Pro Road Racing thread 2021 (spoilers)

I’m a few days late here, but watching Mike Woods hammer up that climb to take the stage win was beautiful. Got me excited to try some road races again (if there are any this year) instead sticking only to my “boring” 6 hr TTs.
Really enjoying my GCN+ sub so far and being able to watch more races instead of just seeing Twitter highlights all year until the TdF comes on NBC. The life of an American cycling fan…

MvdP is flying home at this very moment. There was no close contact with the positive staff member.

When he tests negative on Friday, he is allowed to join the “Omloop Het Nieuwsblad” on Saturday.

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That’s really good news!

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MVDP will now just gatecrash all stage races, take a win on a stage, and dissappear to the next. I love the guy.

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What a sneaky finishing move by Pogacar :clap:t2:

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I’m not sure about sneaky, I think he could have done it whenever he wanted. He just free rode on Yates wheel and dropped the hammer on him when it was time. I believe he went up that last section faster than I could go down it.

Was excited to Sepp in the mix for a moment.

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Neilson Powless had a pretty good showing as well.

I thought Kuss was supposed to be the leader for JV for this race, but the commentators speculated that he dropped back to help Harper. Wondering if he just didn’t have the firepower to stay up today or if he truly dropped back intentionally. He looked like he was hurting a bit but not too bad.

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Guessing after he lost 8min in the crosswinds on Stage 1, that all shook up. Agreed about Powless.

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I’ve ridden that climb, the top is a sort of double peak. After the first peak you get a short but really fast little descent (just checked Strava and it has me hitting >30mph at 0W) before the road ramps up again and then you only have ~30 seconds or so to the actual finish. So perfectly suited to a flying finish as you get a little recovery and then are carrying a lot of speed in. I’d done the rest of the climb at ~threshold on a hot day so was far from fresh and still managed 600W and 22mph average on that last ramp, so I can only imagine the speed Pog would have finished at!

Interestingly he won on this stage last year (Yates was 3rd) so would know the finish well. https://youtu.be/Qguu7FgoWBM

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was a perfect sprinters gap, very well executed

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Are they still holding out hope for Froome in the tour this year?

I think with his new team he will at least get a ride at the Tour! Hard to see him being a contender given his current form and how slowly he seems to be recuperating. Not surprising given the severity of his injuries - pretty impressive that he has made it back even this far, at his age and with his palmares many riders would have called it a day after that crash.

Guess you can never totally rule him out, if he’s actually fully healthy now then a lot of fitness could come back in the next 4 months.

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I bet MvdP gets unparalleled control over his racing calendar when he is with a smaller team. Also, with social media, there isn’t much preventing him from making just as much money overall during the course of his career with a smaller team vs a larger team. In fact, with control over his calendar, it would make sense to me that he would be able to increase his footprint and current/future business success. The control he has over his schedule has led to multi-disciplinary success, which cozies him up to Canyon even more. He has also started his own supplement line, which probably makes his cycling prize winnings look like chump change.

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Short answer: No . Not even Chris Froome thinks Chris Froome can win this years tour:

Dudes still out for his 5th win, but he’s like: If you can win the Superbowl at 43, I can win the tour at 38/39/40 whatever

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He gave it a go, got zero gap on Pog and Yates and immediately sat up.

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Exciting win for Jonas V. and TJV this morning. I remember him putting in some big pulls last year in the Vuelta. Got everyone by surprise today.

Gotta laugh at the GCN commentators who were saying it was Chris Harper all the way to the line. :rofl::rofl::rofl:

Lol. To be fair the picture they were getting said Harper too I think!

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Wow, another great stage. The winner is just exceptional right now, so great to see.

From the sprint today:

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