Recent content by Rackham

This is an exciting rumor. As far as rumors go it's at least a fun one. That's until my favorite rider gets busted of at which point it's not fun anymore.

The problem with his 'shock retirement' is I've only seen it explained by others under the guise of understanding his decision and finding many reasons why he chose to quit, even at such an inopportune moment for the team. I read many people online suggest it's quite valid because he would have...

Sandisfan in the cycling news forums is what Eywa is to Pandora in the Avatar universe. Everywhere, liking everyone's posts.

Riders talking about "my best values" has become cycling folklore at this point. It's wheeled out for good performances, bad performances and everything in between. What really matters is relative performance so when Vingegeaard goes from walloping everyone not called Pog in the Tour to then...

Visma's Christmas party where watching The Nutcracker has nothing to do with Tchaikovsky sure sounds fun.

No that was Chris Harper.

How about have some more Booze instead. With a capital B. At face value it's perfectly in line with his improved punch anyway. MSR isn't a monument either in the strictest term. You don't get blown off the wheel and lose minutes upon minutes there. It's just Cipressa + Poggio. Positioning is...

This gives credence to those who believe Simon Yates didn't retire according to any 'plan' he had last year. It looks more and more similar to how Dumoulin just GTFO of Jumbo's 2021 January camp.

So is anyone doing Paris-Nice this year? It seems sort of ironic how one of the so-called biggest one week races seems like a total afterthought these days. I guess there's been too many freezing days in early March alps to make it worthwhile anymore.

Or conversely the secret to higher watts per kilo is chemical castration. At which point upon being offered this upgrade on the Visma skill tree, Yates noped out. No thanks matey! I'm only half joking as well. For example when Evenepoel accused Vingegaard of having no balls a couple of years...

Not so long ago people here agreed that Vingegaard had a much higher performance level after an altitude camp. It's something worth remembering. I don't think reaching a definitive % of max level is so easy to predict in any case but we'll assume he does altitude camp > Giro > rest > maybe 10...

I'm all in on the "this is bad for Vinge's Tour" side of the bet. The Tour de France has become Death Race 2000 (you know, the old movie) where you have to be totally on it from minute one - mentally as well. Without lassitude, physical weakness or any spanner in the works. And what did Trine...

I'm basing my assessment purely on Vinge's Vuelta performances in 2023 & 2025 especially. Like if you take Vingegaard from last year's Vuelta and put him in the Tour? Then it's a fight against Lipowitz for second. IMO the bag of money he must have secured to ride the Giro probably made the...

It's one thing to go to the Giro and win it but it's another to just presume second in the Tour is guaranteed if he does the Giro beforehand. If I extrapolate his second grand tour performance in 2023 & 2025 (the Vuelta) and apply it to this years second GT on his schedule (the Tour of...

He could have left one month ago as well when riders started training for the new season. Or when he was posing in the new team kit. It's the timing that's unusual here (a week into January). Reminiscent of how Tom Dumoulin also just 'stopped' & took a break back in early 2021 at the start of...