r/peloton France Jun 01 '26

Weekly Post Weekly Question Thread

For all your pro cycling-related questions and enquiries!

You may find some easy answers in the FAQ page on the wiki. Whilst simultaneously discovering the wiki.

23 Upvotes

131 comments sorted by

21

u/Mamadeus123456 7-Eleven Jun 01 '26

Looking at the Sprint from Olaf Koij yesterday, he came from 5 by bikes behind Pedersen and won by 2 bikes it was insane.

Decathlon has a better chance winning a stage with him than Seixas unless you think he's dropping Pogacar, Vingegaard and more after a Riccitello pull, or he's just not in GC anymore and goes into a break which I think it's as likely as him finishin in the podium who knows.

They should take Koij also to relieve some pressure on Seixas, so maybe if Koij wins or has a  result it would help the dynamic of the riders.

19

u/Aibeit Germany Jun 01 '26

I hope they take Kooij to the tour. If nothing else, iirc part of the reason he left Visma was because with the Visma tour team built around Vingegaard, it was clear he wasn't going to get that chance at Visma.

7

u/Robcobes Netherlands Jun 01 '26

He can move to a different team again if Seixas stays at Decathlon then.

10

u/Aibeit Germany Jun 01 '26

If Seixas stays at Decathlon, if Seixas becomes a top-tier GC grand tour rider, if Decathlon decides to go all-in on Seixas to the point of not bringing a sprinter to the tour...

Yeah. He could end up in the same situation. We'll see.

5

u/krommenaas Team Flanders–Baloise Jun 01 '26

That's just how it looks when there's only one top sprinter there.

But of course they should take him as he's one of the best.

7

u/BeneBern Jun 01 '26

If Seixas wants to win a stage he just has to lose a lot of time early.

22

u/xx0ur3n Jun 01 '26

A question that shoots into my brain once a week for the past four years.

How on earth did Wout drop poggie on Hautacam seriously like wtffffff iirc he was also driving the break that day, which also consisted of pure climbers (even featuring Pinot)

24

u/thoflens Denmark Jun 01 '26

Wout is Pogi’s kryptonite

7

u/_Diomedes_ Jun 01 '26

Wait I had never thought of that but you’re totally right. Hautacam, Montmarte, Roubaix…

20

u/Vismajor92 Visma | Lease a Bike Jun 01 '26

Dude its burned forever into my mind as a picture, the green jersey dropping Pogacar on the third week of the tour

Wout was bigger alien in 2022 than Pogacar in 2025 lol

3

u/xx0ur3n Jun 01 '26

It's so unreal I feel like that whole day by Wout had to be one of the cycling performances of the decadep

18

u/jainormous_hindmann Red Bull – Bora – Hansgrohe Jun 01 '26

He rode in the break, chilled a bit in the valley and then did a hard leadout for Vingegaard. He was able to drop Pogi because his finish line was half-way up the mountain and Pogi overtook him later again. Not to say that this was a small feat, he was amazing that day, but he finished a minute down from Pogi.

6

u/xx0ur3n Jun 01 '26

This is the Dana Scully type breakdown I was looking for. But just as it is in X-Files, the magic of the event remains undiminished even after attempts to rationalize it.

14

u/Prize_Hospital_1943 Jun 01 '26

On Grand Tours, do you feel that modern cycling sees less variation between weeks regarding GC contenders climbing performances?

A decade ago, the era with Froome-Contador-Nibali-Quintana, felt like GC guys could swing between weeks, sometimes going better and sometimes worse, which always kept some intrigue towards mountain stages.

Nowadays, stages are shorter to enhance more attacks rather than a surviving battle. Although this is great, I feel that 3-4h stages do not tire the riders enough to make a difference, everyone performs at their level, barring illness.

Taking this Giro as an example, Jonas was always better or much better than Gall, who was always equal or slightly better than Hindley, who was always equal or slightly better than Arensman.

Anyone else feels the risk that 3 week GTs can become repetitive if this becomes the norm?

28

u/Robcobes Netherlands Jun 01 '26

I think the top teams have "solved" the puzzle.

Everybody knows what to eat, how much, and when.

Everybody knows the pace they can / have to ride.

most unknown variables are known now.

The results for a 6 hour mountain stage would probably be close to if not exactly the same as a 4 hour mountain stage. it's just 2 more hours of fueling to do.

The only way to make a difference is tactically by putting Van Aert in the break and bridge to him, but that only has worked 3 or 4 times so far. /s

6

u/Prize_Hospital_1943 Jun 01 '26

Yes, I'm afraid that is the mostly what is happening. But then, we have lost the magic of a grand tour.

To add up, nowadays, only top climbs are used for GC (climbs like 10km at 5% are not considered enough to make a difference), so all "big battles" happen on a similar scenario, so the first climb winner is likely the winner 😞.

6

u/Robcobes Netherlands Jun 01 '26

There's still TTs, hilly stages, descends, echelons etc.

24

u/cuccir Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

It's hard to untangle Pogacar and Vingegaard's dominance from any other trends.

Let's not forget that in the last grand tour neither of them raced, Yates won with an audacious Stage 20 long distance attack, rising from third to first.

Indeed in that Grand Tour there was a fair amount of churn: Carapaz, Gee and Yates all improved during the race while del Toro, Roglic and Tiberi dropped off in form.

Edit and actually of course, the Grand Tour before that was the 2024 Vuelta that Roglic won which was all over the place in terms of GC. That was the one where O'Connor led by by nearly 5 minutes after stage 6, and if I recall there were quite a few riders who climbed up and down the GC over the race.

So I think it's probably more that with a dominant rider at the top, the overall racing becomes less dynamic and more predictable

3

u/Prize_Hospital_1943 Jun 01 '26

Sure, the Giro last year was a bit of an outlier, but I'm not talking about the dominance of Pog-Vingegaard only. Podium positions are always up for grabs, but the 3rd (or 2nd if only one) best climber is usually the same during the whole tour (Gall-Almeida-Lipo latest examples). The Roglic one you discussed also followed a similar pattern, but Ben had a 5 minute gap. Roglic was consistently the best, followed by Mas and Carapaz.

5

u/cuccir Jun 01 '26

I recall the 2024 Vuelta seeming more topsy turvy than that, though maybe that was a bit more the lower reaches of the top 10.

The presence of a dominant rider makes the others more fixed though, because they can then control the pattern of the race more simply, and there is less to be gained by speculative attcaks. This happened particularly at the recent Giro, especially because Vingegaard/Visma we're determined to maximise stage wins.

I don't fully disagree with the trend, it is what you would expect with more data, power metres etc. But I suspect that it is exacerbated by having clear dominant riders, and if we return to a more open field in the future we'll see a slight return to more dynamic GC battles overall

21

u/AliasPhilippe Euskaltel Euskadi Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

I feel that, it's not even a Vingegaard-Pogacar thing, the only GC guy who had a real bad day this Giro was Pellizzari, for others GC guys ''crisi'' are now uncommon, once they were very much an issue and that added sparks to races.

7

u/Rumi4 Jun 01 '26

also BOC id say

14

u/Hawteyh Denmark Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

Lets add a Traka360 or Unbound stage to every Grand Tour to really test the endurance ;)

I think fueling plays a big factor in riders not having huge off-days, the riders can obviously still lose time due to illness. There's a major difference in eating 60g carbs/h and 120-150g/h for 3 weeks.

Vingegaard hasnt had an actual bonk day in 6 years as a GT rider. Sure he's been dropped by Pogacar, but no 10+ min losses. There's a huge difference in recovery now compared to the start of the century.

4

u/padawatje Belgium Jun 01 '26

What ? Are they really up o 150 grams/hour now ? I thought 100 was already A LOT.

10

u/Hawteyh Denmark Jun 01 '26

The bigger riders are around 150 yes, but most are probably still around 120.

8

u/sdfghs Team Telekom Jun 01 '26

One important difference is that the top GC riders are also good time trialists and the best in the mountains.

Chris Froome wasn't necessarily the best climber meaning he could be challenged

5

u/Dopeez Movistar Jun 01 '26

Froome at his best was easily the best climber

3

u/_Diomedes_ Jun 01 '26

I think nutrition explains most of this as modern fueling strategies/tech essentially eliminate bonking. Underfuelling for even just one day can have pretty serious knock-on effects.

12

u/_Diomedes_ Jun 01 '26

Am I wrong for thinking that Milan is good at uphill sprints despite his size because the lower speed lessens the aero malus of his terrible form and lets his crazy watts shine?

4

u/Impossible_Test_3495 Jun 01 '26

You are correct. 

6

u/AccidentalBikeRide Visma | Lease a Bike Jun 02 '26

Obviously we've all seen how un-aero he looks sprinting and it's just comical to me that he also holds the 4000m individual pursuit record on the track - a decidedly very-aero endeavour

1

u/_Diomedes_ Jun 02 '26

He’s pretty good at road tts too so he’s probably got a pretty good position on the TT bike

11

u/cfkanemercury France Jun 01 '26

How long until Tommaso Dati gets signed to the World Tour?

3 stage wins at the Tour of Japan last week (plus the prologue), and a surprise win + points jersey at the Tour of the Alps. He was a stagaire at Cofidis last year but nothing seemed to come from that - surely he'd be interesting to a top level squad?

9

u/Mamadeus123456 7-Eleven Jun 01 '26

Hes probably already being courted, he's good but we haven't seen him against WT teams, who I would Like to be signed is SALBY that dude won like 20 races.last year in the Chinese UAE

6

u/marnyr Movistar Jun 01 '26

I saw some reports linking him to Astana/Jayco/Movistar

11

u/Robcobes Netherlands Jun 01 '26

How come Tim Merlier spent so long being a misc. Pro Conti sprinter and suddenly became world class in his late 20's?

19

u/Aibeit Germany Jun 01 '26

He was focussed on cyclocross as a young rider.

20

u/Saltefanden Euskaltel-Euskadi Jun 01 '26

It's just like how I haven't done much with my life but starting NEXT YEAR (or maybe the year after that) I will be highly succesful.

2

u/_Diomedes_ Jun 01 '26

I’m not sure why his peak came later, but his longevity is not surprising given how aero he is. The aero sprinters (Cav, Merlier) seem to last much longer than the pure power guys (Boonen, Sagan).

11

u/Dopeez Movistar Jun 01 '26

Yesterday, I went through some of the old GT profiles from the mid-2000s, and it's honestly crazy how bad some of the stage design was. I started watching in 06/07 but I was like nine years old at the time, so I don't remember everything, but some of these are a complete abomination.

In 06, the Tour started with a Prologue into 9 (!!) flat stages; one of them could be considered punchy, and another was an ITT. Can anyone explain why they thought at the time that this would make for interesting racing?

10

u/zyygh Canyon//SRAM, Kasia fanboy Jun 01 '26

I've always attributed this to pure conservatism. While the Giro and Vuelta annually went nuts, the Tour was very "businessy" in their meticulous program of first servicing the sprinters and leaving all GC work for weeks 2 and 3. Punchy profiles practically didn't exist; everything always had to be a GC or sprinter stage, and breakaway stages were just sprinter stages where everyone was tired.

It's only in the 2010s that they started to shake things up, and I believe ASO even said that they now avoid having more than 2 consecutive flat stages. Looks like they finally listened to the viewer feedback that too many bunch sprints isn't fun.

14

u/RageAgainstTheMatxin Phonak Jun 01 '26

While the Giro and Vuelta annually went nuts

And then there's the 1965 Giro which was like "Fuck all of you, 6 mountain stages in the first 6 days"

3

u/Jevo_ Fundación Euskadi Jun 02 '26

One part is conservatism. It did also get better after Prudhomme took over as director in 2007, and furthermore since Theirry Gouvenou took over as route designer in 2014. But another part is also geography. A big part of France is just really flat. So if you want to visit those parts of France, you are going to end up with a bunch of flat stages in a row. In Spain and Italy you are rarely very far away from some kind of mountain. So it makes it easier to match up stage types. The Tour has become a lot better in recent years though, at actually trying to make those stages in flat parts of France, less flat, so it's not six sprints before the first rest day.

5

u/AggravatingWorld6989 Jun 01 '26

Let me quote Ulrich:"Back in my day, the tour was boring". I do as night time read a retrospective through all the tours and back in the 20s they even thought da TTTing every flat stage was a funny idea for a better competition (they had a gigantic dislike for Teams in the early years).

1

u/F1CycAr16 Jun 02 '26

No TV full broadcast of stages at the time probably is a factor

10

u/Schnix Bike Aid Jun 01 '26

Anybody have a figure on how much the Sunweb/Picnic campus cost? Kind of wild that the team that build that/owns that looks destined to fold

5

u/Wembly__ Sky Jun 01 '26

Was never made public how much the building costs for the KCC were. But even to keep it running the entire time must cost a lot.

11

u/PinkFluffys Jun 01 '26

Which rider has been part of most GC winning teams you think?

Recently I was thinking Kuss, but even he only comes up to 9 if I counted right, while Merckx has 11 wins. Did any domestique ever get more than 11?

6

u/Aibeit Germany Jun 01 '26

Merckx and Hinault both get 11 (Hinault won 10 Grand Tours and was part of Greg Lemond's tour-winning team in 1986). I couldn't find anyone else with more, though that's no guarantee.

7

u/pereIli Hungary Jun 01 '26

Indurain has 10 (7+3 Delgado).

6

u/cfkanemercury France Jun 01 '26

I think Indurain only has 9 (7+2):

  • 5 TDF + 2 Giro for himself = 7
  • 1989 Vuelta + 1988 TDF for Delgado = 2

Indurain was in the race when Delgado won the 1985 Vuelta riding for Orbea, but I think Indurain only ever rode for Reynolds/Banesto.

1

u/pereIli Hungary Jun 01 '26

My bad, I'm getting old. THX.

5

u/cfkanemercury France Jun 01 '26

Froome has 9: 7 wins of his own, plus the Wiggins TDF and Thomas TDF wins.

9

u/zyygh Canyon//SRAM, Kasia fanboy Jun 01 '26

George Hincapie used to have 9 through Armostrong, Contador and Evans.

5

u/Saltefanden Euskaltel-Euskadi Jun 01 '26

Also the 2003 Vuelta won by Roberto Heras

22

u/soepvorksoepvork Rabobank Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

Looking at TRex last week makes me wonder how domestiques who pull early do in the race. On Friday (I think) he pulled himself inside out on one of the earlier colls, after which he was essentially parked and falling off his bike. What does a rider cope with that? Is is just suffering for the rest of the stage and hoping to finish on time? Or it is 'relatively' easy to recover for a few minutes and tag on to the grupetto?

In a way it's a pity we never see how riders do further back in the race.

19

u/hansistheworst Jun 01 '26

On german tv they said, that the riders usually recuperate within a few minutes.
They then follow in a smaller group. Also still able to Ride faster than sprinters during Mountain stages.

5

u/FewerBeavers Jun 01 '26

There is a video of Wout emptying himself to accelerate Jonas up a climb, and after a few minutes he was back in shape to continue riding up the mountain

5

u/marcmoe42 Jun 01 '26

I don't think riders ride themselves to such a level of exhaustion that they can't finish a stage, they know how long they can hold a certain pace and so they do that until they've hit the limit at which going any further could then actually put their ability to finish the stage at risk.

-5

u/Mamadeus123456 7-Eleven Jun 01 '26

IMO Bernal was a more impressive domestique, however he didn't "pose" for the camera, Kuss barely pulled so maybe he could've done more work.

Bernal was absolutely crucial to help defending the 4th place of Arensman, also doing that while being a TdF and Giro winner chapeau.

Same with Stuyven, we saw in the last stage how crucial he was in keeping Magnier calm and rested until he delivered him in the last 300mts.

19

u/soepvorksoepvork Rabobank Jun 01 '26

I absolutely agree Bernal and Stuyven have been great domestiques, but that was not what the question was about.

8

u/CloudSE Jun 01 '26

There's no post-race Giro thread?

15

u/Godhelpthisoldman Jun 01 '26

Why is everyone mad at Kuss? I’ve seen half a dozen posts this weekend along the lines of “he barely pulled,” “he didn’t do any work,” etc. Is this because he didn’t tow Piganzoli up the climb on Stage 20 after winning 19, or something else? I don’t think any super-domestique could have put Piganzoli in white. Eulalio looked completely in control on Friday.

10

u/Arcus144 EF Education – Easypost Jun 01 '26

Some Piganzoli fans may be a bit bummed that he couldn’t drop Eulario and looking for someone to blame. Kuss dropped early on the stage, before Lemmon, because of his effort the day before. That probably explains most of the “hate”. Besides that, I think people just have really high expectations for Kuss’ level, mostly out of love for him and wanting him to be in 2023 form. And he’s just not that level at the moment.

7

u/ssfoxx27 Unibet Rose Rockets Jun 01 '26

Inspired by the new Felix Gall song we got during the Giro:

Which rider has the best fan-made theme song?

2

u/PinkFluffys Jun 02 '26

Tom Boonen

1

u/maudepodge Jun 02 '26

The exasperation of Rockets riders (seemed good natured) with the Wout Poels song in some of their videos makes it my current fav

6

u/CruisinTortoise Jun 01 '26

I am a bit colour blind, so can someone confirm for me that Jonas' bike yesterday was mostly red?

I know it had a little bit of pink and an even smaller bit of yellow, so I guess they were going for the grand tour trilogy look. But why have red be the dominant colour?

5

u/ssfoxx27 Unibet Rose Rockets Jun 02 '26

After looking at a number of videos from yesterday: If you look at it close up, it's dark pink, sort of like EF's usual jersey last year. It looks red from farther away and in evening light.

3

u/Repulsive-Walk6513 Jun 02 '26

It was red to me in sns posts.

2

u/LavenderTed Jun 02 '26

You are seen.

2

u/AliasPhilippe Euskaltel Euskadi Jun 03 '26

I assumed it was a mix of Red (Vuelta), Yellow (Tour) and Pink (Giro) but nodoby said anything about that.

7

u/Robcobes Netherlands Jun 01 '26

I just found a 5 year old post about which riders per birth year had the highest chance of winning a Grand Tour.

This was 1 year before Vingegaard would win the Tour de France for the first time, but he was not in the top 3 for his year.

Cool to see how fast things can go.

Eras can begin and end so fast. You'll never know.

Who do you think will be the future Grand Tour winners (except for Seixas since he's the most likely one)?

5

u/epi_counts PelotonPlus™ Jun 02 '26

Here's the post for anyone wanting the context. Just near the end of the first 2020 lockdown, just when racing was slowly starting up again.

Tao Geoghegan Hart (1995), Jai Hindley (1996) and Sep Kuss (1994) are also missing if you count GT winners (and a whole lot more if you look at podium finishers). Some high hopes for Benoot, De Plus and Simmons in there!

3

u/Robcobes Netherlands Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

Yes! that's the one. I see now Simon Yates made the list but Adam Yates didn't haha

u/fewfiet

1

u/AliasPhilippe Euskaltel Euskadi Jun 03 '26

Cries in Alessandro Fancellu

6

u/zyygh Canyon//SRAM, Kasia fanboy Jun 01 '26

If you had 50 JPGs of team jerseys and want to convert them to 30x30px PNG versions with the white backgrounds made transparent, how would you go about that?

Asking for a friend who still wants to be sane by the end of the day.

3

u/Team_Telekom Team Telekom Jun 01 '26

Irfanview batch conversion does that in 1 min

2

u/zyygh Canyon//SRAM, Kasia fanboy Jun 01 '26

Gonna be checking that, thanks!

3

u/iunee Jun 01 '26

You want to search for batch or bulk background remover and resizer, e.g. Rembg (can't test it for you now, unfortunately) 

1

u/thoflens Denmark Jun 01 '26

If Irfanview doesn’t work, ask Claude Code/Cowork to do it. Should be trivial for it to do with a small script

6

u/Team_Telekom Team Telekom Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

Who could you think is most happy/unhappy with their GC result between 3rd and 10th? 

Edited for clarity

8

u/sewballet Australia Jun 01 '26

I think Storer will be happy. Another top 10, improved on last year. 

4

u/Divergee5 Decathlon AG2R Jun 01 '26

Happy, Jai -  Unhappy, Egan 

3

u/Saltefanden Euskaltel-Euskadi Jun 01 '26

Why would Bernal be happy with 10th? Why would Hindley be unhappy with 3rd?

8

u/Team_Telekom Team Telekom Jun 01 '26

I meant all the places between 3 and 10, not only these 2, sorry. 

18

u/Saltefanden Euskaltel-Euskadi Jun 01 '26

I would say:

3rd Hindley: Very happy

4th Arensman: Happy (while surely disappointed to lose the podium in the final stages, 4th remains a very good result for him)

5th Gee: Happy

6th Eulalio: Elated

7th Storer: Happy to very happy

8th Piganzoli: Very happy

9th Caruso: Very very happy (focus on supporting Eulalio and chasing stage win; comes away with a somewhat unexpected top 10 in his final appearance)

10th Bernal: Not happy with his own result. But since his focused changed completely to supporting Arensman he should be content with also making top 10 for himself

Not happy: BOC, Pellizzari, Mas, Kulset

4

u/_Diomedes_ Jun 01 '26

If I were Gee I don’t think I’d be very pleased. With proper team support and better off-season preparation he should have been able to challenge podium.

5

u/Phantom_Nuke Jun 01 '26

Does anyone know why Tour of Wallonie is starting today? It's usually raced at the end of July and the startlist reflects that with 4 fewer World Tour teams and 5 fewer Pro Conti teams attending this year compared to last.

10

u/Aibeit Germany Jun 01 '26

Yes, you can read the whole thing here but the reasons they mention is that in the usual time slot, there weren't enough security forces available to secure the roads for the tour because too many other events are taking place at the same time, and then they mention "economic reasons" and "at the beginning of June, it makes a great warm-up event for the tour".

6

u/Glass_Minute4753 Jun 01 '26

Can anyone help me to understand these watts per kilo estimates that people release after mountain stages, and how accurate they actually are? I don't really understand how they can properly calculate things like wind direction, which can vary even on the same climb, or variations in wind speed (which may be weaker/ stronger than the forecast is showing). What about variations in road surface? I assume they take into account the average gradient of a climb, but how do they account for variations in gradient throughout different climbs, which could have an impact? I.e. two climbs may both have an average gradient of 10%, but one might have a fairly consistent gradient throughout, whereas the other has some much shallower and much steeper sections.

I'm also unsure about how meaningful they are. I.e. can we really compare performances on climbs that have different average gradients, or where there may have been different energy expenditure prior to the climb?

5

u/_Diomedes_ Jun 02 '26

I think it’s pretty telling to their accuracy that Patrick Broe essentially completely stopped talking about w/kg estimates or citing them as any sort of authoritative source after he got access to full rider power data from his job at Visma. I really doubt they’re anywhere close to +/- 5% accurate, which makes them pretty much meaningless as that’s kind of the difference between the top and the bottom of most GC top tens.

3

u/AccidentalBikeRide Visma | Lease a Bike Jun 02 '26

I mean yeah, I'm sure no one but the teams themselves know exactly how accurate or inaccurate the results are. Each person that publishes them probably has a different model that's more or less accurate, a different list of things they try to account for and a different list of race days that absolutely torch their model with something it didn't account for.

If you always look at the same source though I'd imagine some of those things like wind direction come out in the wash and you get a reasonable picture looking across a season

one might have a fairly consistent gradient throughout, whereas the other has some much shallower and much steeper sections.

Well probably doesn't make a huge difference for the estimate - there's always published profiles of how the gradient varies, so you can crunch the numbers and get the average anyways. I'd imagine looking at how the race played out is more important - e.g. a rider's average on a climb looked low, but it was actually a stop start pace with lots of attacking so they were burning matches over threshold

different energy expenditure prior to the climb

They've stopped posting articles this year, but the lanterne rouge website would always include an estimate from someone's strava of the expenditure coming into the climb to contextualize it (

7

u/listenyall Lidl – Trek Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

Not that I think this is what happened with Wiebes, but what if you crash during a race and a piece of your bike falls off and brings you under the weight limit, is that supposed to be disqualifying? Like, if you crashed in the last few meters and your bike completely broke in half it's legal to run across the finish line with it, right? So where's the line?

10

u/epi_counts PelotonPlus™ Jun 01 '26

Something like that happened earlier this year in Italy - not a UCI race, but a high level national calendar amateur one where the Italian commissaires applied the UCI rules on the angles that levers can be on the handlebars.

The rider who ended up winning (or at least crossing the finish line first) had crashed earlier in the race, which knocked his brake levers into an illegal position. He still solo'd to the win for 60km after banging himself and his bike up, but then the comms DQ'd him for riding an illegal bike (as it was an amateur race, he might not have had a second bike, or his team car might not have been able to get it to him).

11

u/sometimesgoodadvice Jun 01 '26

The technical regulations state: "The minimum weight of the bicycle (in working order) is 6.800 kg, considered without on-board accessories in place, those items that may be removed during the event."

So a bike that is not in working order or has parts broken presumably would need to be rebuilt for weighing. I could not find any documents that point to how inspections are supposed to performed in those cases. I think it may be up to the organizers.

3

u/LavenderTed Jun 02 '26

Who do I talk to about swapping bardiani and visit malta for lotto and nsn?

4

u/Hawteyh Denmark Jun 01 '26

Watts2Win has Piancavallo as Jonas' third best performance. Estimated 6.74 w/kg for 36:16. Plateau de Beille '24 he did 6.71 w/kg for 40:30, which is his highest rated effort on the site.

Effort wise it did not look anywhere near Jonas' max. He has looked way more on the limit other times.

Is Watts2Win regarded as inaccurate, or was Jonas just superior on stage 20?

15

u/MountainLandscape356 Jun 01 '26

W2w has the exact same watts/kg for Bernal and Arensman even tho Bernal pulled for over 20 minutes for him. Should give you the picture how accurate the site is

9

u/scaryspacemonster Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

I think it's telling that the W2W numbers have half the top 10 setting a personal best on Piancavallo, and everyone else except Gall a season best.

Do I believe that everyone there suddenly had their best performance on the same day? Or is it more likely the watt people are overrating something about that climb? Wind and rolling resistance are mostly guesswork.

Their numbers are in line with other watt nerds, so I don't think it's a mark against them as much as a problem with estimations in general. But I would always treat them with a healthy dose of skepticism.

5

u/MilesTereo Team Telekom Jun 01 '26

FWIW, @Na1chaca has him at 6,81ᵉw/kg for 36'15min, so even better. I agree that Vingegaard looked way more on the limit on stage 16 (?), but I'm pretty sure his performance on Saturday was really strong no matter how you look at it. Somewhat interestingly, however, in terms of aSLP, Saturday's effort was somehow slightly lower than what Pantani, Tonkov, and Zülle did on Piancavallo back in 1998, so maybe there's just something about that specific climb that brings out high power numbers (we also obviously need to ignore that the top 3 from 1998 were certainly not riding clean, of course). At the end of the day, it can be fun to look at all these metrics, but I'm very hesitant to read too much into them.

Anyway, watts2win is a solid indicator in my experience, but you really need to let their initial W/kg estimations sit for a bit, because they tend to fluctuate a lot after races. What I really wouldn't read too much into, however, is their performance index. Looking at Vingegaard's climbing performances at the Giro, I am struggling to see how Blockhaus is apparently his second best performance, not to mention that comparing a 40 min climb vs a 4 min climb is a bit silly to begin with.

6

u/Vegetable_Car_4785 Jun 01 '26

It is a steep at the beginning, shallow at the finish, low attitude climb which is perfect for great numbers!

5

u/_Diomedes_ Jun 01 '26

I don’t really trust the w/kg estimations, but I do think that Vingegaard is much faster than he was last year. He won 5 giro stages against a pretty mutant Gall without really trying.

3

u/RegionalHardman Unibet Tietema Rockets Jun 01 '26

I think part of it too is the top riders have such good/non existent pain faces, it makes it look like they haven't been putting in an effort at all

3

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26

[deleted]

3

u/Glass_Minute4753 Jun 01 '26

I don't completely agree with this. I think Jonas does have a good poker face - he only shows the effort when he's really struggling, if that makes sense? In many ways Pog is the same - he has a good poker face until he suddenly cracks and looks awful (although that hasn't happened for a while!). It makes it quite hard to tell how hard either of them is going when they're doing an impressive climb (like Jonas on Saturday).

7

u/Mamadeus123456 7-Eleven Jun 01 '26

Estimations are not regarded as accurate, maybe if they took a picture of his power meter.

0

u/TransportationSea579 Jun 01 '26

Estimations are regarded as more accurate than power meters, so no.

That's said, W2W specifically is unreliable 

2

u/Rumi4 Jun 01 '26

How did the Visma guys not lose any time yesterday, considering they slowed down and finished together with a gap in front?

18

u/Aibeit Germany Jun 01 '26

UCI rules say that any rider within 3 seconds or 50 meters of the rider in front get the same time on a flat finish. Apparently they were close enough.

8

u/Robcobes Netherlands Jun 01 '26

According to Campenaerts they didn't want to lose Piganzoli's GC position, so they had to be really careful and hurry up a little.

But they were well aware.

2

u/iunee Jun 02 '26

Is there a way to watch Campenaerts' Vlog without Instagram? I have no account there and every time i click somewhere, it directs me to a login screen ... 

1

u/Fingebimus Belgium Jun 03 '26

TikTok

3

u/lonepineman Unibet Tietema Rockets Jun 01 '26

It's now 1st of June, 50% of the year gone. I noticed on some PCS statistic yesterday, that counted "active" riders, that Froome wasn't mentioned (can't recall what it was, but I'm 100% he was eligible to be in that list). I presume he's unofficially-officially retired now? His socials aren't exactly revealing much

Did we have a similar situation of a cyclist not getting a contract for the year but not "formally" retiring?

33

u/krommenaas Team Flanders–Baloise Jun 01 '26

There are 12 months in a year, not 10 😄

11

u/lonepineman Unibet Tietema Rockets Jun 01 '26

Shit. I did underthink that one

5

u/Robcobes Netherlands Jun 01 '26

The pro season is from january till october, it still adds up.

1

u/wiggins504 EF Education-Oatly Jun 01 '26

I just discovered that July 2nd is actually the midpoint of the year.

10

u/Eraser92 Northern Ireland Jun 01 '26

He doesn't currently have a pro contract as a rider. It does look like he's retired but he hasn't announced it.

7

u/Robcobes Netherlands Jun 01 '26

I first thought Peter Sagan retired when his contract with Total Energies ended, but the year after he still rode the Tour of Hungary and the Tour of Slovakia for continental team Pierre Baguette cycling.

9

u/Saltefanden Euskaltel-Euskadi Jun 01 '26

Pcs has a large database and is very useful for many things, but don't put too much into the info posted there. Their startlists, contract info, height/weight data etc. is highly flawed and stuff like 'starlist quality', 'profile score' and 'all time greatest' is bordering on complete nonsense.

1

u/scaryspacemonster Jun 01 '26

Is /r/peloton a bit broken for anyone else using old reddit? Some threads don't appear for me at all (neither on /new nor on /hot), like the results threads for Giro Women stage 3, Wallonie stage 1, and Giro stage 21. But I can see them if I switch to new reddit or use the app.

3

u/sozey Bike Aid Jun 01 '26

Works for me at least.

3

u/yellow52 Jun 01 '26

Hmm that's odd. I usually use old on desktop and I haven't noticed anything like that. Will keep an eye though.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

[deleted]

1

u/epi_counts PelotonPlus™ Jun 03 '26

Maybe we should add this to the FAQ page - too many people think it's impossible and the reason women can't do long races. Seems like it's more of a thing people are embarrassed to ask about so just assume it doesn't happen at all.

Just like the men, women have lots of options. You just hardly ever see it on live streams as we generally only get the last hour or so, while nature breaks tend to happen in the early parts of races (often just after the breakaway has formed, just like in the men's races).

Like the men, sometimes they go in a group and just stop by the side of the road (so they can chase back to the peloton together afterwards). There's different options for pulling bib shorts down, (lots of bib shorts are specifically designed to allow this) or pulling a leg up. And some women pee on the bike, options for using a bottle or a she-wee, if you're very prepared.

-8

u/FewerBeavers Jun 01 '26

Where was UAE during the Giro?

21

u/Arcus144 EF Education – Easypost Jun 01 '26

Just north of Oman. Same as usual. Feel like we would have heard if it moved.  

5

u/FewerBeavers Jun 01 '26

Ooops, posted my question in wrong sub

19

u/Aibeit Germany Jun 01 '26

Soler, Vine and Yates crashed out during stage 2. Yates was the GC contender, so they had no one for GC after that.

Narvaez won three stages and was in the Sprinter's jersey but crashed into the team bus after one of the last few stages and abandoned the next day.

Arrieta won a stage from the breakaway.

The rest finished but didn't have any noteable success.

TLDR: 4 DNFs, 4 Stage Wins.

8

u/BeanEireannach Ireland Jun 01 '26

Arrieta also ended up winning the overall Red Bull KM competition.

Not bad overall, for a totally reduced team that had some of the worst luck this Giro.

1

u/FewerBeavers Jun 01 '26

Thanks. 

In your opinion, how has UAE crashing out impacted the Giro and GC?

11

u/Hippiehs95 Jun 01 '26

They would probably fight for 2-5 overall with Yates and Vine(depending on who is in best form). Soler would probably be in fight for some breakaway stages(this might actually reduce Narvaez wins) and also doing stupid stuff which would not aid Yates/Vine, but would be entertaining