Cycling:world track champs, Mallorca

[grimble]

Basso might well attempt all three this season - certain the Giro and the Tour - although it's by no means certain who will be team leader throughout the season at Disco, there's some good talent there (Contador one to watch?).

By the way, Victoria Pendleton fans:
http://www.goodfridaymeeting.org.uk/
Herne Hill this Friday.

 

[Sigmund Fraud]

Basso might well attempt all three this season - certain the Giro and the Tour - although it's by no means certain who will be team leader throughout the season at Disco, there's some good talent there (Contador one to watch?).
.

Contador and Basso are doped to the hilt in my numble opinion, allegedly. Basso will probably win the tour tho ...we have a real divide in the teams now, some (T-mobile, CSC) have signed up to very public anti doping measures and others (Like Disco) seem to be signing everyone implicated in Operacion Puerto and giving a big 'fuck you' to cycling...

Yeah it was better when riders attempted other races as well as the TdF, even Mig and Jan had a pop at other grand tours to their credit. Theres nobody at all who would even dare say Paris-Roubaix and the Tdf in the same season but in the 70s and 80's you had folk like Merckx, Hinault and Lemond do exactly that...which is why they'll never be matched as champions by the likes of Armstrong or Indurain.

 

[twistedAM]

Yeah it was better when riders attempted other races as well as the TdF, even Mig and Jan had a pop at other grand tours to their credit. Theres nobody at all who would even dare say Paris-Roubaix and the Tdf in the same season but in the 70s and 80's you had folk like Merckx, Hinault and Lemond do exactly that...which is why they'll never be matched as champions by the likes of Armstrong or Indurain.

Yeah and Kelly took the green after doing the Classics.

This thread makes me want to subscribe to Europsort again. Anyone know if you can do it though Top Up/Freeview? I can't get Sky as its flats and too comoplicated and can't be fucked with Virgin

 

[stavros]

Abdou, Cipo and Il Pirata were all great but it was Indurain who killed off televised Tdf in Britain, he made Armstrong look charismatic and made a sport out of hanging on in the mountians before sledgehammering everyone in the TTs...very dull.

As a child I didn't think so. It was always subtley fascinating to see if Rominger, a superior climber and not a bad TTer, could topple him. Armstrong made it duller I thought by more or less only racing once a year. He may have won more TdFs than anyone else, but will he ever be there with Merckx who won all three jerseys?

I think last year Basso was going for the Vuelta-Tour-Giro triple before he got embroiled.

I'd also love to get Eurosport on Freeview, because no way am I giving any money to Murdoch.

 

[Sigmund Fraud]

You can get British eurosport via topup TV for freeview, as long as your STB supports cards. Or you could do as I do and look for cycling torrents, got the whole classics season and as much giro and tdf as I could handle that way last year.

It is weird how cycling is virtually ignored by the mainstream media. Usually the media go berserk for any form of British sporting success - even if we can only muster up a plucky loser - but cycling remains virtually a niche interest over here.

It shouldn't make any difference at all of course, but you'd think the presence of a gold medal winning hottie like Victoria Pendleton would pique the tabloid's interest at least.

It seems someone heard you - Vicky was on Breakfast this morning where she had to endure some seriously stupid questions from Bill Turnbull (so your track bike has no brakes?Golly! You ride on the road too?! Have you ever fallen off?!...did Steve Redgrave get asked if he ever fell off his rowing boat ferchrissakes) and also an interview on R5 with Nicky Campbell (who along with Sheila Fogarty asked some pretty good questions to be fair). If she keeps this up then who knows, esp if she does well in Beijing.

 

[Tricky Skills]

Some pictures from Herne Hill up over HERE.

 

[stavros]

Someone mentioned upthread that road cycling is a boring TV sport. It struck me at the weekend that rolling through beautiful landscapes the world over with intermediate bonuses perhaps ranks as more theoretically exciting than a load of fast but very similar cars going round the same track again and again for two hours, but Formula 1 gets the viewers still.