Paris-Nice 2024, March 3-10

[Zoetemelk-fan]

UCI just banned the aero-sock and has put the giro helmet under investigation.

Just watching the race on delayed signal while skimming race thread. Word 'banned' has been promiently used here.
Maybe the moderator just continued the powerful cadence and rhythm at UCI?
Sry, now rain just started. Maybe now I even ensured some drops pouring on my profile.

 

[tobydawq]

Take De Klejin as leader then Dainese to snatch a win later in the race when he's been nowhere for 3 weeks and everyone's forgotten he's there.

He's even nowhere right now. Why on Earth is he not riding Tirreno?

Maybe saving himself for his usual Tour of the Alps - Romandie - Giro combo?

 

[Ilmaestro99]

He's even nowhere right now. Why on Earth is he not riding Tirreno?

Maybe saving himself for his usual Tour of the Alps - Romandie - Giro combo?

He said on his social media that he is forced to miss his February races after injuring himself in a training crash.

 

[SHAD0W93]

But back on the race overall topic I think Almeida is the favorite. He’s stronger than some give him credit for and can follow most while having a strong team to reel in strong breaks if they work for him. Only issue is if he starts to yo-yo and bleed time from that. Roglic and Evenepoel going on a 2022 stage 17 Vuelta breakaway would be really nice.

 

[tobydawq]

He said on his social media that he is forced to miss his February races after injuring himself in a training crash.

Thanks.

 

[Berniece]

Well, how will they play it? UAE, that is? Who's the boss?

Usually, they say it's a problem if there are two. In this case there are four.

I wouldn’t say there are 4. I only see 1 real big contender.

Vine showed in UAE Tour that he isn’t able to follow when the race gets really hard, he also didn’t have proper preparation this winter so I would count him out.
Same goes for McNulty, he’s not good enough in the mountains to follow Evenepoel, Roglic and Almeida when they go all out.
Fisher-Black is in form, but again, will he be able to follow when the others go all out.

They do have the numbers to try something during stages with less long climbs, but I think Bora and SOQ are strong enough together to manage that. I wouldn’t be surprised if two of them are behind Remco/Roglic already by the end of tomorrow stage.

 

[noob]

Pretty astonishing that an outside sport is affected by the weather. It never happened before in cycling.

This is signature quote level good 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

[Carrick-On-Seine]

Now Roglic actually has to ride his bike, thats good

Roglic thread is now saying this doesn't matter, it's all about July.
Oh I do love visiting the Church of Roglic on here.

 

[Elos Anjos]

Roglic thread is now saying this doesn't matter, it's all about July.
Oh I do love visiting the Church of Roglic on here.

I curse thee, lost soul, you who dares to question the gospel of St Roglic the stomper.

 

[johnymax]

Roglic thread is now saying this doesn't matter, it's all about July.
Oh I do love visiting the Church of Roglic on here.

Church of Roglič is waiting until the end of tomorrow's stage. Then we'll decide if it matters or not.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Roglic thread is now saying this doesn't matter, it's all about July.
Oh I do love visiting the Church of Roglic on here.

Can’t lose if you don’t care enough to win.

 

[repre]

Roglic thread is now saying this doesn't matter, it's all about July.
Oh I do love visiting the Church of Roglic on here.

Not his fan, but will there be TTT in July?

 

[noob]

Almeida not being in yellow and Roglic 50 seconds back are obviously punishments for their mustaches

 

[Froome]

Roglic thread is now saying this doesn't matter, it's all about July.
Oh I do love visiting the Church of Roglic on here.

Wait until @CyclistAbi appears on Roglic thread, it will get even better.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Wait until @CyclistAbi appears on Roglic thread, it will get even better.

“Congratulations on winning the TTT but. Now Roglic is having. The same issue at. Bora as he did at. Jumbo with Vlasov riding against him. Then there is the. Bahrain issue of attacking Roglic. But it’s okay. We will see.”

 

[CyclistAbi]

UAE with a strong team and perfect weather conditions really gained an advantage today. Can be considered as race favourites.

More or less all other GC teams were affected by weather and lost time to UAE.

Bora, here i was too optimistic, they are not yet on top level, when it comes to TTT. Luckily this doesn't matter all that much this season. From this race perspective it did make Rogla job harder, still he seems to be in good form and there are 5 GC stages left. Likely Rogla killed his team a bit with strong pulls and Remco wheelsucked a bit towards the finish.

So all in all long way to go and lets race!

 

[CyclistAbi]

Wait until @CyclistAbi appears on Roglic thread, it will get even better.

No, no party today. Hard work ahead tomorrow.

“Congratulations on winning the TTT but. Now Roglic is having. The same issue at. Bora as he did at. Jumbo with Vlasov riding against him. Then there is the. Bahrain issue of attacking Roglic. But it’s okay. We will see.”

No. Bora lost valuable time today. Due to low numbers. Still Vlasov did pull. Just as he did on stage 1, when he closed the gap. What was missing was a rider of two, capable of persevering a bit longer.

But OK, it's one stage and a good TTT performance isn't something Rogla needs this season all that much. Individually he looked good.

 

[RobertCrawley]

McNutty! Great to see a Yank peddling fast.

 

[Rob5091]

A Yates crashes at UAE tour and wanders around thinking he's Ethel Merman and that was with a standard helmet. Think of the consequences of Visma's new aero-hat. We had Küng and his spectacular crash when he could n't see where he was going.
A helmet is to protect a rider not look like something for Haloween.

 

[proffate]

A Yates crashes at UAE tour and wanders around thinking he's Ethel Merman and that was with a standard helmet. Thnik of the consequences of Visma's new aero-hat. We had Küng and his spectacular crash when he could n't see where he was going.
A helmet is to protect a rider not look like something for Haloween.

These helmets seem to have decent visibility due to the huge visor, and there's so much foam I'm guessing they're good at protecting against a direct blow as with kungs crash. Whether they might act as a lever to rip ones head off in certain scenarios is another question.

Also, don't tell me that your objection is about safety because you'd laugh at a full face helmet or elbow pads. The knee jerk reaction is about tradition and resistance to change. What we need is a tony hawk of cycling to come along and make pads cool.

The real mistake giro made here is making too big a leap forward (forget the poc one for a second, which somehow flew under the radar for 12 years). If they released this helmet gradually by making it a little more elongated each year, no one would say anything.

Also no one seems to have noticed met that has been selling a "wide body" helmet for years. It's round but it's like twice as big as necessary. They look like a bunch of bobbleheads in the TTT, and based on results that helmet seems to be doing the job this year.

 

[Sciatic]

These helmets seem to have decent visibility due to the huge visor, and there's so much foam I'm guessing they're good at protecting against a direct blow as with kungs crash. Whether they might act as a lever to rip ones head off in certain scenarios is another question.

Also, don't tell me that your objection is about safety because you'd laugh at a full face helmet or elbow pads. The knee jerk reaction is about tradition and resistance to change. What we need is a tony hawk of cycling to come along and make pads cool.

The real mistake giro made here is making too big a leap forward (forget the poc one for a second, which somehow flew under the radar for 12 years). If they released this helmet gradually by making it a little more elongated each year, no one would say anything.

Also no one seems to have noticed met that has been selling a "wide body" helmet for years. It's round but it's like twice as big as necessary. They look like a bunch of bobbleheads in the TTT, and based on results that helmet seems to be doing the job this year.

I have a slightly different take on the massive Visma helmet to-do. Many sports nowadays build fan base and marketing development by highlighting the sport’s stars in visual and print promotions/media attention. I don’t really like the “star-making” push because it diminishes audience understanding of the team elements. But it is apparently what sells and “grows” a market. The more we get giant helmets, especially with full visors, and Yates-type giant sunglasses, it lessens fans and potential new audiences ability to see the riders. It’s true that other sports like the NFL have full helmets and visors, but players spend half the game on the sidelines with their helmets off and the cameras on them.

 

[RobertCrawley]

It's really good to hear that Egan Bernal riding well.

 

[proffate]

I have a slightly different take on the massive Visma helmet to-do. Many sports nowadays build fan base and marketing development by highlighting the sport’s stars in visual and print promotions/media attention. I don’t really like the “star-making” push because it diminishes audience understanding of the team elements. But it is apparently what sells and “grows” a market. The more we get giant helmets, especially with full visors, and Yates-type giant sunglasses, it lessens fans and potential new audiences ability to see the riders. It’s true that other sports like the NFL have full helmets and visors, but players spend half the game on the sidelines with their helmets off and the cameras on them.

indeed some of my favorite races to watch are really rainy ones where the riders take off their shades. You can understand a lot more about the race by seeing their facial expressions. There will always be someone who looks unbothered by the pace and conditions and soon you see them attack.

The ginormous helmets actually help with that though. When you slap a clear visor on there you can see them just fine, better than with sunglasses in fact. Look at Bilbao today for an example. I suspect the huge foam cap acts as a bit of a visor, blocking direct sun.

As to the NFL --- the average fan knows what Tom Brady looks like and maybe a couple other players on the field. But probably 90% of fans wouldn't recognize 90% of the players. So I don't think there's actually a difference to cycling. Cycling's problem is that the stars don't even look like athletes with the exception of maybe WVA.

If anything, work on getting better camera shots. FWIW, the Paris Nice TTT had some nice camera work between the drone shots and slow-mo close-ups from stationary cameras.

 

[Pantani_lives]

For Evenepoel an ITT would have been much better than a rainy TTT. Now it will probably be between him and the three leaders of UAE: Almeida, Vine and McNulty. The latter two were beaten by Van Eetveld in the UAE Tour. Almeida is just starting his season.

Eighteen seconds isn't that much to make up for Evenepoel, but the course isn't very tough and UAE has the team to control the race. Bonus seconds won't be enough, so he'll have to attack. Maybe the decision will only come in the final stage.

 

[Netserk]

Many ever since 2018 and they’ve gotten worse and worse every season, most likely to combat Evenepoel’s major fans.

If so, it should be easy to find a very fitting example.