La Doyenne/Liege-Bastogne-Liege 25/04/21 *Warning, spoilers*

Brian?

After a short discussion on the general thread, I decided the 2nd most important race in Belgium deserves it's own thread.

This race is always an absolute beast, 259km with 12 catagorised climbs:



It's actually the oldest of the spring classic and arguably the most prestigious. Personally I prefer the Tour of Flanders, but that's just me.

5 Riders to watch:

https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/5-riders-to-watch-at-liege-bastogne-liege/


Decent preview from GCN as usual:

https://youtu.be/1vMio-t_330


And most importantly the Kelly count. Sean Kelly won this one twice, in 1984 and 1989.

Julian Alaphilippe is the obvious favourite and I'll be putting money on him

Macy0161

My circulation is still fecked from getting frozen two years ago in the sportive. Hardest day I've had on the bike. I'm going to Schachmann as I think the other favourites will mark each other out (and he I saw him on the podium the day after!).

mewso

JA will have to be careful at the finish and methinks he won't celebrate until he is well over the line if it comes to it . My pick is POG. Probably well up for it after missing the Fleche.

Macy0161

mewso wrote: »

JA will have to be careful at the finish and methinks he won't celebrate until he is well over the line if it comes to it .

Wouldn't count on it, as he nearly got caught at Brabantse Pijl by MvP the same way on the Wednesday after!

mewso

Macy0161 wrote: »

Wouldn't count on it, as he nearly got Brabantse Pijl by MvP the same way on the Wednesday after!

It's funny sometimes how many of them celebrate what looks like too early. One funny thing is I play Pro Cycling Manager (very addictive) alot and even in that guys can lose on the line by celebrating too early. Nice bit of realism or AI accident. Who knows.

Tombo2001

Out of curiosity, as I dont follow pro cycling at all really -


Why do the French do so poorly? There hasnt been a French winner of this in the past 40 years - in that time we've had three Irish wins, several Italian, Swiss, Danish, German, Spanish etc etc.....

Is that replicated across cycling? Last major tour winner from France was 25 years ago.....

breezy1985

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Out of curiosity, as I dont follow pro cycling at all really -


Why do the French do so poorly? There hasnt been a French winner of this in the past 40 years - in that time we've had three Irish wins, several Italian, Swiss, Danish, German, Spanish etc etc.....

Is that replicated across cycling? Last major tour winner from France was 25 years ago.....

Lots of reasons. Their doping wasn't as good in those days now they are underfunded compared to the likes of Ineos. There is also bad luck and the fact that the right type of rider has not come along.

There is also an English soccer, Limerick hurling, Mayo football confidence issue where the longer the wait goes on the harder it gets to break the cycle.

They have not been unsuccessful though just at Grand Tours and by their own high standards. They currently have the world champion who is also a top classics rider

Brian?

breezy1985 wrote: »

Lots of reasons. Their doping wasn't as good in those days now they are underfunded compared to the likes of Ineos. There is also bad luck and the fact that the right type of rider has not come along.

There is also an English soccer, Limerick hurling, Mayo football confidence issue where the longer the wait goes on the harder it gets to break the cycle.

They have not been unsuccessful though just at Grand Tours and by their own high standards. They currently have the world champion who is also a top classics rider

I think Laurent Jaliber would disagree their doping wasn’t as good.

But to answer the question: the French haven’t had a decent classics rider since Hinault. The classics haven’t ever really been a focus for French riders. Even Paris Roubaix is more important to the Belgians than the French.

The French have been chasing a Tour unsuccessfully for 25 years. It’s a real mystery to me.

Brian?

I forgot to mention: I’d absolutely love it if Philip Gilbert wins. He won’t, but I’d hit the roof if he did.

breezy1985

Brian? wrote: »

I forgot to mention: I’d absolutely love it if Philip Gilbert wins. He won’t, but I’d hit the roof if he did.

I was surprised with how happy I was when he won Paris Roubaix. I was also watching it in a packed pub pissed

Macy0161

Cosnefroy is a decent outsider for Sunday.

There's the whole pressure of being a french prospect in the Tour, but they've had a number of podiums without being able to take out the title.

There was the "2 speed" era, and then straight into it being a much more competitive and international sport at that level. Contador the last spanish winner of a GT I think - and I wouldn't really see any genuine contenders to win (rather than podium).

Belgians and dutch really holding their own due to the specific nature of the cobbled classics. Much more difficult to train for rather than build experience.

Anthony Turgis is another French man I'd love to see with a proper team around him. Feel like he has a big win in him.

silver campaign

Eddie Dunbar looks set to start now after Tom Pidcock has pulled out. He still hasn't recovered from his accident during the week at Fleche apparantly

35km to go for the women. Kicking off now all the big names up there.

Decent amount of wind there today looking at a couple of flags there.

Mefistofelino

Vollering wins in a sprint from a group of six. Possibly more impressive was van der Breggen dragging that breakaway group on her own for over 12km, putting 90 seconds into Vos.


BTW, the finish in Liege sucks.

breezy1985

Mefistofelino wrote: »

Vollering wins in a sprint from a group of six. Possibly more impressive was van der Breggen dragging that breakaway group on her own for over 12km, putting 90 seconds into Vos.


BTW, the finish in Liege sucks.

VdB destroyed what was left of the bunch over the final climb

Rob Hatch on today, he hasn't been on in nearly a month now.

breezy1985

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Rob Hatch on today, he hasn't been on in nearly a month now.

He has being really annoying for a while now with his little safety crusade. Kirby was as bad last week shrieking everytime the peleton took a turn

Mefistofelino

I'm taking bets on how often during the coverage Brian Smith will be making a valid point or commentating on the actual race when he'll be cut across by Hatch making some excitable but utterly irrelevant comment . I suspect Smithy's patience is waning..

Anyone being having issues with chromecast and the Eurosport app? Absolute pain in the sack. It'll be grand for an hour and then start to buffer every few minutes.

It's not the network here as everything else like netflix etc works fine even at 4k.

Looking now the race is at 106 to go on my desktop and 115 to go on the TV due to buffering :rolleyes:

EDIT: I see from the reviews on the app store others are getting the same and worse.

Brian?

Mefistofelino wrote: »

Vollering wins in a sprint from a group of six. Possibly more impressive was van der Breggen dragging that breakaway group on her own for over 12km, putting 90 seconds into Vos.


BTW, the finish in Liege sucks.

Why change the finish? I don’t get it. It’s an iconic finish, leave it alone.

Brian?

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Anyone being having issues with chromecast and the Eurosport app? Absolute pain in the sack. It'll be grand for an hour and then start to buffer every few minutes.

It's not the network here as everything else like netflix etc works fine even at 4k.

Looking now the race is at 106 to go on my desktop and 115 to go on the TV due to buffering :rolleyes:

EDIT: I see from the reviews on the app store others are getting the same and worse.

It’s muck. Always has been. I gave up on it. I have the app installed on an amazon fire stick and it runs flawlessly

breezy1985

Deleted User wrote: »

Anyone being having issues with chromecast and the Eurosport app? Absolute pain in the sack. It'll be grand for an hour and then start to buffer every few minutes.

It's not the network here as everything else like netflix etc works fine even at 4k.

Looking now the race is at 106 to go on my desktop and 115 to go on the TV due to buffering :rolleyes:

EDIT: I see from the reviews on the app store others are getting the same and worse.

Same for me on the laptop and I gave up on it on chromecast ages ago

Brian?

Brian? wrote: »

Why change the finish? I don’t get it. It’s an iconic finish, leave it alone.

Went the same way as the Amstel, moving the last climbs further out to try and open up the race sooner.

velo.2010

Deleted User wrote: »

Anyone being having issues with chromecast and the Eurosport app? Absolute pain in the sack. It'll be grand for an hour and then start to buffer every few minutes.

It's not the network here as everything else like netflix etc works fine even at 4k.

Looking now the race is at 106 to go on my desktop and 115 to go on the TV due to buffering :rolleyes:

EDIT: I see from the reviews on the app store others are getting the same and worse.

Go watch on eurosport.co.uk. No problems for me since I switched from the player some time back.

BTW, interesting that Pogacar is on his disc brake bike on such a hilly parcours. End of the line for rim brakes at UAE?

Brian?

red_ken wrote: »

Went the same way as the Amstel, moving the last climbs further out to try and open up the race sooner.

I understand the rationale but completely disagree. Both are fantastic races with the finish normally being very exciting. I think they're changing things for the sake of change

Brian?

velo.2010 wrote: »

Go watch on eurosport.co.uk. No problems for me since I switched from the player some time back.

BTW, interesting that Pogacar is on his disc brake bike on such a hilly parcours. End of the line for rim brakes at UAE?

Rim brakes are going the way of toe straps it seems.

I was out yesterday for a longish spin, I seemed to be in the minority with rim breaks.

breezy1985

Brian? wrote: »

I understand the rationale but completely disagree. Both are fantastic races with the finish normally being very exciting. I think they're changing things for the sake of change

This is actually a return to the real route and the finish in Ans was the change.

I would much prefer the finish closer to the final climb though. The flat between the climb and finish took a bit of steam out of the race for me

breezy1985

Brian? wrote: »

Rim brakes are going the way of toe straps it seems.

I was out yesterday for a longish spin, I seemed to be in the minority with rim breaks.

My local shop was trying desperately to convince me to take disks a few months back and it wasn't even on an expensive bike just an entry level Giant road bike

Brian?

Brian? wrote: »

I understand the rationale but completely disagree. Both are fantastic races with the finish normally being very exciting. I think they're changing things for the sake of change

Too many teams were waiting till the last time Cauberg and the organiser wanted more spectacle. IMO it's a better race now.

Liege was a bit different with a smaller group arriving in Ans but the days of attacking as far out as La Redoute were over (ironically Jungles went from pretty far out in the last edition to Ans)

retalivity

Jaysus, some blowup from Vliegen