The A/R Off Topic Thread

Chivito550

BTH wrote: »

There is no perhaps about it. Any rider would certainly take a monument or a TdF stage ahead of the Olympics any day.

Personally I find the Olympic road race uninspiring to be honest.

What about for the time trial though? Would the Olympics be considered more important for that?

I find a Tour stage win is a bit over hyped. You regularly see journeymen who breakaway in around stage 15, on a flat stage in between the mountain stages, the GC leaders aren't arsed chasing them down, and a complete nobody beats maybe 8 or 9 other nobodies. This is hardly much of an achievement. I'd take a top 10 in the GC over a stage win as a far greater accomplishment, yet many seem to disagree.

average_runner

Chivito550 wrote: »

Jaysus, I meant to say the top male singles players play doubles. Would the top doubles players still win if the best singles players played? Yes probably. Would they win as frequently? Probably not. Would the guy ranked 20th in the world still be 20th? No way, he'd be 40th or 50th. That's my point. The Olympics is probably the deepest doubles competition you can get, and it's the only time you are representing your country properly, as both players must be from the same country, unlike at slams.

Dont forget the davis cup and Hopman Cup:D

BTH

Chivito550 wrote: »

Personally I find the Olympic road race uninspiring to be honest.

What about for the time trial though? Would the Olympics be considered more important for that?

I find a Tour stage win is a bit over hyped. You regularly see journeymen who breakaway in around stage 15, on a flat stage in between the mountain stages, the GC leaders aren't arsed chasing them down, and a complete nobody beats maybe 8 or 9 other nobodies. This is hardly much of an achievement. I'd take a top 10 in the GC over a stage win as a far greater accomplishment, yet many seem to disagree.

A top ten GC man may never get the chance to raise his arms in victory or stand on the podium. That trumps all. Someone finishing 6-10th on GC for three years would trade all that to be remembered as a stage winner. Everytime.

Road cycling should not be in the Olympics. RR nor TT. Neither are high up on anyones list of targets, except for the Brits in London. Win the opening Prologue TT in a grand tour and get to wear the leaders jersey or win the Olympics TT, easy decision.

Chivito550

BTH wrote: »

A top ten GC man may never get the chance to raise his arms in victory or stand on the podium. That trumps all. Someone finishing 6-10th on GC for three years would trade all that to be remembered as a stage winner. Everytime.

Road cycling should not be in the Olympics. RR nor TT. Neither are high up on anyones list of targets, except for the Brits in London. Win the opening Prologue TT in a grand tour and get to wear the leaders jersey or win the Olympics TT, easy decision.

It does come across as odd though. The 3 week tour is the race. The individual stages are merely parts of the overall race. Seems odd that beating a bunch of nobodies in a stage where the top guns don't care and finishing 137th overall is considered greater than no stages and 9th overall.

Clearlier

Chivito550 wrote: »

It does come across as odd though. The 3 week tour is the race. The individual stages are merely parts of the overall race. Seems odd that beating a bunch of nobodies in a stage where the top guns don't care and finishing 137th overall is considered greater than no stages and 9th overall.

It seemed odd to me for a long time too but I've come to realise that every single stage is a race. It's a little bit (stretching the analogy a bit here) like the diamond league where every meet has winners but there's also an overall winner. In the TdF a little more emphasis is put on the overall winner than in the diamond league but as in the diamond league the individual stages count for a lot.

average_runner

Chivito550 wrote: »

It does come across as odd though. The 3 week tour is the race. The individual stages are merely parts of the overall race. Seems odd that beating a bunch of nobodies in a stage where the top guns don't care and finishing 137th overall is considered greater than no stages and 9th overall.

Suppose if you look at football in Uk.
Everyone remembers the winner of the Captial Cup, even though its a minor trophy and alot of B teams are in it. No one remembers 6th-10th place in the league!!

Tour de France is the same, people remember stage winners, not the 6th -10th place.

Its like the semi finals on the track, the public don't remember them unless they make the final, even at that I am not sure.

Chivito550

Clearlier wrote: »

It seemed odd to me for a long time too but I've come to realise that every single stage is a race. It's a little bit (stretching the analogy a bit here) like the diamond league where every meet has winners but there's also an overall winner. In the TdF a little more emphasis is put on the overall winner than in the diamond league but as in the diamond league the individual stages count for a lot.

Hmmm, in the TdF winning a stage in a peloton sprint finish counts for precisely nothing in the overall race though, unlike at the DL, though I see your point. Everyone gets the same time. There's a few measly time bonus seconds but nothing that will impact the GC. Winning a stage in such a scenario counts a lot more for the Green Jersey than it does the overall race.

ThisRegard

First in a sprint out of a peloton can get you time bonuses so they do count, plus you get points towards a variety of other jerseys. You'll always see lads push hard for what look like minor placings because of this.

Chivito550

ThisRegard wrote: »

First in a sprint out of a peloton can get you time bonuses so they do count, plus you get points towards a variety of other jerseys. You'll always see lads push hard for what look like minor placings because of this.

Time bonuses really only a factor in the first week when GC is so close. After the first mountain stages the stage winners getting 20 seconds or so makes no real difference. In fact for a few years they even scrapped the time bonus but have brought it back again. Agree regarding green jersey though.

BeepBeep67

Chivito550 wrote: »

Hmmm, in the TdF winning a stage in a peloton sprint finish counts for precisely nothing in the overall race though, unlike at the DL, though I see your point. Everyone gets the same time. There's a few measly time bonus seconds but nothing that will impact the GC. Winning a stage in such a scenario counts a lot more for the Green Jersey than it does the overall race.

Teams are rewarded financially for winning a stage, that's why they throw their arms up and show the logo.

YFlyer

BTH wrote: »

Road cycling should not be in the Olympics. RR nor TT. Neither are high up on anyones list of targets, except for the Brits in London. Win the opening Prologue TT in a grand tour and get to wear the leaders jersey or win the Olympics TT, easy decision.

Cavendish would had loved an Olympic Road gold medal. If only the opponents didn't have a breakaway group.

BTH

YFlyer wrote: »

Cavendish would had loved an Olympic Road gold medal. If only the opponents didn't have a breakaway group.

Of course, anyone would. But I believe he would prefer a track gold. And I dont believe he'd swap his world championship win for an olympic road gold.

YFlyer

BTH wrote: »

Of course, anyone would. But I believe he would prefer a track gold. And I dont believe he'd swap his world championship win for an olympic road gold.

Agree he wouldn't swap his WC win. He was still disappointed that he didn't get an OG handed to him on a plate.

Chivito550

I'm not usually a cyclist, but I rented a bike and cycled around Amsterdam on Monday. The place is heaven for cyclists. The city is designed for cyclists first and foremost. On some cycleroads cars are "guests". They don't just have cycle lanes, they have cycleways, with 2 lanes in each direction on some roads, segregated away from the road. The on-road cycle lanes are very wide and cars never drive into them. And they have a ridiculous amount of places to park your bike. I've never felt safer cycling around. More chance of getting knocked down by another cyclist than by a car. Literally everyone cycles over there. A granny heading down to the local shop to pick up milk and bread, a mother or father dropping off her kids to school (they have bikes where you can attach a trailer like thing which kids sit into). People cycle to the pub. People cycle everywhere. There is absolutely no reason why you would need to waste money on a car if you lived there. There's 820,000 people in Amsterdam, and 880,000 bikes. Also worth mentioning, to compliment the cycle culture they have a public transport system which is 60 years ahead of Dublin's. People seem to be healthier over there, and the city isn't chocker-blocked with disgusting noisy polluting automobiles crawling at 4 hour marathon pace!

Dublin, on the otherhand, is an absolute joke. The city centre is car-centric, and the roads are not set up for cyclists at all. The cycle lanes you do see are often in poor condition, and sometimes not even wide enough, so cars have to drive into them, which defeats the purpose of them. You also have incredible animosity from drivers here towards cyclists, as if they are above them. It's about time somebody sorted this city out. Cars need to be booted out.

UM1

Good article http://m.independent.ie/style/voices/ian-odoherty-we-are-fighting-a-cultural-civil-war-and-we-are-losing-34884786.html

RacoonQueen

Hold on. People were complaining that she kissed her child?

kit3

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Hold on. People were complaining that she kissed her child?

Surely the most natural thing - the world's gone mad !

walshb

They are not complaining about the kissing of the child. The complaint is the fashion/manner of the kiss/kissing!

ThisRegard

How they see the manner as being somehow sexual is purely their problem. They've either got sexually repressed issues, or are morons.

cjt156

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Hold on. People were complaining that she kissed her child?

I flew home from Nice with my wife and kids on Thursday. Kiss your children, kiss your spouses, kiss everyone you care about.

People need to cop the f*ck on.

average_runner

Can't believe people have a problem with this picture, these same people probably go to the pub with their kids and get drunk there and leave the kids to run around.

demfad

I dont see anything wrong with kissing your children on the lips. (I do it all the time). But that's not the point of the article....he then jumps to:

if you disagree with anything a gay person says, you're a homophobe. Query anything said by a black activist, you're a racist. Don't even get me started on disagreeing with Traveller spokespeople

And apparently the bould author has spend quite a lot of time 'discussing' gay people, women, black people, travellers, non-christians, muslim terrorists....etc etc.
Donald Trump looks like Bernie Sanders beside this guy and his articles......

Muslim terrorists don't need to plot the destruction of Western civilisation. We're doing it to ourselves

The logic:
People who complained about Victoria Beckham kissing her child on social media are the worst kind of whingers. This is symptomatic of a wider culture of whingery which includes anyone complaining about racism, homophobia, sexism, bigotry, sectarianism (and other stuff I get accused of) etc. etc. This is quite a serious matter and could lead to the destruction of Western civilisation.

The article goes on to claim the British Labour party front bench and the SNP (and anyone the author despises) are part of another hated group known as 'weasels and curs'. This is because they did not give David Cameron a standing ovation on stepping down as British PM, just after his hugely successful Brexit referendum.

I wonder did any of the Labour front-bench play sport. Or do they think team sports are a bourgeois, Western conceit?...Cameron gave a fine farewell speech in the Commons the other day.......When the ex-PM left the chamber, he left to standing ovation from all concerned - except for the bunch of lunatics sitting on the opposition front-bench. Oh, and the SNP also refused to stand. But nobody cares about them.......

Moronic article.

walshb

ThisRegard wrote: »

How they see the manner as being somehow sexual is purely their problem. They've either got sexually repressed issues, or are morons.

Would you consider any form/fashion of kiss between close relatives as normal/appropriate?

davedanon

walshb wrote: »

Would you consider any form/fashion of kiss between close relatives as normal/appropriate?

Granny sticking the tongue in is well out of order, if that's what you mean.

average_runner

walshb wrote: »

Would you consider any form/fashion of kiss between close relatives as normal/appropriate?

We are talking about mother and child here

ThisRegard

walshb wrote: »

Would you consider any form/fashion of kiss between close relatives as normal/appropriate?

What point are you trying to conclude, save everyone's time and bandwidth.

walshb

I just asked asked a couple of questions for the sake of debate, that's all. My own opinion is a bit indifferent to it. I have a 13 month old that I shower with kisses. The odd peck here and there to the lips. I wouldn't seek out to kiss him on his lips. It's not something that comes natural for me towards my son. I would personally find that a little intrusive. Not for me, as I am the adult, but for him maybe. Just wondering what others thought on it. Peck on the lips from mother to child or father to child. No real harm I suppose.

average_runner

walshb wrote: »

I just asked asked a couple of questions for the sake of debate, that's all. My own opinion is a bit indifferent to it. I have a 13 month old that I shower with kisses. The odd peck here and there to the lips. I wouldn't seek out to kiss him on his lips. It's not something that comes natural for me towards my son. I would personally find that a little intrusive. Not for me, as I am the adult, but for him maybe. Just wondering what others thought on it. Peck on the lips from mother to child or father to child. No real harm I suppose.

Mother's are more likely to do it than Dads. Nothing wrong with Dads doing it.

kit3

walshb wrote: »

I just asked asked a couple of questions for the sake of debate, that's all. My own opinion is a bit indifferent to it. I have a 13 month old that I shower with kisses. The odd peck here and there to the lips. I wouldn't seek out to kiss him on his lips. It's not something that comes natural for me towards my son. I would personally find that a little intrusive. Not for me, as I am the adult, but for him maybe. Just wondering what others thought on it. Peck on the lips from mother to child or father to child. No real harm I suppose.

Don't over-think it. Some kids are naturally more affectionate than others. Simple rule of thumb - let the child lead & you won't go wrong.

walshb

kit3 wrote: »

Don't over-think it. Some kids are naturally more affectionate than others. Simple rule of thumb - let the child lead & you won't go wrong.

I am not over thinking anything. It's just something that doesn't come natural for me to do. Not that I have not done it. Most of the time I kiss his cheeks and neck. I rarely ever think to plant a kiss on his lips.

BTW, relating to me, I am not sure my 13 month old leads me to do anything, at least not with his forethought. He loves kisses and cuddles. The type of kisses? Well, him being a baby he cannot tell me, and it's usually me leading all the time.

My son is still a bit young to initiate the kisses.

And, don't forget that it applies both ways. Some parents are far more naturally physically affectionate than others. I would class myself in that category.