2014 Pro-cycling season thread

Just catching up on the Tour of Turkey (on my phone, thanks to Eurosport's total inability to stick to any sort of schedule) up to stage 4. Wow Quickstep's lead out looks phenomenal. Be interesting when they go against Giant-Shimano for real.

Well done to Adam Yates for the tour of Turkey win

It was wrong to check this thread, wasn't it, I hadn't got that far

Froome won TdR, in case you're wondering.

It was wrong to check this thread, wasn't it, I hadn't got that far

For my part, I am sorry

Rebellin high in the results quite a bit in recent races, of all the riders who got caught in the last decade, I was most disappointed by him and Vino, not because I was surprised or felt let down as a fan, but because I knew I would miss their attacking style.

who remembers when him, Virenque and Millar almost simultaneously bleached their hair in an atempt to stop hair analysis doping tests from working?

For my part, I am sorry

Nah my fault, schoolboy error, been trying to avoid the forums and new sites until I had caught up. Was just so impressed with Quickstep.

David Millar I presume.

I remember Robert Millar having a spectacular mullet, difficult to say how performance enhancing it was

Nah my fault, schoolboy error, been trying to avoid the forums and new sites until I had caught up. Was just so impressed with Quickstep.

Yeah man, really good job fending everyone off. Everyone wants to be of the back of that train

Full strength OPQS/Lotto/Giant leadout battles at the TdF are going to be downright terrifying.

vokler or voclair?

Tommy Tongue

Just watched the last 6km of stage 7 in the tour of Turkey and was wondering if Cav spoke about what happened in the final run in.

To me it looked like Steegmans went full gas after the final corner and Renshaw(?) couldn't keep up and dropped out of the line leaving Cav to bridge up to Petacchi. When Steegmans eventually peeled off Cav looked like he slapped out at him in frustration, or maybe Steegmans was coming into Cav's line? Didn't look like a happy bunny.

Interesting, he was full of praise for his team in the interview straight after.

The video quality was pretty poor quality and I know nothing about sprinting so maybe I'm mis-interpreting the pixels...

The video is this one and the action starts at about 4:50. On reflection though, I think it mightn't be Cavendish that I'm looking at, and maybe it's Mr Bonet from Caja Rural? Serves me right for trying to catch up using steep hill links...

From what I could see it looks like Cav is moving Steegmans, or just putting his hand out to let him know he is there. You often see the Quick Step guys pull off and then drift back into the line, creating another obstacle for chasers.

I'm not sure what Renshaw is doing there, it could be that he's is trying to bully the rider who is trying to hop onto the Quick Step lead out (you see him take another rider with him across) —*and assumes Cav can close that gap easily. Unfortunately Steegmans really hits the gas at that point and Cav has burn a match to get onto the wheel, which is 3 bike lengths by then, instead of the original 1.

Exciting finish but I shuddered watching that crash at the end.

Certainly looked like Cav, but I think it was more 'keep out of my line' than anything else, especially seeing the chaos Steegmans caused behind Cav as he weaved all over the road.

Edit: ^ What he said

Just caught up on the tour of romandie. Good racing...

^^^ yeah that's just a 'I'm here' hand on shoulder.

Cav had to push a bit to close that gap though! Steegmans is a machine.

Kennaugh out of the Giro.

fark. Why?

Illness, had it for a while apparently. All that 5% body fat riding through cold and wet weather doesn't make for the strongest immune systems.

Is it all an elaborate double bluff to ensure the A Team are smashing TDF whilst the waifs and strays get to piss about in the Giro?

Who's leading then?

Cataldo?

Cataldo was always leading