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Loves a good bike throw does Michał
https://twitter.com/VelonCC/status/1513458495584096258?s=20&t=tf6ThyVNck8NUtkPqDKOHQ
Looks like WvA is fit for sunday, lets hope his legs are good.
Bike is prepped... For the rollers. Tomorrow I shall wheel out the Paris Roubaix winner...
The irony is, Degenkolb won in 2015 and this bike was discontinued in 2014 so you couldn't buy it. All that effort by Giant to make a classic winning bike and they'd stopped selling them for the love of discs! Note the Elite gel water bottle cages. Pros know what works and you'll see the usual carbon stuff replaced by these on Sunday.
Anyway, mine is the same size, has manual shifting DA and cheaper wheels (7.25kg all up). It seems to be a bit slower - but mine's clean ;-). Have raced it (slower than my Propel), done 100's on it and just cruised around on club rides. It's even been to Belgium. I don’t think I’ll ever sell it!
Classy looking bike that @TiRed. Decking could do with a bit of a clean though...
😉
Women's Paris-Roubaix tomorrow. I'm riding in the morning but should get back in time for the majority of the race. Looking forward to it. Lizzie Deignan isn't riding so no repeat of her epic solo breakaway win from last year - and it also won't be muddy. I'd really like Vos to win but Elisa Balsamo (and in fact most of the Trek-Segafredo team) will be hard to beat.
Balsamo just dq'ed with a very sticky bottle, all to play for now. About 20s lead for a soloist with 25km to go (not naming in case of spoiler avoidance, but I'd argue if you don't want spoilers don't open a thread on the spring classics)
Balsamo just dq’ed with a very sticky bottle
would've gotten away with it, if it wasn't for those pesky riders she overtook while hanging on ! 😂
just had to make a phone call, and she's put 20s back into them in the last 5 or 6km. Did the chase group give up?
yeah, suddenly sat up
would’ve gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for those pesky riders she overtook while hanging on !
It was a bit too sticky really in the end. The car should have known better
just had to make a phone call, and she’s put 20s back into them in the last 5 or 6km. Did the chase group give up?
It contained 2 teammates of the leader and 2 individuals so it was just the teammate duo marking everything.
There seemed to be a lot of punctures, I'd have thought tubeless should have done away with most of those. Pressures too low causing the tyre to burp?
Delighted for Elisa. A brilliant attack and great team work to disrupt the chase. Oh and my cheeky side bet came in 3rd.
There seemed to be a lot of punctures, I’d have thought tubeless should have done away with most of those. Pressures too low causing the tyre to burp?
I almost gave up on tubeless for gravel riding for this reason, if you ran pressures any lower than you would with tubes you just pinched the tyre instead! Had just as many punctures tubeless as with tubes! Am now nervously eyeing a set of Rimpact CX inserts that are apparently hell to fit but should allow lower pressures without risking damage to tyre
I understand tubular carry less risk of pinch flats as rim doesn't have the same sharp sidewall?
Tomorrow is the single biggest tech day of the road racing year... Dynamic air pressures is coming, but not this year, apparently. Like Deg's calliper-braked Defy, a non-tubeless will win tomorrow. Would be funny if it was tubs, but clinchers and latex tubes are very nice. I was reminded just how nice this afternoon. Excited.
Liking at TiRed’s defy and hoping someone wins on a Domane today to sway my purchasing strategy away from a 2020 TCR build 😀 I reckon a Domane is perfect for a 50yo with a bad neck on club runs…
Right, off for a ride now and back in time to put my feet up in front of the Telly. No Belgian beer for me though, I’ve our own club classic around Essex to sweep tomorrow.
As someone with a Domane who loves it…..it’s a heavy bike and quite dull. Absolutely Uber comfortable though especially with nice supple 32mm tubeless tyres….but I’d much rather have a TCR.
cagey with half arsed break attempts so far
playing chicken with the road furniture just now 😮
Yep, quite a cagey and disorganised start. Mix of riders who seem to want a break vs some who are quite happy to sit at the back and wait another 50km. Looks quite steady at the back. Hides the fact it's still 50km/hr!
As the owner of a few Domanes, I'm not a fan of the current one, I liked the previous versions, and the 'new' one as ridden by Elisa & her team looks a lot better.
It looks like the men's team are using it as well. It seems as if EF are no longer using the Synapse, which is a shame, as it's also a great rough road bike.
As this is a MTB website, I hope one of the MTB riders wins.
Ooohh and it starts getting interesting from here!
Suddenly all gone mental, that's a big split now with a lot of big names caught at the back.
Turned on just in time to see the split
Mmmmmm.... Looking interesting.
Liking at TiRed’s defy and hoping someone wins on a Domane today to sway my purchasing strategy away from a 2020 TCR build
Well they've won the first two women's races.
I reckon a Domane is perfect for a 50yo with a bad neck on club runs…
As a slow old man I reckon it would be a toss up between a Domane and a Roubaix. Maybe.
interesting from Wiggins, no team cars yet so any punctures or mechanicals and you're back in the bunch. I thought the time needed was a minute, do they need to shove on and get a bit more so the cars can get in?
Seeing the state of the potholed roads around Manchester and Cheshire on my ride yesterday I think everyone’s gonna need a Roubaix as standard soon
Well they’ve won the first two women’s races.
Most of Trek-Segafredo seem to be stuck in that second group on the road!
group 2 not looking particularly anxious. I would guess that the cobbles will string things out and give it more chance of coming back together in some way. Great fun to watch though
Just back from my morning ride - wtf a 1 minute gap!
(Re the Domane - its a shame to hear that. I have a lot of neck muscular issues in the road position, so need a taller more comfy bike plus I'm a nervous descender and the shape/isospeed/tyre would seem to give me a great Essex/Herts bike. Having said that, I've just enjoyed a ride on my TCR like Eastway - pics in the weekend pics thread - whereas although it feels skittish over small gravel maybe I can cope with that and my massage gun... Maybe I should see if a 28mm tyre would fit.)
Just back from my morning ride – wtf a 1 minute gap!
It was all really cagey and scrappy - little breaks, 20" gaps, all brought back but a lot of the favourites were just keeping out of trouble right at the back, saving energy. Suddenly the crosswind picked up and the split just kind of happened, it wasn't really forced. No-one really started drilling it with the aim of splitting it, the gap just...opened. Nothing, nothing, 5", holy shit, what just happened?!
Ineos have played a blinder. Good to see Gilbert in the front group too.
First cobbled sector in <10km
Second group are not having a good day out, significant crash within that in the rush to get to the front for the cobbles.
That's one hell of a dust cloud being kicked up!
1:20 gap isn’t really enough, a crash on a sector or a big push on a longer sector like Saint Python will see it come down. TV coverage doesn’t convey the brutality of riding the stones at high speed.
have to be back in touch really soon now as first bunch has to be 20s or so long
mayhem
my nerves are tattered already, big crash in the front group
I can't imagine how much effort or indeed how you get back if dropped due to a puncture or mechanical etc. Most of us struggle to hit 50km on a downhill let alone sustain it on a flat to close a gap!
shredded quite literally ! 🙁
Rider with flaps of skin hanging off…. 🤢
I think Terpstra is about to be caught.
Still a significant gap back to some of the big names though.
Edit: in fact, given how big the gap is, I'm wondering how long until the second group just calls it a day, especially given that it's only about 1/4 of them actually working.
new dura-ace front mechs are trash
soo many punctures
get off the road man!!
Bloody good job Ganna has been doing all that TT and track pursuit practice, he's needing it with his run of bad luck so far.
would tubeless not prevent the punctures or is there still a risk?
would tubeless not prevent the punctures or is there still a risk?
no idea, last one was wet, one before was 2019 so were tubulars still de rigueur for the last?
just seems to be a lot lot more
top 3 in 2019 were tubulars
https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/paris-roubaix-tech-podium-bikes-from-the-hell-of-the-north/
maybe the wet conditions last year helped masked the poorness of tubeless just for this race