Pro-cycling thread

That reminded me of Alan Partridge interviewing “France’s second best racing driver”, Michel Lambert.

I'm not so sure about another gear, I thought he looked a little laboured (by his standards). Wout came back pretty hard in the last lap and half. Further to @giofox, he seemed to have the sniffles in the interview.

You're probably right. In the heat of the moment it looked to me like he was holding that 11-12 sec. gap back to WVA quite comfortably,didn't need to go any harder, but maybe he was at the limit.

Moving on, are they all on the start list for today at Gullegem?

Looks like it’s just MVDP and Pidcock.

https://twitter.com/cxgullegem/status/1344942116783468544?s=21

Van der Poel allowed Pidcock a lap on his wheel but then decided it was enough apparently. It will be a (long) while before het will get beaten more often in CX.

Maybe a hint of Pidcock holding back today to give it absolutely everything tomorrow?

One can always hope, but if young Tom could have made it more of a battle he would have, is my guess. We'll see tomorrow!

I’m afraid to say that Ineos are going to turn Pidcock into a boring mountain domestique before letting him have a crack at the 2025 Vuelta. His CX days are done.

That's what I fear too... or even worse, not allow him to go for any GT GC at all, like Poels. Instead he should be free to play in winter.

#freetompidcock

I'm sure he looks at Tao and thinks, well, that's it, this team is no good for developing young riders.

Letting Wout and Mathieu means guaranteed wins for their teams, don't think Ineos is very interested in having Pidcock podium and maybe win something when the big guns aren't starting.

I thought this year more teams might have followed the EF model of letting riders race other events as well as world tour etc but I guess Covid knackered that. I can’t see that letting Pidcock race the odd cx, mtb etc would be bad for ineos’ profile. The part I like with this (besides I like seeing people follow their interests like mvdp) is that it opens up average people like me maybe being able to race (briefly) alongside a world tour pro if our races aligned

Pidcock has said he thinks his future is on the road. But I think he'd like to win the Elite Worlds before he gives up on cross completely. The path that WVA is treading is a good one for Pidcock though, it shows Ineos that you can do both a (shorter) CX season and perform in the summer.

jens adams' skinsuit is the best in pro cx

It was on the mood board of the AG2R-Citroen kit designer.

All the names are back today for Vestingcross https://twitter.com/yiacosan/status/1345576206972956673?s=21

Too bad it's not at the Vesting today :-( always liked the (course and) scenery with the windmill, town gates and dike.
They moved it outside the town, a new course.

GCN said they were going to ride through a windmill. If I turn it on and there’s no windmill, I’ll be spitting.

https://twitter.com/gcntweet/status/1345415045270937602?s=21

GCN are wrong. This is a new course, not the one used for Hulst last year, which had the windmill and the huge banks.

then:

now, because of Covid-19 they moved it outside of town, might not be too bad either from what I read in the description of the course:

more pics of the 'new' course at the end of this article: https://www.wielerflits.be/nieuws/voorbeschouwing-wereldbeker-hulst-2021/

Is everyone else struggling to get a live feed out of GCN?

yes, nothing happening for me. i have only just signed up so dont know how it normally works

Same here. Good(ish) to know :(
Edit: I'm in! 4th lap but can rewind

Maybe nos.nl has no geoblock?

https://nos.nl/livestream/2362709-veldrijden-vrouwen-rijden-wereldbekercross-hulst.html

I’m ashamed to admit I’m leeching off Tiz today.

@peter_v ahh I see. It’s quite a cool setting with all the container ships going past in the background.

The circuit looks absolutely vile to ride. Have they watered parts of it?