General News Thread

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

Do we have a new definitive route for LBL 2019, or if not, when can we expect it?

Second this.

Going to ride the sportive this year and watch the race. Make LBL great again and get out of that shithole that is Ans (altho, as a Valverde-fan, I cant complatain TOO much about it).

 

[GuyIncognito]

Remember the cyclingnews article on Greipel's move from Soudal and the talk about how de Geyter had supposedly treated riders unfairly and alienated everyone since becoming team manager?

de Geyter's just been fired after less than a year.
https://lottosoudal.be/en/news/lotto-soudal-and-paul-de-geyter-end-their-collaboration

 

[dusty red roads]

Instant karma by the sounds of it.

 

[Alexandre B.]

Re:

Remember the cyclingnews article on Greipel's move from Soudal and the talk about how de Geyter had supposedly treated riders unfairly and alienated everyone since becoming team manager?

de Geyter's just been fired after less than a year.
https://lottosoudal.be/en/news/lotto-soudal-and-paul-de-geyter-end-their-collaboration

John Lelangue joins Lotto-Soudal.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

So apparently Geraint Thomas TDF trophy has been stolen

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Re:

So apparently Geraint Thomas TDF trophy has been stolen

https://twitter.com/lancearmstrong/status/1050169156685815808

:lol:

 

[Climbing]

Re: Re:

So apparently Geraint Thomas TDF trophy has been stolen

https://twitter.com/lancearmstrong/status/1050169156685815808

:lol:

I see, still the usual psychopath arsehole of old. :lol:

 

[TourOfSardinia]

:exclaim: Wellens & De Gendt travelling 100km back home to Belgium by Bike from il Lombardia
read about it in Italiano here: https://www.gazzetta.it/Ciclismo/14-10-2018/de-gendt-wellens-ritorno-italia-belgio-300667097460.shtml

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

:exclaim: Wellens & De Gendt travelling 100km back home to Belgium by Bike from il Lombardia
read about it in Italiano here: https://www.gazzetta.it/Ciclismo/14-10-2018/de-gendt-wellens-ritorno-italia-belgio-300667097460.shtml

So not so special for pro cyclists after all

 

[TourOfSardinia]

doh 1000km

 

[RedheadDane]

To be fair, managing to ride all the way from Lombardia to Belgium, and only ride 100K would be quite an achievement.

 

[pastronef]

Steven De Jongh is apparently missing from this morning in Girona. he went out on a ride and his wife didnt hear from him since

https://twitter.com/reneemeijer02/status/1051837141809057794

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Yes.. Very bad news. The route stopped at a road split which makes me think something bad happened

 

[pastronef]

Re:

Yes.. Very bad news. The route stopped at a road split which makes me think something bad happened

I guess that's his phone auto-loading the ride to strava. having no smartphone I dont do that.
but if he was hit and it stopped, can't they track where his bike is now?

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Yes.. Very bad news. The route stopped at a road split which makes me think something bad happened

His phone lost signal as well. Isn't that weird? An accident wouldn't cause that..
Just hoping for the best

 

[Finn84]

De Jongh has been found. According few Twitter users, he's breathing, has a pulse and now being transferred to hospital

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

De Jongh has been found. According few Twitter users, he's breathing, has a pulse and now being transferred to hospital

So it sounds like he was unconscious after an accident. What a relief that he has been found & is alive

 

[brownbobby]

Re: Re:

Yes.. Very bad news. The route stopped at a road split which makes me think something bad happened

His phone lost signal as well. Isn't that weird? An accident wouldn't cause that..
Just hoping for the best

Yes, a bit weird that the ride uploaded....all devices I know of require you to press at least a couple of buttons/commands to stop, save then upload a ride......anyway not so important I guess now, hope it's not too serious

 

[Breh]

AG2R will be riding Merckx next season.

 

[tobydawq]

Andrea Tafi wants to ride Paris-Roubaix next year as a 52-year-old, 20 years after winning it. Apparently he is in contact with a Belgian PCT and has made himself available for the UCI to testing, which I think a rider needs to have been half a year before entering competition.

He did indeed ride a Hungarian 1.2 race this summer and finished in the peloton.

Could there really be space for something like this in modern cycling? I hope so.

 

[Alexandre B.]

Re:

Andrea Tafi wants to ride Paris-Roubaix next year as a 52-year-old, 20 years after winning it. Apparently he is in contact with a Belgian PCT and has made himself available for the UCI to testing, which I think a rider needs to have been half a year before entering competition.

He did indeed ride a Hungarian 1.2 race this summer and finished in the peloton.

Could there really be space for something like this in modern cycling? I hope so.

I hope not. This is just fantasy.

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

Andrea Tafi wants to ride Paris-Roubaix next year as a 52-year-old, 20 years after winning it. Apparently he is in contact with a Belgian PCT and has made himself available for the UCI to testing, which I think a rider needs to have been half a year before entering competition.

He did indeed ride a Hungarian 1.2 race this summer and finished in the peloton.

Could there really be space for something like this in modern cycling? I hope so.

I hope not. This is just fantasy.

I just think that in a one day race, close to a hundred riders' roles are close to extremely anonymous and there always are a lot of DNFs. Especially the continental teams have spaces for riders who don't make any impression at all.

But yeah, I don't think it will happen either.

 

[GuyIncognito]

There was talk of something similar 2 or 3 years back.
There was a news item about some 45 year old former pro wanting to ride with the jet fighters in the tour of portugal. Did he ever end up doing it?

 

[Velolover2]

Re:

Andrea Tafi wants to ride Paris-Roubaix next year as a 52-year-old, 20 years after winning it. Apparently he is in contact with a Belgian PCT and has made himself available for the UCI to testing, which I think a rider needs to have been half a year before entering competition.

He did indeed ride a Hungarian 1.2 race this summer and finished in the peloton.

Could there really be space for something like this in modern cycling? I hope so.

Could be a fun experiment. Paris-Roubaix is an "old man's race" after all. A former champ in his mid 40's could still finish inside top 50.

Early 50's might be stretching it a bit too far.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

There was talk of something similar 2 or 3 years back.
There was a news item about some 45 year old former pro wanting to ride with the jet fighters in the tour of portugal. Did he ever end up doing it?

Vitor Gamito, he was 44 at the time - he won it in 2000, but quit cycling around his 34th birthday in 2004 following health problems related I believe to arrhythmia. He eventually resolved these and returned to the bike doing long distance mountain biking for a while before returning to the pro péloton in 2014. He got a short-term contract with LA Aluminios so that he could ride the Volta, and he did successfully complete it, albeit almost two hours behind winner Gustavo César Veloso, a decade his junior.

In fairness to Gamito though, he was only 18 months older than Chris Horner who'd just won a Grand Tour at that point, and Portuguese Chris Horner was still going strong, finishing a career high 2nd in the race aged 38. A comparison would be for somebody like Kirchen to return now.