And yet, it is a lot easier to be dumbstruck and disgusted by immediate events, such as wattbombs, than longer term developments, such as riders transcending specialisation, which just kinda numbs you. The frog in a slowly boiling water kind of thing.
Take Vingo out of the TDF picture and Pog dominates virtually in all terrains. Would that be substantially less ridiculous? I don't know the answer.
In absolute performance level terms it probably would be less ridiculous, as Vingo went somewhere else with the TT. But in relative terms not so much.
Guess quite a bit of spectator attitudes are in fact driven by aesthetic and moral preferences, along with the more sport specific stuff. Nothing wrong with that, as long as these factors are at least somewhat transparent to ourselves.
In my case I recognise that the fantasy of a new merckx is the messenger RNA of cycling fandom, but find the mere thought most off-putting. When all is said, doping included, I am more comfortable with specialists gunning for it in their narrow domains.
Take away these two teams, or their newfound capacities, and we maybe have something worthwhile here.
Perhaps the arms race boils over and devours them, Jumbo first. There is some healthy backlash emerging already. But probably not.