Vuelta a España Vuelta a España 2023, stage 1: Barcelona - Barcelona (14.8k / TTT)

[glassmoon]

I understand Remco's frustration, but he didn't crash or have a puncture like Vingegaard so maybe he should tone it down a little and count himself lucky. I don't read any whinging from Roglic?

ps - the delayed start means I down under we can comment about a race live at 4.56am rather than the usual time European races finish in Australia (~1:30am)

why tone it down though? if organizers' amateurism makes the race dangerous or borderline irregular for some teams it's only right to call them out imho.

 

[perico]

Almeida almost 1 minute down. Looks to be the worst of the GC guys.

 

[Rob5091]

De Plus only one who didn’t finish. Seen in an ambulance.

Luckily it was only one, but not lucky for him and Ineos.

 

[roundabout]

Do we know if any team complained before the stage about the starting times?

Because everyone knew the starting times, and they also knew the weather could well be ***.

Perhaps it will still give the race organizers something to think about it when scheduling late starts to the stages, because I do not remember riders complaining about darkness before (but maybe I have forgotten someone)

 

[balac]

A mess by the organizers. They got really unlucky with the weather, but they knew the weather was going to be bad on Monday. They could have moved this up an hour.


And tomorrow the weather gets worse....It hasn't rained here in a month, the vuelta comes and it's a shithole.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Almeida almost 1 minute down. Looks to be the worst of the GC guys.

I think he had a mechanical or something at 1 k to go.

Or he just wanted to ride 15 seconds behind the group again.

 

[SafeBet]

We interviewed Lorenzo Milesi in our podcast a month ago and since then he's become World Champion and first red jersey at the Vuelta. So happy for him 😍

 

[Carols]

I haven't watched a second of this and never will. But I'm glad they at least found a way to make Time Trials moderately interesting to read about.
And no surprise about JV... a GC leader who doesn't have the courage to ride big one day races isn't gonna do well in a stage like this. On to stage 2, please.

He had a flat and they all stopped for him to change bikes. But why would one find out the facts before writing trash? It ain't Kool

 

[RedheadDane]

Perhaps it will still give the race organizers something to think about it when scheduling late starts to the stages, because I do not remember riders complaining about darkness before (but maybe I have forgotten someone)

I can't remember a race where it got dark before the riders finished.

 

[HelloDolly]

speak for yourself...Remco is right to complain

Its not that he right or wrong or cant complain its how he does it....

maybe he should call for neutralised times on the TTT

 

[Bonimenier]

He had a flat and they all stopped for him to change bikes. But why would one find out the facts before writing trash? It ain't Kool

You knew the facts but that didn't stop you from posting trash in this thread anyway.

 

[zlev11]

the first interesting TTT i've ever seen

 

[Berniece]

Lol that darkness, and this is the 3rd biggest stage race in the cycling world.

 

[HelloDolly]

I can't remember a race where it got dark before the riders finished.

It was dark in pamplona in 2013

It was dark in 2010

 

[roundabout]

I think he had a mechanical or something at 1 k to go.

Or he just wanted to ride 15 seconds behind the group again.

Almeida is listed at 83rd s.t. with the rest of the team on the Tissot page

But I have no idea if he was with the team when they crossed the line

 

[Volderke]

Do we know if any team complained before the stage about the starting times?

Because everyone knew the starting times, and they also knew the weather could well be ***.

The complexity is that you have to be an obsessed weather expert to predict that a 26th of August evening in Barcelona would produce this kind of weather, with this kind of darkness because of dark cloud cover. I wonder if Barcelona had anything like this in the past 20-30 years in August.

So nobody could predict beforehand it would be this dark. They hoped for the best but they got the worst. Remco (and others) are right to complain but we've had it and let's move on. It's a shame De Plus crashed out but any other TTT could have any number of DNF due to a crash, even in dry circumstances.

 

[Red Rick]

It was dark in pamplona in 2013

It was dark in 2010

Wasn't it dark during the final ITT in Santiago de Compostella in 2014 as well?

 

[Carols]

speak for yourself...Remco is right to complain

But when you're Always crying wolf people stop listening.

 

[RedheadDane]

It was dark in pamplona in 2013

It was dark in 2010

To be fair, I generally don't remember details from races when it's been quite a while.

 

[roundabout]

I can't remember a race where it got dark before the riders finished.

IIRC one the last Züri Metzgete's finished rather late and it was in lousy weather too

But looking at the videos both 2005 and 2006 finished in better light conditions than today and it was lighter than I remember

 

[RedheadDane]

IIRC one the last Züri Metzgete's finished rather late and it was in lousy weather too

Weren't the last one of those held in the early 2000s?

 

[Krzysztof_O]

So Remco 26 seconds ahead of Rogla and Vingo. The race is over, it seems

 

[Rob5091]

This was a badly designed stage before the weather problems (which even an idiot like me pointed out before today). Luckily only one guy ended up in an ambulance.

 

[Red Rick]

@Netserk did Jumbo finish with Kuss in 1st?

They really tried it seems

 

[Devil's Elbow]

The complexity is that you have to be an obsessed weather expert to predict that a 26th of August evening in Barcelona would produce this kind of weather, with this kind of darkness because of dark cloud cover. I wonder if Barcelona had anything like this in the past 20-30 years in August.

So nobody could predict beforehand it would be this dark. They hoped for the best but they got the worst. Remco (and others) are right to complain but we've had it and let's move on. It's a shame De Plus crashed out but any other TTT could have any number of DNF due to a crash, even in dry circumstances.

Barcelona gets on average 61 mm of rain in August, it's actually one of the wetter months with September being the second-wettest. So hardly extraordinary.