State of the peloton 2021

[SafeBet]

There was no wind on Sega di Ala.

 

[Red Rick]

But at the same time 2013 Aru and Niemiec climbed faster than anyone but Almeida and Yates.
I don't think that the gaps were much bigger in 2013, you still had 8 riders within 2min of Nibali on the stage, this year 8 riders came in less than 2min behind Almeida.

Think you'd expect gaps to be bigger on a climb like this in the middle of the third week of a GT thb. It's a VAM very close to Bernal on the Zoncolan, while you'd probably expect Zonc to be lower.

There's not many climbs that compare to Sega di Ala very well

 

[PhiLiz]

Lutsenko just did a Foliforov against Thomas, LRP, McNulty and so on...

 

[SafeBet]

Lutsenko just did a Foliforov against Thomas, LRP, McNulty and so on...

Would be fun to see an Astana revival at the Tour.

 

[PhiLiz]

Would be fun to see an Astana revival at the Tour.

With the duo of Vinodopov and Fofonov in the team cars, everything can happen.

 

[will-10]

June is often a bit weird with guys going to and from altitude and Tour prep etc, but you gotta love a Kazakh RKO from outta nowhere

 

[ppanther92]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1402262447105396745

View: https://twitter.com/ammattipyoraily/status/1402262447105396745?s=09


COVID changed sports forever it seems.

 

[will-10]

I think there's about 400 pages around here somewhere about the wind on the Ventoux in 2013, good times

 

[fbjim]

This tour is going to be badass. I'm hoping for 2007 levels of wild west at this point. Can't wait for Lopez to blast past the camera bike at 50mph like Ricco on the Col d'Aspin

 

[JosefK]

Nukes going off everywhere! The PED police have thrown up their hands, run the white flag up the pole. Not just in cycling, but athletics (world records getting blown up left and right), and tennis/football/soccer are their usual selves (glowing). It's an Olympics year. After the Covid devastation, TV ratings are critically needed. That means major crazy performances. Get your popcorn now before there's a run on it (like TP last year).

 

[zlev11]

it all went out the window with Pogacar's TT last year. i still dont understand why the Giro was so "normal" though. maybe the weather? for whatever reason the Giro climbing times are always weirdly slow (when it's in May) no matter how strong the field is.

 

[nayr497]

Nukes going off everywhere! The PED police have thrown up their hands, run the white flag up the pole. Not just in cycling, but athletics (world records getting blown up left and right), and tennis/football/soccer are their usual selves (glowing). It's an Olympics year. After the Covid devastation, TV ratings are critically needed. That means major crazy performances. Get your popcorn now before there's a run on it (like TP last year).

I love all the craziness going on in tennis...and nobody wants to talk about doping. Serena talking about how to handle the media, but nobody wants to bring up how she handles testers knocking on her door.

Even with Sharapova testing positive, most fans act like the sport is completely clean. So strange.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

I have family that believes Mo Farah and those 10k runners are squeaky clean, olympic weightlifters are clean if not from soviet countries etc, tennis all clean etc. Its mindblowing.

And im asked, how do i enjoy the cycling, when i think its all doped? I tell them is the same in any sport requiring physiological extremes, but they tell me i need to have more faith. lol

Superman's time just absurd, movistar got a better program going this year with valverde finding more watts again, Soler at his best, Carretero finally winning stuff.

wonder how many excuses are made for such a time on ventoux

 

[Fergoose]

I'm not particularly spooked by Superman here. It was a one day stage, a fairly short stage and, as noted above 'wind and stuff' makes Ventoux comparisons difficult. Plus Mas isn't looking to have peaked and may not have ridden the climb at full tilt with his teammate up the road, so that key time gap may not be representative. Lopez is a very consistent performer however he is preparing for races.

Having seen the Giro and Dauphine this year and all GTs last year I wasn't particularly spooked by anything outside of Bahrain, Valverde and Pogacar (but I don't anticipate UAE domestiques taking off to the stratosphere and haven't ruled out that Pogacar is simply the best physical specimen for GCs).

If Bahrain exercises restraint (dubious for a team sponsored by a dictatorship and rebranded as the braggadocio 'Victorious') I'm actually mildly optimistic we'll see results primarily based on financial expenditure by teams, degree of prioritisation on the TdF GC and raw physical ability.

Of course I reserve the right to torch this post in a months time.

 

[Escarabajo]

it all went out the window with Pogacar's TT last year. i still dont understand why the Giro was so "normal" though. maybe the weather? for whatever reason the Giro climbing times are always weirdly slow (when it's in May) no matter how strong the field is.

I think that was the biggest trigger for the year. Vino and company all got fed up with it.

Caruso's Giro was above normal IMHO.

 

[topt]

I love all the craziness going on in tennis...and nobody wants to talk about doping. Serena talking about how to handle the media, but nobody wants to bring up how she handles testers knocking on her door.

Even with Sharapova testing positive, most fans act like the sport is completely clean. So strange.

more money involved less chance to get caught; I mean it pisses me off every time I hear people talk about cycling as a dirty sport; give Serena, Ramos or Ronaldo bio passport and everybody will fail

 

[JosefK]

more money involved less chance to get caught; I mean it pisses me off every time I hear people talk about cycling as a dirty sport; give Serena, Ramos or Ronaldo bio passport and everybody will fail

Yes, I think cycling is actually better policed for PEDs (relatively speaking) than many other big sports. Or I should say, other big sports are even worse policed for PEDs than cycling.

 

[nayr497]

more money involved less chance to get caught; I mean it pisses me off every time I hear people talk about cycling as a dirty sport; give Serena, Ramos or Ronaldo bio passport and everybody will fail

Do you mean Sergio Ramos on Real Madrid? I've pretty much tuned out of soccer/futbol at this point, aside from Euro Cups and World Cups. Recently realized that guy is still playing...I mean, has he been a starting center back for 15 years at this point? His longevity is pretty insane.

And Serena. If you try to legitimately discuss her suspicious behavior you're immediately called a misogynist. Then a racist. It's crazy people defend her so forcefully.

Yup, when I was heavily following pro cycling it was pretty annoying how it was seen as the dirtiest sport, as if others were pretty much clean.

Now that I've kind of tuned out of all pro sports, I still find it unfortunate how cycling gets the worst wrap, but I find it more disturbing that people think other sports are so clean.

 

[BlueRoads]

Do people really believe other sports are clean? People around me mostly don't watch pro sports, if anything, then football - they know there's doping in football, but they don't care much because it's such a people's sport and they watch it for the show and the get-together.
Still, if you ask them about cycling, the immediate response would always be "the sport full of doping?" They just think that cycling is totally on top in that regard, and in other sports it's a bit more restrained, which I can understand to a degree, because there are certainly cleaner sports than cycling - on the other hand biathlon, which is so popular around here, definitely isn't, and that's a sport where there are not only the same drugs taken, but partly also the same doctors used...

So that's a bit ridiculous.

 

[roundabout]

Pretty big gaps in TdS behind the top 10ish on what was not the most difficult stage

Ok, the field is not particularly deep and the action started early, but still somewhat unexpected for me

 

[Koronin]

Do people really believe other sports are clean? People around me mostly don't watch pro sports, if anything, then football - they know there's doping in football, but they don't care much because it's such a people's sport and they watch it for the show and the get-together.
Still, if you ask them about cycling, the immediate response would always be "the sport full of doping?" They just think that cycling is totally on top in that regard, and in other sports it's a bit more restrained, which I can understand to a degree, because there are certainly cleaner sports than cycling - on the other hand biathlon, which is so popular around here, definitely isn't, and that's a sport where there are not only the same drugs taken, but partly also the same doctors used...

So that's a bit ridiculous.

I have no idea. Isn't that the same as asking how anyone can believe pro wrestling is real? Even more so with pro wrestling after what the Kliq pulled at Madison Square Gardens when Hall and Nash were leaving the WWF for the WCW? That was several years before the name change to WWE when states started wanting to do drug tests.

 

[SHAD0W93]

I have no idea. Isn't that the same as asking how anyone can believe pro wrestling is real? Even more so with pro wrestling after what the Kliq pulled at Madison Square Gardens when Hall and Nash were leaving the WWF for the WCW? That was several years before the name change to WWE when states started wanting to do drug tests.

The kids do. And we all know John Cena doesn’t exist. You can never see him anywhere.

 

[BlueRoads]

Unable to find the right thread, so I'm putting it in here: How suspicious does Hirschi's sudden rise last year and his sudden decline this year look to you? With the talk of whereabout issues, the team change...
Surely he might just have medical problems, but this looks crazily suspicious to me. So he was an extremely talented young rider, but then was pretty much nowhere in the first half of the year, then suddenly becomes one of the very, very best, and now he's doing nothing of notice in the races that should suit him so well.
He seems nice, but wtf.

 

[will-10]

Unable to find the right thread, so I'm putting it in here: How suspicious does Hirschi's sudden rise last year and his sudden decline this year look to you? With the talk of whereabout issues, the team change...
Surely he might just have medical problems, but this looks crazily suspicious to me. So he was an extremely talented young rider, but then was pretty much nowhere in the first half of the year, then suddenly becomes one of the very, very best, and now he's doing nothing of notice in the races that should suit him so well.
He seems nice, but wtf.

Short answer is 'very', although he was good in Liege and I guess we'll see in the Tour.
The only other thing I'd say on Hirschi is he looked so dialled on his Sunweb S5, so as soon as he had a gap he was gone. Even that doesn't explain eg. Fleche. Bu he doesn't look as good on his UAE Colnago.

(Watch him be Pogi's last guy in the mountains now )

 

[Rackham]

It all adds to the spectacle, i.e. we just don't know whether some of these guys are going to "disappear" or show-up as terminators.

With Hirschi, it's anyone's guess. In a similar genre I'm still wondering what happened to Jai Hindley.