Pro-cycling thread

I <3 Valverde

Because he gets new blood like you get new bikes?

Such disappointment

Two reasons;

1. He denied and denied involvement in Operacion Puerto, was caught by the Italian authorities, then did everything he could to avoid the charge. After his ban, he then denied any wrongdoing and showed no contrition.

2. His racing style is really negative and he then blames others when he loses.

Took a fine or donated a certain amount of money voluntarily.

Ah it had to be. I saw a tweet in the closing stages ironically predicting a sprint between Valverde and Moscon. I don't hate Valverde by any means but still I was disappointed to see him win and know I have to watch him race in the rainbow stripes for a year.

Haha just spotted this, it looked on the cards at one point. The devil and the deep blue sea.

feels as good as horner bossing the vuelta at 62. can't wait to watch him race in the rainbow next year. love too follow pro cycling

I aspire to ride like him i.e. ride behind someone all day then drop them

In all those audaxes?

yep!

Is that allowed?

Just caught up on highlights.

Sucks!!

#lifebans

I would have loved to have seen Moscon win, I just love to see the internet burn...

Poor attitude but not a doper.
Though If he was born 15 years earlier, he is definitely silly enough to have done all the drugs (and probably won everything)

Valverde then -

a/ Still juicing to make him competitive at 38
b/ A very talented once in a generation rider who wasn't a great responder in the EPO days thus allowing him to ride faster later in life in a clean(er) sport.

I wheelsucked a guy almost all the way on Q1 in honour of Valverde

that spanish jersey though

My bet would be: A talented rider who’s still benefiting from several years of using blood boosters and HGH, even if he’s now clean.

He’s got the best race craft of any rider I’ve ever seen. I’d quite like to see him have a stab at Flanders next year.

Really? He lead out the group. That's not great race craft, that's the strongest rider doper in the group.

He knew he had the beating of them and wanted to keep the pace up to stop Moscon or anyone else getting back in.

He knew he had the beating of them

Dope > Tactics

Changing the topic a little to another freak of nature, Evenepoel, what kind of watts is he pushing to put minutes into his peers?
As he seems to be dropping people who are drafting him, 5-15% more?

Appreciate that junior races are more chaotic and less likely to have organised chases by sprint teams so much less likely to win by the same margins in the pro ranks.

I’ve seen Cancellara ride people off his wheel with big watts, but he’s about 20% bigger, 81kg vs 62kg...

Being Canadian I was hoping Micheal Woods would win.
Moscon was my second choice.
I am looking at videos of Moscon stopping on the hill. One looked like a photographer was rolling around on the side of the road and got in Moscon's way.

Valverde is an unrepentant cheat, but Moscon is an unrepentant racist and assaulter.

Really disappointing to see Valverde win, but he was the most reasonable winner of the top-3. Would be really strange to see Bardet in the stripes when he's hardly won a thing this year, Woods less so but still odd - he has a great future ahead of him.