Pro-cycling thread

van Vleuten dislocated her shoulder in the crash before the Muur, managed to pop it back in and get third in the sprint for second place.

Nails.

Source?

Her own tweet.

Oh mate. Great pick though.

On another note - andyp said the other day Terpstra was a great foil. I think he arrived as a massive hitter in his own right today.

Ah cheers. Not that I didn't believe it, but i wanted to pass it on to someone.

He won Paris Roobay in 2014, he's always been a big hitter.

Harelbeke this year too it's been on the cards. QS are on fire the now.

That was kind because nobody wanted to chase him given QS had other men. I think today, nobody could have followed. When he rode away from Nibali, he looked phenomenal. Then he got across to the break and pulled their pants down.

If he was a stone cold 5 star favourite, then he'd never get away, but because he's not necessarily the strongest QS rider, he gets a little bit of leeway. What the peloton seem to struggle to recognise is that if he does get a gap, you're not going to close it as the other QS riders will close down the chase behind, but, more importantly, he's strong as hell and it'll take a level of cooperation that you just don't see in the closing stages of important one day races to bridge the gap.

Everyone knew today that QS would use their strength to get one of their leaders up the road, it's a failure by other teams not to send someone with Terpstra.

SopOhos

But no outright favourite wants to burn a match closing down the move (knowing Terpstra probably wouldn’t work with them if they bridged), and few other teams had enough strength in depth to send a second rider up the road to mark the move. Someone like Roelandsts should have covered, but he was probably unable to.

@andyp sums it up so well 👆🏼

They shouldn't have let him go then.

As Kelly used to say, you've got to be prepared to lose in order to win.

I mean look at BMC, they've got a budget similar to Sky's, have Van Avermaet and a host of quality riders, like Roelandts, Kung, Drucker etc., but they waste the lieutenants by getting them to ride tempo on the front of the bunch. If they got one of those guys up the road, they'd have tactical possibilities, but instead their defensive tactics mean they end up all in for Van Avermaet and he's too closely marked to get a result.

Bloody easy from your armchair to call this, mind.

On another note, how good is Anna van der Breggen? She can win on any terrain, seemingly at will.

I take your point - im just trying to say that it’s easy to say they should have covered but hard to do when you are on the rivet!

I just watched the action again. There were three attacks in succession at the top of the Oude Kwaremont - first Colbrelli put in a dig, then Stybar attacked and drew out a royal group of Sagan, Kwiatkowski and Nibali. They sat up when it was apparent that the selection was wrong, then Nibali put in a dig again. The elite riders (Kwiatkowski, Sagan and Van Avermaet were the first three position in the bunch, with Terpstra fourth) looked at each other to assess whether it was worth chasing down a joker, and by that time Terpstra had clipped off. Then the group was strung out and Tiesj Benoot and others tried to jump across but weren’t strong enough. For some reasons Van Marcke was at the back of the group - I think he had a mechanical. If any rider could and should have followed that move it was Van Marcke - but he is cursed I think.

TLDR

On a different note I’ve loved the diversity of strong riders this spring, rather than one dominant rider. It’s more interesting than just Boonen versus Cancellara (not that it was ever really than anyway).

It was the motivational talk I gave her at the Parador... "It's only an arm, you don't pedal with it, htfu".

Tafi, Musseuw, Boonen, Terpstra.

Good list that.

The cycling news live coverage of the women's event was better than usual.

Looking forward to more coverage of women's racing. Twice as many races is two times better.

(Full disclosure - my aunt is scary fast on a TT bike and might beat me if I don't support women on TV.)

Terpstra shall dream Tim Krabbé reading ‘Form’ to him tonight.

BMC still has three in the bunch at that point no?

Maybe not to a Terpstra level but one of the should have been marking.

Nibali is one of the best climbers in the world and couldn’t go with Terpstra. If they’d pulled him back on the flat, Stybar, Gilbert or Lampaert would have gone on the next climb.