What a ride. 😯

Spoiler 😡

ASWESOME…maybe 😉

Impresive, very impressive.

I’ve been a detractor in the last couple of seasons, but this year, it’s Tom of old.

Most excellent.

Most excellent indeed. A real old time, go for it, crush them into the dirt victory.

Sky do need to have a wee word though; if you are getting your arse handed to you on a plate by using up your riders one by one, maybe think about a wee bit of through and off?

50K out, wowza, shame spartacus couldn’t be there

could have been epic with tommeke and sportacus in it together.

great ride by boonen though.

What’s the betting on Tommeke being found face down in a bag of coke, in only his socks with two halves of a Bugatti Veyron upside down by 11pm tonight?

cock cock cock – was just going to make a post about no spoilers!

did I say you are a cock???????????????????????

Boonen is a machine. Hope the old gladiator heals soon.

At least it isn’t performance enhancing!!!

for some reason though i just dont trust him.

Any highlight links about – i need to wait till 21:45 on eurosport and its killing me.

cock cock cock – was just going to make a post about no spoilers!

did I say you are a cock???????????????????????

What were you expecting when you opened the thread?

Whatever it contained was likely to be a spoiler of some sort surely? 🙄

Think the point is that the spoiler is pretty much in the thread title.

Doubt the thread was about TB finished second.

Anyway, fantastic ride!

Think the point is that the spoiler is pretty much in the thread title.

exactly!

same happened with Flanders 🙄

I tend to stay away from cycling media when i don’t know a result, logging in to a “bike” forum when trying to avoid the outcome of one of the biggest races of the year is a little niave

I know, but I had to get my STW fix 😆

as rocketdog. be interesting to see how much the forum activity dips during major races.

I don’t bother logging on here during TdF!! And other similar races you effectively have to go into media lock down, no face book, twitter, don’t listen to radio, don’t look at internet!!!

I wonder if the advertisers know ?

I went with my son to the pave at Ahrenberg yesterday. At that point Boonen wasn’t in the lead and I was surprised to hear he won. He must have legged it after Hasnon.

This guy was leading where we were:

010 by ianvincent, on Flickr

It looked brutal and I really felt for the guys at the back, they looked knackered.

Last rider, pretty much (face says it all!):

IMG_3197 by ianvincent, on Flickr

Was lucky enough to be on the Paterburg last week for Flanders. Consider myself very lucky to have witnessed the breakaway and one of the best Classic riders ever.
Will post up some pics later.

Agree about the spoiler though. OP must do better in future.

Apologize for my part in Spoiler in other threads, tiz annoying when that happens.

TBH I think instant ban for spoilers. I find it much more annoying than all of the flaming/ odd views / bullying stuff…

As noted above, coming to a cycling forum after a big classic race and expecting not a word is naive in the extreme. If you don’t want to know, the onus is on you to avoid any potential information, not on everyone else to help you out.

crikey – Member
As noted above, coming to a cycling forum after a big classic race and expecting not a word is naive in the extreme. If you don’t want to know, the onus is on you to avoid any potential information, not on everyone else to help you out.

I expect conversation on a forum but with a spoiler tag or some clue in the title so I don ‘t open the thread- it’s basic manners, the op messed up on this one with a big spoiler as the thread title

I don’t agree. You’re making it everyone else’s responsibility and not taking any yourself. You go on the net, you navigate to a cycling forum, you open it up, you read the thread titles.

Your problem, not everyone else’s.

I have to say that I agree with Crikey.

It does make life easier if posters put “Spoiler” in the thread title but if you really don’t want to find out the result then you should self impose a media blackout.

It’s the polite thing to put spoiler or a title that doesn’t give the game away, as its a public forum why should you have to impose a blackout, some arrogant comments coming out on this thread, forum etiquette innit!

…if you don’t want to know the scores, look away now 😆

So anyway who won?

It’s not arrogant.
Arrogance would be expecting everyone else to help you even though you’ve come to a cycling forum where people talk about cycling, but you don’t want to hear about one particular story.

It’s your problem, and you’re not dealing with it then complaining when the rest of the world doesn’t help.

I am with crikey on this one, I used to be other way but in this day and age with cycling becoming far more mainstream then you need to stay away. The day of P-R and you see a thread titled “Tom Boonen” what did you honestly expect?

We did P-R last year watched the start, then at Arenburg, then to Carrefour de l’abre, racing it in car was part of the fun. Awesome weekend as it was about 28 degrees and the start Compeigne had a huge festival all weekend including am amateur crit the night before, brilliant to watch from cafe! Wierd thing was though not knowing who had won!

Tour of Flanders this year great but very different, no indication on the Sat in Bruges that a huge bike race was taking place the following day, wake up Sunday and boom a big bike race. We were on the Oude Kwaremont, so saw men’s race 3 times, and women’s race which was fantastic to support them as well. It was great though.

Not sure which classic to go and watch next year!!!

M-C “No indication on Sat in Bruges that a huge bike race was taking place the following day”. Apart from the huge stage set up in the square!

I think putting Tom Boonen in a thread title on the day of PR is a little off, nowt wrong with “PR Spoiler”. we have managed for sometime on this basis.
Its not much to ask.

As for Tom’s ride, i really hope its something special because it looked fantastic. But the guy has got form, ok partying, but he was dumb enough to do it/get caught twice.

Like i say i really hope its was something fantastic.

What a ride, to go off the front with 55k to go takes guts, and he nailed it. absolute legend,

Not sure which classic to go and watch next year!!!

stay a week, ride TOF- watch TOF – ride – sightsee – watch Schelderpijs -ride – rest day – ridePR – watch PR.

Okay maybe I didn’t quite elaborate enough, the stage was for that cracking band Das Pop ….. my point was Compeigne had a huge festival, cycling museums, kids events, evening crit, all the teams were there and easily accessible to speak to etc. Cancellara, Hushovd walking around to get great pics and autographs, Bruges not a pro cyclist or uci official in site, a lot more distant.
Just because thread title is Tom Boonen doesn’t mean he won .but nevertheless what were people thinking opening it on p-r day!!???

Bruge was a tourist-friendly beautiful historic capital that just happened to host the start of a bike race. Spoke to the owner of a restaurant on the square whilst we ate and he was surprised we were there to see the race, and totally disinterested in it. Compeigne was dedicated to the P-R and the festival atmosphere added to the experience of the race.

Mr Smith, we (I’m “Mr Munqe Chick”) have been lucky enough to catch a few TdeF stages during our annual trips to Morzine. Highlight was spending a day MTBing, riding the deserted supermorzine (avoriaz-morzine) road descent back to morzine as fast as we dared “racing” the tour as it rode into Morzine, getting into town, right to the finish line, MC being allowed to stand on a press motorbike to watch it 8) and seeing Floyd Landis power to a solo and now infamous win.

Quite fancy riding a stage though.

Im in the middle ground with spoilers, it would be simple and considerate to entitle the thread “Paris Roubaix” or similar – any spoilers are contained within the thread rather than in the title and its not arrogant to ask/expect courtesy from others. Moto forums manage this with race discussion threads (just watched MotoGP on Iplayer without having it spoiled) and I’m sure the site owners and advertisers would rather not lose 3/4 of their traffic during events that should be stimulating interest and business. However as MC says cycling is now so high profile spoilers will pop up in mainstream media, so we go media-free during the tour.