Pro-cycling thread

I aspire to be one some day

Yeah. What @leggy_blonde says.

a stockbroker who starts cycling in 2015, aged 26, enters nationals the next year, riding for a domestic pro team the year after. So for 1, massive privilege of being able to quit his job, buy every training tool and aid, pro team kit and bikes etc, but also 2, no way in hell is he getting to top national level in 12 months from someone who didn't even ride a bike before or do a different professional sport without some chemical aid.

Self fund does not usually equate to literally buying your way into a team.

He's basically an arrogant prick who thinks he's better than he actually is. Caused loads of crashes, insulted people, abandonded his family to sleep in an altitude tent as a 2nd cat and there are the rumours that his city boy dealers didn't just offer up coke.... He threw loads of money obsessing over absolutely everything to become good enough to pay to ride as a domestique in chipper pro races.

no way in hell is he getting to top national level in 12 months from someone who didn't even ride a bike before or do a different professional sport without some chemical aid.

Dunno, he can have a physiological gift. Roglic didnt ride a bike either. He was a pro sportsman but no cycling.

Thats just me being less cynical.

If you write it as first person, thats a compelling podcast pitch!

Damien Clayton and Jon Archibold were both latecomers to the sport who discovered a talent in their 20s after spending quite some time as amateurs.

I’m not saying I believe anybody is above suspicion, just that it does happen.

Leggy’s point is about aero positions, not climbing and sprinting out of the saddle, which aren’t mentioned in the rules. I guess we assume they are sanctioned “abnormal” positions.

Caused loads of crashes, insulted people, abandonded his family to sleep in an altitude tent as a 2nd cat....

Fair enough. I assumed there must be some sort of egomaniacal behaviour attached to this story (possibly alongside whatever Sumo is alluding to).

If he was juicing right, wouldn’t he have been able to help Skinny close Arlen down though ;)

On the Richardson/Clayton stuff, there’s quite a bit on their history at https://thebritishcontinental.co.uk/.

I’ve enjoyed watching their careers as latecomers.

Roglic won gold at world champs aged 17, he was already a top athlete.

"I read "only" as saying other points of support cannot be used rather than saying they must all be used all the time."

So, one can only have hands on bars, not forearms on bars. One can only have bum on saddle, not on the TT. But when bum is in air it's not on any part of the bike. Otherwise we would see riders getting done for taking a hand of the bars to take a drink.

Clayton and Archibald's rises were nowhere near as quick. Damian seems to have plateaued at UK national level now anyway and Jon also has some pretty good connections with his name

I didn’t realise it was this guy until the above posts. Remember seeing a video and thinking how bizarre the whole situation seemed.

https://youtu.be/Gy7Rd7OQd-0

My favourite Richardson story is from a Nat B road race when Mikey "absolute monster" Mottram was up the road solo and Richardson bridges across. Tells Mikey something along the lines of "I'll let you work with me until 20km to go and then I'm fucking off because I don't want you holding me up towards the end". Come 25km to go Mikey attacks and put a minute into Richardson at the finish. Maybe The Verve were right....

For sure some people can come to it later in life

https://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/blog/tt-ace-john-archibald-talks-power-ftp-and-racing-again/
"Growing up, I did the odd cycling trip as part of a family holiday. I was more interested in swimming as an athletic endeavour. However, after commuting to work by bike in 2012 and developing my interest from there. I did my first road race in 2014 and started to take it more seriously"

I'm just saying it's suspicious when someone who doesn't ride a bike at all, has obvious access to funds for "training aids", isn't already doing another sport at a high level, or any level it seems, starts winning national level road races in 12 months.

thats fair, i retract my lack of cynicism

It’s clearly not important, but it’s Friday…my point on climbing and sprinting refers to this:

The rider shall normally assume a sitting position on the bicycle

In theory the UCI could do riders for taking a hand off the bars to feed, but, again we assume that is a sanctioned ‘abnormal’ position.

Ruleset is here BTW: https://www.uci.org/docs/default-source/rules-and-regulations/part-ii-road/2-roa-regulations-e.pdf

A lot of the familiar riding positions in the sport are only implicitly sanctioned, rather than explicitly. AFAICT

Take your point.
Maybe this is how Pinot can win the tour, remain seated until everyone is DQ'd.

He’s French, so that might work.

also rode for the jazz bar team run by this absolute weapon who entered sportifs, bought team GB kit and claimed he was riding for the country.
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/14109242/
https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/lifestyle/property/my-hampstead-with-former-stockbroker-steve-coxshall-the-wolf-of-3478846

This guy again. Always love it when he pops up.

He's done a pretty good job at scrubbing all the embaressing shit off the internet, very hard to find his claims about being sponored by Pinarello cos he got a discount.

'influencers' who dont shut up about being sponsored by a brand, yet in reality just get bronze level trade price from said brands distributer are fucking hilarious.

very hard to find his claims about being sponored by Pinarello cos he got a discount.

Wasn't that Sir Christopher Welham MBE?