Recent content by pman

How long does it look like between the double assent of Piancavallo, after the initial downhill? 35 k? I wouldn’t be so sure a GC guy doesn’t attack and bridge to a teammate in the valley. It could be more exciting than some of you have speculated. I am intrigued by the third week, especially...

No and my bet is that he isn’t going but he’s definitely implied he’s open to it. We shall see.

What’s Piancavallo like as a spectator?

What’s a more competitive race- Pog vs Jonas in the 2026 Tour route or potentially Jonas vs Remco in the Giro, with potentially a very Remco friendly route? The Tour is designed to be close into the third week so I’ll go with that. But if it’s a soft Giro with say over 50k of itt, then who knows.

The Jonas to Giro rumors are growing. I am still doubtful he does it but a climbing heavy route could only further tempt him.

Yeah, quite a few pieces are missing from the puzzle even for Thomas Vergouwen who usually seems to have everything pegged a week or so out.

The punchy stages definitely favored Pog but I remember plenty of people thinking it was a Ving friendly route with the abundance of backloaded mountains including specific mountains that Pog was worse on than Ving.

Plus tons of hotels in that area

So much of going to the Tour comes down to availability and determination. Of course, that rumored time trail on stage 16 looks to be just about the perfect stage. It’s a time trial. It’s easy to get to through transit and it’s in a gorgeous location.

In general it looks like the Pyrenees stages this year will be scattered. For my money, I’d stay close to Foix for stage 4 and just use that as a base. Skip stage 5 which looks like a sprint and then hit up stage 6. I know hotels in that area are looking hard to find. Or just use a spot between...

Just saw this- I prefer a good urban hill finish. You can usually get a hotel in the finishing town/city, often they're on a train line and they're even spread out. Obviously a time trial is ideal though but they aren't necessarily easy to schedule around an existing trip. In general I think...

I am rooting for Rog and Pog tomorrow but I think Jonas wins by about 35 seconds if Pog is banged up but not hurt, over a minute and a half if Pog is worse off than he let on. Hard to imagine Pog beating Jonas tomorrow after today. Even with just road rash, hard to see him winning. With that...

He's 340 down on Pog. The question becomes what happens to this race if Pog isn't Pog because of the crash? I guess the assumption is in that case Ving and Jumbo would destroy the race and win by 8 minutes which is possible but I don't know. If this race becomes a wild one, Roglic has been...

Call me crazy- Jumbo is destroying this race. Pog crashed. Meanwhile Red Bull has two guys in the top 10. I think the key here is for Pog to be healthy enough to worry Jumbo. Roglic has had an easy ride of it so far. I don't know, it's Roglic but I think he might have something to say about this...

The knee thing is scary. Again, nobody knows anything. Plus, it's a 3 week bike race. He could have injured himself and it's done. Or he could simply be sore tomorrow from the road rash but use it as even more motivation and either not lose much time or even gain a few seconds. We obviously...