When is all the cycling being shown?

I think the xc will be a great race, I reckon the podium will be Kulhavy, Absalon, Nino although maybe not in that order. I’ve absolutely no idea how Sagan will perform, there’s absolutely no question of whether he’s strong or not but whether he can handle the explosive/bursty nature of xc racing is another question entirely.

Almost certainly. Can’t see Sagan troubling the top XC riders. The women’s race will be good too, Neff not been as dominant recently. Could be Langvad, Rissveds, Spitz, Pendrel, Gunn-Rita, Nash, PFP… a few of those have had a hard season in the World Cup, and a few have had a quiet season planning to peak for the Olympics, it will be a good race.

The mens road race is an interesting one. A one day race on a course that no-one really knows (as in it’s not been raced much before so there isn’t a familiar pattern to the racing). Some think it’s good for the one day racers, some for the GC riders, it’s going to be fascinating to see how it develops. It’ll be a hard race to control too with small teams often lacking in cohesion. I really have no idea but have a feeling about Nibali if they can drop many of the faster finishers.

Yes. Lots of options for the GB team though depending on how it pans out.

That’s what screwed it for them last time. Everyone knew that they had one plan, it was called Cav. So as soon as the break went, no-one else would work since it would come to a bunch sprint and Cav would win.

At least this time, no-one actually knows what their plan is, they’ve got a number of possible options and can hopefully go into it with a bit of free rein to improvise. The only problem I can see is that Sky don’t do improvisation, they’re generally quite bad at reading a race and reacting to it – that’s why it took them all this time to win a Classic.

That and the fact that they’ll be heavily marked.

Yeah, they’ve learnt a lot – certainly in the early days they went in with a Plan A and never deviated from that, no matter what the race itself was doing. They didn’t have a Plan B or C…

That was their downfall at the Olympics in 2012 as well.
Although to be fair, that was their one tactic at the Worlds and Cav won that one as planned so it can work occasionally.

This time, at least they’ve got Yates and Cummings in there as non-Sky riders.

Froome is a diversion, Cummings up the road with the team working for Thomas would be my tactics

Stannard won’t make it up the hills so won’t be seen as a serious threat in a break, but could do a lot of work for Cummings in a break. Doubt they’d both be allowed to get away.

G is who is work for, he can climb, he’s a clever rider and he’s got 1 day experience. Saying that, you’d not bet against Cummings either. Froome? No, not sure I can see him.

Should be interesting, as long as it doesn’t clash too much with the DH qualifying.

When is the XC on telly?

Hoping to see Dan Martin or one of the Colombians take the road race, would settle for Rodriguez or Valverde though!

What a quaint idea 😉

That aside, looking forward to it and fingers crossed for Cav. Just have to fit a quick ride in for myself first but glued to cricket!!!

Road races and xc both quite tantalising.

Agree Sagan is an outside bet, but we can hope.

Road race is so hard to predict, 3x 500m climbs then 24km downhill and flat to finish.

Nibali is a good call, maybe Jarlinson Pantano, Valverde.

But I can imagine froome wanting to have a go by attacking on the final climb, and if he gets a decent gap…

is there a live stream for this?

20th and 21st August.

GB at the front already apparently 😕

Looks like a fairly strong breakaway forming! I can feel echoes of 2012! I thought Steve Cummings was there to get into breaks!