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2020 World Championships - now confirmed for Imola, Italy.

Page 26 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
When a list has more names than the team has spots at Worlds, it's because the final selection has not been entered yet.
The Irish selection has been entered; Roche, Martin, Mullen and Healy for the RR, with Roche and Mullen for the TT. For some reason, PCS still have Bennett (sprinter) and Dunbar (injured) on their startlist.

I know it's probably not urgent to update for a team with no shot of winning, but the information's been out there for 5 days.

That said, I see they do have an 8-man roster on there for France now, with Alaf on top of the list. So maybe they've updated that.
 
Basically you've just eliminated 2/3rd of the field from even wanting to race to start with. That doesn't exactly make for good racing.

Sure it does. Who wants to watch a race between a bunch of wimps who can't deal with a little bit of rain?

Incidentally, after all the whining last year about how holding Worlds in England was such a bad idea because of the rain, it bucketed down last time they were in Italy too.
 
My opinion of last year's race was it was horrible. At least Imola has a better course, but the race won't be much better if that's the weather for it. I do have the right to say I hate the weather for it and I find it makes racing much worse because well over half the field will climb off the bike simply because they have no interest in continuing in that weather. Basically you've just eliminated 2/3rd of the field from even wanting to race to start with. That doesn't exactly make for good racing.

Hard weather means, that races are won by hard men.

Nothing wrong with that :cool:
 
Sure it does. Who wants to watch a race between a bunch of wimps who can't deal with a little bit of rain?

Incidentally, after all the whining last year about how holding Worlds in England was such a bad idea because of the rain, it bucketed down last time they were in Italy too.


Although is this going to be racing in a downpour like in England which is just wrong. Or is a light rain where at least they won't be trying to ride through lakes? If it's gets like stage one of the Tour, maybe they riders will be smart and just neutralize the race. Although even then well over half the riders will still climb off the bike and go back to the hotel because it's still not worth their time or energy. Watching a race in which form says a lot about who wins is a lot better than over half the riders saying forget it, not worth my time. Better to preserve my health for other races after this one, which this year are a heck of a lot of important races.

Is this typical weather for Italy this time of year? We typically see the fall Italian races in the first week of Oct with great weather.
 
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I dunno if it's typical, but I got drenched once about this time of year trying to get back to our hotel from the San Siro with not a taxi to be found anywhere in the City.

I think that's where the complaints about Yorkshire were. It's very typical to have rain this time of year. In Italy we're talking about 1 week before typical races take place there without rain. So I'd have to think it's not typical. Plus it still sounds like the ITT's and women's race will be in the dry.
 
I think that's where the complaints about Yorkshire were. It's very typical to have rain this time of year. In Italy we're talking about 1 week before typical races take place there without rain.
Harrogate has 46.9 mm of rain in September on average.
Imola has 67 mm.

Italian weather is a lot less predictable (and a lot wetter) than people think.
You can guess the temperatures but you never know when a thunderstorm will struck. Of course it rains less often than in northern European countries, but the precipitation totals are generally higher.

For the record, October is not better, it rains even more. The Italian fall classics have been lucky in the past few years, but there have been very wet editions of Giro di Lombardia.
Como has has on average 116 mm of rain in September and 125 in October.
 
So, I got curious about the number of people finishing a World Championship Road Race (Elite Men's) in the last ten years.

2019: 46
2018: 76
2017: 132
2016: 53
2015: 110
2014: 95
2013: 61
2012: 122
2011: 177
2010: 99

So, it's not exactly unheard of that large quantities of riders will drop out, and last time they rode in Italy in *** weather they actually had fewer people dropping out than the Doha race, and it wasn't exactly raining in Doha. In fact, I suspect that a lot of the people who dropped out in Doha did so because it was just too damn hot!
 
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Harrogate has 46.9 mm of rain in September on average.
Imola has 67 mm.

Italian weather is a lot less predictable (and a lot wetter) than people think.
You can guess the temperatures but you never know when a thunderstorm will struck. Of course it rains less often than in northern European countries, but the precipitation totals are generally higher.

For the record, October is not better, it rains even more. The Italian fall classics have been lucky in the past few years, but there have been very wet editions of Giro di Lombardia.
Como has has on average 116 mm of rain in September and 125 in October.
Yes, Rome for example has a higher average mm of yearly rain than London. Less often, but when it rains it rains cats and dogs.
 
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So, I got curious about the number of people finishing a World Championship Road Race (Elite Men's) in the last ten years.

2019: 46
2018: 76
2017: 132
2016: 53
2015: 110
2014: 95
2013: 61
2012: 122
2011: 177
2010: 99

So, it's not exactly unheard of that large quantities of riders will drop out, and last time they rode in Italy in *** weather they actually had fewer people dropping out than the Doha race, and it wasn't exactly raining in Doha. In fact, I suspect that a lot of the people who dropped out in Doha did so because it was just too damn hot!
I think most dropped out because they were left behind in the echelons and there was nothing to race for.
 
I think most dropped out because they were left behind in the echelons and there was nothing to race for.

Neither was there for a bunch of the riders who finished last year. In Doha the last finisher was 6:03 behind, last year the positions from 31-46 (last man) were all further behind than that, with the last man finishing at 19:25. Indicates, to me, that there were more people willing to fight on to the bitter end despite not having a chance at getting any sort of result last year, than there was in Doha, probably because simply being listed as having finished, rather than DNFed, for last year's race is just so damned cool.
 
Neither was there for a bunch of the riders who finished last year. In Doha the last finisher was 6:03 behind, last year the positions from 31-46 (last man) were all further behind than that, with the last man finishing at 19:25. Indicates, to me, that there were more people willing to fight on to the bitter end despite not having a chance at getting any sort of result last year, than there was in Doha, probably because simply being listed as having finished, rather than DNFed, for last year's race is just so damned cool.

Maybe it was because if you were not in either of the two first groups in Doha, you were basically out of the race with still 170 kilometres to go. A bit harder to motivate yourself to go through than riding a loop in Harrogate slowly.
 
Neither was there for a bunch of the riders who finished last year. In Doha the last finisher was 6:03 behind, last year the positions from 31-46 (last man) were all further behind than that, with the last man finishing at 19:25. Indicates, to me, that there were more people willing to fight on to the bitter end despite not having a chance at getting any sort of result last year, than there was in Doha, probably because simply being listed as having finished, rather than DNFed, for last year's race is just so damned cool.
Nah. The guys who got dropped outside Doha got dropped way later than the guys who missed echelons in Doha. Riders will just often finish the race if they're there anyway and they drop with 1 or 2 laps to go.

In Doha there were massive echelons and everyone except those who made the first 2 groups DNF as soon as possible. The 2nd echelons then was only 1 minute or so back for most of the race on the circuit
 
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Harrogate has 46.9 mm of rain in September on average.
Imola has 67 mm.

Italian weather is a lot less predictable (and a lot wetter) than people think.
You can guess the temperatures but you never know when a thunderstorm will struck. Of course it rains less often than in northern European countries, but the precipitation totals are generally higher.

For the record, October is not better, it rains even more. The Italian fall classics have been lucky in the past few years, but there have been very wet editions of Giro di Lombardia.
Como has has on average 116 mm of rain in September and 125 in October.

That's the key part. It's very likely to be raining in Harrogate, which it did the entire Worlds last year. It's much less likely to rain in Imola and it appears will be dry for the vast majority of the long weekend. That U-23 TT with riders riding through basically a lake was crazy. I felt bad for them.


So, I got curious about the number of people finishing a World Championship Road Race (Elite Men's) in the last ten years.

2019: 46
2018: 76
2017: 132
2016: 53
2015: 110
2014: 95
2013: 61
2012: 122
2011: 177
2010: 99

So, it's not exactly unheard of that large quantities of riders will drop out, and last time they rode in Italy in *** weather they actually had fewer people dropping out than the Doha race, and it wasn't exactly raining in Doha. In fact, I suspect that a lot of the people who dropped out in Doha did so because it was just too damn hot!

Isn't heat still weather? Although I suspect it was more wind that caused the echelons. However, that would still technically count as weather as well. :)

On the other hand, I think this actually shows that unless you have a very favorable course the majority of riders are going to drop out anyway as they see no reason to finish.
 
On the other hand, I think this actually shows that unless you have a very favorable course the majority of riders are going to drop out anyway as they see no reason to finish.

Exactly! Some people will drop out because it rains, and is cold. Some people will drop out because it's extremely hot.
And I guess the course is always very favourable to someone.
Got curious, and here's the top-10 of each race:



So, Sagan, Kristoff, and Van Avermaet are the only riders to finish in the top-10 in both races, with Kristoff winning some sort of non-existant prize for consistency. Also, in Doha Pedersen was 11th in the U23 race.

What is pretty much sure is that for the weekend temperatures will drop to late October levels, rain or not.

That being...?
 
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Based on what I saw in the Tour I'd fancy Van Aert to climb with the best here over these lumps.

He was amazing pulling the train for JV. But every time someone (Pogačar) attacked he dropped like a stone from the group. Yes, these hills aren't the mountains at the GT. But I'll be surprised (and not for the first time this year with WVA) if manages to answer the attacks on the climbs.
 
Harrogate has 46.9 mm of rain in September on average.
Imola has 67 mm.

Italian weather is a lot less predictable (and a lot wetter) than people think.
You can guess the temperatures but you never know when a thunderstorm will struck. Of course it rains less often than in northern European countries, but the precipitation totals are generally higher.

For the record, October is not better, it rains even more. The Italian fall classics have been lucky in the past few years, but there have been very wet editions of Giro di Lombardia.
Como has has on average 116 mm of rain in September and 125 in October.
Yeah I remember some torrential wins from Rodriguez and Gilbert.
 

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