Pro-cycling thread

The fucking Welsh stage seems to have disappeared off S4C. Dafuq!?

hindley looked really comfortable. either drop back and pace your leader or attack and put the race to bed. as it stands, tao is still in the race. probably wants about 45+ secs on kelderman from saturday to have a good chance of winning (!)

The sunweb DS is a northerner remember and learnt a lot at this years Tour de France.

a northerner

what? like from Finchley or something?

They are first and second on GC with three stages to go, so I don't think you can really fault their tactics so far.

On top of stelvio it was quite clear that Kelderman was still in good enough nick. Hindley is probably never going to keep Tao from passing him in the gc on Sunday. All in all, Tao's favourite now for the win imo.

Fastest ever ascent of the Stelvio apparently;

https://twitter.com/faustocoppi60/status/1319363383259516928

The fucking Welsh stage seems to have disappeared off S4C. Dafuq!?

Are you sure it was Welsh and not Australian?

Wouldn't be a proper Giro without a drugs scandal involving one of the wildcard Italian teams;

https://www.uci.org/inside-uci/press-releases/uci-statement-on-matteo-spreafico

I think kelderman may have the edge because the revised stage 20 isnt as difficult

Ineos just need to deploy Rohan Dennis again.

^ and a good pull from Ganna:) What a stage, just fantastic, was on the edge of my seat for 90 minutes, bonkers stuff. Just watched the breakaway on Eurosport, Brad seems to be a good mate of Tao, and said he talks to him a lot - Surely having Brad & GT on speed dial (and maybe Bernal, Froome, Carapaz) does a huge amount for TGH's confidence and tactics compared to what I am sure will be an uncomfortable team dinner in teh Sunweb camp tonight. The interview with Dennis from this morning when Tao intererupted and the both cracked up makes a good rewatch now- With all the stage wins in the bag, Ineos have to be all in on Saturday to make a cracking stage...

Did I stutter?

Anyway, the muppets have made it available again

https://www.s4c.cymru/clic/programme/810744833

10 mile flat time trial

Lea Valley Tuesday Tens are gonna be paying off for Tao now.

Any news on the moto rider or passenger who went down on the Stelvio ascent? It looked pretty serious but I can't find anything about it.

I missed the Eurosport highlights but tried to make my own highlights package by skipping to the start of the Stelvio climb and then trying to tactically skip forward where I could - but in the end I pretty much just watched the whole climb, descent and then the final climb.

Great rides by Dennis, TGH, Bilbao and Jyra.

Armchair DS time: the repeats up Sestriere are on wide fast roads, Ganna and Dennis should be able to set a high tempo for Tao to launch a big attack. Job done.

Then just pedal incredibly hard in the TT.

Another classic photo. Russell Ellis

1 Attachment

260k in the pissing rain today. lovely stuff

Not great for anyone who got chilled to the bone on the descent of the stelvio yesterday because they could not do their jersey up.

Ben O’Connor signs for AG2R.

He needs a nickname btw.

Why is it such a long stage? Ridiculous.

Imagine being told by your DS you’ve got to make the break and need to spend six hours fruitlessly dangling off the front in the rain only to be reeled in.

Why is it such a long stage?

Because the Giro organisers like to ensure that the final week of the Giro is spectacularly hard, so if they need a transition stage between one part of a mountain range to another part, it has to be perceived as being a tough transition stage.

There will be no GC action, but the accumulated load will likely have an impact over the final weekend.

Kelderman & Hindley should repeatedly attack. It’s not really Kelderman’s style though. Dennis can wind-in anything and they’ll be thinking about the tt. It think it might be ridden quite conservatively.

#armchair

I was looking for this, too. From his relationship to the bike on the floor and the way it would have tipped over on the steep bend, I’d guess his lower leg was trapped under the bike, which can be pretty bad. Something very similar nearly happened to me. Terrible way to drop it. You don’t want to be downhill of a tipping bike.

Brian Smith is presenting a good argument for Sunweb getting tactics wrong yesterday. If they want the overall then Jai could have helped Wilco keep another ~60 seconds that he lost in the valley. They got pink and stage win but the cost for that was allowing a major competitor to get within touching distance of pink. Interesting long view.