Pro-cycling thread

Thanks

A race many are calling the 7th monument.
Better than San Remo anyway.

Lies. Milan-San Remo builds to a magnificent crescendo, with the final 10 minutes often featuring the best racing of the season.

San Remo is an arduous tantric wank followed by the most glorious vinegar strokes of the season. I love it

I genuinely think this 'the tension builds' stuff is a kind of mass psychosis. It's Milan-San Remo, it's a Monument, so it must be good, if only we knew why. It must be the hours or racing where nothing happens, lets call that building tension. You can go out and pay an illicit visit to the Vicar's wife, come back and you've missed nothing but, oh, the tension. Or, rationally, nothing can or will happen till the last 30 or 40 k, everyone knows that, it's always like that, so the tension is all in your head. It's not building to that, it's just getting the best part of 300k out of the way. True, riders get tired during those hours but you can't see that, it has no effect until the first hills.
And then there's the great variety of how it will be won - attacks on the hill might work, if not then a mad chase down hill and some sort of sprint. Oh and it's a race you can win by fitting a dropper post.
It's an enjoyable 15 or 20 minutes which no one in their right mind would invent if it didn't exist and only gets a pass because of tradition.

I look forward to GCN repeating this assessment tomorrow

https://www.ismilansanremoexcitingyet.com/

I should point out that I don't even know who my local vicar is, let alone have any interest in his wife. I shall be watching the great race fully clothed and intermittently awake.

I think if you look at the list of previous winners of Milan-San Remo, you understand why it's a great race. The hackneyed "it's the easiest monument to finish, but the hardest to win" phrase has a major element of truth to it. The combination of the distance and the final two climbs ensures that nine times out of ten, the very best riders of the era will win.

I love it, especially the fighting for position into the Cipressa and the Poggio, the tension on the Cipressa as to who has the legs and who doesn't, then the ascent of the Poggio where you know the best riders are going to try and break clear or force an elite selection away, and that final descent where bike handling skills and bravery can make the difference between winning or losing.

The peloton should all do 5 or so hours on the turbo (preferably in erg mode) followed by an LeMans style sprint to their bikes a couple of kms from the foot of the Cipressa.

Yes but people want everything in a 15 second Instagram clip and anything long, established and a classic gets maligned for cool points.

only boring people get bored

.

Yes but people want everything in a 15 second Instagram clip and anything long, established and a classic gets maligned for cool points.
I'm sure if you try you could be even more condescending.

I'm always condescending and proascending.

Less controversially, do you think, having seen Jorgenson win Paris-Nice that the Movistar management might be having some sleepless nights as it dawns on them they, rather than the riders' abilities, are what hold the team back?

but yes

"A year ago, Matteo Jorgenson was paying for his own altitude camps and buying his own time trial extensions. "

https://escapecollective.com/matteo-jorgenson-everything-i-was-looking-for-i-found-here/

Oier Lazkano must be wondering how good he might be

From that above interview, this is quite nuts

"But then when you go home, it’s the same thing as a shared workout, where it basically breaks up your day into what’s optimal. Your training is brought in from TrainingPeaks. So if you have intervals, then it’s brought in and knows that you’re doing intensity, and there’s fueling to match. And yeah, your whole week is plotted ahead of time. And then it calculates every single meal for you. It has macro goals and then it even gives you recipes that fit those exact macros, and then adjusts the recipe a bit so that the recipes are pretty tailored. The recipes are pretty Dutch so I’ll often do my own thing. You can just add what you made into the app. And it makes it just super easy. It takes the guesswork out, which, like what I wanted for a long time."

Brilliantly put.

Shit, didn’t realise that was Will I was replying to. I think he doesn’t like replies. Or is that @s? If so sorry.

isnt all tension in your head though?

i am team milan san remo from km 0

I'll always take an @ when it's a compliment. Not when it's a fucking great big picture of Valverde though.

That was the point.

I should point out that I don't even know who my local vicar is

A likely story.

Hard to believe that our cav won this race.

I still watch that finish and think Haussler might have a big enough gap this time.