2013 Pro-cycling season thread

I won't believe a word of that until corroborated by Edward Scoble himself.

Fab has* the best* hair

Last Saturday was my lady's Hen Do. Beforehand her best mate e-mailed me a questionnaire to fill in so that she could do a Mr & Mrs style quiz on the night. For the question "Who is his secret celebrity crush?", I thought I'd be funny and said Fabs. She got it with her first guess.

Very good :)

Poor Wiggles

He should go to another team and get Yates out of retirement, then smash up Froome in 14 (may be wishful thinking). Vaughters has always said he would have him back at Garmin, as long as he gets to punch him in the face a couple of times first.

I am so hoping Bauke Mollema is going for a final TT stage stunt today in the Tour de Suisse.

Over here, Lars Boom is set to win the Ster ZLM tour this afternoon so it could be a nice day for team Blanco-soon-to-be-Belkin

I like Boom. I like shouting his name.

Lars Boom (pronounced B'ohm though in NL ;-)) has won the Ster ZLM tour indeed, and Paul Martens wins the overall at the Tour of Luxembourg.

So, go Bauke, make it 3 wins in 1 day for Blanco! Fingers crossed...

Peter Sagan has decided to be good at time trials. Jeebus.

Oh dear

Sagan to win TdF?

I thought Froome was winning the next 7?

That TDS stage 3 climb where Van Garderen was shelling everyone out the back of a group of 60-something kg climbing specialists. And Peter Sagan.

Sagan is lighter than many people realise.

Sagan is lighter than many people realise.

Helium in his tubes? Magnets?

Drugs???

Sagan is lighter than many people realise.

74kg according to wikipedia.
73kg according to http://www.teamliquigascannondale.com/2012/eng/main.php?mod=scAtleti&id=22

According to millar's twitter feed, sagan doesn't know his mass.

I'm saying drugs.

Now you know his mass, work out his power output based on his time up whatever climbs you're using as evidence. Compare with 6W/kg values of the best of the best like Froome versus 6.5w/kg of the dopers who were actually caught #sneakytrollissneaky

64kg cyclist 20km/h on an 8% slope has a higher w/kg than a 74kg cyclist doing the same.

Whilst it would come as no surprise to me if Sagan is doping, I also think he has more natural ability in his little finger than Froome has in his entirely skeletal body.

"Froome climbs like he's pushing a supermarket trolley"

What is natural ability in cycling? Technical ability? Sagan has that in spades, Froome is very poor. Physical ability? Sagan is a phenom, an exceptional talent and so is Froome in a very, very different way.

Getting very, very tired of the 'Froome is so ugly on his bike' guff, how he looks is just aesthetics, and certainly shouldn't be used to judge his ability by, and certainly not whether he dopes or not (as I hear from some quarters). I hope he smashes the TdF just to shut the purists up. Him or Contador? Easy choice.

In other news Argos-Shimano are sending both Kittel and Degenkolb to the tour. That could be spicy.

Go Cadel.

just aesthetics

Shut your mouth. Cycling is a visual spectacle. If we didn't have the opportunity to admire those who look good on a bike in full flight, there would be no fucking point in watching the whole tedious procession.