TheKillerPenguin

You don't think it was aggressive?

mattm

so sad right now.

openened up FB out of habit when I woke up, landed on a spoiler... fml. I’m still gonna watch like six hours of this race dammit!!!

It’s my fault but damn. Why post a spoiler so early?? One guy I know loves to spoil results, even in ride titles on Strava - had to unfollow.

Doge

May be true, but in scope of this thread (and I don't have a junior) I see pro racing as much more tentative. I don't believe for a second kids could survive that far. But look at the numbers. Year after year @ nats and UCI races juniors are faster than pros. Not 100% of the time, but usually.

It was the WC. But consider the pros averaged 41.346 and the juniors averaged 42.61 kph.
Watch junior racing, then pros. As I've said many times - juniors are faster, and waaay more aggressive.

Guess I'm not used to watching slow adults so much.

TheKillerPenguin

Well yeah, but that's the avg over the whole race. Cut out the 1-2hr preamble and I bet the pro race is faster. That 1-2hrs of pregame is important! These are the best riders in the world, calorie management and energy conservation are part of the game. The last 40-50k there were attacks at every available opportunity and it made for a fantastic watch!

TMonk

You and me both.

On that note, wow... We have a once-in-a-generation talent here. I'm so happy to witness his success at the (probable) height of cycling in my own life.

Doge

I get it. The miler runner kids in HS are faster than the Olympic marathoners adults too. Facts are that pro are holding back (they say that) for the first 3/4 of the race.

That excitement we saw the last 40-50K didn't need 200K in front of it. It would be just as exciting being the length many could watch and networks might show at 140K. And what we miss is the setting of of those breaks, cause hours 1-5 are too hard to watch to find that detail.

I expect if pro races were shorter you'd see that last 50K kind of racing for 100K, but the riders must conserve. They could be as fast as the juniors - they just aren't, or were not at this worlds.
https://www.bikeforums.net/19752744-post1.html

TheKillerPenguin

I think the extra distance matters though. It's supposed to be the best rider in the world that wins (relative to the course design), a 160k race introduces a bit more luck into the equation. The last 1-2hrs are a true spectacle regardless!

gsteinb

I watched a bike race!

Seriously. I think the last pro race I may have watched was the last few K when Sagan won his first worlds.

hubcyclist

all i know is that a lot of people who watch the olympic network must have a structured settlement and need cash now

mattm

Also clicked on a link to the Specialized site, landed on a spoiler on top of spoiler (not just who won, but how, more or less, on their home page).

I know it's mostly my fault but damn.

And it's also not shocking that Sagan took it again - but it would have been nice to watch the race thinking one of these random moves might have worked, or that Boassen-Hagen might have won the sprint or something.

Anyway, I'm still watching the whole race (watched up to the last 60k, where things got exciting, went for a ride, now finishing it).

mattm

This isn't time-trialing; it's not all about the average speed. And don't tell me you can see a difference (on TV) between 27mph and 29 mph!

You see the same thing in local amateur racing; the cat 4/5 field might go faster on average (for 30 minutes) than the p/1/2 field for 60 minutes, but no way those 4/5's would be competitive in the p/1/2 race.

A more meaningful argument is should they have a more mountainous RR course for the WC, to really weed out fat sprinters...

hack

Hopefully they corrected it for watching afterward, but the live feed and race radio dropped out for the last 3k or so. I had a few minutes of Bob and Paul speculating on what could be happening in the race while stationary cameras showed the finish line.

Doge

On TV I can't. Being there - 27 and 29 are quite different. UCI WC was 24 - I can see that (vs 29) on the video. Average speed is an indication of overall aggressiveness. To be clear - no/few kids would have lasted half way that distance. It is a marathon, not a mile and the races are different. I'd think the worlds top 50 juniors could get up that hill very close to the worlds best pros without days of stages or miles before the climb. Just not how RR isright now. Pretty much every USA nats - the juniors are faster up the hills than the Cat 1s. It is recorded on Strava, so it must be true. Some of that is their inability to conserve, but facts are - they go faster, as a group. They can't down hill because they don't have the gears. This is to be expected. For speed/power there have been Olympic cycling track champions at 17 (forget his name). The events are different. Which is why I mentioned marathon vs a miler. Similarly in other sports, peak male power and aggressiveness is seen younger, not older.

You might drop Sagan too and No Sagan, no WC...
UCI does not have a crit, CR and RR - they have this, closer to a CR. So yea, I agree. That 156 riders were there after 230K was an indicator not much was going on before then.

mattm

Yeah I just saw that.. talk about unfortunate timing! The NBC Sports Gold feed I watched had the same dropout.

But really it was those last 500m that mattered anyway. It was closer than I thought it'd be; Sagan only beat Kristoff by less than half a wheel! Better than I thought Kristoff would do, given his season.

Beautiful sprint by Sagan - so patient! I would have jumped way too early and led it all out.. just like Kristoff lol. (actually I would've been dropped in the first 60k most likely)

mattm

Even if that's true - on average, which isn't an apples-to-apples comparison, since the distances are so different - it's the surges that would 100% be faster in the pros. It's the surges that matter, it's the surges where the race is won or lost.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. If the juniors do well enough they'll get up to the "slow" race eventually - although most of them won't.

Doge

My point is pros would look better and be more watched if races were 2-3 hours and "hard".
Sagan would still win, maybe, but we'd save time and see faster races.

Edit: Surges - is where the lighter rider wins.

tetonrider

+1.

i tend to call this stuff out.

watching the TdF or world, taking place 8, 10 or more time zones away... it's not like the super bowl where almost everyone in the US watches it live. many of us watch it later--maybe it's a couple hours, maybe it's ~24h.

my other beef is that these people rarely have anything that adds to a conversation. it's just something like "SAGAN FTW!!!!!" if somebody has something unique to say, that would make it less of an issue IMO.

are these the same people that walk out of an early movie and loudly discuss the plot twist so the people walking in can hear? are they the ones that comment "FIRST!" in every thread?

it's easy to avoid the obvious places where we'll see discussion, but it's kind of hard to completely shut off social media these days.

miyata man

I question what your talking about talking about other people talking added.

mattm

Ha and I was thinking I was crazy.

Also: the only people that care about the result are the same ones you shouldn't spoil the result to!! I mean at least wait until late at night or the next day..

mattm

Btw, Chantal Blaak - what a ride! Crashing and then winning the World Championship.. damn.

I think that beats Sagan's ride.

gsteinb

I, uh, ummm...if we don't stay up to watch the great sunday night episodic thriller we just stay off the interweb until we see it. Isn't it logical that the place that exists largely to convey instantaneously unfolding news would have that instantaneously unfolding news?

topflightpro

Did you call J.G. Wentworth?


I have to agree with this. I know when we used to watch the recording of Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad the next evening, I had to stay off Facebook and a lot of other websites during the day.

himespau 

I watch most of my alma mater's football games (if they are on TV at all) on time delay because of kids and stuff. I can sure get through losses a lot faster. It does mean staying off the internet until after I'm caught up (even if that's the next day), but that's on me.

mattm

yeah yeah but still

i said it was my fault, and that i went on fb by accident.

also, stay off the internet? that’s a bit much to ask these days

stay off fb sure, but if somone spoils on strava... i mean wtf

TheKillerPenguin

It has to be on strava though, because if it isn't it doesn't count???