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

[Volderke]

Yes It was

And in the first 20 so years of the Tour they rode through the night ...proper order too

That great Irish amateur rider who won the RAS many time trained in the night as that was the only time he could

And in 1913, Eugène Christophe gets his fork destroyed by collision with a car while he was in the maillot jaune virtuel.
He had to carry his bike for 14 kms to Sainte Marie de Campan, on his shoulder, and went to a forge and had to weld his fork himself.
Those were the days.

 

[Netserk]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1695508831411839055

View: https://twitter.com/Domestique___/status/1695508831411839055

 

[Tim Cahill]

Almeida losing time

There will be riots on the streets of Portugal tonight

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Last time I rode in the dark, I crashed, so I side with Remco.

 

[LookProGoSlow]

It's called Daylight Saving Time.

Time is a construct. It doesn’t change a thing about the moment the sun sets. Or rises for that matter.

 

[Cookster15]

Well QS was the last team, and therefore obviously they rode in the worst conditions.

I don't understand ***. When something is wrong, and when people call that out, I support them. As should everyone else? Isn't that normal behavior? Unless you think its okay to ride your bikes at 50 km an hour on a technical city circuit in a team time trial.

I don't think its okay. But I am not sure why it has to be repeated ad nauseam, but Vingegaard and Roglic have way more to complain about than lucky Remco. They actually had misfortune. Remco had none and finished at +6 secs. That means Remco gained 26 seconds on two of his biggest GC rivals. This is why I make comment.

 

[Lequack]

We need someone to take a stand for Remco. Where is @Logic-is-your-friend when you need him!

 

[Riek s]

the 1st & 2nd : (no image of QS (on cyclingnews )

 

[Lequack]

Those eyes

 

[Riek s]

I don't think its okay. But I am not sure why it has to be repeated ad nauseam, but Vingegaard and Remco have way more to complain about than lucky Remco. They actually had misfortune. Remco had none and finished at +6 secs. That means Remco gained 26 seconds on two of his biggest GC rivals. This is why I make comment.

First, he didn't know that when they arrived
Second, it doesn't matter since they rode in darker conditions than JV. QS rode at the darkest conditions of everyone. (12minutes is a lot at that hour).
(it should be telling that we had many images of JV riding, none of Movistar/QS)

to be frank the final 5 can/should comlain since they rode at least a part in lower visibility. We are just lucky none of the GC candidates crashed...

 

[Jagartrott]

A day with rain is a simple statistic, but let's take two extremes:
It rains at night, and in the morning, everything is dry.
Or it rains in the day, much more than 1mm, and everything is wet for hours. That was today.

Your "12% chance you get rain on a Vuelta day" is nothing more than a Vuelta day. It doesn't say anything about it actually raining during the race itself. A day is 24 hours, a race is aprrox. 5-6hrs at max. in a Vuelta.

No, sorry, it doesn't even need to rain hard to have the last teams at a disadvantage. Even overcast would mean the last teams would race under twilight. Today was an extreme case, but that darkness would come to play a role is not something inconceivable at all. The organisers took a risk because they wanted more spectacular images - i.e. Barcelona at sunset. That's not how organisers should make decisions.

 

[Volderke]

No, sorry, it doesn't even need to rain hard to have the last team at a disadvantage. Even overcast would mean the last team would race under twilight. Today was an extreme case, but that darkness would come to play a role is not something inconceivable at all. The organisers took a risk because they wanted more spectacular images - i.e. Barcelona at sunset. That's not how organisers should make decisions.

To be clear: I fully agree that the organisers could have prevented / improved the situation starting just a bit earlier, but just saying this kind of (in my opinion / my gut feeling) extreme weather didn't help and made it much more worse than a 'normal' end-of-august Barcelona evening.

 

[ManicJack]

Ah, yes. My mistake. He lost because of a "flat." Just like is colleague in Roubaix, maybe Worlds, too?

I can already tell my ignore list will grow by the first rest day.

 

[nightowl]

I don't think its okay. But I am not sure why it has to be repeated ad nauseam, but Vingegaard and Roglic have way more to complain about than lucky Remco. They actually had misfortune. Remco had none and finished at +6 secs. That means Remco gained 26 seconds on two of his biggest GC rivals. This is why I make comment.

So? He’s still right to be pissed about holding a TTT in that kind of visibility. You don’t have to have had a puncture (irrelevant to the visibility anyway) or some other kind of misfortune to criticize the stage. Should riders only criticize unsafe sprint finishes if they actually crash? That seems quite stupid. If anything, criticizing the stage despite gaining an advantage on his rivals is a show of integrity.

 

[perico]

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

The Giro used to run the prologue at night on a few occasions

 

[Valv.Piti]

There just needs to be an UCI rule declaring that you cannot finish later than 1 hour before sunset. Should be easy enough. Nobody *** cares that the city is more beautiful at night or whatever arguments these fools have

 

[hrotha]

I feel that there's a big difference between a race done completely in nighttime (but with proper lighting) and whatever the hell this was

Also lol

 

[theyoungest]

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.

I know you're a fact free poster, but you just need to look at how Vingegaard rode in the Tour prologue last year to see he's actually pretty good in wet, technical conditions. He had the worst circumstances of anyone and finished 7th.

So why would he need to make up excuses like a flat tire?

 

[SafeBet]

Btw where was the clown Adam Hansen when this was approved?
Checking the weather forecast for next year's Giro maybe?

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Btw where was the clown Adam Hansen when this was approved?
Checking the weather forecast for next year's Giro maybe?

Well, it‘s ASO running the race.

 

[staubsauger]

I feel that there's a big difference between a race done completely in nighttime (but with proper lighting) and whatever the hell this was

Also lol

This basically. The 2005 Giro d'Italia prologue was perfectly lighted on a 1k straight rode. That's how you can do a night TT.


I'm with Remco on this one. These were irregular conditions from one point on. No gc team apart from Movistar went full gas anymore. And even Movistar lost a 7 second advantage in the final. Robert Bengsch on German Eurosport already criticized before that the conditions have become too shabby for his taste.


I'm okay with Remco arguing properly instead of putting a good face on the matter. That's frank at least.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

I’ve been busy the whole day and just saw the results. What the hell happened?
Would anyone like to try to explain it in short?

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I’ve been busy the whole day and just saw the results. What the hell happened?
Would anyone like to try to explain it in short?

Rain, darkness, idiocy.

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

Bad weather, a lot darker than anticipated due to lots of clouds and rain.
Vingegaard punctured, Almeida with a mechanical.
About the darkness. The images must have made it a little darker? Sunset was 20.35 and Soudal quick Step started at 20.19.

 

[Volderke]

I’ve been busy the whole day and just saw the results. What the hell happened?
Would anyone like to try to explain it in short?

we don’t know what happened because it was DARK