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Cycling Thread: Bernal wins the TDF


kempus

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With the Tour De France recently finishing and the Vuelta to start in less than a month, it's a very busy time in the cycling world. This is also the transfer period, so expect anyone who had a very strong Tour to be subject of transfer rumours.

Edited by kempus
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I have to concede I'm somewhat of a part time cycling fan. 

I'm only interested in the big tours, mainly the TDF, and the worlds/olympics.

I'll try and spend the next few weeks following some cycling magazines online to get more involved. 

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17 minutes ago, texans_uk said:

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/40738725

Sounds like Froome is going for the double. 

I must admit I think it would be good for Sky to allow Landa, Kwiatkowski or Thomas at crack at a GT. 

I was just coming here to post this. Very big news. Nobody has done the Tour and Vuelta double since Hinault in 1978, with nobody doing it in its current calendar format. He would be only the third rider in history to achieve it.

Landa is leaving next season, by all accounts. I doubt they want to give him the opportunity. Thomas also had the opportunity to ride the Giro as the leader, I expect him to be there as Froomes Superdomestique. Kwiatkowski is probably wrecked from the effort he put in during the Tour.

Its likely to be a super strong field. With Froome, Aru, Bardet, Nibali and Dumoulin. Essentially the biggest names in cycling, minus one or two.

Edited by kempus
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6 minutes ago, kempus said:

I was just coming here to post this. Very big news. Nobody has done the Tour and Vuelta double since Hinault in 1978, with nobody doing it in its current calendar format. He would be only the third rider in history to achieve it.

Landa is leaving next season, by all accounts. I doubt they want to give him the opportunity. Thomas also had the opportunity to ride the Giro as the leader, I expect him to be there as Froomes Superdomestique. Kwiatkowski is probably wrecked from the effort he put in during the Tour.

Its likely to be a super strong field. With Froome, Aru, Bardet, Nibali and Dumoulin. Essentially the biggest names in cycling, minus one or two.

I notice you didn't mention Contador, do you think he's finished now?

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4 minutes ago, texans_uk said:

I notice you didn't mention Contador, do you think he's finished now?

Yeah, he's done. Has been for at least a season or two imo. He's a contender only in name, not in actual ability anymore.

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16 hours ago, kempus said:

I was just coming here to post this. Very big news. Nobody has done the Tour and Vuelta double since Hinault in 1978, with nobody doing it in its current calendar format. He would be only the third rider in history to achieve it.

Landa is leaving next season, by all accounts. I doubt they want to give him the opportunity. Thomas also had the opportunity to ride the Giro as the leader, I expect him to be there as Froomes Superdomestique. Kwiatkowski is probably wrecked from the effort he put in during the Tour.

Its likely to be a super strong field. With Froome, Aru, Bardet, Nibali and Dumoulin. Essentially the biggest names in cycling, minus one or two.

Wow. I thought Indurain had done it as I remember reading he had other grand tour wins and just assumed it would have been the Vuelta instead of the Giro.

Is there any reason to think Aru or Bardet have a chance? They aren't as good as Froome and don't have the benefit of not having raced the TDF like Nibali and Dumoulin.

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1 hour ago, mse326 said:

Wow. I thought Indurain had done it as I remember reading he had other grand tour wins and just assumed it would have been the Vuelta instead of the Giro.

Is there any reason to think Aru or Bardet have a chance? They aren't as good as Froome and don't have the benefit of not having raced the TDF like Nibali and Dumoulin.

Yeah, Indurain never won the Vuelta, his best finish was 2nd in 1991. It's strange he didn't put more effort into winning it given that he is Spanish.

I think both have a chance because of the more difficult Vuelta course. There are a lot of mountain and mountain top finishes. Those two could definitely get some time.

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Tour De Pologne is one of the better one week races in the calendar.

It's the tier below the Criterium Du Dauphine, Paris-Nice, Tour Down Under, Tirreno-Adriatico, Tour De Romandie and Tour de Suisse for UCI points and prestige.

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So glad you are here and started this. I have been a cycling fan for a long time but mainly only follow the 3 main GTs. I'll watch the tour of California and the Dauphine as they hit at the peak of the season and obviously the Olympics (RR, TT and Track) on Olympic years. I would like to watch more as the season is Late January to Late October I believe. 

Pologne should be an interesting race for all those non TDF riders it serves its purpose as a tune up for the Vuelta. 

I've been looking over the UCI rankings it seems to favour classics guys whom will do a lot of races and finish top 3 like a Sagan or Van Am. I see Froome got 1000 points for the tour win but only has about 1800 on the season. I really like the system overall though. I'll be excited to watch more and keep getting general updates from Kempus. 

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Yeah, I'm similar to you Kyle. I will pretty much always watch the GTs and catch the stage races where I can. They're usually pretty hard to find a live feed of, though.

Yeah, the UCI rankings reward riders who enter more races, unsurprisingly. Winning the TDF should be worth more than 1000 points, imo.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCI_World_Tour

Here's the list of how many points each event is worth 

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Yeah I concur with that the points distribution certainly needs to be tweaked again rewarding riders whom will compete in more events is something I agree with but the weighting of each event is a bit off. It looks like if Froome were to win in Spain it's possible he might still not finish first depending on how much more he'd want to do on the calendar afterwards. I mean a few of the one day events are worth as much as 500 points and the Giro and Vuelta only 850. 

It would be a shame to have a rider win 2 GTs and still not win it. It's an imperfect system but I like the general idea maybe if the Tour was worth 2000 and the Giro and Vuelta were 1850 for a win would make more sense but again that may be too high in the other direction to keep it reasonable for competition that either only do one GT or aren't GC contenders and are specialists. 

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1. Is there a reason that many GC contenders in the grand tours don't race the classics? It seems like it would be good for a relatively easy race condition tune up. Has to be better than just training sessions.

2. Other than the mass start vs staggered start is the only difference between a one-day race and a TT the length? Or do they also set up the course itself differently (like example less flat)

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Most of the Classics are brutaly hard, long and dangerous. Especially any which has a cobbled section. It's also more beneficial for the GC guys to replicate riding a GT with the stage races. The guys who win the classics usually have very punchy attacks on climbs.

However, some GC guys have had recent success. Valverde has been massively succesdful having won 4 Liege-Bastogne-Liege races, La Fleche Wallonne 5 times and Clasica de San Sebastian twice. Dan Martin and Nibali both won the Giro Di Lombardia. Uran won The Quebec classic in 2015. A lot of thr classics are early season too.

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