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Your 2012 Cycling Thread

Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

Titleist said:
I'm in. I managed to avoid picking any UK Postal riders, so I feel good about that. And I managed to grab 3 sprinters, too bad there are virtually no sprint stages.
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I'm in. Decided to ignore the sprints more or less, though I considered Bennati pretty heavily. I might still swap something here, but odds are I won't bother. Spearheaded by Senor Steak, not exactly my favorite group of guys though I do like Quintana.


Alberto CONTADOR SAX 24

Christopher FROOME SKY 18

Joaquím RODRÍGUEZ KAT 18

Nairo QUINTANA MOV 10

Leonardo DUQUE COF 6

Ivan VELASCO EUS 4

Arnaud COURTEILLE FDJ 4

Xabier ZANDIO SKY 4

Rigoberto URAN SKY 12
 
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Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

I almost took Quintana too, but then I realized I had no idea who was the team leader at Movistar. Cobo claims his tooth hurts, and so despite being the defending champ, might not have leadership. Valverde the presumtive heir to the leadership of the team is coming off le Tour. And finally Nairo, who I think is in the best form, butmight never get a sniff of freedom. I ended up with sprinters because I really didn't like many of the domestiques that were on offer and I figured I have a reasonable chance of grabbing a few points on the few sprint stages whereas I'd likely be guessing at breakaway artists. Beside Bouhanni looked decent in hilly stages at Burgos.
 
Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

Saecco I really love your team. :) I'm guessing we will either finish together, either at the top. Or at the bottom.
 
Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

Valverde almost chokes away the sprint, but wins a photo finish over Rodriguez. Contador really toying with the group.
 
Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

Titleist said:
I think Conti threw out more attacks in 7K than I saw in the entire Tour. Glad he is back!
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After finally getting caught up on today's stage, headed here to say just this. Last week I was trying to talk another poster who only follows the TDF into getting into the velogames league for this. My contention was that with this field and route that it was easily worth watching and would prove significantly more entertaining that the TDF. I fear I may have understated it as, to me, the final 7K today might have been more entertaining than the entire sum of the TDF.

Still not sure what to think of all this, though. Those top four today all looked real strong, and though he doesn't have the quick burst strength of say Contador or Rodriguez, I have to wonder if anyone will be able to drop Froome at some point. He doesn't have the same Sky team that burned everyone out in the TDF there to work for him, but I'm really curious to see if his methodical tempo riding is enough to keep reeling anyone who makes an attack back in. Sort of like the whole Sky team (well, on all of about the three legit attacks that Nibali attempted) did in the TDF, just on a smaller scale -- though in this case I suspect Sky won't be able to keep everyone else buried for three weeks so he might be forced to reel guys back in on his own. Should be interesting as heck to find out, at least.

As for my velogames team, not sure how much I'm liking it right now. Obviously can't complain about having Contador, Froome and Rodriguez, but I'm not sure I optimized the rest. I think I may be a year or two early with Quintana and probably picked him just because I like his potential. Paid off with Rolland for 10 in the TDF, but he's probably ahead of where Quintana is right now. Uran's performance today was pretty encouraging so maybe that one will pay off if he can stick with Froome until the very end of these stages. That Uran pick is really where I was hung up as I thought he could be a real solid dark horse for 12, yet there were other guys like Anton and Cobo there that I liked a lot as well. Cobo looked extremely comfortable the final week of the TDF, but I was leery of his lost training. Had I known Valverde would be as strong as he looked today I probably would have worked him in instead of Uran, but I had the same dilemma with Movistar that Titleist did and probably let the fan in me make the Quintana pick. Ah well, probably just being anal but I always look back and kick my self for doing something stupid. See: Hoogerland, Johnny instead of Voeckler, Thomas a little over a month ago :p

Ah well, anyway...yeah, this is going to be a fun one to follow...
 
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Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

Now, on another note...I forget who all here rides seriously or moderately seriously, but as I mentioned back near the end of June I finally got a new bike after about a ten year layoff. It's nothing special as I didn't want to spend too much this time around, but it's an aluminum frame/carbon fork job so it's not elite by any stretch but certainly isn't some big clunky thing.

To put things in context, I'm 33yo and 6'6", 260. The weight is on the way down in pretty rapid fashion and I think I can honestly say it's a pretty athletic 260 as most people guess I'm 230 or 235 when I ask them. I suspect the weight I'm headed to will probably be in the 210-215 range, but that's just a guess. My first week of riding was a tad painful, but I quickly ramped up to 20-30 miles a shot, usually depending on how much light is left in the day. Average speed has been creeping upward and I'm at about 19mph now at what I would call an extremely comfortable pace where I'm feeling little to no strain in my body and my breathing is sliiightly elevated, if that. On the one ride I did with a friend we did a real short sprint at the end and I topped out at 36mph, but that was the peak and was for a very short distance. At the usual riding pace, I'll finish my ride and believe I could repeat the ride and be just as comfortable. Terrain around here is rolling with hills that kick up to 6-8% max for very short stretches, and though they are fairly abundant no climb is longer than say about a half mile with no more gain than 100-150ft per. Oh, and in case I didn't mention it, my dumb *** is still smoking, though that's getting cut out very soon...and that's no joke.

So, I guess what I'm wondering, is whether anyone here has more experience than me and might have a guess based on that as to where my abilities might top out? I personally have no clue what's a respectable speed and I'm just curious as to how "good" I could make myself. Upshot is that I absolutely love riding and have clear goals in mind, so I'm ultimately going to answer this myself. In the meantime, anyone have any thoughts?
 
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Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

XYZ, regarding Froome v. Contador. Remember this was only a 7 K climb and Contador only has 5 days racing in the last 6 months. Give him 2 weeks and he'll drop Froome. Bola del Mondo is begging for something crazy. As for the SKY train, well the TDF train was perfect for what Wiggans needed, tempo climbing. Henao and Uran are more capable of matching quick busts, however, almost no one can match Contador. Even though his attacks seemed more from the Andy Schleck attack and look school, you'll note that when he attacked, the group immediately went down to 3. Conti, Purito, and Valverde, with Froome coming back slower. I though Conti had finally gotten ride of Froome with his last attack before the summit (and his two attacks on the downhill) but Froome did make it back on. Given more time (longer climbs or multiple climbs) and more time to ride into form (Conti is fresh, Froome has the TDF in his legs) Contador will pull away. Though Purito might hang on for a while.
 
Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

Titleist said:
XYZ, regarding Froome v. Contador. Remember this was only a 7 K climb and Contador only has 5 days racing in the last 6 months. Give him 2 weeks and he'll drop Froome. Bola del Mondo is begging for something crazy. As for the SKY train, well the TDF train was perfect for what Wiggans needed, tempo climbing. Henao and Uran are more capable of matching quick busts, however, almost no one can match Contador. Even though his attacks seemed more from the Andy Schleck attack and look school, you'll note that when he attacked, the group immediately went down to 3. Conti, Purito, and Valverde, with Froome coming back slower. I though Conti had finally gotten ride of Froome with his last attack before the summit (and his two attacks on the downhill) but Froome did make it back on. Given more time (longer climbs or multiple climbs) and more time to ride into form (Conti is fresh, Froome has the TDF in his legs) Contador will pull away. Though Purito might hang on for a while.
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I actually agree with all that and think it's the way it should logically work. However, and I don't really want to go down this road, but since it weighs into my opinion on this I find it very difficult to believe that Froome and some other components of Sky aren't, shall we say, "enhanced." And believe me, I really, really don't like thinking that without any evidence of such, but my gut tells me Froome might be harder to drop than people think. And yeah, I know Sky certainly wouldn't be alone, but I'll digress and let it play out.
 
Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

I agree with you, note my UK Postal references, but I also believe that Contador is in the driver seat. Plus it is likely that Senior Steak isn't doing it on beard and water either.
 
XYZ said:
Now, on another note...I forget who all here rides seriously or moderately seriously, but as I mentioned back near the end of June I finally got a new bike after about a ten year layoff. It's nothing special as I didn't want to spend too much this time around, but it's an aluminum frame/carbon fork job so it's not elite by any stretch but certainly isn't some big clunky thing.

To put things in context, I'm 33yo and 6'6", 260. The weight is on the way down in pretty rapid fashion and I think I can honestly say it's a pretty athletic 260 as most people guess I'm 230 or 235 when I ask them. I suspect the weight I'm headed to will probably be in the 210-215 range, but that's just a guess. My first week of riding was a tad painful, but I quickly ramped up to 20-30 miles a shot, usually depending on how much light is left in the day. Average speed has been creeping upward and I'm at about 19mph now at what I would call an extremely comfortable pace where I'm feeling little to no strain in my body and my breathing is sliiightly elevated, if that. On the one ride I did with a friend we did a real short sprint at the end and I topped out at 36mph, but that was the peak and was for a very short distance. At the usual riding pace, I'll finish my ride and believe I could repeat the ride and be just as comfortable. Terrain around here is rolling with hills that kick up to 6-8% max for very short stretches, and though they are fairly abundant no climb is longer than say about a half mile with no more gain than 100-150ft per. Oh, and in case I didn't mention it, my dumb *** is still smoking, though that's getting cut out very soon...and that's no joke.
Click to expand...

Pretty strong. I'm eight years more experienced age wise. I have a 35 mile commute round trip, and I'm always happy with a two hour round trip. I'm 200 plus or minus 5 lbs.

19mph is very strong for an average speed in my opinion. 36 on a flat sprint is fast also, I typically top out at 30. If your interest in tracking your results and have a GPS on you phone, check out strava.com. It will entertain you.
 
Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

Yes, its good to see the different sprinters get a chance to shine, but Lord was the parcourse boring...it was like a kermesse.
 
Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

Wow, I would have though for sure someone would have beat me to talking about Lance giving up his fight against the USADA.

My take on Lance...Even before this announcement I thought he used PED's, but I also think his competitors did too. And at this point with all that has come out about athletes using in all sports, I really just don't care anymore. And the bottom line for me with Lance is that I think he has used the forum given to him to better many people's live through his promotion of cancer research. For me that is much more important than if he used PED's during his cycling career.
 
Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

What is USADA doing trying to strip him of his titles? They have no jurisdiction to do that, it's UCI's job. USADA doing this is like the NBA taking away an Olympic medal from the basketball team.
 
Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

MattS said:
Wow, I would have though for sure someone would have beat me to talking about Lance giving up his fight against the USADA.

My take on Lance...Even before this announcement I thought he used PED's, but I also think his competitors did too. And at this point with all that has come out about athletes using in all sports, I really just don't care anymore. And the bottom line for me with Lance is that I think he has used the forum given to him to better many people's live through his promotion of cancer research. For me that is much more important than if he used PED's during his cycling career.
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I have similar thoughts at this point. Lance probably was doing something, but so were lots of other folks who haven't been targetted nearly like he has. But, I think that he's been out of the headlines for awhile, so the sporting public just isn't as interested as it was when he was still competing. It gets harder and harder to be a sports fan as more stories like this across various sports happen more often.
 
Re: Your 2012 Cycling Thread

MountieBoyOz said:
Today is probably a national holiday in France.
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Yeah, their best finishers moved up to 7th, 3rd, 5th, 12th, 7th, 11th, and 9th - time to party! :)

I'm pretty much with MattS on this. I don't have evidence to back this up, but it sure seemed like over the years Lance's language changed from "I never used PEDs" to "I've been the most tested athlete ever and was never caught using PEDs." Just a little difference between those two statements....
 
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