Pro-cycling thread

I’ve never met the guy.

@dubtap clearly didn't want you to share in the glory of making him the rider he is. :)

First ever Giro win by LFGSS. :)

First of many hopefully. Need some more of you young chaps to come through.

As I'm friendly with his family it would be a bit awkward if I were to make such tenuous claims :P

Great win, he had power to spare there. And classy to dedicate it to Portal too.

So sponsor correct too

May I suggest saving boasts of how inspirational you all were in his career until next Sunday. Then, hopefully, you can all go large

"Grenadier Spirit"

I hated "Wolf Pack" but this is even worse.

Well done though. I once I had a coffee made for me by Tao's brother so I'm basically part of the team and I feel like this victory is mine.

Pleased for MVDP but got to wonder how gutted WVA is.

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They both look so young, maybe they're still sore losers. :)

(Most highly competitive people probably are to some extent.)

Mmm, Milan San Remo, Strade Bianche, and tour stage wins ain’t bad.

I wonder whether MVDP will continue the seasonal winter CX beat down to demoralise him...

Yeah phenomenal season and an amazing bike rider but he must hate getting beat by MVDP.

Alaphilippe seems to have got away with a couple of broken bones in his hand which is pretty remarkable

Sounds like he’s been lucky.

The cut on the back of his shoulder blade was exactly what I did when I separated my shoulder.

That said - would he have raced again? Not sure he was down for De Panne.

just caught up

TAO 🙌🏻

"Grenadier Spirit"

I hated "Wolf Pack" but this is even worse.

Tao's just endearingly pro and made sure to drop the sponsor's name in there once more that way. :)

final of RVV was immense - sad to see #whiteshorts win but there’s always next time

(stacked it big time on my ride today, for the first time in a while, so I may have over self-medicated w belgian beers)

May I suggest saving boasts of how inspirational you all were in his career until next Sunday. Then, hopefully, you can all go large

In the meantime, here's Tao 11 years ago when he was still a proper bike rider (at about 15 seconds in).

https://vimeo.com/6330776

Apparently he talked trash with @fruitbat at the start, although I'm not sure who would have taught whom there. :)

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/153647/

I mean it's easy to post that but I think it misses the point they've been knocking shit out of each other since they were 12. Probably.
Having come through Messi Vs Ronaldo kerfuffle, it'd be nice to not have MVDP vs WVA in the same way. This, until they find out one of them is doped and the other is an alien, is ace to watch. It used to be WVA nagging MVDP into submission by not quitting and that seemed to bend MVDPs head.
I don't know how you could get out of bed and race when you knew you'd be battling someone you had been having a fight with for more than 10 years.

From the look of today’s race, you would go and battle that someone for the win as all other riders were practically irrelevant. (Same with cyclocross when they were racing each other)

@Oliver Schick I hadn't seen this before, but having checked the footage, I don't appear until 1:15. Any suggestion that I may have been "talking trash" with anyone is a slight against my professionalism (he was clearly quicker than me)

You take that back. Lars Van Der Haar is silently cursing you somewhere.

I don't know how you could get out of bed and race when you knew you'd be battling someone you had been having a fight with for more than 10 years.

If it's always been close than that motivates you. If they've always been miles better, then you just accept the inevitable beating. So I think a close rivalry, like MVDP and WVA's, is actually more motivating as you know you have to be close to your best to beat them, and sometimes even that is not enough.

It’s not often a win gets a round of applause in our house (and we watch a lot of racing). I rewound the Giro to watch the last 35k. Awesome. Although it’s been looking on the cards for a few stages now. He looks so in control.

Almeida is a bit special.

How did MVDP hypnotise WVA to stall his sprint until, being better on shorter sprints, it was sufficiently brief for him to win?