Tour de Romandie, April 29th - May 4th

[RedheadDane]

Okay, I know it doesn't make much of a difference, result-wise, but seriously; for cases like this, where a lone rider - or a small group, I guess - has a tiny gap over a chasing peloton, I really wish the helicopter camera would zoom out, so we'd be able to actually see both.

 

[Sciatic]

He was already an elite puncheur in 2010.

The last climb today was harder than I expected, and I'm sure yesterday's stage could also be felt.

Vine also said in his interview that the early portion of the stage was raced really hard--"like it was motor pacing". And then the climb itself was ridden pretty hard from the bottom.

 

[James M]

There's widespread amnesia about Jumbo's monstrous years. They dominated on every major races.
Foss won a World Cup 😅, no a stage like Vine

Didn't win a single monument, and many of the other factors were due to X factors, such as a certain rider being injured.

Also, you're comparing four results to a whole season so its not even relevant, where UAE totally transcends it x3 and is about to make history. It's not even relevant what you're mentioning. UAE is completely making a fool out of everyone just like the so-called 'Big 6' in cycling, which is just nonsense and not the reality. The same goes for many 'super teams'— just BS, there is one true super team and several good ones.

 

[Cycling111]

Nice deflection, but how about we take a look at the data

Astana wins races like Turkey and scores a lot of points in Liège without winning.

As a team, it's more dominant to win the three GTs with three different riders and have all three on the podium in the Vuelta.

Tobias Foss won a World Championship, I repeat, a World Championship! 😂
His fourth or fifth time trialist on the team won a WC.
A World Championship is much more important than all the stages Vine or Soler win this week.

There's no point in complaining now and downplaying what Jumbo did.

 

[Sciatic]

pretty straightforward. For some reason the whole peloton is afraid of remco (except pog and mvdp) and they all wait for him to do something

That doesn't fully explain it though. When Vine took off the guys behind him looked at each other--but not to see where Remco was. Perhaps they were all more gassed than we realized.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

”Will the Real Rim Remco please stand up, please stand up, please stand up”

Remco is keeping his powder dry ahead of tomorrow. UAE guys and other wannabes will regret taking up cycling career.

 

[Sciatic]

Looks like coverage will start a little earlier tomorrow--14:35 CET

 

[Peyroteo94]

I'm curious to see Lenny tomorrow. I think he is the only one able to prevent another UAE win.

 

[YavorD]

Looks like coverage will start a little earlier tomorrow--14:35 CET

Yes, they are expected to finish at ~16:00 CET

 

[Red Rick]

Astana wins races like Turkey and scores a lot of points in Liège without winning.

As a team, it's more dominant to win the three GTs with three different riders and have all three on the podium in the Vuelta.

Tobias Foss won a World Championship, I mean, a World Championship! 😂
His fourth or fifth time trialist on the team won a WC.
A World Championship is much more important than all the stages Vine or Soler win this week.

There's no point in complaining and downplaying what Jumbo did.

I'm sorry reality disagrees with your cherry pickings. Life is harsh sometimes.

 

[red_flanders]

This thread is about Romandie, not anyone's posting history. Please desist, thank you.

 

[Cycling111]

I'm not at all sure that Vine will be Almeida's domestique tomorrow.

 

[Red Rick]

If we're talking about complaining about moto pacing maybe Netserk is being confused with me - I've been known to do complain about it on occasion.

 

[AmRacer]

No there isn't, Visma were heavily criticised at the time, to which they would respond 'well what about Sky'. When Sky were on top and getting criticism people would respond 'what about Quickstep, what about US Postal.' The one constant remains this false sense of victimhood from fans of the Real Madrid of the day, it's as tedious now as it was back then.

It's sad whoever wins then, 🤪

 

[postmanhat]

He was already an elite puncheur in 2010.

The last climb today was harder than I expected, and I'm sure yesterday's stage could also be felt.

Fair enough. Couldn't quite remember Sagan's progression and only really became aware of him at the Amgem tour that year after moving back to England and having regular TV coverage.

Brennan has a year to work on his hill-reps, then we'll have a true comparison.

 

[Peyroteo94]

Yes, they are expected to finish at ~16:00 CET

At least we are going to see the last climb since the beginning.

 

[Peyroteo94]

Fair enough. Couldn't quite remember Sagan's progression and only really became aware of him at the Amgem tour that year after moving back to England and having regular TV coverage.

Brennan has a year to work on his hill-reps, then we'll have a true comparison.

Sagan was a great puncheur already in 2010.

 

[Tim Cahill]

It's sad whoever wins then, 🤪

Yes exactly, cycling is a boot stamping on a human face forever, if we wanted fun we'd become a ping pong and Sunday frisbee league forum. Though I don't begrudge the Slovenian/Arab/UAE astroturfers, because if Fred Wright or Simon Yates get round to winning something I'll be making sure everyone here knows about it too.

 

[Sciatic]

Yes, they are expected to finish at ~16:00 CET

Ah I see. I thought we would be getting more coverage but it’s just the schedule was bumped forward?

 

[Põhja Konn]

Astana wins races like Turkey and scores a lot of points in Liège without winning.

As a team, it's more dominant to win the three GTs with three different riders and have all three on the podium in the Vuelta.

Tobias Foss won a World Championship, I repeat, a World Championship! 😂
His fourth or fifth time trialist on the team won a WC.
A World Championship is much more important than all the stages Vine or Soler win this week.

There's no point in complaining now and downplaying what Jumbo did.

In addition to WT and .Pro level races UAE also hogs together wins in all kinds of smaller .1 and .2 races of which neither Jumbo nor Sky in their heyday cared about. That makes their dominance feel much more suffocating.

 

[Mayomaniac]

So tomorrow you drill the downhills for the 50 percent chance of Vine crashing out of a one week wt race?

 

[Netserk]

So tomorrow you drill the downhills for the 50 percent chance of Vine crashing out of a one week wt race?

Will it be Almeida or Evenepoel who will do the drilling?

 

[Brullnux]

You're forgetting that Jumbo won three GTs with three different riders, in the last one they took the podium with three riders.
And the ITT World Championship with the fourth or fith domestique.

Nothing has ever matched that.

A bad year, I agree – but I dislike Visma too. Having said that, there is a difference in UAE's dominance across 2024 and 2025, in that UAE dominate every single race outside of cobbled races, including a bunch of random 2.1s and 1.1s. I doubt UAE will win all three GTs, but they will definitely win many, many more races than Visma did that year.

But, to paraphrase Rio Ferdinand, instead of making comparisons between Visma '23 and UAE '24/'25, of who is worse, let's just hate them both, we are so unlucky to be fans at this time.

 

[Berniece]

Will it be Almeida or Evenepoel who will do the drilling?

I don’t think Evenepoel is able to drill downhill

 

[Brullnux]

In addition to WT and .Pro level races UAE also hogs together wins in all kinds of smaller .1 and .2 races of which neither Jumbo nor Sky in their heyday cared about. That makes their dominance feel much more suffocating.

We were lucky that their cobbled team, sans Pogacar, was very mediocre.