Paris-Nice 2026, March 8-15

[Hugh Januss]

Lol, you people are really desperate to never give Jonas any credit. Its both funny and sad.

7th place from last years Tour de France got 4th place in this race. It was a normal Paris Nice field.

Haters gotta hate!

 

[staubsauger]

Roglic?

I was only being half serious with the point being that in 2016 nobody knew that Thomas in retrospective would become quite a handy general classification contender.

Same goes for Martinez. Maybe he becomes a fantastic pure climber on his day with a nice kick to secure points for the polka dots jersey. Sounds entirely legit to me. Then it's not a shame to lose a sprint against Martinez after he had a great day and was able to hang on.

After all that's exactly what he did to Almeida at Romandie last year!

 

[Unchained]

Haters gotta hate!

I will push the Taylor Swift lyric one step further... Lol..
Weird to me that there is a narrative that makes Roglic ( others) of little to no use unless he is capable of the podium. Might just be something I see, but from what I have known of bike racing, racers they lose way, way more than they win and there is still value in racing that doesn't result in a win.

 

[Escarabajo]

Chapeau to both Martínez today. Great effort from both of them.

That said, nowadays in almost every race there is talk about the “low level” of the competition. Supposedly, below Pogi there’s almost no level. Fine — we have Jonas and now El Matador. But that’s about it. People say Ayuso would have provided better competition. Well, he couldn’t even stay on his bike, so what? And what about Remco? The last time I saw him at the Tour he was getting dropped and riding with the grupetto.

Were Onley, Vauquelin, Gaudu, and everyone else who showed up to the race in poor form? Who knows — and honestly, who cares? That’s not my problem, and it’s certainly not Jonas’ problem either.

It would be pretty funny if Martínez finishes second at the Giro behind Jonas, just like he did behind Pogačar. LOL.

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

 

[tobydawq]

Well, he couldn’t even stay on his bike, so what? .

What a ridiculous argument.

 

[Escarabajo]

What a ridiculous argument.

Ok, maybe that was a bit harsh. But that’s part of cycling. I’m just tired of hearing people talk about Ayuso this and Ayuso that after the crash. At the end of the day, you have to finish the race.

There’s also a strong argument from experienced cyclists that avoiding crashes requires stamina, technique, and a lot of concentration. So it is what it is.

 

[tobydawq]

Ok, maybe that was a bit harsh. But that’s part of cycling. I’m just tired of hearing people talk about Ayuso this and Ayuso that after the crash. At the end of the day, you have to finish the race.

There’s also a strong argument from experienced cyclists that avoiding crashes — at least most of the time — requires stamina, technique, and a lot of concentration. So it is what it is.

All riders crash.

 

[Escarabajo]

All riders crash.

Some more than others. Martinez crashed today and almost retired. That is very hard, but managing to avoid crashing is a huge part of cycling.

 

[staubsauger]

Ayuso seems to have a stinker subscription.
First his nasty achilles verse inflammation. Then he ruins his season with the nonsense idea of riding the Tour de France as Co-leader. Crashes and hurts himself during the Giro d'Italia. Plays offended and isn't ready once he finally gets the Vuelta a Espana call. Crashes out of Paris-Nice in the yellow jersey.

 

[Escarabajo]

Ayuso seems to have a stinker subscription.
First his nasty achilles verse inflammation. Then he ruins his season with the nonsense idea of riding the Tour de France as Co-leader. Crashes and hurts himself during the Giro d'Italia. Plays offended and isn't ready once he finally gets the Vuelta a Espana call. Crashes out of Paris-Nice in the yellow jersey.

Let me tell you about Bernal!

 

[hayneplane]

Great win for Lenny M. Still hard to see how he becomes a consistent GC contender for 1 weeks let alone 3 weeks but he is showing his best is good enough to net some prestigious wins in his career.

 

[Tonton]

Good week for cycling, it's great to see Jonas hungry, the only one who can somewhat compete with Teddy. Bravo Lenny! The Seixas hype is cool, but Lenny or Romain are great riders too. French cycling is in a good shape with them and we even have a sprinter with Magnier. But for this week, Jonas made his statement and that's cool. Great week!

 

[Rob5091]

Lenny gives the lowdown on the stage. Has he improved or was Vingegaard not 100% on that last climb?
https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling...artinez-stuns-vingegaard-in-paris-nice-finale

The decisive moment of the stage came on the short but brutally steep Côte du Linguador, where Team Visma | Lease a Bike again drove the pace to isolate their race leader.
When Vingegaard accelerated, only Martinez could respond. “Honestly, it was okay,” Martinez said when asked about following the Dane on the final climb. “I was a bit worried. I told him I would help after, but I was mainly afraid of riding and then being attacked afterwards, because it’s still Jonas, and you never know what he’s capable of. He’s super strong.”

 

[Potomac]

There were a lot of DNFs today. I wonder if they were all the ones that didn't enter the circuit within 15 minutes of the leaders.
How many of them did it on purpose?

 

[Squire]

Great win for Lenny M. Still hard to see how he becomes a consistent GC contender for 1 weeks let alone 3 weeks but he is showing his best is good enough to net some prestigious wins in his career.

He's a bit like a medium-mountain Temu version of Superman Lopez. Can hang with or beat the best on a very good day.