World Championship Road Race

I watched the last 45 mins or so and delighted Sagan did it, finally. Didn't reaise he'd also unclipped!

You could taste the pain in that last 500m, and I thought he may be in for some heartache again but he hung on.

Congrats to Lizzie Armitstead too.

I am well pleased for Peter Sagan too a very strong rider.

Great news about Lizzie Armistead shes really flying at the moment

He gained about 2 secs attacking on the climb, a further 2 secs in his aero tuck for the descent, another 2 secs on his cornering technique, while Van Avermaet and Bossen Hagen (i think) were trying to chase him.  After which they were arguing who is going to chase and it was game over.

I always say the cyclist's in pro peloton are the formula 1 drivers of the cycling world.  Cycling just needs better tv coverage and post race analysis on the same scale as rugby,football and cricket.  

Plus it has the best trophy in any sport the honour of wearing the rainbow jersey for the next 12months. Then after that you ride with the rainbow colours on your armband for the rest of your career.

Best bit of commentary was from Chris Boardman with 1km to go 'anyone who goes now can't sprint' with that Lizzie (won can sprint) goes.  It looked to me she did everything wrong in that last km as the superior sprinter but she got away with it.

I thought she had blown it too, but nobody else seemed to want to force it at high tempo so she recovered enough to go again.

I guess difference between national Champs (everyone for themselves) and team races.

She is a very consistent performer. Roll on Rio maybe?

Bruce

The 'strayans should be ashamed. They did nothing at all during the race to contribute, and them messed up the finale. It just needed "gerro" to be up there and have gone with Sagan, EBH and GVA, and they may have brought it back together. Sure, Matthews then probably needs to deal with Kristoff, but that's better than just riding in for second. But "gerro" is too selfish for that.

I see Gerrans came 6th so he certainly didn't sacrifice himself to pull it back for Matthews.  

Back in 2009 the year Cadal Evans won there was a divided camp for Austrialia who the team leader was Gerrans or Evans.   

Evans' win that year was an epic, brave early attack. (Something "gerro" knows nothing about.) Probably the ride of his career, although his ride to control Scheck's early breakaway on the Galibier in 2011 TDF is right up there, too.

I changed my opinion on him just a couple of weeks before he won the Worlds. (he was not popular rider after the 2008 tour) He punctured near the summit of a long climb and he had to wait ages for replacement wheel the way he stayed so calm as the neutral service guy seem to take forever to change the back wheel.  If that was me i would of completely lost it.  That puncture probably cost him the win in the vuelta.

You're right that "Cuddles" was a bit of a prickly character for many years. He came good, though. Sagan is maturing, too. There's not really a parallel, as they are very different people, but Sgan is easier to like now than he was.

I think when a rider goes through a tough patch you get an affiliation with that rider. Mind his hard times was just coming second.   I feel this could be his breakthrough with regards to the one day classics. He should be able to win Milan San-Remo, Paris Roubaix and Tour of Flanders over the next few years. 

I’m glad Sagan won, he’s had a lot of bad luck in the last two years. Highlighting the plight of refugees across Europe was a nice touch and definitely unexpected.

Winning the worlds is quite often down to good fortune by managing to get into the right (and ultimately winning) selection. Sagan was fortunate no Germans managed to get into the breakaway containing Boonen, if they had the Germans wouldn’t have dragged the peleton up to the breakaway.

Pity that, I had £7.00 E/W on Boonen at 36/1.

He's got the talent to win many of the spring classics. Problem is, he's a marked man. He's such a good sprinter, nobody in their right mind is going to take him to the finish.

What happens when you use sandpaper to stop yourself sliding forward on your TT seat. I think this is Tony Martin, which would perhaps explain his relatively poor performance. You'd think they'd test this ahead of time?

He's been cursed with that issue for a couple of years now. The difference now (and after the TOC) is that he has more self-belief. He has taken his body past limits to efforts he didn't previously think possible.

After Sagan's bike handling last week, this week Nibali's amazing descending skills in the Tour of Lombardy.  You don't get that feeling of danger in F1 but that descent today, it felt that every corner was a heart stopping moment.   

NIbali's win was just epic. I know what you mean about the descending. Crazy stuff. That may be the most "on the edge" descent I've seen. Great that it worked for him.

On YouTube??

Bruce

This is the best I can find at the moment.  http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk...mbardia-video-194136

Thanks for the link. That is great descending skill indeed. He used every bit of road that was available and was very lucky in a few places, not least where he nearly got squeezed off the road by the camera motorcycle!

Impressive.

You don't need drugs for that-just big cojones!

I am an utter wuss downhill, but then a friend of one of my ride companions was killed a month or so ago misjudging a corner on the moor near here. He went over a bridge parapet and fell some distance. Experienced rider, familiar road, just made a mistake.

Bruce

Terrible tragedy. No consolation for your friends' loss I know, but thankfully, very rare. Single bike accidents not involving motor vehicles hardly ever result in fatalities.

I've had one near miss a few years back where I overshot a downhill corner onto the wrong side of the road, narrowly missed an oncoming vehicle and ended up riding on the dirt verge. Didn't come off, but hopped back onto the road and continued on. It slowed me down a lot for years afterwards, but sadly, my courage seems to be returning. I have to be deliberatley careful once the thrill of the descent starts to take effect. My crash record is decent at about 1 crash every 10 years. All but 1 have been mostly, or completely, my fault.

Fast descents with corners - road cyclist worst enemy.

In the space of 18 months our club had a 18 year old kid found dead on a sharp corner on a descent (he was out on his own).

In the road race we organised (fortunately i was not the organiser for that race), one of the riders at 50 mph on the descent went over the white line and went head on into a car. He was dead on impact.

On our club run, one of our group ended up in a ditch on a fast descent with a sharp bend(fortunately he only broke his hip and is now riding again)

The latter 2 held elite licences under British Cycling, whilst the 18 year old was a very gifted bike handler.  (He would take of his leg warmers in the middle of ride, me i would just stop) 

As one of the old riders in our club says to me 'stay upright'

Stay upright indeed - Just watched the Nibali footage and I'm always fascinated by watching good descending, probably given I'm so poor at it myself. I remember seeing footage of him coming down a gravel road in a past Giro at 40mph and I was astonished.

I've worked at it but still find it difficult to relax at high speed and avoid tensing up - there's still certain hills I avoid going down round here (Cotswolds) where gradients hit 10%+ for long stretches as I cant handle the 45mph+ speed and otherwise it's constant braking which is no fun.  

That is a terrible run. We've never had anything like that.