The Bicycle Racing Thread 2015

[The Boy]

As per last year, I'm starting this now since I've just put on my first bets for the new season*.

So predictions for the new season? Hopes, fears etc? Who's gonna be the big name to get busted (kreuziger doesn't count for 2015)?

*since you ask, Bouhanni to win Milan-San Remo @ 17.00, Demare to win Roubaix @ 34.00 and Geraint Thomas to win Flanders @ 34.00. Plus a small treble 'cos I'm an optimist.

 

[ChrisFilter]

Should get decent odds on Wiggins at PR, Cav at MRS, Thomas at Flanders and Froome at the TDF. Might put on an accumulator at a French bookies.

Then again, I probably won't.

I would like to see Cav do something this year. Having only been into cycling for a few years, his 2009 MSR win remains my favourite moment in cycling.

 

[Ted Striker]

As much as Wiggins is going to be marked to shit in Roubaix (not to mention the luck required), I'll absolutely do my bollocks if he does win it (I'll be in the velodrome too, all things being equal). My 2 faourinte things in the whole world (of cyling) is the man crush of Wiggo and the race that inspired me to take up cycling with some moderate vigour.

Haven't seen him so publicly focussed about something since the Tour = srs business. Either way my prayers will be for a wet one.

I predict another stuttering season for Sky (fuck 'em tbh).

Tinkoff to bring the drama and Contador to bring the out of this world* out-of-the-saddle heroics to fend off the Dangermouse villain Quintana into 2nd. Nibbles to get found out. Froome to slow-and-steady-wins-the-race it up one of the last stages for a moral-ish victory.

Sagan: fuck knows tbh. Hope someone does a nice youtube of his finest moments to rival the current crop.

*for removal of all doubt I'm saying AC is a whopping doper and still at it.

 

[DownwardDog]

A Wiggins PR victory would make me clinically fed up until at least the Giro di Lombardia. I quite like Sagan for PR although there's always the Cancellara factor and maybe Boonen is off the coke this year.

My main hope is a positive dope test preferably during a Grand Tour and preferably SKY or OPQ.

 

[Ted Striker]

My main hope is a positive dope test preferably during a Grand Tour and preferably SKY or OPQ.

Haha, always wanted to experience' one too (as a relative newbie).

I was buying the idyll that cycling is now clean, though have just read Tyler Hamilton's book and seem less convinced for some reason (even though the books stops a long time ago in the past). It just seems like an eternal cat and mouse game.

 

[DownwardDog]

Haha, always wanted to experience' one too (as a relative newbie).

1998 (Festina) and 2006 (Basso, Ullrich, Contador and Landis) were both awesome.

 

[Sigmund Fraud]

MSR-Sagan (finally)
Flanders - Vanmarke
Pointless making a prediction for Roubaix.
Amstel - fuck knows or cares - Jan Raas?
Flech Wallone - JRod
LBL- Dan 'not good enough for British Cycling' Martin
Giro - Kwiatkowski
Tour-Quintana
Vuelta - don't care
Lombardia - Gerrans - the cunt will win something
Worlds - Chinny

Cavendish to make a comeback and finally crack the Kittel riddle
Nibali to do fuck all, same for Froome, Cuntador and MalVerde

 

[The Boy]

I forgot my outsider for a Tour podium: Barguil. Fuck all ITT, a TTT and he'll be kept safe on the flat by Kittel's choo-choo train.

 

[DownwardDog]

Haha, always wanted to experience' one too (as a relative newbie).

I was buying the idyll that cycling is now clean, though have just read Tyler Hamilton's book and seem less convinced for some reason (even though the books stops a long time ago in the past). It just seems like an eternal cat and mouse game.

I think cycling as a whole is dopier than ever. There's clem and HGH being used in amateur races at a low level now. At the WorldTour level I think the game has moved on and it's no longer about oxygen vector doping in competition (Armstrong, Riis, etc.) but about doping in training to improve performance and recovery. I reckon there's at least three WT teams which are blatantly doping this way but the UCI doesn't want to lift the stone...

 

[Ted Striker]

Mr Porte-ato Head does the Oz TT champs - 40km tho with some reasonably decent oppo. Fair play to him

 

[The Boy]

Inrng with a good summary of the new UCI points system. Overall I'd say I approve.

Edit: link might be an idea.

http://inrng.com/2015/01/new-uci-points-classification-2015/

 

[The Boy]

So that new points system was put on the backburner until next year.

ASO have announced the wildcards for the Tour today:

MTN-Qhubeka
Bora-Argon 18
Cofidis
Europcar
Bretagne - Séché Environnement

I approve/.

edit: oh yeah, and Dowsett was down to have a tilt at the hour record next month but has apparently broken his collar bone. Shame for him, as he would have been a shoe-in to break the current record before Wiggins puts it on the shelf.

 

[ChrisFilter]

Great to see MTN-Qhubeka in there. And Europcar.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

CCC in the Giro. Bloody hell. Rebellin, Schumacher?

 

[The Boy]

CCC in the Giro. Bloody hell. Rebellin, Schumacher?

Not to mention that it seems southeast could rock up and carry out a few blood transfusions on stage at the team presentations and *still* get an invite next year.

 

[ChrisFilter]

20yr old Fernando Gaviria beats Cav in the sprint at the Tour de San Luis opener. Hopefully not a sign of things to come this season, but I suspect it might be.

 

[The Boy]

6 man teams tbf, and from race reports it was Etixx controlling the race all day. Plus first race of the season etc etc.

 

[ChrisFilter]

I know, but it's difficult to imagine it happening four years ago.

 

[Ted Striker]

Awesome finish line shot from Gaviria in any case

 

[ChrisFilter]

Yeah, not sure how his right arm ended up like that!

 

[The Boy]

I know, but it's difficult to imagine it happening four years ago.

I'm sad enough to have double checked on cqranking, and four years ago it was around twelve race days before cav picked up a win.

Also bear in mind that he missed much of last season with a pretty nasty injury/surgery. No panic. Yet.

 

[ChrisFilter]

Yeah, but did he have a pretty perfect lead-out in the 11 he missed then?

You're right, no panic, I'm just really hoping for a bit of magic this season.

 

[sleaterkinney]

Speaking of Cav: 1.30 in. (nsfw)

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Yeah, but did he have a pretty perfect lead-out in the 11 he missed then?

You're right, no panic, I'm just really hoping for a bit of magic this season.

This is a training ride for Cavendish. It's one of the biggest races of the season for the Colombian kid and his big chance to put himself in the shop window.

 

[ChrisFilter]

Happened again. Cav not a happy bunny.

 

[The Boy]

Happened again. Cav not a happy bunny.

Panic over for you, bud.

 

[ChrisFilter]

Panic

But, yeah, it was good to see.

 

[Ted Striker]

Doesn't sprinting bore you as a contest?

I love it for the nervous (for me!) excitement in the last 2-5k as the teams continually ramp up the speed without overcooking their guy and jostle for the lead out trains' position (and to see if anyone goes for a cheeky one a la Cancellara in the TdF opener last year)...But the last 500m is just a blur with *someone* raising their arms at the end. It's only after the 16th viewing at super slomo can you appreciate anything that happens in that period. There is a whopping beauty in a perfect leadout (the Wiggins/EBH/Cav finale if 2012 is up there with Gazza's 91 free kick over Seaman IMO), but because some chubby thighed warrior pumped quicker than the other chubby thighed warrior? Meh

Tbf I get that he's a triple hard bastard, but I missed the era of Cav's dominance and only see this sullen (occasional interview lol-source) guy who's always losing (or crashing) Surely it's a young mans game in which case if he's not beaten Kittel yet he probably never will? And if he's not beating Kittel, he'll only really be racing for second best relying on weakened fields for any wins? (Probably being a bit mean there )

 

[DownwardDog]

Tbf I get that he's a triple hard bastard, but I missed the era of Cav's dominance and only see this sullen (occasional interview lol-source) guy who's always losing (or crashing) Surely it's a young mans game in which case if he's not beaten Kittel yet he probably never will? And if he's not beating Kittel, he'll only really be racing for second best relying on weakened fields for any wins? (Probably being a bit mean there )

It's not just that he's older; at the height of his dominance he had the Greipel, Goss, Renshaw lead out at HTC. I don't think the OPQ train is of quite that calibre. He is a grade A cunt however.

 

[Sigmund Fraud]

He maybe had Greipel in his train a handful of times in his time at HTC - in the early days before Greipel griped about being in the B team.

Cav has a few years left - 3 or 4. Kittel 2014 wasn't as strong as 2013 but he seems to have the mental beating of the rest, Cav has to overcome that as much as anything.