Pro-cycling thread

@andyp there's a workaround

Unlike Fab, I can actually sprint in the drops. His hair is loads better than mine though... So.. 50:50 really.

Are you suggesting @dan is in fact Fabian Cancellara?

Surely not, dan's tuff.

Wheeling out the crash details of the chasing pack whilst simultaneously describing the final few meters for the race winner was especially impressive.

Chapeau commentator (nice one Sean too)

I've had it with people complaining about him.

I LOLed

Hmmm.

I'm going to have to have a moan at your moaning about Cancellara's moaning.

His gripe was when they cut out cobbled sections at the last minute. He wanted more cobbled kms for obvious reasons.

So meta

Dat palmares...

Ahem: Not according to Cycling News

Edited highlights:

"The race was a mess. When I heard on the radio what was happening just with our riders, I could imagine what must be happening with the others - in my opinion this does not have a place in a Grand Tour,"
"It was completely different than in April because the field is so different. Also the wet roads made it very dangerous - the whole course was now dangerous."
"Also, on wet cobbles, it is very different, you cannot use a high cadence like when it's dry, which is how I like to do it."

Sounds awfully like moaning to me.

He could have should have been massive at darts if he had stayed at the pub.

He seemed chipper about the prospect ahead of the race... according (again) to Cycling News.

"It's a special scenario when you have a cobbled stage in the Tour de France. It's good for me and I will and we will go for that," Cancellara warned in his unique version of Swiss-English.

"When people ask if it's safe or not, I say that we're in the Tour de France and it's part of racing. This (stage) is a benefit for me. The Tour de France is not just about climbs and time trials, other aspects make the decision about what is the final result in Paris.

"It's risky but that's how it is. We'll fight for the best and do the best we can. We'll see what Froome, Nibal and the others do, but for sure it's going to be tough.

"The stage is quite short and so it'll be full gas and so first sector is going to be a big chaos. The big difference is that teams need to bring leaders in the first few positions. Because of the high risk. We have to fight for position in the Classics and it's the same here. There are going to be 160 riders going into cobbles sector. If you look at the parcours, there are other places where things could split earlier. That's good too."

He has opinions. Perhaps too many. That's old news.

It was completely different than in April because the field is so different.

Obviously, his argument is that cobbles are OK with a Classic peloton but not with a Grand Tour peloton. To that you could say that while in the olden days many of the same riders that rode the Classics also rode the Grand Tours, today's riders are more specialised. I can see the merit in that argument. One could, of course argue that the peloton should be shrunk again to have less specialisation, but I daresay that horse has bolted.

Remind me again, did or did not Fabs get totally shown up by Nibali and Fuglsang from the girly man GT posse last year?

I think the cobbles were wet and therefore not suiting his high cadence… #RaisedEyebrowEmoji

Quite, but spot the difference:

Before: "When people ask if it's safe or not, I say that we're in the Tour de France and it's part of racing."

After: "in my opinion this does not have a place in a Grand Tour"

Before it's all great and groovy and part of racing, afterwards it's a bloody awful idea and shouldn't have happened. WTF?

Hopefully it'll be a wet Paris Roubaix this year and we'll see what he's really made of.

I've got too much respect for Cancellara to ever slag him off.

The moment he dropped Boonen on the Kapelmuur at Flanders 2010 is one of my favourite ever things to have happened in cycling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6z7uUe0tVA

There are much bigger cry babies in the sport. For example - Tyler Farrar trying to kick off with the Argos Shimano bus after he crashed in the Tour in 2012; Voeckler refusing to get on the podium at Paris Tours last year; and David Millar throughout the whole of his self pitying autobiography.

You could throw Wiggins ("chris spoiled my party") and Froome ("they woldn't let me drop my team leader") on that bonfire too.

T. Dekker retires.

Fair statement.
http://www.seginternational.com/individual/thomasdekker/custom/id=1

Yeah, Gerrans didn't do any work...
http://cyclingtips.com.au/2012/03/gerros-milan-san-remo-power-analysis/

When does he open his bar and will he have EPO on draught?

Didn't realise MSR had returned to finishing in the Via Roma, therefore descent from Poggio to finish reduced by 1km from previous editions. Should make for an even more exciting finale.
Favourite race of the year for me.

why, with the endlessly boring build-up toward the final split on Poggio?

It's all about the build up to the crescendo.