Strade Bianche 2024, March 2, one-day classic (men's)

[Salvarani]

What a rider!

 

[Didinho]

Better go early and make a big gap so you can stay out of trouble. He can take it easy the last lap like Mathieu in CX lol.

Jumbo can be happy he’s not riding the Ronde this year.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Over/under 4 minutes?

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Did pogi really call out his intention to go solo at 80k in pre race interview?

He‘s dyed his hair blonde and is calling when he‘ll attack, that‘s so 90ies

 

[Samamba]

If that chase group really gives up, he has actually a chance to do a solo similar to Pogacar.

I don't believe that at all. He is no Pogacar lmao.

He's really good ophill, punchy rider, but riding alone is not his forte.

He either has to hope a small groop jumps towards him soon or he has to sit up imo. On the old parcours I would say why not, but now it's still way too long.

 

[AmRacer]

They have give up the chase. Where is MvdP?

 

[Salvarani]

Telling that Skuijns makes it back before the sector is over.

 

[Berniece]

Over/under 4 minutes?

Under

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Over/under 4 minutes?

Over

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Quite disappointing none of Pidcock, Healy or Kuss were able to follow Van Gils. With an elite group like that, it would at least have been more interesting for another hour or so.

 

[houtdffan]

I think the state of cycling is so bad because most races are just plain boring. One rider is often so much better then all other riders and they can do nothing about it...no tactic or anything else. It is a problem for the sport. Racing was just much better before 2021.

nope. This is how cycling used to be where we have dominant riders

the previous 3 decades were the anomaly

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

Over/under 4 minutes?

Over, if he wants to.

 

[jsem94]

You mean races weren't better when we didn't know with 95% certainty who was gonna win with 85km to go and with 100% certainty with 80km to go?

Nostalgia when the race has barely existed for two decades?

 

[Tim Cahill]

There does seem to be a fair amount of duckery going on between the big guys, Pogacar and Roglic in particular don't seem to race each other much at all.

I don't know whether it's planned or not but looking at the programs it feels like only the little *** is doing a schedule without regard for the other participants in the races.

 

[Didinho]

Booked my appointment for getting white hair.

 

[Froome]

Brilliant ride by pogacar.

 

[Brullnux]

You mean races weren't better when we didn't know with 95% certainty who was gonna win with 85km to go and with 100% certainty with 80km to go?

This year has been a scheduling issue really, most of the post-lockdown classics have not been decided with 80km to go. There have been exceptions, but the flip side of very strong, very aggressive riders is that when there's three or more of them in the race it means there's been action for 80km (2022 Ronde, 2023 P-R)

I also remember the bad old days of 15 man groups in the final 10km of Paris Roubaix...

 

[Filippo_3467]

nope. This is how cycling used to be where we have dominant riders

the previous 3 decades were the anomaly

Interesting way to look at it. but yeah it is a bit like it was back in the days

 

[Peyroteo94]

Pogi is just godly good. If we didn't have Vingegaard, he would probably be the new Merckx

 

[Boehmand]

On the plus side, now the F1 race star can be watched without split attention

 

[Volderke]

Why is he wrong they should've give up 💀

The moment pogacar attacked the main group got (understandably) disheartened and kind of stopped. Maybe it is because it's a fairly large group, but realistically it's 80km away and there's 25-30km after this sector of fairly flat asphaly roads.

The gap is now 1:40, when it could've been 1:00 or so.

It's really not flat, that's the problem with controlling this race. It goes up and down constantly, and a very strong solo rider has many moments he has an advantage (downhill, curves, steep uphills)...
As much as I want a race and as much as I love a race where everything can happen in the last few K's, it's simply not going to happen anymore, or something very bad must happen (hunger knock, crash, bad mechanical that can't be solved quickly on a sterrato...).

 

[Samamba]

Props to Ineos for actually sacrificing someone, in comparison to Visma who just sits there with 3.

 

[DNP-Old]

On the plus side, now the F1 race star can be watched without split attention

F1 is not a sport.

 

[Salvarani]

Brilliant ride by pogacar.

Froome-esque

 

[Netserk]

He‘s dyed his hair blonde and is calling when he‘ll attack, that‘s so 90ies

San Sebastian Gilbert in 2011.