WorldTour and Pro Cycling Nonsense 2012

boom's been caught by flecha, balland and unheralded matthieu ladagnous of FDJ - who then flats on the third-last sector. awful luck!

Paul Sherwen just said everyone at the Velodrome will be high as a kite...

boom to lead out the sprint for 2nd

oof so close - terpstra and turgot catch the other three, ballan and turgot in photo-finish!

So Boonen won alone? What kind of margin? Flecha?

1 Tom Boonen (Bel) Omega Pharma-Quickstep 5:55:22
2 Sébastien Turgot (Fra) Team Europcar 0:01:39
3 Alessandro Ballan (Ita) BMC Racing Team
4 Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni (Spa) Sky Procycling
5 Niki Terpstra (Ned) Omega Pharma-Quickstep
6 Lars Boom (Ned) Rabobank Cycling Team 0:01:43
7 Matteo Tosatto (Ita) Team Saxo Bank 0:03:31
8 Mathew Hayman (Aus) Sky Procycling
9 Johan Vansummeren (Bel) Garmin - Barracuda
10 Maarten Wynants (Bel) Rabobank Cycling Team
11 Luca Paolini (Ita) Katusha Team
12 Matthieu Ladagnous (Fra) FDJ-Big Mat

brilliant ride from boonen, balls of steel TT'ing solo from 50k out

http://www.iamtedking.com/2012/04/done-and-dusted-3/

A good read

I thought so, his blog is pretty entertaining.

Twitter was pretty entertaining for Roubaix, it's clearly a race that pros watch. Cancellara was pretty entertaining. David Millar spent the race criticising Oakley for not getting exactly colour matches with their shades.

I was sure Gilbert was going to get that. Then I was sure Sagan was.

Good end to a fairly dull race. Wonder if Romain Bardet will come to anything, between him, Pierre Roland, Arnaud Démare and the reset of the world taking less drugs it finally seems like France has some good oncoming talent. (also the FDJ sponsored academy system as well)

5km to go at fleche wallone. always find the finish pretty hilaire - the slowest bunch sprint around!

ryder and nordhaug couldn't stay off here could they?

brutal acceleration from j. rodriguez. he got ten bike lengths like that. *snaps fingers*

albasini second, fast phil got third. looking better for that L-B-L defense i think.

Nibali attacks on the descent with 19km to go...

nibali killing it

I think he's got this.

Aaargh! Passed by Iglinksy with just 1km to go

http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/04/news/valverde-others-disqualified-for-steering-off-route-at-liege_214605

lol

Wiggins wins bunch sprint in Romandie!

Wiggins had an untimely mechanical at this point, and had to fight his way back with his Sky teammate Michael Rogers, who was wearing the green points jersey. Once Wiggins was brought back, Sky went back to the front and sparked a wickedly fast chase to bring back the 14 riders up the road.

not sure what this entailed, but i srsly don't know how dudes come off the group in the last 15k or whatever and then get back on. the way everything is usually moving at that point, two guys vs. the pack is like, misery. i guess if youre as good at tt as those guys are, you just do it. and then you go to the front and win anyway.

From the images I saw the 'bunch' wasn't huge - maybe 40 riders or so - so I don't think there were sprinter's teams churning it out at the front

Luis Leon Sanchez sprints to victory and gets the bonus seconds to take yellow off Wiggins.

his skinsuit says "wiggo." his hair makes him look like a gorillaz character. i dont know if these are pluses or minuses anymore.

He really, really could win the Tour this year. In the form of his life, winning everything he goes for (at the start of the season he said he was going for Paris-Nice, Romandy and the Dauphine). He'll probably suffer some terrible misfortune instead.

well he is british

Wreckless spriting by Ferrari caused a nasty crash - took down Cavendish and about ten others including Phinney (in pink) who had to cross the finish line in an ambulance

And apparently said in interview "I can't see what's behind me and I don't care"

He's been relegated to last place in the stage.

in a way, it's surprising to me that kind of crash doesn't happen more often-- cav wanted to stay on/get on farrar, but was only just closing the gap, and it appears ferrari saw a wheel and thought it was open. i mean, when it's on and you see someone going up like farrar with nobody right on him, the temptation to be an idiot is pretty huge.

well he is british (lol, u mean. xpost)

check the replay videos and watch for the rider who does a bunny hop over the prone cav - so legit

otm

Wow - heroic lone break in the Giro

absolute hero. solo ride for 70km, crashed at one point, and outsprinted rodriguez after he got caught! the giro is really finely-poised, way better than last year.

i would like the farnese vini kit.

good to see robert gesink get up at the tour of cali - shame that i missed that stage finish yesterday morning, sounds like it was a good one too.

Giro is v. entertaining this year, who would have thought that would happen.

holy shit, ryder.

^^^^

Fantastic finish. I sky+ed the Eurosport coverage (all four hours of it) and have just spent the best part of an hour watching, fast forwarding, watching some more etc. - only to discover that the recording finished with 2km left to race! Exactly the same thing happened a couple of days ago for the Passo Giau stage. Fortunately steephill had a link to some Italian coverage of the last 3km.

best bits of hesjedalia imo:

at 2km- "scarponi, i'ma dump my bottle now. i know you're looking at the back of your eyesockets, but i'm gonna take a good long drink. mmMM, that's nice."

at 800m *looks around, grins*

ds alan peiper: "if he was more laid back, he'd be horizontal."

guys guys guys, the Stelvio is totally covered in snow

It's Stelvio time!

Very impressive by de Gendt so far. Also Cunego deserves some kind of award for time spent off the front over the last few weeks (to no good effect).

De Gendt is nearly virtual Pink jersey (why did I take him out of my Fantasy team?)

glad that was streaming on rai. everybody decided to put it all on garmin. have no reservations in hoping hesjedal wins after that.

That was truly immense. Apparently DeGendt rode the Stelvio 30 times to prepare for today. If Hesjedal wins tomorrow it is well deserved.

I was only musing yesterday about Belgium not having a true GC contender, I guess I was wrong. The Uran/Henao show is pretty exciting too.

(why did I take him out of my Fantasy team?)

I didn't :-)

Intermediate checkpoint: De Gendt 11 seconds up on Scarponi, Hesjedal 1 second up on De Gendt, Rodriguez approaching...

Rodriguez about 30 secs down already - il vincitore sara' Canadese