Men's Road Cycling UCI World Tour 2023 (La Vuelta Ciclista a España)

[Olympian1010 7,990]

This race continues to deliver odd moments 

 

https://x.com/faustocoppi60/status/1698354852189901008?s=46&t=eeNhSzi4Rylqjvpt-IBinQ

[heywoodu 15,174]

15 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

This race continues to deliver odd moments 

 

https://x.com/faustocoppi60/status/1698354852189901008?s=46&t=eeNhSzi4Rylqjvpt-IBinQ

It wasn't even the last mess of the day, because the travel to Valladolid for tomorrow's time trial took until 3-4am for most of the teams (plane and bus....come on, plan your Grand Tour in such a way at least in-race plane flights are gone...).

[heywoodu 15,174]

Time trial today, let's see what the organization and TV direction manages to mess up today after forgetting to check the sunset time in Barcelona, randomly taking the times way before the finish in such a way the whole stage might as well be erased and the danger was not taken away anyway (and having no system in place for that, so asking spectators for videos so they can make a result), a weird final kilometer in Tarragona causing some crashes, missing basically an entire bunch sprint for the stage win, missing deciding attacks on the climbs, being stuck in 2005 with their late TV starts resulting in missing an epic echelon battle on Sunday and going live when everything has already calmed down, being stopped by some mud and so taking the times at 2050 meters (?) from the finish at some random gate in the middle of nowhere (but with a solitary lady with a notepad standing there, so a mess in recording the times is impossible!) and then messing up the travel to the time trial city resulting in riders arriving almost in the morning.

 

Ah, La Vuelta  I can already see some of this week's stages being cancelled because they end up not having permission to cross the French border or something  

Edited September 5, 2023 by heywoodu

[Olympian1010 7,990]

The race is almost beyond parody at this point. It’s like the organizers took Tour De Pharmacy as an blueprint for success rather than a mockumentary 

 

 

[heywoodu 15,174]

On 9/1/2023 at 10:02 AM, De_Gambassi said:

Is there much 'lol' regarding whatever Jumbo is currently doing in the lower countries. Just curious.

It is very split. There's a big Dutch forum where it's split between people laughing their heads off at the absurd dominance they're showing (Vingegaard's Tour de France time trial was a real highlight, but Van Aert's climbing for example scores rather high as well) and some people who either just ignore it or try to rationalize it a bit. I believe there's also two other big specific cycling forums, but I don't really post there, so it's hard to say. From what I've read from other people, it's mostly just a "hurray, it's amazing!" atmosphere there though  

 

Newspapers and 'critical journalists' and such are just cheering along.

[mpjmcevoy 362]

1 hour ago, heywoodu said:

It is very split. There's a big Dutch forum where it's split between people laughing their heads off at the absurd dominance they're showing (Vingegaard's Tour de France time trial was a real highlight, but Van Aert's climbing for example scores rather high as well) and some people who either just ignore it or try to rationalize it a bit. I believe there's also two other big specific cycling forums, but I don't really post there, so it's hard to say. From what I've read from other people, it's mostly just a "hurray, it's amazing!" atmosphere there though  

 

Newspapers and 'critical journalists' and such are just cheering along.

Does anyone have any idea what Jumbo is doing?

[heywoodu 15,174]

25 minutes ago, mpjmcevoy said:

Does anyone have any idea what Jumbo is doing?

Of course nobody really knows other than Jumbo, but it's not like people don't have their suspicions

 

I mean, we've seen the same level of often just insane team-wide performance from Gewiss, Festina, US Postal, Saunier-Duval, Sky, etc, all of whom have either been rolled up entirely or managed to sweep it under the rug and make people ignore it. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, and I didn't count the ones where I believe there were no actual cases in the end, but where teams are full of highly dubious figures (UAE the past years, Astana before their decline, Vacansoleil which was ridiculously good for one or two years, and so on).

 

It's impossible to know things for sure though, but if we can only have at least some small suspicions when we are absolutely sure....

Edited September 6, 2023 by heywoodu

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Stage 9

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