Pro-cycling thread

Left the house for a bit and came back to a completely different Vuelta..!

4+ minutes is quite the lead to give away to O'Connor.

WTAFIGO?

Seen nothing but the result so important matters first, did Lidl Trek boycott the start?

Well that's out the cat among the pigeons. The mountain stages to come are very tough so I don't doubt Roglic can get back the time but at least there's something to keep it interesting.

Taking back 4:51 is going to require Roglic to do something other than jump away in the final kilometre and snaffle up time bonuses.

I think most of the peloton did this as well

It's certainly not easy and maybe O'Connor is going better than he seemed to be the first couple of days. But there are a few stages where minutes can be lost on the climbs. Or maybe
O'Connor will rise to the challenge like Kuss did last year. It can't just be Bora either feeling a bit foolish tonight.

Kuss' chances last year were improved by the fact that his two most likely challengers rode for his team.

True, but he still had to adapt to riding as a leader and potential winner. That shouldn't be such a challenge for O'Connor but it's still going to be a new situation for him and there's a long way to go. I'd be happy to see him win and it has made the race exciting now.

There's been a shocking lack of Cian Uijtdebroeks coverage on the TV so far. My therapist says to be patient but it's not easy.

See if you can contain yourself listening to today’s episode of The Cycling Podcast…

There have been many riders who have got away in breaks and gained a good lead, Chiapucci, Voeckler and Alaphillipe spring to mind. Few of them had previously got close to a Grand Tour podium, whereas Ben O'connor was 4th in the Giro this year. It's not going to be easy to dislodge him as he tends to lose time only in small increments.

I hope he wins, particularly as it will encourage the 'smaller' teams to challenge the ones with huge budgets. Racing would be the winner.

Every time I muster a bit of sympathy for Ben O'C he does something terrible like sign for fucking Jayco.

auzzies gonna auzzie

The Vuelta is so rogue

The biggest cause for celebration is just heard that Carlton is unavailable for commentary until after the first race day.

I picked a shit year to stop watching TV

Ben is celebrating the unavailability of Kirby, the stage win and leaders' jersey are secondary.

Nice to see Joe Blackmore go into yellow on the tour de l'avenir today. I imagine it somewhat makes up for the time I beat him in a round of the London CX league at Herne Hill.

Back into yellow. He won stage 3 and took the jersey, only to lose it yesterday when he was dropped on the final climb.

He probably remembered the Herne Hill race and his confidence dropped.

What the fuck was Vlasov doing there? Leading out Van Aert? Ridiculous.

Surprisingly interesting end to that stage.

Hell of a ride from Kuss.

Enjoyed that!

Presumably Roglic thought he might be able to grab some more bonus seconds in a sprint at the end?