Recent content by hayneplane

It would bring it into range for him but by then on a moderately punchy course a Matthew Brennan or Thibau Nys could have progressed to the extent that they become favourites.

TDU has improved massively from the early years dominated by Andre Greipel to the extent that the race was so sprint heavy he could win the GC with the time bonuses. Now it’s a nice race for support riders and promising youngsters to get their chance at leadership in a world tour race and the...

Whilst I agree with that assessment I keep feeling that in his mind is the parcours for the Worlds in so many consecutive years being such that he is a fairly heavy favourite 4 years in a row has him circling back to the chance to do something completely unprecedented in the sport that if...

Currently he would be an upgrade on both 2025 version of Yates and Sivakov with similar mountains ability to Sivakov and a better flat and TT engine than both. It’s possible that Yates has a bounce back year but more likely that he settles into a climbing road captain Majka style role for...

Stage 1 and 4 look interesting but 7+8 are very underwhelming considering the available terrain in the region.

Setting aside the turbulence of his career to date, and the whys and wherefores that entail, I think his likely ceiling is top 5 GC in the vein of a new Jurgen Van Den Broek as he has zero punch and poor ITT level.

Would also be lavishly praising Remco and Red Bull if they had presented this schedule for 2025 (had they done so then the praise would have been richly deserved).

Amazing how quickly the world of cycling just shrugs its shoulders and treats it as an everyday occurrence for the tour winner to target Paris Roubaix in the same year and be viewed as a top 2 favourite to win the race.

Yes we should get to see how good he really can be if he avoids injuries and illness next year.

In terms of schedule the most logical one would be Suisse instead of Dauphiné. Can’t see him being up for Romandie after a full classics bloc.

Not usually the ones that had flown high in GC for 3 weeks in the tour. For stage hunters like Mollema the Tour gave a great depth of testing to train into great form to do top 10 in CSS year after year after year but for a GC too favourite spending physical and mental energies every single day...

In his 2019-2022 peak it would have been a lot of fun seeing if he could Roglstomp the Koppenberg.

It would significantly increase the attrition rate and make the race much more selective and easier to make gaps from sustained power which would favour him but it would also make technician skills even more valuable which would obviously favour MVDP.

The racer in him would love a cold and muddy Roubaix but it would give team management a nervous breakdown watching 🤣

Salah has been rubbish all season and still living off the 24/25 season and name value for this award nomination.