Pro-cycling thread

Looks like I unfairly maligned GCN+ streaming as I was unaware my Chromecast recently celebrated being 8 years old (!) and version 1, whilst they are now up to V3 which was delivered today and seems to have resolved my stupidity issues

Leferve will do what he can to keep Bennett, but he'll have no qualms about letting him go if he wants more money than Pat thinks he's worth.

Leferve's only got three riders under contract for next season, so he has lots of budget to play with and he's a past master in getting the maximum return on the budget he has.

^One of those is Remco I’m guessing

They've a roster of top notch German riders that the sponsors must be loving. Getting Sagan, and his entourage, off the books will free up a lot of budget to keep the likes of Buchmann, Schachmann, Kamna and Ackermann happy.

Bennett can pretty much take his pick when it comes to a team next season, he's been arguably the best sprinter of the past couple of years.

Yep. Remco and Mauri Vansevenant both have longer contracts. He's got Lampaert until the end of next season too.

I can't find it now, but I read over the weekend that Leferve is hoping to sign a long term, i.e. 4-6 year, deal with Deceunick and Quick-Step in the next few weeks. Which should give him some stability for once.

Sagan won one race last year and everything he is famous for doing is being done as well, if not better, by younger riders. He might get back to his best but how many millions a year would you pay to find out? If a team thinks he's worth it for the publicity and the advertising then fair enough but it's not hard to see why Bora might be willing, even keen, to let him move on. If Quickstep aren't even paying his wages then what do they have to lose?

Specialized's marketing department clearly have the hots for him, so it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they engineer his next move.

I can't see Leferve being too happy about it (although I'm not sure he's every happy about anything) as Sagan's desire to be the team's star doesn't fit well with the power of the collective that Leferve values above everything.

On the other hand, not being the star might suit Sagan very well at this point. A star in the bike adverts but no longer expected to be the big winner. I just had a look and he's had 6 wins in the last 3 years.
I also wonder if there will be riders who've had covid worse than we know and might never get back to their previous form.

Almost certainly about the covid.

I had lots of annoying pauses in the men's race on Chromecast yesterday too including at the moment when mvdp stopped pedalling in the sprint. women's race and other races previously were fine though and stuff like YouTube, BBC, Netflix is fine too.

mine is old too. what makes you think that is the problem? was it generally unreliable or just that race?

Valverde placed really well in today’s TT. Above mani buchman!

Reply to will; i mean thats Cav right? He must be cheap though.

All the races have been pausing and buffering something terrible with quality jumping up and down but RVV was also dropping to 90’s mobile phone video quality too. I’ve got 350mb speed with latest Virgin router so it wasn’t the WiFi.

First world problem disclosure; I’ve got a Eurosport sub on the TV package but I just hate ad breaks and the replays are sweet.

thanks. I'll leave mine for now then since it is usually well-behaved

My stream was horrible yesterday as well, worst I have seen eurosport in a long time, was also casting it

Just watching on catchup, we had a long chat about how good Dan and Adam were and then when we started listening back in it had switched to k*rby... much disappointment.

Decent little behind the scenes film from DQS on Sunday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSoJsZ-UqL0&t=3s

Evenepoel just signed until 2026, so I guess theyve got the sponsorship deal lefevere was after

really sweet scenes betw alan phillips and KA in this after the race

MvdP Flanders power analysis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yld_eI9cr8&t=1s

Nice.

Evenepoel just signed until 2026, so I guess theyve got the sponsorship deal lefevere was after

I always assume his protestations early in the season are about closing a deal rather than not having one at all. Later in the season who knows...

Movistar tactics worked really well today ... for Astana.

Valverde still went up 6 places.

Thanks - the classics are everything.