Can be watched live throughout on ITV4 too.
scooter
An odd thing to write late August. But yes, it starts today!
For us, Dutch, Jumbo Visma with Roglic and Tom Dumoulin are very important.
A few details: Jumbo = Holland's second largest supermarket chain, privately owned by entrepeneur Frits van Eerd. Jumbo also sponsors a speed skating team and Max Verstappen (Van Eerd is fanatic auto-sport enthousiast and raced at Le Mans in the LMP2 class).
Visma is a Norwegian IT consultancy company. Pretty big overhere when it comes to accountancy software for small businesses.
M
Can be watched live throughout on ITV4 too.
scooter
Won't be the same without Froomey
no-one to love/hate.... depending on your feelings
Pity
Tour de France and Spanish Grand Prix looks like a good weekend.
Roglic to win
Any announcement of a positive test will have very different connotations this year!
Should be a fascinating tour this year with the ever present threat that the race could be called off at short notice. Holding back to take the yellow when it suits the strategy of a three week race is out the window and every day counts.
Good to see Chris Boardman back.
Odd tour this year.
Not much British interest.
Bring back Cav, Wiggo and G.
Slippery stage! Everybody is very careful when going downhill. One bad move and your 2020 Tour is over!
Menno
Some crazy weather conditions & some early favourites crashing out, lots of rash.
Froome is the Queen of Crashing so he will watching thinking thank f**k I wasn’t in that circus today.
More interesting is despite all the raving about disc brakes there were so many problems today with them failing, post crash they had rotor problems, slow to swop out and built up road debris causing friction.
As was mentioned so many times once you lock a wheel you lock it, there isn’t anymore stopping power
Last edited by 100thmonkey; 29th August 2020 at 20:40.
RIAC
I don’t understand the comments about disks. They are far superior in my experience.
What a mad stage. If you were an injured rider, would you want to go to the local hospital (Nice is in a red COVID zone), or would you ask your team doctor to patch you up.
Don’t forget, if 2 team members get COVID-19 (including support staff), then the whole team is out.
Pete
Anyone who doesn't like disk brakes fancy moving back to drum brakes on their car?
I have disk brakes on my cars and motorbike. Over time I've moved from calipers to V brakes to disk brakes on mountain bike and when I change my road bike it will have disks.
(I am not a TdF contender)
It was commented on by professionals throughout the commentary. They have been around for years but when they go wrong or you clip or drop a bike and bend a rotor it could be game over so as pros go it may not be worth the risk.
Conventional rim saves you alot of hassle and trips to the bike shop. Yes they provide more modulated stopping but better as a package? Debatable. Good for the bike trade? 100%.
https://road.cc/content/feature/8-re...-brakes-256225
Last edited by 100thmonkey; 29th August 2020 at 21:27.
RIAC
It hadn't rained in weeks, so oil etc was all over the place. According to Dutch news-sites riders refused to ride and had neutralized the race for that reason. Astana's attempt (and Angel Lopez accident within seconds after the 'demarrage' told the whole story, I think.
M
I wonder who the Frensh public will spit at and call a cheat without Froome this year.
If Egan wins a couple more times i suspect he will be next to face the wrath of the moron public.
Sorry this is a bit of a wind up post, i just hate that minority in the crowd who do things ten times more disgusting than what they are accusing someone of.
All the points on that link are debatable. I’d never go back to rims.
The wheel change speed is an issue so they now default to a bike change. Not an issue for me as I don’t have a team car following me. Modulation and stopping power in the wet are far superior, especially with carbon rims.
Anyway, bit of a side topic. Bike industry need to keep turning kit over. Rim brakes are gradually disappearing.
I’ve done about 30,000 miles on my disk equipped Canyon and I’ve never had a problem or taken it to the bike shop. I put new pads in once a year, quicker than changing rim pads.
Last edited by Montello; 29th August 2020 at 22:38.
By the same measure I have probably done around 100,000 or more over the years on rims and never had a problem. Ill ride disc on a road bike but don’t have any desire to follow this trend
This would be a fun bet, less the pressure from sponsors
https://www.cyclingnews.com/features...our-de-france/
RIAC
Phillipe Gilbert is out. He has broken his kneecap when fell.
M
I'm not religious about them but here's why I'm still on rim brakes:
I have two bikes and many sets of wheels and I like to be able to swap between bikes.
I've never really felt under braked, as it were
I like to be able to fix things cheaply and easily, and rim brakes are simpler in this regard. I'm talking about the problems people have in bleeding them and getting rid of noise, though equally I appreciate many have no issues at all in this area.
I don't destroy rims, they last me years.
I'm out in conditions where discs are clearly better maybe 4 or 5 times a year.
Sorry for the thread derail.
I went from Magura rim brakes to Magura disk brakes. (Well, ring brakes is perhaps a better word for them). At first, I was unimpressed by those new brakes compared with my old bike's rim brakes. Now, just under 2K kms later, I'm fully 'adjusted' to them. They work fine, even when stopping from high speed.
Back on topic: Robert Geesink (Jumbo Visma) talked about "UCI has failed on this one!" Stating that after what's happened the last few weeks, UCI jury members should have stepped up, neutralising yesterday's race. UCI neutralised the race 3 kms for the finish, seconds before the final 'chutes' happened. According to Geesink: "Too little, too late. What's the point when everybody gets hurt in the first etappe?"
During the race, Flemish TV commentators (always the 'go-to' TV station for professional cycling comments - all are ex profs) were furious about the UCI's laxity.
M.
Tip: make sure you watch the Le Teil - Mont Aigoual stage on Thursday. Mont A. is very infamous for its overdose of really, really bad weather. May I suggest you read the novel The Rider from Dutch writer Tim Krabbé (journalist and former cycling prof) about this hellish climb.
At the start of the 137-kilometre Tour de Mont Aigoual, Tim Krabbe glances up from his bike to assess the crowd of spectators. 'Non-racers,' he writes. 'The emptiness of those lives shocks me.' Immediate and gripping from the first page, we race with the author as he struggles up the hills and clings on during descents in the unforgiving French mountains. Originally published in 1978, The Rider is a modern-day classic that is recognised as one of the best books ever written about the sport. Brilliantly conceived and best read at a break-neck pace, it is a loving, imaginative and passionate tribute to the art of cycle racing.
Last edited by thieuster; 30th August 2020 at 11:10.
Great book. About time I read it again.
Sporza (Flemish TV) confirms that La Plange des Belles Filles (France) will host the upcoming World Championship instead of the world championship in Switzerland.
Menno
Nice win by Alaphilippe. Wearing a Richard Mille ...😳
I’ve done every crash possible on my mountain bikes and never bent a disc yet.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
As a Yank I don't keep up much with the Tour in the post-Lance era, although I had it on the TV as I was getting cleaned up this morning. I thought I heard one announcer mention a "she" rider. That's surely not right, is it? I can't imagine at this level...
Mille sponsor the Bahrain McLaren team so most of them wear one as well.
I'm watching the highlights of yesterday's stage. Seriously impressed by their descent of the Col de Turini...and the TV pictures were good too.
Le Teil - Mont Aigoual today. The final 34 kms are uphill, parts are very steep. More than 1 in 10 for 6 kms
It's just a matter of time...
Perhaps im just being honest rather than hype.
Thier watches are hideously overpriced and when they go wrong you say farewell to them for 6-9 months minimum.
Divided opinion on them but when you get to that price point its a little obscene to receive such poor quality and service. Personally I would feel ‘mugged’ off.
Applogies for being honest but at that RRP you might not get the quality of product and service appropriate.
And for the record I am in the business of helping people.
RIAC
In Wednesday’s coverage an Ineos rider punctured , and the comment from David Millar was “look how fast they can do a rear wheel swap with cantilevered brakes” . I then noticed the 2020 Dogmas are canti’s.
I have disks on my gravel and mtb and cantis on my road bike. I don’t find either Faster or slower to change. Maybe they are using through axles on some of the disk bikes, that would slow things down compared to a quick release.
I think that was the comparison he was making, yes. Earlier on - or perhaps a previous stage - there was footage of a rider having a disk brake wheel change. It involved a special tool to undo the thru axle and it took rather longer.
Even if changing a wheel with disc takes a few seconds later, that is more than compensated for by the vastly superior modulation. To illustrate the sillyness of most arguments, that is ESPECIALLY!!! in the rain. Oh and ditto the weight argument; the bikes are éasily under the minumum weight if needed, discs or no discs.
It surprises me that the broken frame yesterday has not unleashed a storm of carbon bashing in favor of metal frames...