Pro-cycling thread

For all you closet (and open) Valverde fans, I can strongly recommend Matt Rendell’s “Green Bullet” biography of him.

Carapaz’s odds look very generous. He’s not going to win but he could sneak a podium spot.

Tao is not going to the Tour.
Nor is Froome.

You mean Nairo, right?

Tao is not going to the Tour.

Is that confirmed? What a shame.

Covid and a rib fracture.

Ah, so it was a fracture, after all. He did say that 'ribs are always complicated'. Hope one day he'll get to the Tour.

He's ridden it. Started in 2021, and was injured in that mass crash on the opening stage, but managed to continue to the end.

The Tour de France roadbook is available as an app on both the Apple and Google Play stores. You need a login, but 'guest' and 'roadbook2024' work.

Thanks, I'd forgotten that.

Excellent knowledge share.

Thanks

Didn’t know that Eurosport Player is going away. Cycling is getting impossible to watch.

Certainly sounds like it might be quite a bad situation in (some) european countries. In the UK I honestly think £6.99 a month for discovery+ with no minimum subscription is incredible value for the amount of cycling content you get (plus all the other sports they do if you're into it). It's just not quite as unsustainably good value as it used to be.

I don’t really get why sport is going onto one or two big companies. Surely the age of streaming means each individual sport should have its own channel/ service so people with niche interests watch only the thing they’re into, and people with multiple interests pay several seperate fees!
I assume it’s because a gcn style model isn’t economical?

Big sports would draw viable audience and small sport get less coverage / get pricier by comparison as not otherwise viable, shrinking demand further I guess?

When I first started following professional cycling, you had to wait almost a week to know who'd won the major races when Cycling Weekly would have the results. If you were really lucky one of the broadsheets might have the result on a Monday, but it wasn't guaranteed.

To be able to watch pretty much every professional race live for £6.99 a month to me is an absolute steal.

I'd be surprised I didn't watch the man win a Saturday or Sunday race on a Sunday evening.

I still can't believe broadsheets in this country hardly feature any other sport than football or rugby. You can't really add cricket under 'sport' category. Or darts.

Darts is a sport. Go and play it for a couple of hours, you arm will then ache like a bastard.

please, no darts. This is the pro gravel thread.

bala should take up darts

The one holding a pint or the one throwing a dart?

Well done to Ethan and Flora …. super South London showing !