling lessons.

[Olympian1010 8,003]

Just now, heywoodu said:

Because California is World Tour, so quite a lot of teams are obligated to go there. Generally for the diehard cycling fan races like Utah are more fun though, since you see riders you normally don't see that often. I'm disappointed I haven't seen attacks by Rob Britton yet, which he usually does as soon as the roads start rising in any of these races. Last year it was Sep Kuss who didn't just 'cycle', he gave everyone else cycling lessons.

Yeah the tour of California is where is discovered an up and coming cyclist named Peter Sagan  when I was 12. I also like Rob Britton’s attacks. I also liked the young American, something Lawson. Two years ago I discovered one of my new favorite riders, Tom S.  (I can’t speak his last name, Lithuanians need to calm down with their surname spellings)

[heywoodu 15,181]

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

Yeah the tour of California is where is discovered an up and coming cyclist named Peter Sagan  when I was 12. I also like Rob Britton’s attacks. I also liked the young American, something Lawson. Two years ago I discovered one of my new favorite riders, Tom S.  (I can’t speak his last name, Lithuanians need to calm down with their surname spellings)

Fairly sure you don't mean a Lithuanian, but Latvian Toms Skujins  Who is another example of riders who usually for whatever reason (feeling good, weaker field of participants, whatever) are only good in a rather specific set of races (USA in his case), until he suddenly attacked in a big race in Europe as well this year  

[dcro 10,210]

2 hours ago, heywoodu said:

Fairly sure you don't mean a Lithuanian, but Latvian Toms Skujins  Who is another example of riders who usually for whatever reason (feeling good, weaker field of participants, whatever) are only good in a rather specific set of races (USA in his case), until he suddenly attacked in a big race in Europe as well this year  

 

Screw his results, he is a notorious instagrammer.

[heywoodu 15,181]

If you can somehow watch the final 4km of today's 3rd stage in the Arctic Race of Norway, do! (it's on the Eurosport Player for example)

 

What a race and mostly, what a freakishly steep final climb  I mean, sure, I remember some climbs like the Angliru with incredibly steep parts, but here it just kept going and going and then there's a corner and it just goes up even more  

 

Storheia summit (Melba), what a monster.

[heywoodu 15,181]

The day after his one lap early celebration, McCormick went straight on the attack again and in the final kilometers he attacked together with Aussie Lachlan Morton (McCormick is actually from New Zealand, my bad) on their way to Canyon Village/Park City, including a ride through the Olympic Park. It was so close in the end, but McCormick came up 2 centimeters short to take the win  

 

Now I want McCormick to win a pro race anywhere, don't care when or where  

[heywoodu 15,181]

Bit of a scary moment for Elia Viviani, Steven Kruijswijk, Peter Sagan and a few others. They were on their way from Monaco to the Netherlands when due to an oil leak they had to make a bit of an emergency landing  The organizer of the race they're participating in said his wife told him the plane had gone off the radar which obviously scared him to pieces, but they're all ok