2014 Pro-cycling season thread

Froome is one of the few GC contenders to have actually ridden Paris-Roubaix.

His anger was at Terpstra not following his attack at 65k out. He signalled for him to follow but ended up bridging alone, and ended up working rather forlornly in the break with Thomas and then Hushvod after BMC worked to close the gap and allow him to bridge, but the other three did nothing and Boonen's presence allowed Terpstra and Stybar to do fuck all for 50k and arguably gave Terpstra the legs to make his attack stick at 6k.

Terpstra has explained it away as getting only a second to react and that Boonen is more explosive than him and he couldn't follow, but what Boonen left unsaid is that he felt he was left out to dry in a break that might have worked if his teammate had been working for him, rather than himself.

I didn't see Boonen look back when he attacked and he passed a team mate stopping off the rest instead of following.

Anyway, you take away anything you want from Terpstra, I'm telling you his time has come.

I'm not taking anything from Terpstra, merely relaying what Boonen has said and implied. I have no problem with how he won.

great race

http://m.cyclingnews.com/news/tech-gallery-paris-roubaix-2014

'New heroes' - a behind the scenes full length documentary of the Tour of 2013 with Argos-Shimano is out now. Made by the guy that also did the wonderful P-R short in B/W with the extreme slo-mo shots.

Officiële trailer Nieuwe Helden (NL subs) - YouTube

Supposedly contador was out on the cobbles yesterday reccing the route. Does anyone know how early this stage is? If it's a good few before any itt or the high mountains someone could hold onto yellow for a good while as conceivably they could have a good minute or so advantage on the gc guys. Unlikely they would let wiggins get away though I reckon.

Stage 5 - http://www.letour.com/le-tour/2014/us/stage-5.html

It may well put someone in yellow for a few days.

Terpstra's Strava ride from Sunday;

http://app.strava.com/activities/130432764/overview

Stage 5 - http://www.letour.com/le-tour/2014/us/stage-5.html

It may well put someone in yellow for a few days.

Or hospital.

#sweet

That too. But I think we could see the sort of time splits you might get on a mountain stage, witha MTF. Crash and you could lose minutes. All the GC contenders will be shit scared of that stage.

https://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/racing/paris-roubaix/paris-roubaix-pills-found-120446

Curious and curiouser, wonder what is in 'em

I wonder who's pocket

If I know the internet they'll be blaming Sky

Or potentially planted ... ?

TL:DR don't believe everything you see on the internet?

As a serious question, what drugs exist that you would want to take in the middle of a race to see the benefit?

Caffeine pills.

Which aren't banned.

Caffeine, glucose or sodium would be beneficial late in a race.

Amphetamine was the drug du jour to take in-race in the past, but you'd be bonkers to take it now

With the would 'test' on it, it could be unapproved drugs of course.

Anyway a nice murder-mystery for the Internet to sink its teeth into. I reckon it was Professor Ferrari in the teambus with a vial of distilled Armstrong

Also a vial? It means mid-race, in a pack of riders you'd have to fish it out, unscrew it, retrieve one of the pills (presumably), take, re screw it up, and replace. All going at 40kph on the back of a bike. Sounds unlikely

If they are doing that no wonder the fucker crashed

Ah, just before the cobbles.

Still seems awfully unlikely.

Why not have them loose / in a baggie, rather than in an obvious drugs vial saying "test" on it

Caffeine pills.

Yeah, I transfer all my pro plus tablets into odd medial phials marked Test / Only for Use on Animals / Contains Nuts and EPO.

Why not have them loose / in a baggie, rather than in an obvious drugs vial saying "test" on it

Obviously it's a ruse by the twitter OP to drum up business for their medical practice.

It sounds like a set up to me. Veterinarian students found it didn't they? They would have the access to kit like that easily, stinks of a prank.