Road Cycling
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George Bennett claims long-awaited New Zealand road race title
'I was down and out a week ago and wrote myself off' says Jumbo-Visma rider
George finally wins a national championship!!!
Hopefully, we'll get to see him riding prominently in that national champion's jersey in some big races.
He certainly sounds thrilled at the prospect!
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Watched that live. George just ate up the other riders’ reserves then picked a moment to blast away. I know that road well and you’d hardly call those rises hills at all. They just couldn’t go with him that last time. From that point they didn’t bother and he rode away. Class above.
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@Crucial I didn't realise it was televised or I would have watched as well.
George makes his winning move at 1.03.15 – Mark Watson gets increasingly excited and emotional the closer he gets to home. Despite that the pictures are a bit shit it’s worth watching.
He also does a really nice interview at 1.26.35. A bit more eloquent than the average rugby interview.
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@Chris-B yeah I was searching to see what the coverage might be and there was a non obvious link to a live stream.
Comments guys were having a little whinge about how it should be the lead sports news story but that ain’t going to happen when any pictures look to be from somebody’s phone over a cell network. -
@Crucial said in Road Cycling:
@Chris-B yeah I was searching to see what the coverage might be and there was a non obvious link to a live stream.
Comments guys were having a little whinge about how it should be the lead sports news story but that ain’t going to happen when any pictures look to be from somebody’s phone over a cell network.fuck me it was embarassing.. I have no idea how someone standing on the side of the course live streaming on their phone to facebook can be 10x clearer than an actual television networks footage. bloody joke.
anyway that ride just shows how far above the rest you are as a top pro - GB obviously been training the house down for a ride like that. Gave him ZERO chance of winning against a team of 15 black spoke guys and one team mate for support.. with short climbs and a flat run in.
only thing he could do was just keep hitting them til they didn't get back up.. took him til 10 k's to go before he succeeded then pretty impressive to clear out like he did. -
@WillieTheWaiter he did the damage in the stretch by Waterworks road heading into TeMiro I reckon. They got the downhill cruise to get a rest but only lasted one more push before the rubber band snapped
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@Crucial said in Road Cycling:
@WillieTheWaiter he did the damage in the stretch by Waterworks road heading into TeMiro I reckon. They got the downhill cruise to get a rest but only lasted one more push before the rubber band snapped
the bit where Vink was chasing across then yo-yoing was just brutal..
I was training at the Drome with the NZ cervelo importer - suffice to say he was pretty happy after the weekends results!
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@WillieTheWaiter said in Road Cycling:
I was training at the Drome with the NZ cervelo importer - suffice to say he was pretty happy after the weekends results!
I used to be able to speak a bit of Italian. It's obviously pretty much gone.
I was wondering for a couple of minutes why a venison importer would be happy!
cervo = deer.
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here's a pic from the 'fuck i feel old' category.. under 23 winner Jack Drage who also came 6th overall.. good one to watch for the future!
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I see Finn Fisher-Black was actually the fastest time-trialist, but was too young to claim the senior title.
George missed doing the Senior double by 0.7 of a second.
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@scribe said in Road Cycling:
@crucial Van der Poel races with such panache. He may not always get it right but he always impacts the race. His recent win at Strada Bianche was jaw dropping. Imagine what he could do with a proper road based preseason.
The way he just destroyed van Aert up that last hill was brutal.
Came back to get him at the end when he ran out of gas in the last 50 metres but he had to place his bets on way or the other. -
@crucial said in Road Cycling:
Fuck that. 20% hill on cobbles.
I was wondering when the last time anyone had to dismount and walk up the Koppenberg - used to be pretty regular. guess the bigger range of gears these days helps.. just ridiculous how easy they make it look going up there.
Done it once, took 3 goes to make it, had to come back after it had dried off a bit. Worst bit was I didn't know where I was so ended up riding back down it to get back into town. I would say that was the only time I was really concerned for my life on a bike!!
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As anyone with more than a passing interest doubtless knows, George has been given the reins of the Jumbo-Visma team for this year's Giro.
However, they haven't exactly given him a powerful support team - Groenewegen obviously riding for himself as a sprinter with Dekker or Marten probably his lead-out man (?), Affini, Foss and Van Emden are time trialists. So only Bouwman going to be of much help for George in the hills.
https://www.giroditalia.it/en/squadre/team-jumbo-visma/
Anyway, first stage down - a short time trial - and I think George will be reasonably happy with the outcome.
Giro d'Italia: Ganna storms to victory in stage 1 time trial
World champion takes first maglia rosa in Turin
He's finished pretty much in the group of GC contenders - 3 seconds down on Carthy and Yates, but a few seconds ahead of Hindley, Landa , Bardet and, notably, Patty Bevin who probably hoped for better.
Almeida, Evenepoel and Vlasov the potential GC guys who've stolen a handful of seconds.
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@crucial I thought they might have given him Gesink or Vingegard or at least one more support climber, but seems like they're going all in to support Roglic (and Kruiswijk) in the TdF.
Tom Dumoulin will miss Tour de France as Jonas Vingegaard named as replacement
There had been rumours of a comeback in time for the Tour
