Road Cycling 2021 Discussion Thread

[heywoodu 16,004]

39 minutes ago, Grassmarket said:

ASO announce an official Women’s Tour de France for 2022.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/57352842

About time. Although still a reduced version of the course...waiting for the first organizer to have some balls (no pun intended) and host a race on the exact same course as the men.

[heywoodu 16,004]

Some fun little climbs in the 4th stage of the Tour of Slovenia coming up today.

 

 

 

Twice, followed by the finish on top of this slightly uncomfortable traffic bump.

 

[heywoodu 16,004]

Meanwhile there's one stage to go in the Giro Ciclistico U23 ('the Baby Giro'), and Juan Ayuso, only 18 years old, has basically been destroying everyone the entire week. Won a stage with a sort of flat finish and solo'ed to wins on a stage with a decent climb and semi-flat finish and a stage with a monster climb. He's just not winning every stage because he's not going after every attack, but he is far, far, far and away the best.

https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/giro-ciclistico-d-italia/2021/stage-9

[heywoodu 16,004]

And in the Belgium Tour, which Remco Evenepoel is dominating and will easily win, there's a bit of a scandal around Jan-Willem van Schip. He was riding with these handlebars and was DQ'ed and thrown out of the whole race for it.

 

 

New rules and all, fine, but the thing is UCI had repeatedly let the team know this was fine, and even on the morning of the stage the UCI official present was asked about it and gave the green light to race with it. 

[Grassmarket 4,030]

Important win for Mark Cavendish in Belgium today - beat all the big sprint names straight up.  Really was a career defining moment, if he hadn’t got something out of this Tour he’d have been hanging up his shoes, I think.

[heywoodu 16,004]

You really should see the final few kilometers of today's 2nd stage in the Ionica Race  

https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/adriatica-ionica-race/2021/stage-2

 

Pronskiy attacked, teammate Kudus eventually was the one who countered him and passed him, obviously greatly angering Pronskiy. Kudus then got passed by Fortunato, so the infighting in Astana's team let to both of them losing in the end  

[hckošice 15,522]

Juraj Sagan is in hospital with broken collarbone Big complication for our Olympic nomination...

 

well...

 

Get well soon Juraj !

[hckošice 15,522]

All big names far far behind, currently the lead group in the national championship has more than 10 minutes lead. Among the 10 riders leading group there only 2 so the fight for the Slovak champion is going be only a battle between Peter Sagan and Matúš Štoček.

8 Czechs who will very likely fight for the Czech jersey are Mathias Vacek, Petr Klabouch, Karel Camrda, Tomáš Kalojíros, Daniel Turek, Lubomír Petruš, Dominik Neuman and Michael Kukrle

 

 

Forget to mention the Junior champion is at the surprise of absolutely nobody, the new super prospect Martin Svrček (10th win of the season), looking forward how long series of national title this kid will start soon

[heywoodu 16,004]

7 minutes ago, hckošice said:

8 Czechs who will very likely fight for the Czech jersey are Mathias Vacek, Petr Klabouch, Karel Camrda, Tomáš Kalojíros, Daniel Turek, Lubomír Petruš, Dominik Neuman and Michael Kukrle

The best Czechs weren't interested in the jersey and decided to go for a relaxed ride (if they're participating)?  

[hckošice 15,522]

2 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

The best Czechs weren't interested in the jersey and decided to go for a relaxed ride (if they're participating)?  

Štybar, Kreuziger, Černý and Vakoč all were pre-race favorites but missed the moment of the breakaway in the first downhill...now the leading group is 11 and half minutes ahead of the peloton.

 

we are in the penultimate lap