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2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

Re: 2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

I think the rise of Quintana, and the fact that Moviestar was thinking of maybe not even re-signing him in the offseason has lit a bit of a spark under him. It was either Rob Hatch on the Eurosport commentary, or Paul Sherwen on the MSNBC feed, saying something like "he realizes he's coming near the end of his career, and sometimes that thought revitalizes you". I think Valverde wants to show people he's not second on his team quite yet. Probably did a helluva lot of work in the offseason. Or maybe he's just got better drugs.

Too bad he's just never been quite right for the grand tours. Always has that one bad day on a crucial mountain stage, or a bit of bad luck with tactics or mechanicals. But his abilities are just perfect for the one day classics and shorter stage races. Always been one of my favorite riders.

I remember I think it was the Tour of Switzerland a couple years ago, when he was riding for Costa, and Costa got dropped on the climb, and Valverde worked his *** off dragging Costa back up and limited his losses, on a cold, wet and foggy day.
 
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Re: 2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

manurespreader said:
I'm also surprised that Sky has not done better, given just how much money they pour into things.
Click to expand...

Thats because most classics are won through tactics, tactial understanding, and strength. Sky has the tactical nous of a sack of spuds. They have "Plan A," put 7 guys on the front and ride, then Froome attack. And nothing else. You could see it in some of the cobbled classics where Sky would get on the front and ride 100K out, but that wasn't the decisive point in the race. When that moment came Sky was cooked. Their leaders were isolated at the decisive moments. Compare that to Etixx. A truckload of seconds but the final group usually had like 3 Etixxs out of 8 or something. Or look what Astana tried to do yesterday. For a moment there were like 3 or 4 Astanas in front of the race including Kangel and Scarponi in the front group of 3. IF Nibs had been able to get away on Reboute or Roche Aux Facoln, the tactical situation was superb.

Same reason that USPS never won any classics.
As for Val, maybe he is just better "prepared" this year.
 
Wow, FDJ did well in a TTT. Allow me to sit down and catch my breath for a few minutes...
 
Re: 2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

Watching the Tour de Romandie right now, and after a small crash, one of the Tinkoff riders is starting to get going, just in front of him is the medical car which has stopped, so he starts weaving around it, just as the passenger door opens and he runs straight into the back wedge of it. That had to have hurt.


Edit. Here's video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seOOdwuerC0
 
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Re: 2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

rufus said:
Watching the Tour de Romandie right now, and after a small crash, one of the Tinkoff riders is starting to get going, just in front of him is the medical car which has stopped, so he starts weaving around it, just as the passenger door opens and he runs straight into the back wedge of it. That had to have hurt.


Edit. Here's video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seOOdwuerC0
Click to expand...
Ouch!.
Seems like an awful lot of rider/car incidents lately.
 
Fun stage in Romandie yesterday. My kind of roads, my kind of terrain and my kind of weather. And the breakaway stays away while a 21yo Swiss newcomer gets the win. Won't affect the GC as that will be settled today, but it was a refreshing stage to watch nonetheless. Hope this kid is legit as holding off a guy like Bakelants over the final 20k isn't the easiest thing in the world to do.
 
Re: 2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

Good Point. Nothing to see then. Move along.

Though I do eagerly await the followup study on the effects of bad-zilla on performance.
 
Titleist said:
Interesting Doping news today, not surprising, just interesting. Micro-dosing doesn't appear on the bio-passport. It seems that the VO2 max can increase 6.1% and performance on a static bike can go up nearly 3%. Which sounds low, but is easily enough to crush a race.
Click to expand...

No surprise here, including the fact that WADA slammed the study as being unscientific...despite the fact WADA itself never has carried out its own peer-reviewed study of the biopassport. I believe Michael Ashenden did a similar study a few years back that ran it out 12 weeks and still showed it wouldn't trip the biopassport. Ah well, at least we have a Romandie winner we can finally believe in!

Unrelated...Titleist, your use of BADZILLA tells me that we must spend some of our free time in the same place...
 
Also, Giro is now open on velogames. I don't have time to do it now but will get a league going later today if no one has yet. Major case of sad that Ulissi isn't on the provisional start list. Was looking forward to all sorts of fireworks from him again.
 
Re: 2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

Quite possibly, but I don't actually post there, just read. Of course, I also use Badzilla, because I can never actually remember what the name of the disease actually is. I think there is an H in there somewhere, plus it kinda sounds like Godzilla and he's cool.
 
Re: 2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

Finally got around to creating a league:

League Name: USCHO
League Code: 07165912

...and every team I put together I really like requires 102 points. As usual :). And I see Ulissi will indeed be racing. Do I dare roll the dice on him based, sadly, on the hunch that he's going to be all supercharged again? I hate going that route but it's worked before. See: Santambrogio, Mauro.
 
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Re: 2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

Titleist said:
Quite possibly, but I don't actually post there, just read. Of course, I also use Badzilla, because I can never actually remember what the name of the disease actually is. I think there is an H in there somewhere, plus it kinda sounds like Godzilla and he's cool.
Click to expand...

Ha, yeah. Took me a while but finally was able to remember that it's Bilharzia. I enjoy reading there as some rather interesting stuff does get posted, far more of which is likely true than most people would like to admit. While I'm far from some conspiracy theorist in life, I also refuse to deny reality. Post every once in a while with a name you wouldn't recognize but only about one or two very specific things I actually know a lot about.
 
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Re: 2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

Yeah, every "good" team I find should be like 102 points.

And I actually mostly just read the regular side, overly venturing into the darker side when something big happens. I pretty much think everyone isn't doping so I don't need to read about the speculation, and hate science enough to not want to see the scientific proof.

P.S. Yeah, can't touch Ulissi.
 
Re: 2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

I thought it was pretty easy.



Rigoberto Uran
Alberto Contador
Stefano Pirazzi
Mikel Landa
Michael Matthews
Steven Kruijswijk*
Edoardo Zardini
Enrico Battaglin
John Darwin Atapuma Hurtado*

edit. Ok, maybe not. Changes already. Atapuma for Chavez, and Kruiswijk for Pellizotti
 
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Re: 2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

Yeah, the problem for me was I needed Aru.
Contador
Aru
Pirazzi
Pozzovivo
Mezgec
Ruffoni
Fischer
Durbridge
Modolo

I ended up with 4 sprinters which I'm not loving and I did was Chaves but couldn't make it work.
 
Titleist said:
Yeah, the problem for me was I needed Aru.
Contador
Aru
Pirazzi
Pozzovivo
Mezgec
Ruffoni
Fischer
Durbridge
Modolo

I ended up with 4 sprinters which I'm not loving and I did was Chaves but couldn't make it work.
Click to expand...

Same here as far as Aru goes, and amusingly had Pirazzi and Durbridge in at one point. As it stands now I'm not a big fan of my climbers but there's really no one there I really like and for some reason I've never been a believer in Pozzovivo and always end up going with Betancur, which is probably not smart at this point. As always, I'm sure I'll change something before Saturday. Really wish Konig wasn't in the GC group. Keep flipping back and forth between Battaglin and another guy, too.

Aru
Zakarin
Betancur
Cunego
Modolo
Battaglin
Pellizotti
Ulissi
Contador
 
Re: 2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

Here's my team

Alberto Contador Tinkoff - Saxo
Fabio Aru Astana Pro Team
Jurgen Van Den Broeck Lotto Soudal
Andre Cardoso Team Cannondale - Garmin
Heinrich Haussler IAM Cycling
Diego Ulissi Lampre - Merida -
Simon Clarke Orica GreenEDGE
Giovanni Visconti Movistar Team
Ivan Basso Tinkoff - Saxo

didn't bother wasting much on sprinters I will see how that works out.

They are also doing Fantasy Tour of California

League Name: USCHO
League Code: 08005650

no breakdown just pick 9 riders kind of like their Fantasy classics
 
Re: 2015 USCHO Cycling Thread

I think that approach has a chance with this Giro. It just depend on if you picked the right guys.
 
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