"Who said sprinters can't climb?": Cav's coach shares training footage of Manx Missile powering uphill; Are you a 'Rapha Paul'?; A classic of the bad bike lane genre; Transfer rumours; Elinor Barker returns to road racing + more on the live blog

eburtthebike wrote:

WTAF?!  Just had a huge advert blocking 97% of the page.  And again, and again.  It disappears after maybe five seconds, but hey admin, how about losing it?

Yep, I'm getting that too. goes if you refresh

11pm; still not solved then.

That angry growl is just the sound Cav makes when someone tells him he can't climb.

He isn't the smartest clearly. But it does beg the question as to how people like him, who simply ignore driving bans, can be stopped from driving other than by locking them up. 

Crush any car that someone permits them to drive.

If they take a car without permission, lock them up for that.

With the plus point that it is one less oversized pollution spewing Chelsea Tractor if they did that action this time around. 

True.  Happens all the time on Police Super Interceptor Cops.  They'll stop some bloke (and it is usually a bloke) who's been driving like a twunt.  Check their details, discover they were banned from driving etc etc.

The narrator at the end will say something like, 'the driver who was stopped for driving without a licence or insurance while banned was banned from driving for a further xx months' and everybody knows that the person was all remorseful in court, and that six weeks later everyone will be going through the whole charade again.

Or cricket - a test tailender would probably top score for your village team.  Professional sportspeople are better as their sport than the rest of us.  

Or politics - the worst cabinet member would... oh... never mind.

mdavidford wrote:

Or politics - the worst cabinet member would...

Be better than the best amateur liar?

Steve K wrote:

Professional sportspeople are better as their sport than the rest of us.  

I think that undersells it.  Professional sports people are on another level even to a top end amateur.  This is a good article.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44897751

There's also some stats from this years L'Etape  floating about that says (from memory) the fastest amateur on the L'Etape was slower than the slowest pro (I think it was a mountain stage).

Secret_squirrel wrote:

...the fastest amateur on the L'Etape was slower than the slowest pro (I think it was a mountain stage).

Surely that's expected. If I found out I was faster than the slowest pro, I'd probably try to become the second slowest pro!

I doubt that. A lot of tailenders can't bat at all as they are selected to be bowlers.

hirsute wrote:

I doubt that. A lot of tailenders can't bat at all as they are selected to be bowlers.

You'd be surprised - I've played in several games where former county bowlers with first-class averages in single figures have played for fun so not bowled (or if quicks just bowled spin) but batted and made substantial scores, the difference between first class and even the top of second class is so great they find it easy.

I'm still open to them if they are done well.  Unfortunately that wasnt.

Althought it was pretty accurate. Just not funny. 

Why would you waste more energy than required trying to push faster up a climb that has zero impact on your particular race when you have a sprint to contend? Same as why GC contenders don't usually get involved in sprints. 

Well, a couple of things really. As fast as required to make the time cut can be pretty damn fast on a short mountain stage when the GC battle kicks off. You need to have trained for that or you ain't making it to the next day.

On hilly stages or stages with a major climb coming early in the day it can also be beneficial to go deep in the climbs so you can stay in or catch back up to the peloton after the decent. It's then worth the bigger efforts to get a much easier ride for the rest of the stage. That can also tie into sheer amount of time spent on the bike. Put in the effort to stay with the bunch and you might finish the stage 45 minutes quicker than if you rolled in on minimum effort - so that's 45 minutes earlier massage, earlier food, more recovery, better sleep.