2014 Pro-cycling season thread

And with perfect timing, Tour de Suisse!

Conditions look a giggle

Dauphine today was incredible.

The shot of talansky when he's told he won the jersey and starts crying is great

Spicy stage at the TdS

much good racing today - perfect antidote for hangover..

Sky must have known that Froome wasn't feeling it today. Sending 3 up the road looked more like a tilt at the stage win than giving him teamates to bridge to later. It left him more alone than Sky would normally do..

Happy for Talansky and Nieve.. Bert does look to have given every to think about. Needs a team though..

He's got a great team. Kreuziger and Mick Rogers are as strong as they come. Roche didn't do greaty in the Giro but has top 10 GT finishes. I wouldn't underestimate them.

I had to work this afternoon, did I miss anything?

I think there was some football on

pretty amazing today. Froome is obviously suffering badly from his crash so wasnt able to be a protagonist today. Porte looked weak all week so either is looking to peak during the tour or is decidedly off form. Thats gotta be a worry for Froome. Contador showed that he has the form (or the drugs) to podium in the Tour with that great attack on the second last hill, so strong but he shouldve gone earlier with Nibali.

Nibali looks distinctly second tier. I would place him 4th or 5th in the Tour at the moment which is a shame.

Also, what a ride from Talansky. Hes been up there all week but what a ride today. He drove the break most of the crucial time when Contador was attacking and made sure that he stayed a minute out.

great day of racing but dont judge froome on it

In an ironic twist that was still a good Dauphine for Sky: 3 stage wins and the points jersey.

Roche didn't do greaty in the Giro

I really want Roche to do greaty, who wouldn't? :)

In an ironic twist that was still a good Dauphine for Sky: 3 stage wins and the points jersey.

Considering that their goal would have been to win it, it probably wasn't a great Dauphiné for them.

Now for Wiggins to win TdS and Brailsford to drastically rethink his Tour tactics before taking the Knight on a Bike, who wins decisively before travelling to Spain to secure the Tour/Vuelta double and meanwhile Cound walks in on Skeletor doing lines of EPO off the back of his autobiography
#2014

Considering that their goal would have been to win it, it probably wasn't a great Dauphiné for them.

I said good. 3 stage wins and the points jersey after a bad crash for Froome means they salvaged the race well. They knew Froome couldn't win overall in that condition, else they wouldn't have sent riders up the road looking for the stage win.

For once it was Contador who mucked up, spent too long eyeing Froome before attacking.

When Laurens ten Dam went to the front of the group for a few minutes, dropped energy bar and came back to the group commentator said "maybe it's another strava kom" made me laugh.

I laughed when eurosport suggested Hesjedhal had won the 2014 giro

I said good.

Yeah, and I said great.

Needless to say, a sky man still won the overall.

Bradley Wiggins finished off the pace, and off the peloton. His GC chances are over and so probably is his chance of securing a place in the Team Sky Tour de France team.

From CyclingNews ticker. Sound like Brad has hit a patch of his 2013 form, shame.

just saw him rolling in over 2 minutes behind. such a poor performance, surprising. maybe he's ill?

Is he riding for Henao? Did he do a lot of work earlier in the stage?

Not even mentioned in the Sky write up

http://www.teamsky.com/article/0,27290,17553_9351117,00.html

^ they edited some in later then?

“Everybody played their part today but it was unfortunate the Bradley [Wiggins] lost time and he’s out of the general classification hunt now. The road was really twisty at the end and the fact he was at the back of the peloton meant he was on the wrong side of the late splits. It would have been nice to have him there but now he can focus on the time trial on Friday whilst helping the other guys as much as possible.”

Yup, as it goes they did have 'report to follow' in the first draft.

Is he riding for Henao? Did he do a lot of work earlier in the stage?

Pretty sure I saw in the statement about Henao coming back that he was leading the team for TdS.

Not actually definitive

French newspaper L'Equipe suggested that Henao could be a leader for Team Sky at the mountainous Tour de Suisse because Wiggins has put on weight as he prepares to ride on the track for England at the Commonwealth Games in July instead of riding the Tour de France.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/henao-cleared-to-race-the-tour-de-suisse-with-team-sky