Pro-cycling thread

http://inrng.com/2019/05/the-2019-giro-italia-contenders/#more-35505

Tao gets a chainring. What a day.

I'll leave this here
https://giphy.com/stickers/efeducationfirst-ef-education-first-team-dombro-Sru9uOSsaYhIrGMAzV

Lets make it truly awful...

I'm giving that a pass.

Mitch & Sep Go Large.

1 Attachment

I'm glad to see Hugh Carty really looks like he doesn't want to involved ...

Some suggestion on Twitter than riders might go for a bike change before the climb tomorrow.

They’ll have to come almost to a stop on the hairpin at the bottom.

https://twitter.com/ammattipyoraily/status/1126522835755851777?s=21

You didn't really see it in the 2017 Worlds TT and I can't see it happening before a 1.8km climb either.

Can see it being done as a stunt to keep a sponsor happy.

The way this stage approaches the climb means you have a 180 degree bend at the foot, so won’t carry any momentum into it. It makes a bike change pretty simple as you’re almost at a standstill anyway. The climb averages 10% so changing from a TT bike to a climbing bike is probably worthwhile.

The problem is that the bike has to come from the car, so the rider has to come to a stop, which they pretty much do on that hairpin anyway, and then wait for their bike to arrive from the car, that's the big time waster...

Just watched the GCN recon - Looks facking hard!

I certainly see the benefits. Can foresee mechanicals at changeover...

The car can pull ahead before the corner and be waiting to do the swap.

I'm gonna say Jungels will be in pink tomorrow.

Can it?! legally?

I'm fairly sure it has to be 10m+ behind the rider unless they go for a bike change and then they can come level... there was a special exception for the Bergen TT, but that's it

I thought the rider had to stop and the car behind them could roll out the bike. Could be wrong.

I hope Jungels is in pink as it means a party atmosphere when I get home on Tuesday, go for a ride and stop st the bar that shows racing on tv

Hard to see him beating both Roglic and Dumoulin.

Do you think any of the GC guys will hold-back a little to avoid the burden of the pink jersey for the first half of the race over the many sprint stages?

I've always liked Hugh, even more so now!

except they planned the swap-zone (which wasn't there before Team Sunweb talked about it) back about 150 meters just this afternoon, so no one will swap bikes unless they're feeling very confident to brake off all that speed and waste a lot of power to accelerate again before the hairpin. wow, UCI

I’m enjoying the bromance between Cavendish and Kittel on Twitter. Nice to see rivals showing their respect for each other.

I would imagine cav has been in a similar situation .

Lotto Soudal’s squad announcement is full Euro weirdness.

https://twitter.com/lotto_soudal/status/1126883973374857216?s=21

Scenes

“I’ve been thinking about this race for almost 12 months now,” Yates said. “I’ve been very dedicated, very focused about it. If I was in my rivals’ position, I would be scared. I would be shitting myself.”

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/may/10/simon-yates-giro-ditalia-new-swagger?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Simon Yates is the Muhammad Ali millennial Giro fans need