Pidcock should never be a GC rider. He should just aim for stage wins and support the GC rider.
Cycling 2024
- Thread starter Suedesi
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Yeah, and the classics. He has pretty impressive results already in those. Could win LBL on a good day.
Cav got it.
Get the feck in Cav!!!
Yes! Cav! Delighted for him
Wooooow! Clear win as well. Historic.
Cavendish win and Kristoff third, I'm actually so surprised.
39 years old beating all the young guns in the Tour. What a legend.
Great positioning as well in the last straight, jumping from Philipsen’s wheel into a small gap to go early on the other side of the road. Experienced move.
Great positioning as well in the last straight, jumping from Philipsen’s wheel into a small gap to go early on the other side of the road. Experienced move.
No reason he stops here either. There are plenty of sprint stages in this Tour, and he looked as quick as any of them.
The Norwegian commentators were obsessed with Kristoff. I just though "shut up" and laser focused on Cav's jersey during that last aerial view. So awesome to watch how he positioned himself!
It’s funny how Cavendish is one of the few British contenders for GOAT status in a highly competitive global sport, and yet he hasn’t got nearly the same profile in the UK as track cyclists like Chris Hoy or Jason and Laura Kenny. I guess the British public only really cares about the sport of cycling for one week every four years.
Amazing stuff from Cavendish, the best sprinter of all time.
It is, unquestionably, he gained time on the ascent and the descent. The whole ride was brilliant, even though UAE fkd up tactics yet again. They should have gained 2 minutes on the Jonas & co. yesterday.
Wonderful to see, so glad he came back from last year's heartbreak!
Now he can retire happy/
I disagree, and I think Pidcock and Ineos also disagree.
Pidcock has always said he will end up as a GC rider.
On his day he is up there with the best climbers in the world, it's just holding it all together (which he hasn't explicitly trained to do).
Reminder that Remco couldn't hold it all together either, constantly fading or underperforming in WT stage races (Barring Pologne), until after one miraculous performance in Norway with Jay Vine, he suddenly became consistent at them. The reason given was he changed his training regimen.
There's no reason to suggest Pidcock couldn't make a similar transition. Reminder that Remco was awful at being punchy, acceleration and sprinting, until he started focusing and training that, and now he's excellent at both without losing his endurance, FTP power or climbing.
Only just recovering from the scenes today. Watched the final 30km. Finished work and rode my little single speed pub bike home from work.
Truly adore Cav. Met him a bunch when I worked on the tour. He’s got that perfect blend of intelligent, controlled volatility, balanced with a calm focus that the best of any sport tend to have.
So damn pleased for him. It’s easy to trot out the ‘best sprinter’ line. But he’s really just a fella that loves bike racing. He’d have probably won an extra classic or two had he shaped a career around that goal. Could have won a few more Olympic goals had that been it. He’s just a truly supreme bike racer. Properly in the top tier of bike racing. This against a background of injuries and narrow losses. He’s a force of nature. Over the moon for him.
Truly adore Cav. Met him a bunch when I worked on the tour. He’s got that perfect blend of intelligent, controlled volatility, balanced with a calm focus that the best of any sport tend to have.
So damn pleased for him. It’s easy to trot out the ‘best sprinter’ line. But he’s really just a fella that loves bike racing. He’d have probably won an extra classic or two had he shaped a career around that goal. Could have won a few more Olympic goals had that been it. He’s just a truly supreme bike racer. Properly in the top tier of bike racing. This against a background of injuries and narrow losses. He’s a force of nature. Over the moon for him.
Absolutely chuffed for Cavendish, I honestly didn’t believe he could do it let alone at his age beat Jasper Philipsen like that in a sprint as his age. Surely this cements Cavendish’s place as the greatest sprinter in road cycling history. There are athletes who have been knighted for less than what Cavendish has achieved. To win even one race in the TdF is a great achievement, let alone 35. And consider all the other stuff he’s achieved on the road and on the track. One of Britain’s finest & most successful athletes ever without a shadow of doubt.
There are also athletes who have been knighted for exactly what Cavendish has achieved. Well, athlete. Singular.
Cavendish should get a knighthood for winning 35 stages in the TdF is what I mean.
When is that exactly? There were no less than 9 stages in last year's Tour which were classified as mountain stages and he did not manage to finish in the same time as Vingegaard or Pogacar in a single one of them. So either he was never "on his day" or he isn't really up there with the best climbers in the world. Not to mention Pogacar wasn't at his best either last year.
Remco also isn't in the same tier as Pogacar or Vingegaard. Even Tuesday's stage showed as well that he still lacks that little bit extra to stay with them in the mountains, and that's with Vingegaard not up to scratch. He would do well to finish within 5 minutes of the winner in this year's Tour, and he is already a way better Grand Tour rider than Pidcock given his climbing and (especially) TT ability. Also Evenepoel showed signs of what he's capable of as a teenager and right now is a Grand Tour winner whilst being younger than Pidcock. Pidcock will be 26 next year if he attempts a good GC Tour finish and still has everything to prove in that regard. Not comparable situations.
Pidcock sacrificing everything he's good at (which he'd need to do) in order to finish in the 4-10 range, maaaaybe podium, in the Tour is just madness. Hope he does so next year and w'll find out anyway.
What?
Last year he had two single stages before his crash where he was good, the Puy de Dome and the Colombiere stage. Both super easy unipuerto stages where everyone basically arrived within 30 seconds. On the difficult stages (e.g. 5 and 6) he had already shipped minutes before eventually proper falling out of GC. There's no way he could claim to be "the third strongest climber" after Vingegaard and Pogacar at any point of the race, Yates, Hindley, Rodriguez and S. Yates were all clearly better.
It's also not true that he hasn't prepped for GC yet, he has been given the green light 2 years in a row (2022 and 2023) and did train for it. I'm not saying he'll never get in top 3 contention at a GT but so far he has had always a big collapse and only every shown promise on easy stages with a 30 minutes all out effort at the end.
There are also just quite a lot of riders who are younger or similar age to Pidcock that are already better at the GC than him. Remco Evenepoel, Juan Ayuso, Carlos Rodriguez, and Joao Almeida especially come to mind. Even someone like Skjelmose has finished in the Top 5 of the last four one-week races he has participated in - something that Pidcock has never done.
I don't really know what to say, other than that Pidcock himself has explicitly stated he isn't going to target GC at all until after the 2024 olympics.
And he's already knighted is what I meant.
OK, didn’t know that
I'm so fecking sick of the sight of Philipsen not sprinting straight in the Tour, just like last year. Once again forces van Aert to stop pedalling or he's in the barriers. Enough is enough, put him back in the result and give him one final warning. Next infringement he should be going home.
Should be relegated today, and since it’s not his win anyway you’d think it’s an easier decision for the directors.
And so they did, finally!
Great to see. Very good news for Girmay who takes a solid lead in the points classification.
Serves Philipsen right. I wasn't followong the Tour much last year, but I saw the Netflix episode about him yesterday, and it's clear that he's a dangerously careless sprinter - who is being supported in his approach through and through by his team. A very unlikeable bunch really. (I know Netflix looks for scandal in its coverage, but I'm basing myself on their own direct quotes here.) It's super dangerous and needs to be addressed, so it's great if they finally start signalling that it's enough. Hopefully they will also do that if it's about a stage win.
I haven't watched the Netflix stuff, but yeah I can't stand his team manager Christoph Roodhooft. Always complaining, never admitting his team might be in the wrong, pretty disdainful towards other teams and riders.
Usually I'm pretty sympathetic towards (ex-)cyclists from my own home region (he's from De Kempen, where I grew up), but I make an exception for him.
Yeah, he's pretty arrogant that way. Not that he feels he's above the others, but he just doesn't care about what other teams think, and anything that's not sanctioned is OK with him. Technically, that's true of course; but that's how you get Philipsen endangering others - and in a sport like cycling, that's real danger, not just the nuisance of a football player diving.
In terms of results, the Tour has been pretty great so far. Six different teams have won stages, win and green jersey for Girmay, Cav breaking the record, a couple of French stage wins, and GC still close enough. Couldn’t ask for more on that front.
Only real downside has been the last few sprint stages being boring until the final kms.
Only real downside has been the last few sprint stages being boring until the final kms.
Remco is about to kill the TT. Jonas and Tadej not far behind. Roglic a disappointment.
Ayuso GTFOOUT
Ayuso GTFOOUT
Remco gaining 15-16 secs on Tadej and 30 seconds on Jonas
Jonas same time as Roglic.
Make that 3 secs behind Roglic