TMonk

nice!

mattm

A fair point, but it's not like Greipel et al get through sprints without bumping into anyone, pushing anyone out of their way, pissing anyone off.

They have to do all of those things in order to win.

hack

True ... but the Cav stuff just always seems a bit over the top. His pissy attitude doesn't help much either. I'm not a fan so anything he does is amplified significantly.

I did get a kick out of the Giant videos with Degenkolb a couple years back. He wasn't unsafe in his actions, but that guy is more than happy to just shove everyone out of his way.

carpediemracing 

That's awesome.

carpediemracing 

I'm a fan of Cav's. I think he gets blamed for crashes that he didn't cause. At the same time I do think he has pushed limits and caused some crashes. I think he's a bit too transparent to hide if he did something on purpose or not, meaning his face reveals all sorts of emotions. No stony face facade there from what I've seen.

I was also a fan of Abdujaporov, who was a bit more aggressive in his pushes etc. He was victimized sometimes, where he got pushed off line and nothing happened to the other guy, or he'd veer a reasonable amount and then get penalized for going off his line. I think he was more a victim of his carelessness in his most famous crash on the Champs, where he just had his head down and rode right into the barriers. I've seen this a few times locally so it's not like no one does it, but each time it happened it was a very good rider making a massive (and most likely a successful one). Based on what I've seen it looks like the riders got absorbed in the moment and neglected to keep looking forward.

McEwen is another that I liked watching.

mattm

Some guys are riding around in Spain.

Just catching up now; didn't watch stage 1, TTT, meh. I guess one of the teams won?

Finish of stage two was somewhat messy; no big sprint teams, chaos. Something that's kind of fun about watching the Vuelta is the sprints; almost anyone can win.

Also, where is JJ Cobo??

mattm

Also I splurged for "NBC Sports Gold" subscription to watch it; $20/year for Vuelta, le Tour, some other races too, not bad.

jsk

Unfortunately the commentator is extremely boring IMHO, I'm having a hard time getting into the race although part of that may just be sports-viewing fatigue after the Tour and the Olympics.

I understand there's also a 2hr recap broadcast, but it must be on a channel I don't get. I actually liked the coverage on BeIn Sports last year better.

Grumpy McTrumpy

I have the same package. I cannot seem to view the Vuelta live on the computer. Viewing it on the iphone app works, but the main page takes me to my "settings" and no further. Then it just keeps redirecting back to a page which shows no live option.

tetonrider

@carpediemracing i thought of you.

my buddy won a UCi race today with a bike throw! you are always the first person to come to mind.

14067756_10154096011792732_1922805293788765592_o.jpg

i'm super happy for him. he had a challenging early season for a bunch of reasons but is now coming around. hope it results in a pro tour contract for him. you have to beat the top guys to really get the attention of those teams.

@andysti will appreciate this.

carpediemracing 

That's awesome, and a good bike throw too!

hack

Nice! He trained down this way a bit during his CalGiant days. He and his teammates would beat us to hell and then go do more miles.

mattm

Who is your buddy?

Btw seems like he would've won it without the throw.. but it can't hurt to try!

Better to play it safe it than to lose to a good throw.

mattm

As for the Vuelta; yeah the announcer (only one, wtf) is pretty bland.. with one person though that's a lot of blank space to fill.

The racing is pretty good; Quintana looking strong, Froome looking stronger.

hack

Haven't seen much of it other than a few streaming final kilometers here and there. Seems to be more of a race than the Tour was, that's for sure.

tetonrider

those images distort time. saw one the other day from a friend's race and the gap was shocking for the time difference.

64kph ~ 18m/s

0.02" ~ 1/2 a wheel

not throwing in that circumstance would be risky, IMO. (i didn't watch it live -- not sure if he came from behind / was accelerating; that would make a difference...maybe.)

PepeM

He was the first one to jump and had a decent gap, the Cannondale rider was closing down on him.

carpediemracing 

I think he'd have won without the throw based on head/shoulder placement, but that's a static shot. In reality the situation dictates what the rider does, and when it's a big race like that the rider should always throw the bike.

I won a race by half a wheel and if you asked me as soon as I finished if I won I would have told you I had no idea - I thought it was 50-50 that I lost. I can't imagine a tire width margin, I'd have sworn up and down I lost.



Not me but a good example of where head/shoulder placement shows that one rider should have beaten the other to the line, except for bike throw. #248 beats the orange jersey even though orange jersey's body is ahead:

mattm

Vuelta: awesome move by Quintana, getting in the break and putting time on Froome! Who says modern bike racing is boring??

Tour of Britain: Greipel finished it off so well, his team doing great work to put him in to that last corner perfectly. Cavendish crashed out in said last corner.. no video of crash but he didn't look banged up.

PepeM

Credit also needs to go to Contador for actually instigating the break.

mattm

Indeed.

And Brambilla can't be left out, he was a co-conspirator for sure! And it paid off in the end for "Brambi"

TheKillerPenguin

This Vuelta has been awesome. If I take nothing else from it, I now have a massive man crush on Gesink, who has been in like half of the breakaways.

furiousferret

It's been the best Grand Tour this year by a long shot.

mattm

Yeah it's been good - Quintana's attack in the last 20m today was cute, but I wish he would've attacked Froome earlier (like for real) but I guess it's not worth it to risk the red jersey for a little flair.

Surprised that Contador lost 3rd, and that Tolansky got 5th.

mattm

Also, the NBC Sports Gold feed of the Tour of Britain now features what seems to be live race radio; played over the announcers.. which is good and bad.

It's neat to hear what I presume the riders (and/or DSs?) hear in real time ("road narrows", "attacking at the front, no advantage", "rider 181 has rejoined the group"). It would make racing so different to know wtf is going on at the front when you're on the back, and vice-versa.

But it's also annoying that they play it at the same time as the announcers. Better than the Sky(?) TV-control lady from a few days ago, that was weird.