Ronde Van Vlaanderen 2012

[Pippo_San]

miss you already...

the sweet MUUR-KAPELMUUR

 

[greenedge]

I completely agree on that one... Tommy V will stick with what he does best: attacking. He is an extremely agressive puncheur, and only did GC due to luck.

It's a pity he has not shown himself this year

 

[Parrulo]

let's not kid ourselves into thinking a couple of decent performances on 200k semi classics all of the sudden make you a favorite for a cobbled monument. sagan needs to prove himself first so i still rate pippo much more highly then him for the monuments.

pippo is a much better rider then people give him credit for, he only needs to change his racing style a bit so people actually notice it. i wouldn't be sad at all if he won either the ronde or roubaix, without wheelsucking ofc

 

[karlboss]

let's not kid ourselves into thinking a couple of decent performances on 200k semi classics all of the sudden make you a favorite for a cobbled monument. sagan needs to prove himself first so i still rate pippo much more highly then him for the monuments.

pippo is a much better rider then people give him credit for, he only needs to change his racing style a bit so people actually notice it. i wouldn't be sad at all if he won either the ronde or roubaix, without wheelsucking ofc

Completely agree, but he is improving year by year and seemingly in distance, climbing, sprints.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

Lots of discussion here recently about OPQS, RSNT, and Liquigas. Not as much if any on BMC (Phil or Ballan) and SkY (EBH). I know Phil has been kind of flying under the radar so far, but I'd expect to see BMC and Sky mix it up pretty good too. Should be fun. I like Boonen ftw this time.

 

[Afrank]

Lots of discussion here recently about OPQS, RSNT, and Liquigas. Not as much if any on BMC (Phil or Ballan) and SkY (EBH). I know Phil has been kind of flying under the radar so far, but I'd expect to see BMC and Sky mix it up pretty good too. Should be fun. I like Boonen ftw this time.

I doubt we'll see Phil there in the final (the form just doesn't seem to be there), but I could see Ballan getting away. Despite there top riders like Thor and Phil having bad form at the moment they still have a pretty strong team that could pull the race back together or even launch someone for the win.

 

[Caruut]

EBH should have Eisel working for him, and I heard that Flecha was coming back from his hand injury - not exactly the ideal race for it, but it's his call, I suppose.

 

[Cobber]

Lots of discussion here recently about OPQS, RSNT, and Liquigas. Not as much if any on BMC (Phil or Ballan) and SkY (EBH). I know Phil has been kind of flying under the radar so far, but I'd expect to see BMC and Sky mix it up pretty good too. Should be fun. I like Boonen ftw this time.

More like flying of the back of the peloton!

 

[online-rider]

11 GILBERT Philippe
12 BALLAN Alessandro
13 SCHÄR Michael
14 HINCAPIE George
15 HUSHOVD Thor
16 VAN AVERMAET Greg
17 BURGHARDT Marcus
18 QUINZIATO Manuel

151 FARRAR Tyler
152 HAUSSLER Heinrich
153 KLIER Andreas
154 MAASKANT Martyn
155 BAUER Jack
156 RATHE Jacob
157 VAN SUMMEREN Johan
158 VANMARCKE Sep

Where are the Domestiques?

 

[jens_attacks]

OPQS recon of RvV......

http://youtu.be/SHWJqsmzQEE

cool video

lol at steegmans at 3:40

 

[dlwssonic]

BMC's RVV reconnaisance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-y_2Eh6iu8

 

[dlwssonic]

We won't get to see the koppenberg this year.

 

[Kvinto]

We won't get to see the koppenberg this year.

Why won't we? Koppenberg is there about 60km to go.

 

[dlwssonic]

Why won't we? Koppenberg is there about 60km to go.

oh sorry my bad! well I will be looking forward to it, its even closer to the finish this time.

 

[spalco]

So apparently Eurosport is showing Flanders in one hour, then some ****ty car racing in one hour, then Flanders, then car racing and then the finish of Flanders.

Are you kidding me?!

Eurosport isn't perfect, but they really do make an effort to make fans of niche sports (which cycling is in most of Central Europe) happy.

I sent a very strong worded (too strong worded in hindsight, which I regretted, although I was not insulting) complaint to Eurosport last year about them showing some ****ty women's tennis matches during the Giro, cutting the coverage of the race relatively short on some days. And within just a couple hours I received back an extremely friendly and detailled reply about how they manage the scheduling of all the different sports they show and assurances that they'll make sure that all GC-critical portions will be shown live (which was true!).

Plus, they always try to front-pack the ads in the races so they can show as much as possible of the deciding attacks in the finish, which I'm sure costs them money, since an ad break in the last 10k is certainly more valuable than an ad break 50k from the finish.

I can't be mad at Eurosport anymore since then. They do what they can and I'm glad the channel exists.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

let's not kid ourselves into thinking a couple of decent performances on 200k semi classics all of the sudden make you a favorite for a cobbled monument. sagan needs to prove himself first so i still rate pippo much more highly then him for the monuments.

pippo is a much better rider then people give him credit for, he only needs to change his racing style a bit so people actually notice it. i wouldn't be sad at all if he won either the ronde or roubaix, without wheelsucking ofc

sagan rode excellent msr showing he has the engine. of course flanders is all about knowing the course and the race from the inside out so he won't stand a chance yet. but he'll definitely be there in the final

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

We won't get to see the koppenberg this year.

I wish it was true. that thing has nothing to do with bikeracing and is part opf the reason what makes flanders such and amateuristic kermisrace in my mind. I really like flanders but things like that are horrible. let's hope the group will be small when they reach there but I doubt it

 

[Ancares]

Withe the new route i see pippo as one of the few riders able to follow Cancellara. Because i really think that this will be too hard for Boonen.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

I agree. this race is more hilly race like agr now really. boonen stand no chance

 

[Kvinto]

I wish it was true. that thing has nothing to do with bikeracing and is part opf the reason what makes flanders such and amateuristic kermisrace in my mind. I really like flanders but things like that are horrible. let's hope the group will be small when they reach there but I doubt it

Come on, it's funny how the peloton 'corks' the narrow ascent, and it will be only 6km after the first Kwaremont-Paterberg pass with about 190km in legs. It won't be the full bunch.

 

[LugHugger]

Eurosport isn't perfect, but they really do make an effort to make fans of niche sports (which cycling is in most of Central Europe) happy.

I sent a very strong worded (too strong worded in hindsight, which I regretted, although I was not insulting) complaint to Eurosport last year about them showing some ****ty women's tennis matches during the Giro, cutting the coverage of the race relatively short on some days. And within just a couple hours I received back an extremely friendly and detailled reply about how they manage the scheduling of all the different sports they show and assurances that they'll make sure that all GC-critical portions will be shown live (which was true!).

Plus, they always try to front-pack the ads in the races so they can show as much as possible of the deciding attacks in the finish, which I'm sure costs them money, since an ad break in the last 10k is certainly more valuable than an ad break 50k from the finish.

I can't be mad at Eurosport anymore since then. They do what they can and I'm glad the channel exists.

Well said. Cycling, like GT racing and biathalon and skiing and a host of other ES programmes are minority sports at least in the UK We're all fighting for the same prime time weekend slice of the schedule. Without ES coverage, we'd all be sat in front of our computers watching questionable streams of races. I may not agree with all of their decisions or their personalities but I am very grateful for their existence!

 

[El Pistolero]

Withe the new route i see pippo as one of the few riders able to follow Cancellara. Because i really think that this will be too hard for Boonen.

All these hills have been in the race before and Boonen never had any problems with them

Does it suit Cancellara more than Boonen? Yes.

Does Boonen stand a chance? HELL YES.

He can ride those hills over faster than Pozzato, trust me

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

All these hills have been in the race before and Boonen never had any problems with them

Does it suit Cancellara more than Boonen? Yes.

Does Boonen stand a chance? HELL YES.

He can ride those hills over faster than Pozzato, trust me

it's the accumulation of the hills that will make boonen suffer more than hillier riders overall

 

[El Pistolero]

I wish it was true. that thing has nothing to do with bikeracing and is part opf the reason what makes flanders such and amateuristic kermisrace in my mind. I really like flanders but things like that are horrible. let's hope the group will be small when they reach there but I doubt it

Lol

If it has nothing to do with cycling then why goes Boonen twice as fast as guys like Bettini?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmkC2FynBkU

But he can't handle the hills right.

 

[El Pistolero]

it's the accumulation of the hills that will make boonen suffer more than hillier riders overall

Pozzato has never done great in races like Amstel Gold Race, so I bet he's in big trouble then.

The big battle takes place before the hills, not on the hills. That's where hilly riders will suffer more than Boonen.