Cycling Thread

[Carlos]

Been watching the highlights and he is on a different plane!

I think G's plan to win is to consolidate 2nd and hope Pog crashes, gets injured or simply over does it which he has done in occasion lol

[Jobbo]

I think G's plan to win is to consolidate 2nd and hope Pog crashes, gets injured or simply over does it which he has done in occasion lol

I suspect that's the only strategy he has available at this point, but it's a risky one. If you're in 2nd on the Tour you'll keep finding yourself challenged by people who are challenging the lead, so he's going to have to be very disciplined and try to work out who's going for Pog and who's just going for him. Good luck to him though.

[8Ball]

I don't think anyone will be seriously going for Pog at the Giro, barring mishaps it's his to lose, the others are racing for 2nd place.

[Gavster]

There's some more tough stages coming too. I love how they made Stage 20 a hellish double climb up the same mount

[Carlos]

Obviously a shortened stage but Pog smashed everyone and didn't break a sweat!

[Gavster]

There's some more tough stages coming too. I love how they made Stage 20 a hellish double climb up the same mount

Pog has just described this as "a really nice stage close to Slovenia" now expecting him to keep his head down for a couple of days before making moves on Saturday.

[Gavster]

So the question is whether Pog has taken some gear or whether he’s just utterly doped to the eyeballs

Mind blowing performance by him today, the man is in a different league.

[Gavster]

I've been looking at the Tour de France route this year (starting Sat) and it's really mixing things up. There's a fairly brutal climb up the Galbier very early on day 4 to get an early look at how everyone's performing in GC. There are then a few big mountain stages in the last five days, capped with a hilly individual time trial finishing in Nice, instead of Paris on the last day.

All eyes are on Vingegaard to see if he's recovered from, and got form after his crash I can't imagine that he'll be strong enough to win again this year, but you never know. Given how proflific Pogacar was in early-season races and the Giro, he's the clear favourite.

[Jobbo]

Looking forward to it even if Pogacar does dominate; it will be interesting to see the race for second place behind him and the route looks potentially great. Really interesting to see a different finish; I'd love to see another final day like 1989 though that result is not something you can engineer.

[8Ball]

Galibier stage will be great if we get another Tom Pidcock descending master class.

[Gavster]

@Jobbo Assuming that Pogacar takes an early lead, it all comes down to whether anyone can hold onto a small enough gap in the GC to make that final TT count. It would be amazing if there was only a minute or two between the GC podiums places on that last day.

@8Ball When Pidcock goes into full-on Moto-GP cornering mode it's a sight to behold

Also forgot that Cav is riding again, on the hunt for that elusive 35th stage win to take the world record.

[Ascender]

Really looking forward to this and didn't realise Cav was back.

[DaveE]

Watching the first stage at the moment

Cav is in a world of pain on a relatively minor climb and at a pretty leisurely pace from the peloton

[Carlos]

Plenty of time spare lol

[Gavster]

It was inevitable he'd be chucked out the back of the peleton on a stage like today's which had 3,600m of climbing, although he really was struggling for sure. On the big mountains stages he'd often roll in just a couple of minutes within the time cut-off. Also bear in mind it was about 36ºC in Florence today with a heat index over 40ºC today so damn hot weather to be climbing hills. On the bright side, apparently Cav dropped Fabio Jakobsen who is a sprinter about 10 years his junior, so he wasn't the only one suffering.

It's a long race, there's lots of time for things to change, hopefully this is a blip

[Sundayjumper]

This is totally normal for Cav though ? He’s no climber and not a GC contender either. As long as he’s in within the cut-off that’s all fine. In fact, why even bust a gut to do anything else on this kind of stage ? Save your energy.

[Jobbo]

It’s normal for Cav, just unfortunate that it was on the first stage. I was a bit worried he’d miss the time cut.

[Gavster]

History made today with Girmay as the first ever black stage winner of the tour. Cav nowhere to be seen and savage day up the Col du Galibier tomorrow.

[IanF]

https://news.sky.com/story/mark-cavendi ... s-13163000

[mik]

Quite a record!

Also