Recent content by jono

Mathieu was rightly criticized early in his road career for riding naively, lacking patience, riding too eagerly, and failing to conserve energy. As someone mentioned above, he did a ton of work on the front to win Amstel 2019 but might not have needed to had he ridden smarter. He was probably...

So many people talk like it is just a matter of UAE "getting the positioning right" into Cipressa as if preventing exactly that from happening wasn't the explicit goal of half the riders in the race.

When it was just the two of them, they had a gap of two (2) seconds dropping off of Poggio with a group behind that notably included Pidcock, a much faster descender than both. It was not a winning position.

Sorry, that is what I meant as well.

I just re-watched the entire Poggio from last year and I don't see it that way at all. There was only one point where MVDP sat up, but his whole group did and it was not a point in a race where it would have been advantageous to push on (they would have been easily caught as Pogacar stopped riding).

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean by this. Has it happened before, in your opinion?

Would MVDP follow a Del Toro attack on Cipressa? Seems like a task he would leave for some second tier contender (Wout) to successfully complete.

I would love a repeat of the Sanremo podium backstage couch (with Pogi 4th). So much so that I don't care about the order of the podium spots.

I'm not ready to call for the treble given many more riders could be in the running in Sanremo if race dynamics are different and Flanders will always be advantage Pogacar with the placement of the final Kwaremont. Roubaix seems the most certain, which is crazy given the randomness that applies...

MVDP would be the only rider that can't fit his bike through.

I'm always curious about the choices riders make when they have no chance to win the stage. MVDP obviously could have knocked it off much earlier and rolled in with the Van Aert group, but instead put in a decent shift to stay with the leaders as long as he did. Is he just following a training...

I think it's fair to take any advance public statements from team or rider about their race programs with a fairly big grain of salt.

Time gap 21s on the line, though the graphic says 14.

Is that what people think of Planckaert?

2028 is a key year in all of this. Pogacar will have to choose between the Tour and the Olympics and if he chooses the latter he will be able to prioritize other goals especially in the second half of his season. 2028 Worlds is a sprinters course and though he'll likely have to show up (it's in...