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Your 2014 EPO Free Cycling Thread

Really don't like Contador or Valverde, so that sucked. :)

Hoping this is the year for Cance at the worlds. With his success in sprinting this year I'm hoping he he wins from a small group.
 
Re: Your 2014 EPO Free Cycling Thread

Well Thibault is still not with Sky so that's a victory. I read that UK Postal is still expected to sign a couple more but the names I've seen are like Viviani types.
 
Re: Your 2014 EPO Free Cycling Thread

2015 Tour route was announced this morning. It appears most fans absolutely hate it. Time bonuses are back, only 13.7km of ITT, an uphill finish on a team TTT, another cobbled stage, a day three finish on the Mur de Huy (of Fleche Wallone fame, of course), no >200km mountain stages, and a lot of shorter mountain stages that could be much more than they are considering alternate roads/routes to the same places.

It definitely strikes me as wonky and sort of a mini-Vuelta...with no queen stage (unless Stage...12...to Plateau de Beille can count?)...but I'm not sure what I make of it all at this point.

http://www.letour.fr/le-tour/2015/fr/parcours-general.html

And everyone can rest easy -- as it's been an hour and a half since The Galibier was last used in a Tour, it will again make an appearance in 2015.
 
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Re: Your 2014 EPO Free Cycling Thread

I like that the the Tourmalet and Alpe-d'Huez are on the list in the same tour. So there's a plus :)
 
Re: Your 2014 EPO Free Cycling Thread

I'll need to wait until I see the actual profiles but I'm not a fan at the minute. It has cobbles (but the last sector is still 13K from the end) and the Mur ( think the Mur de Bretagne, too) but the mountain stages are weak. As mentioned no real queen stage it seems like a Vuelta.

It is also worth pointing out the the TTT is very late, stage 9. There may be a few teams that will struggle to finish with the required 5 riders. I think some team lost like 3 or 4 riders in the first few days of the Giro last year...Katusha maybe?
 
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Titleist said:
I'll need to wait until I see the actual profiles but I'm not a fan at the minute. It has cobbles (but the last sector is still 13K from the end) and the Mur ( think the Mur de Bretagne, too) but the mountain stages are weak. As mentioned no real queen stage it seems like a Vuelta.

It is also worth pointing out the the TTT is very late, stage 9. There may be a few teams that will struggle to finish with the required 5 riders. I think some team lost like 3 or 4 riders in the first few days of the Giro last year...Katusha maybe?
Click to expand...

I may be wrong and am not an expert on Paris-Roubaix but I believe the cobbles pretty much amount to those in P-R that come before Arenberg.

The mountain stage designs are quite simply poor, and that is a design flaw that cannot be undone, but the rest of things in the mix do have me curious and still without an overall opinion. There are some novel things in here, notably the late uphill ttt as you mentioned, and to me it doesn't seem like they cross the "gimmicky" line.

While it's obviously the case in any race, I suspect a lot is going to come down to how whoever ends up riding this thing decides to race it. While atypical, the potential for unpredictable things to happen might be higher, which would be a great thing. But...it's also possible that they all soft pedal over everything, try to grab time bonuses early, and a few seconds here and there on the finishes of the limp-wristed mountain stages. With a useless itt in terms of thr gc...the direction this pig goes might majorly hinge on what happens in the ttt.

Too big of a pain to go paste it here from my phone, but I believe the finish on the ttt is something like 6.5% over 1.7km, which is big enough to have the potential to break teams up real goods and stuff. Big enough to blow up the gc to the extent it forces action later in the race? Not sure.
 
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Re: Your 2014 EPO Free Cycling Thread

Anyone wanna buy a bike?

After 25 years of service, I'm gonna have to say goodbye to my trusty Specialized Sirrus, my first good road bike. Won't get a whole lot for it, but I can't keep it around any longer, because I took advantage of Soma's 20% off sale, and bought the last of these in my size.

http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-3773699254952_2268_45615470

Gonna be built up as my early/late season and rain bike, maybe some fire and gravel road cruising, even some easy singletrack. Disc brakes, mix of Campy and Shimano, Stan's NoTubes new Grail wheelset, some Clement 32mm tires.
 
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Re: Your 2014 EPO Free Cycling Thread

Looks like fun rufus. Personally I'm saving up for some new Zipps.

I wonder if we have seen maybe not the very last, but almost the last of the three week grand tours. What with the changes at UCI, and the teams wanting change, I'm betting the Grand Tours are shortened, allowing for better TV coverage and more money for the teams overall.
 
Re: Your 2014 EPO Free Cycling Thread

Was hoping to build it up today, but DHL is completely worthless. They've had a package, that includes my seat clamp, sitting at their Boston facility for a week cause they needed a physical address to deliver to, which I gave them last Thursday. They told me it would be delivered Friday. Still waiting.

But anyway, I got it back from the shop who installed the headset and cut the steerer, and hung the rear derailleur, disc calipers, and bottle cages on it, and it's hanging on the wall across from me as I type. Some changes made, trying out the new Hope XC rims, and Specialized Tracer tires, set up tubeless. Hopefully got the sizing right.
 
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