Road Cycling 2016 Discussion Thread

[heywoodu 16,458]

58 minutes ago, dcro said:

 

In the final 3 kilometres to be exact.

Interesting race anyway, all 5 Gambian competitors finished outside the time limit in the first, one and a half hour stage  

[dcro 10,211]

3 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

Interesting race anyway, all 5 Gambian competitors finished outside the time limit in the first, one and a half hour stage  

Which reminds me, did you get a response from Guam about their talented trap shooter?

[Federer91 3,376]

The Giro starting in a couple of days and some teams have announced their rosters. Astana looking to be the strongest again, but i have my doubts about Nibalis form. He was dead awful in the last couple of weeks and i'm not so confident in his win, unlike i was in the beginning of the season. Landa will make a strong push, but with 3 time-trials, he will need to be full on in the mountains to make up time. Plus SKY have a weaker team, for their standards, so that won't help him either. Valverde is also here and he is the most consistent rider in the world. There is not a single race he performs badly, so he is a pretty solid bet for a podium.

 

The big three aside the rest of the top 10 should be a mix of old faces Uran, Majka, Pozzovivo with new upcomers Chavez, Dumoulin if he isn't a one GT wonder. There are always some surprising top 10 finishers and i could see Atapuma and Geniez sneaking in. I hope Ulissi and Cunego to do something, because they haven't been on the map too long for my liking, but that is in the whishful thinking department. Also i'm surprised to see so many of the best sprinters starting, should be interesting for those stage hunters. Overall should be a good GT. 

[heywoodu 16,458]

It'll start tomorrow! I can't wait, as far as I know I've never seen the Giro d'Italia in real life yet and seeing as I'm absolutely going to tomorrow's stage 1 (I live 30 minutes away by car) I will complete my set of Grand Tours  

 

I saw the first stage of the Vuelta when it was at the TT Circuit in Assen (a team time trial), and I saw the prologue's/first stage of the Tour de France in Utrecht last year and Rotterdam some years ago  

 

 

[heywoodu 16,458]

On 5/3/2016 at 19:04, Federer91 said:

The Giro starting in a couple of days and some teams have announced their rosters. Astana looking to be the strongest again, but i have my doubts about Nibalis form. He was dead awful in the last couple of weeks and i'm not so confident in his win, unlike i was in the beginning of the season. Landa will make a strong push, but with 3 time-trials, he will need to be full on in the mountains to make up time. Plus SKY have a weaker team, for their standards, so that won't help him either. Valverde is also here and he is the most consistent rider in the world. There is not a single race he performs badly, so he is a pretty solid bet for a podium.

 

The big three aside the rest of the top 10 should be a mix of old faces Uran, Majka, Pozzovivo with new upcomers Chavez, Dumoulin if he isn't a one GT wonder. There are always some surprising top 10 finishers and i could see Atapuma and Geniez sneaking in. I hope Ulissi and Cunego to do something, because they haven't been on the map too long for my liking, but that is in the whishful thinking department. Also i'm surprised to see so many of the best sprinters starting, should be interesting for those stage hunters. Overall should be a good GT. 

I strongly doubt Dumoulin has even 1% of his mind set on the GC to be honest. The time trials are his big goals and 2016 as a whole only has one real, big goal for him: the Olympic time trial. Besides all that, I don't think he even really is a GC-contender and I doubt we'll ever see him in the top-10 again  

[Gianlu33 5,994]

Wow, Netherlands is amazing! What starts for The Giro, the square was FULL!  

[Gianlu33 5,994]

The giro starts:  

[mihamiha 124]

our youngsters primož roglič missed pink jersey only to few cm.what a pitty,but still great result

[heywoodu 16,458]

Well that was a wonderful day and finally I can say I've seen the Giro in real life

 

I was surprised to see it wasn't that full near the finish, because I was standing all in front at 251 meters from the finish line. Of course it was really cool that Dumoulin won, but damn it, as a ski jumping fan (and especially of the Slovenians) I would have absolutely loved it too much to describe in words if Roglic would've won the stage  

Edited May 6, 2016 by heywoodu

[Federer91 3,376]

Yup, Dumoulin is here just for the TTs.  He is doing the same like in the Vuelta, chalking up time in the early stages, before the real mountains hit. And after sunday he will have a very good lead 1:30, maybe 2 minutes from the rest of the favourites, so he is definately not just walking around.  Maybe he won't have the legs in the big stages to keep a podium finish, but a top 6 position like in the Vuelta is quite possible. Speaking of podium finishes Zakarin and Chavez are looking very good for me and i think they can make a big surprise by the end. Nibali still in no form, poor performance today, but maybe it is a good thing to not peak early.