Jaysus cycling! (4 Viewers)

one British cyclist's book I'm looking forward to is the autobiography Philippa York
is working on.
She's a super writer, had a stellar career with plenty of up and downs, she's said
some years ago was going submit a file on doping in her own career to the UCI
and Philippa will have the chance to tell her story of her own personal journey.
should be amazing.
when she wasn't appearing in public I thought we wouldn't see her again but thankfully
things have changed for trans folks.

the only British autobiography's I've read are David Millar's first book, Charly Wegelius
and one good one by Nicole Cooke.
Nicole was a bit of a good two shoes at times but dead sound and didn't get the rewards
she warranted due to other riders doping, injuries, sexism that devalued women's
cycling and meant even huge stars like her got paid a pittance.

i'm not aware of there having being an English language bio on Eddy Merckx before
Fotheringham's one - which always bizarre. haven't read that one tho'.

5-10 years ago Kimmage was more positive for the future of pro cycling than I was
but he seems to have totally lost faith now.
he wrote a piece on Jacobsen's awful crash in Poland (I was watching live and turned off
when they kept showing replays) but is rarely bothered now sadly.

I was closely following doping / anti doping in the 2000's and was a minor expert but
I haven't got a clue who is honest now. back then it was like:
''he's French-he's probably honest ! they have strict anti doping ! they always go on
about two speed cycling (their pace and the dopers speed).''

yeah, the Colombian lads at Arkea are in trouble reminds of when Bernaudeau signed
Beloki years ago. that didn't last long or end well.
wonder what's going on there ? Tour hasn't been raided for a very long time.

the no needle policy means that somethings that were legal and very standard for
decades e.g. vitamin injections are banned now as I understand it.
in the 2000's David Moncoutie was famous for not taking any injections.

yeah - likes millions of others i saw the pictures of Davide Bramati the Quickstep DS
taking 'something' out of Remco's jersey when he crashed.
are we surprised ? no.

i'm delighted to see Sam going well but i understand what it takes to get there
and it usually involves some horrible shit.

Rettucs -
I've been talking to you here for the last 15 years about bike racing.
to begin with I seemed have a better idea of doping than most folks on thumped.
you seem to not be able to reconcile enjoying bike racing with all the bullshit
that happens. with me while I know i'd be better off doing something else with
my time and ditching this completely, i've only downscaled my interest a lot.
I've just accepted things as they are because i've known all this for over 20
years anyway and haven't walked away in that time - things aren't going to
get any better.

some things are getting worse. looks at the sponsors - especially the countries
from the Middle East buying cred through sport.

I used to spend ages looking at the results - really spend ages looking at the
results of EVERY pro race on cyclingnews.com , kept notebooks on doping news,
was hooked to races from start of broadcast until end.
and until mid 2000's unconditionally bought Pro Cycling and Cycle Sport
every month etc etc.

but inevitably it became a straight jacket on my time and now I look races on
TV but skip a lot of mundane stuff, smaller races, fast forward to end of sprint
stages etc. i rarely buy magazines, I look at cyclingnews only about once a
week or less.

I had huge difficulty getting anyone interested taking my old cycling magazines.
earlier this year I put most of them into recycling.
i looked through every one of hundreds to decide what to keep and considering
the era a lot of the writing and race reports were irrelevant now anyway.
the ones i kept mostly had articles about about cycling history, or interviews with
old guys or Irish lads or riders that were rarely if ever interviewed in English media.
some articles on doping issues were still of interest.

i still love looking at old cycling footage - I've seen Sunday In Hell and Jorgen Leth's
other cycling docs about the 1973 and 74 Giros which are great and beautifully shot.
seeing footage of riders i had only saw pictures of for first time like Eddy's
Molteni team mate Jos Deschoenmaecker was a treat.

i find the history of the days before I can remember more interesting and
maybe always have.
 
one British cyclist's book I'm looking forward to is the autobiography Philippa York
is working on.
She's a super writer, had a stellar career with plenty of up and downs, she's said
some years ago was going submit a file on doping in her own career to the UCI
and Philippa will have the chance to tell her story of her own personal journey.
should be amazing.
when she wasn't appearing in public I thought we wouldn't see her again but thankfully
things have changed for trans folks.

the only British autobiography's I've read are David Millar's first book, Charly Wegelius
and one good one by Nicole Cooke.
Nicole was a bit of a good two shoes at times but dead sound and didn't get the rewards
she warranted due to other riders doping, injuries, sexism that devalued women's
cycling and meant even huge stars like her got paid a pittance.

i'm not aware of there having being an English language bio on Eddy Merckx before
Fotheringham's one - which always bizarre. haven't read that one tho'.

5-10 years ago Kimmage was more positive for the future of pro cycling than I was
but he seems to have totally lost faith now.
he wrote a piece on Jacobsen's awful crash in Poland (I was watching live and turned off
when they kept showing replays) but is rarely bothered now sadly.

I was closely following doping / anti doping in the 2000's and was a minor expert but
I haven't got a clue who is honest now. back then it was like:
''he's French-he's probably honest ! they have strict anti doping ! they always go on
about two speed cycling (their pace and the dopers speed).''

yeah, the Colombian lads at Arkea are in trouble reminds of when Bernaudeau signed
Beloki years ago. that didn't last long or end well.
wonder what's going on there ? Tour hasn't been raided for a very long time.

the no needle policy means that somethings that were legal and very standard for
decades e.g. vitamin injections are banned now as I understand it.
in the 2000's David Moncoutie was famous for not taking any injections.

yeah - likes millions of others i saw the pictures of Davide Bramati the Quickstep DS
taking 'something' out of Remco's jersey when he crashed.
are we surprised ? no.

i'm delighted to see Sam going well but i understand what it takes to get there
and it usually involves some horrible shit.

Rettucs -
I've been talking to you here for the last 15 years about bike racing.
to begin with I seemed have a better idea of doping than most folks on thumped.
you seem to not be able to reconcile enjoying bike racing with all the bullshit
that happens. with me while I know i'd be better off doing something else with
my time and ditching this completely, i've only downscaled my interest a lot.
I've just accepted things as they are because i've known all this for over 20
years anyway and haven't walked away in that time - things aren't going to
get any better.

some things are getting worse. looks at the sponsors - especially the countries
from the Middle East buying cred through sport.

I used to spend ages looking at the results - really spend ages looking at the
results of EVERY pro race on cyclingnews.com , kept notebooks on doping news,
was hooked to races from start of broadcast until end.
and until mid 2000's unconditionally bought Pro Cycling and Cycle Sport
every month etc etc.

but inevitably it became a straight jacket on my time and now I look races on
TV but skip a lot of mundane stuff, smaller races, fast forward to end of sprint
stages etc. i rarely buy magazines, I look at cyclingnews only about once a
week or less.

I had huge difficulty getting anyone interested taking my old cycling magazines.
earlier this year I put most of them into recycling.
i looked through every one of hundreds to decide what to keep and considering
the era a lot of the writing and race reports were irrelevant now anyway.
the ones i kept mostly had articles about about cycling history, or interviews with
old guys or Irish lads or riders that were rarely if ever interviewed in English media.
some articles on doping issues were still of interest.

i still love looking at old cycling footage - I've seen Sunday In Hell and Jorgen Leth's
other cycling docs about the 1973 and 74 Giros which are great and beautifully shot.
seeing footage of riders i had only saw pictures of for first time like Eddy's
Molteni team mate Jos Deschoenmaecker was a treat.

i find the history of the days before I can remember more interesting and
maybe always have.
good stuff. Actually I've read both the Wegeluis and Cooke books. I'd forgotten he was British (though originally from Finland). That was a great read. And Cooke's was exceptional. She really laid it all out there about how rotten British Cycling is/was, and the timing was pretty spot on too after Jess Varnish pretty much saying the exact same thing. That fucking Sutton wanker being at the centre of all their complaints.

I just got fed up of it. I got properly into cycling due to the '98 tour coming here, and by the time I really knew what was what, Lance was getting busted. Despite that, I'd consider the Lance/Ullrich rivalry to be the absolute peak of the sport for me. I loved it. Back then I could turn a blind eye - the shit that was coming out about what went on behind the scenes, was only coming out at a trickle. There was no social media per se, and there was no platform to just speak out plainly and bluntly. What came out about Lance really coloured how I viewed Sky. There was no way I could ever trust a single thing they ever did, and 2 things in particular put paid to my interest. The first was Froome riding away from Contador on Ventoux after engaging his motor. The second was Geraint Thomas winning the Tour. Someone who had no business being in the top 50 of a grand tour imo.

I suppose I could add in Froome's piss take in the Giro a few years back when he might as well have just come out on the motorbike.

Funnily enough, I was on Pena Carbaga for stage 17 of the Vuelta in 2011. The day that Froome announced his appearance to the world at the tender age of 28. Yeah, I thought it was a joke when I saw him whizzing by me on the 17% section I was standing on (I remember Johann Van Summeren passing by about 30 mins later pedalling squares - he was literaly zig-zagging back and forth across the road to just get up the clumb), but it wasn't enough for me to lose interest.

This year I completely ignored the GC contest. We know the story about Roglic when they were testing for motors. I think we're all pretty sure Pogacar is a sham too (was listening to Jeroen Swart shiteing on about him on the cycling podcast this morning - still as full of shit as when he was with Sky). So fuck it. Give me a good breakaway, the sprinters, or a good 1-day-er. I'm still well up for those.
 
the most interesting race i've seen in the last few years (partly because i'd never really watched on before) was the devil take the hindmost in ceannt park a few years back. i vaguely knew some people organising it and wandered down with the camera.
 
yeah - I read that book.
i really enjoyed the vast majority of it but bearing in mind she was a recluse for
years before and after that I felt very uncomfortable reading the latter part of
In Search of Robert Millar.
Philippa's privacy wasn't being respected.
there was even a picture of her taken by a photographer that staked her house.

a Sunday Mail photographer had taken a photograph of her on her doorstep
when she was transitioning and this was reprinted in the ISoRM.
really bad idea.

Philippa said a few years ago that her daughter had opened the front door
and Sunday Mail photographer was there.
the poor girl blamed herself for years after the photos were printed in the
'newspaper'.

it was a great read up until the early 2000's but i felt Richard Moore laboured
the end of the book because she just wanted to be left alone.
he never doorsteps her or anything like that but spoke to a lot of old friends
and speculated about her.
i would have not bothered writing that part of the book.

my favourite part is were Robert chucks in an engineering apprenticeship to
train in 1978. if Robert doesn't do something major at the British Champs
he'll have burned his boats for nothing.
with a few km left on the Isle of Man it just 2 riders left in contention.
19 year old Robert pulls away from an English pro on the final climb to
become national champion having been almost unknown outside Scotland
at the start of the year. Awesome!
 
good stuff. Actually I've read both the Wegeluis and Cooke books. I'd forgotten he was British (though originally from Finland). That was a great read. And Cooke's was exceptional. She really laid it all out there about how rotten British Cycling is/was, and the timing was pretty spot on too after Jess Varnish pretty much saying the exact same thing. That fucking Sutton wanker being at the centre of all their complaints.

I just got fed up of it. I got properly into cycling due to the '98 tour coming here, and by the time I really knew what was what, Lance was getting busted. Despite that, I'd consider the Lance/Ullrich rivalry to be the absolute peak of the sport for me. I loved it. Back then I could turn a blind eye - the shit that was coming out about what went on behind the scenes, was only coming out at a trickle. There was no social media per se, and there was no platform to just speak out plainly and bluntly. What came out about Lance really coloured how I viewed Sky. There was no way I could ever trust a single thing they ever did, and 2 things in particular put paid to my interest. The first was Froome riding away from Contador on Ventoux after engaging his motor. The second was Geraint Thomas winning the Tour. Someone who had no business being in the top 50 of a grand tour imo.

I suppose I could add in Froome's piss take in the Giro a few years back when he might as well have just come out on the motorbike.

Funnily enough, I was on Pena Carbaga for stage 17 of the Vuelta in 2011. The day that Froome announced his appearance to the world at the tender age of 28. Yeah, I thought it was a joke when I saw him whizzing by me on the 17% section I was standing on (I remember Johann Van Summeren passing by about 30 mins later pedalling squares - he was literaly zig-zagging back and forth across the road to just get up the clumb), but it wasn't enough for me to lose interest.

This year I completely ignored the GC contest. We know the story about Roglic when they were testing for motors. I think we're all pretty sure Pogacar is a sham too (was listening to Jeroen Swart shiteing on about him on the cycling podcast this morning - still as full of shit as when he was with Sky). So fuck it. Give me a good breakaway, the sprinters, or a good 1-day-er. I'm still well up for those.

good on you Rettucs !

in the days when i could trust the French lads i used to love Moncoutie, Jerome Pineau,
Chavanel etc. Marco Pinotti was another guy you could trust.

I have no idea who is honest now so sadly i take more interest in the GC than i would
have when those guys were around.
if you don't follow things hyper closely you can't pick out those sort of riders.

even Phil Gilbert said all the right stuff to begin with. I think he just got sick of being
done over by lads he knew he beat all the time.

another cult rider i liked was Johann Tschopp - anyone remember him ?
he was a little Suisse climber who loved mountain breakaways.
he grew up in the mountains and was the first pro i remember to criticize throwing
bottles away particularly in the mountains.

his big day was the penultimate stage of the 2010 Giro which went over the Gavia.
he netted about 30,000 for his Bouygues team by beating Gibi Simoni to win the
Cima Coppi - amazingly he was slagged off by many fans for not letting Simoni
win the Cima Coppi -(WTF 30,000 !)
Tschopp went on to win the brutal stage for his first career win.
After he was asked about Simoni and rightly pointed out nobody had ever given
him anything (Gibi had announced he was retiring after the Giro).
he did a couple more good Giros after (14th and 16th i think) where he was
prominent in the mountains but his career faded out after some injuries.
he now has a bike shop in Lausanne.

Shane Sutton got his start as a coach in Wales and was the national coach for years.
he's possibly the most psychopathic sportsperson i can think of - he makes Lance
look decent.
Bully, misogynist ? those words don't even come close.

Froome at that Vuelta was a bolt out of nowhere (2011).
hey, they backed the wrong man Wiggins and Froome lost the race cause he kept
waiting for him - ha! two guys on the podium but no Vuelta.

there are a lot of brilliant documentaries made by Belga Sport on you tube.

you need to know the stories pretty well if you don't speak Flemish but
some the subjects are-

Freddy Martens, Michel Pollentier, Jean Pierre Monsere (1948-71), Andrei Tchmil,
Criquielion v Bauer at 1988 World Champs, Musseuw and the Lotto teams disastrous
1995 Tour.

in the Lotto one only 2 or 3 finished and one day 4 lads quit or were timed out on
the opening mountain stage 9. they got slaughtered in the media as the only
Belgian team. a couple of the riders still looked haunted even talking about it.

a huge bonus with the Belga Sport docs is the music -
it's mostly very well chosen no Hollywood crap or old pop music.

i think i noticed John Zorn on one of them. also Philip Glass, Miles Davis.
but a lot of music about the mark of what Belgian labels like Crammed and
Crepuscule released seemed to turn up. e.g. Tuxedomoon etc.
i only recognised a few tunes but a lot of interesting music was used.

when the dark moments hit in those docs the music is dark.
 
good on you Rettucs !

in the days when i could trust the French lads i used to love Moncoutie, Jerome Pineau,
Chavanel etc. Marco Pinotti was another guy you could trust.

I have no idea who is honest now so sadly i take more interest in the GC than i would
have when those guys were around.
if you don't follow things hyper closely you can't pick out those sort of riders.

even Phil Gilbert said all the right stuff to begin with. I think he just got sick of being
done over by lads he knew he beat all the time.

another cult rider i liked was Johann Tschopp - anyone remember him ?
he was a little Suisse climber who loved mountain breakaways.
he grew up in the mountains and was the first pro i remember to criticize throwing
bottles away particularly in the mountains.

his big day was the penultimate stage of the 2010 Giro which went over the Gavia.
he netted about 30,000 for his Bouygues team by beating Gibi Simoni to win the
Cima Coppi - amazingly he was slagged off by many fans for not letting Simoni
win the Cima Coppi -(WTF 30,000 !)
Tschopp went on to win the brutal stage for his first career win.
After he was asked about Simoni and rightly pointed out nobody had ever given
him anything (Gibi had announced he was retiring after the Giro).
he did a couple more good Giros after (14th and 16th i think) where he was
prominent in the mountains but his career faded out after some injuries.
he now has a bike shop in Lausanne.

Shane Sutton got his start as a coach in Wales and was the national coach for years.
he's possibly the most psychopathic sportsperson i can think of - he makes Lance
look decent.
Bully, misogynist ? those words don't even come close.

Froome at that Vuelta was a bolt out of nowhere (2011).
hey, they backed the wrong man Wiggins and Froome lost the race cause he kept
waiting for him - ha! two guys on the podium but no Vuelta.

there are a lot of brilliant documentaries made by Belga Sport on you tube.

you need to know the stories pretty well if you don't speak Flemish but
some the subjects are-

Freddy Martens, Michel Pollentier, Jean Pierre Monsere (1948-71), Andrei Tchmil,
Criquielion v Bauer at 1988 World Champs, Musseuw and the Lotto teams disastrous
1995 Tour.

in the Lotto one only 2 or 3 finished and one day 4 lads quit or were timed out on
the opening mountain stage 9. they got slaughtered in the media as the only
Belgian team. a couple of the riders still looked haunted even talking about it.

a huge bonus with the Belga Sport docs is the music -
it's mostly very well chosen no Hollywood crap or old pop music.

i think i noticed John Zorn on one of them. also Philip Glass, Miles Davis.
but a lot of music about the mark of what Belgian labels like Crammed and
Crepuscule released seemed to turn up. e.g. Tuxedomoon etc.
i only recognised a few tunes but a lot of interesting music was used.

when the dark moments hit in those docs the music is dark.
hah, don't forget Froome is the 'rightful' winner of the 2011 Vuelta after Cobo (who Froome beat to win that aforementioned stage 17 to Pena Carbaga - incidently, both Roche and Martin finished top 10 that day) got busted. Its gas, that climb is in Cantabria, so Cobo was the local boy on that race. Fuck me, the locals loved him. Him and Purito. Serious passion in that race, even though fuck all go out to watch the weekday stages.

Had to laugh about what you wrote about Simoni. He was a prick. I think the year he won the Giro for the first time, he was making pacts with riders to ride for him (lets ride together, I'll give you the stage, kinda thing) then he'd fucking renege on the pact, every time. He became very unpopular. Then that story about the dentist pumping him full of cocaine - my hole! I often wondered what he needed the coke for. At least Ullrich admitted he got busted because he was partying.

Loved Pinotti. He was one of my favourite riders that time. He was a breath of fresh air. Could pull off that 'clean' persona without rubbing anyone up the wrong way. And, like Taylor Phinney, could put in a savage TT, despite (almost certainly) being clean.

Today's game is devoid of real characters. Sagan was probably my favourite of this lot. He's a bit of craic, and, though I have no doubt he used the motor winning the worlds in the US, still had a bit of class about him. I reckon he's a spent force now. Teamwise, the quickstep lads are the only ones who collectively have a bit of something about them. The Aussie lads used to be great with the social media when they were GreenEdge. Dunno what happened since. Very anonymous altogether, which is a shame. Chris Juul Jensen is a gas fucker.

Anyway, the worlds are next weekend, right? That'll be boring as hell if they're just going around that racetrack a million times. But I'll probably have more access to the Vuelta and Giro than I did the tour. The Vuelta was always my favourite GT, followed by the Giro, so the best part of the season is still ahead of us!
 
forgot Cobo had Vuelta win taken away !

i must look up the stage you were at in Cantabria sounds exciting
i think i remember that stage on a very steep finish but i'll have to check.
from memory it was extremely steep, huge amount of fans and Froome
was maybe 30 seconds behind Cobo on GC and attacked again and again
in the closing stages in a two man duel but couldn't break Cobo ???

Simoni and the Peruvian sweets that had cocaine in them - i remember.
blaming the dentist the other time in 2002 ? i didn't remember that,

Simoni was scared of no one including Lance and not afraid to say it - a loudmouth.
who else would try to start a feud with Lance ?
I remember the first day Simoni got the maglia rosa 2001 he did let
Julio Alberto Perez-Caupio win his first Giro stage.
the Mexican was character. stage winner one day nowhere the next - good fun.

Simoni was from the same village as the Mosers and not surprisingly was a
cousin of some sort of Francesco and co.
but when he won the Giro for Lampre, Saronni was his manager.
so there is a picture of sworn enemies Beppe and Francisco holding up
Gibi Simoni in Milan after he won, all smiles !

i've heard it said the Saronni and Moser are more OK about each other
than might be believed and have actually planned out slagging each other
in the media for a laugh ?

Marco Pinotti is a serious minded guy and an engineer by trade.
whether he spoke about working as part of a team, working toward goals,
how he viewed doping - he likened it to stealing from his family,
he always had a very intelligent practical mind with an eye for detail and
the fact he improved steadily season after season for so long showed the
way to do things properly.

that's it for the moment i need to do something else instead of sit in front
of a computer. not least of all eat.
 
forgot Cobo had Vuelta win taken away !

i must look up the stage you were at in Cantabria sounds exciting
i think i remember that stage on a very steep finish but i'll have to check.
from memory it was extremely steep, huge amount of fans and Froome
was maybe 30 seconds behind Cobo on GC and attacked again and again
in the closing stages in a two man duel but couldn't break Cobo ???

Simoni and the Peruvian sweets that had cocaine in them - i remember.
blaming the dentist the other time in 2002 ? i didn't remember that,

Simoni was scared of no one including Lance and not afraid to say it - a loudmouth.
who else would try to start a feud with Lance ?
I remember the first day Simoni got the maglia rosa 2001 he did let
Julio Alberto Perez-Caupio win his first Giro stage.
the Mexican was character. stage winner one day nowhere the next - good fun.

Simoni was from the same village as the Mosers and not surprisingly was a
cousin of some sort of Francesco and co.
but when he won the Giro for Lampre, Saronni was his manager.
so there is a picture of sworn enemies Beppe and Francisco holding up
Gibi Simoni in Milan after he won, all smiles !

i've heard it said the Saronni and Moser are more OK about each other
than might be believed and have actually planned out slagging each other
in the media for a laugh ?

Marco Pinotti is a serious minded guy and an engineer by trade.
whether he spoke about working as part of a team, working toward goals,
how he viewed doping - he likened it to stealing from his family,
he always had a very intelligent practical mind with an eye for detail and
the fact he improved steadily season after season for so long showed the
way to do things properly.

that's it for the moment i need to do something else instead of sit in front
of a computer. not least of all eat.
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superb stuff really. I was about 1 km from the finish line. Walked from the bottom of the climb up that far. Was poxy hard to even walk it. People were trying to cycle up but most were having to get off and walk, at least for some sections. I stayed in a little town called Noja. Beautiful little seaside town about 10-15 miles from that climb. The stage the following day ended into there, and the one after departed from there. Its by far my best experience supporting a grand tour. The accessibility to the riders was amazing. No barriers, security, anything. Got to chat to Roche and Dan Martin, nearly got knocked down in the car park by Froome, and Sagan cycled right by me. All the teams were staying in the same town. The FDJ and Astana lads were in the hotel next door. I remember them out walking on the beach while the swannys were hosing down the bikes and the mechs were building up new ones. You'd never get that at the Tour de France. Always vowed to go back to La Vuelta. One day, maybe.

See in the picture below, the bit of Orange in front of the barrier just before the finish line, thats my Irish flag!

Screenshot 2020-09-23 at 08.18.10.png
 
Yeah - that's the stage I was thinking of. brilliant - best day of the race.
Cobo might have won if he stayed alongside the barriers on the closing bends.
forgot Dan was flying that day too and Moncoutie was still in there aged 36.

did you spot Michele Ferrari near the Astana hotel - ha ha.

sounds like a dream day out. i'm a bit surprised the finish was so accessible
probably wouldn't be now after Las Ramblas bombings in Barcelona.


you mentioned Taylor Phinney the other day.
he was a huge natural talent - won U-23 Roubaix aged 18.
turned down a chance to go with Bruyneel when he went pro.

I seem to remember a stage of Tour Of Poland where he attacked with 7 km
or so left and held off the sprinters teams solo for a stunning win.

found it - what a win ! one the best of 2013 :
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the chasing sprinters are going so fast they nearly take out the photographers
after the line.

he and his folks (especially Connie his momma was his hero) are legends.
pity he had an awful crash that led to him retiring.
could have been the successor to Cancellara if the sport was remotely fair.
not sure what he's doing now but he's doing it his way.

women's TT Worlds are on today.
 
Giro starts today.
due to poor slot in rescheduled calendar and also coinciding with postponed spring classics,
there is a weakish start list.

Cyclingnews has a fun quiz today -
name all the Giro winners since 1980 in 10 minutes:

Quiz: Can you name every Giro d'Italia winner since 1980?

i was confident I could get the lot but missed three:

the 2004 winner's name never entered my head.
I could remember the 2000 winner well but went blank on his name.
and a more recent winner will catch a lot of people out as it did me.

one of the hardest was the 1991 winner - I only got the spelling of his name right
at the fifth attempt.
 
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the state of Johan Van Der Velde in the Ciclamino jersey (points) ! he got to the
top first after he rode up the Gavia in a snowstorm in ordinary cyclist gear with
no leggings, hat or long sleeve jersey and just ordinary mits.
then even more crazily he tried to descend in the same kit.
he went into shock on the way down and had to stop more than once before he
was passed by Breukink and Hampsten.
 
ABSOLUTELY CRAZY FINISH in LIEGE today.

we only got got last 14 km live on Eurosport but that's where it was won and lost.
the last km will be talked about for years.
feel very sorry for the lad who got second - he coulda won...

includes links to video of race and women's results:

Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2020 - Live coverage

women's Liege was very one sided and this tends to happen too often in hard races.
 
-- LBL results mentioned --

The UCI are all up in arms and levying fines against EF because of some bullshit about maybe or maybe not registering a temp jersey. And you have Alaphilippe look directly at Hirschi, realise he's gone too soon, and tries to take him out so hard that Hirschi pops out of his pedal and bounces into Pogacar.

I mean, yeah, Hirschi should have won that. But bumping Alaphilippe to fifth? No. Last I heard from Jacobsen he's getting bits of his pelvis cut out and grafted back onto him to try to reassemble his head. Jacobsen's career is presumably finished, and he's lucky to be alive.

You get bumped a few spots when you take a bottle 3ks out. If you purposefully take riders out at 70+ km/h then you need more than bumped a few spots.

 

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