There's also been a recent cross over (excuse the pun) of 'cross racers to road. So how can we say it's not 'cross that's influencing GT stages? Apart from the fact I've already mentioned dirt stages in Grand Tours happening 10 years ago and whole races on unsealed roads happening since forever.
As an aside: My favourite bit so far is one of the fast Americans having 4+ people around him and he still has to yell at them to replace his bottles. Shows how good my missus is as a support crew. Fucking rookies.
Correlation != causation
There's also been a recent cross over (excuse the pun) of 'cross racers to road. So how can we say it's not 'cross that's influencing GT stages? Apart from the fact I've already mentioned dirt stages in Grand Tours happening 10 years ago and whole races on unsealed roads happening since forever.
As an aside: My favourite bit so far is one of the fast Americans having 4+ people around him and he still has to yell at them to replace his bottles. Shows how good my missus is as a support crew. Fucking rookies.