Pro-cycling thread

Ethan Hayter’s move to Soudal-Quick Step confirmed too.

I wonder who's going to be team leader at say, Romandie in 2025 with Hirschi having been signed last week.

Neither of them are stage race specialists, so it doesn’t really matter. What will be more interesting is who leads the team in the Ardennes classics, given they’ve both won there before.

storer !

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/articles/c75nr7e5qd5o

Matt Richardson swaps from Australia to GB

Must be handy to have funding available in whichever hemisphere you fancy living in

Bloody foreigners taking our jobs...

More seriously though, superb rider. Team GBs team sprint team will get even more powerful.
GB's sprint program is probably his best chance of converting those silvers to golds. Though currently might require the Dutch to get sick or retire at the moment.

3 Olympic medals is a pretty strong CV for attracting funding from whichever country will claim you.

I picked Romandie given Tudor will treat it and Suisse as a 'home' race, and one where either of them would want to pick up a stage rather than any kind of overall. But yeah, I guess they've both won Fleche lots of times between them.

Jeffrey Hoogland is 31 I think so might not have another Olympics in him, but Levreysen's still around for a few years yet I think. Who can tell what will happen to form/fitness in the next 4 years mind.

Not sure it actually made a difference, but some high-quality premature celebration in evidence on today's Vuelta stage. When will they ever learn?

Loved Landa trying to mug them all

Crazy climb for stage 4. Sadly Tao lost 7'40" today so we can only hope he gets better as the race goes on and maybe tries for stage and that next year is less unlucky than this one has been.

Mou said Pog is flaming Yates in the WhatsApp.

As he should be doing.

The mighty Pog would've won that from the breakaway, without breaking sweat, and whilst smashing all w/kg records on the final climb.

The race is empty without him. If he started late with the ITT tomorrow he'd be in Red, Green, and Polka Dot jerseys by the end of week 2.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/articles/credv9w2eqjo

If he started late with the ITT tomorrow he'd be in Red, Green, and Polka Dot jerseys by the end of week 2

I'll allow that, so long as he does the stages he's missed in a car with his bikes on the roof. Commentary by Alan Partridge.

..... who would be better than Kirby.

Interesting ( ? ) …Deutschland Tour prologue was ridden on normal road bikes …. only 2.9 km’s …. I wonder if it was just ease - less bikes for such a short ride or if organisers stipulated it …. Looked good all the riders fighting/pushing hard on the normal bikes.

More and more races are stipulating it, I doubt many flat TT's would be faster on RB than TT no matter how short. Teams probably welcome it given the headache of logistics a whole fleet of bikes introduces.

Tour Down Under 5k prologue was a great example of this. I love them.

It was an organiser ruling. No TT bikes.

Generally makes it a bit easier and fairer (cheaper) to lower budget teams too.

Vuelta start line in a supermarket really is the most bonkers thing sport has done in a while.

Would have thought they’d avoid that sort of thing after stage 1 last year