Pro Cycling

[Failed Creation]

Time to change the name of the bikeway along the Northern Expressway. No accolades for confessed cheats in my mind.

Spot on.

I don't think athletes should be immortalised anywhere but in sporting stadia anyways.

Save the naming of bridges, roads and bikeways for people who've made a real difference in the lives of others.

[Grahaml]

think its average speeds are lower than the drug fueled era.

Exactly. When athletes should be constantly improving with better training, recovery and nutrition we're now seeing average speeds coming back. There's obviously a bit more to it, number of mountain passes and the mood of the peloton on flat stages can alter it somewhat but to me when Lance Armstrong wins in 2005 at an average speed of 41.7 kph and Cadel Evans wins in 2011 with an average speed of 39.8 that's a drop that indicates a little more than just a harder course. This is a nice graphic

http://stats.areppim.com/stats/stats_to ... itesse.htm

Of the 8 winners since Armstrong, none get close to his 2005 speed. The closest was 2006, .87 kph slower. Of his 7 tour wins, only 1 was slower than the speeds from 2009 to 2011. I'm not confident the sport is clean, nor am I confident it will ever be. But I am confident it's a small minority and that they will be caught reasonably quickly.

[Grahaml]

Time to change the name of the bikeway along the Northern Expressway. No accolades for confessed cheats in my mind.

Spot on.

I don't think athletes should be immortalised anywhere but in sporting stadia anyways.

Save the naming of bridges, roads and bikeways for people who've made a real difference in the lives of others.

I totally agree with this. No reason a sporting star can't earn that as well, but not for being good at their sport.

[pels]

Time for the sport to let them all take drugs.

They will never get on top of this and there will always be questions asked about the champions for the next 100 years.

Let's not forget the level of drug taking we know of in most sports now is very similar to what we thought was the case in cycling in the mid to late 90s. Cycling takes the fight more seriously than any other organisation and it's this very reason we even exposed riders like O'Grady, Armstron, Ullrich etc.

Well said, 'Operación Puerto' in 2006 uncovered over 200 names of Athletes that has blood doping samples, we only ever heard of the 30-40 cyclists every other sport just swept it under the carpet.
What sport do you know off that an athlete must notify the governing body where they are training and living at all times so the testers can roll up.
They have to provide a biological passport now, so cycling does so much more testing than any other sport.

Back to O'Grady its disappointing but not surprising, mid 90s to mid 2000s was EPO & Blood Transfusions galore.
To say he only did it once come on mate, we aren't stupid.
To get an understanding re doping in cycling and why Athletes do it read "the secret race" - Tyler Hamilton.
The best quote was you either go Pane e Acqua (bread & water) at the back or on the juice at the front

[hottie]

Stuart announced his retirement,then confessed to doping very quickly as from what i understand an enquiry in France is due to name him along with others,if this is true if he has only doing this now due to above circumstances.Maybe if his name wasnt revealed would Stuart have kept quiet.

[Grahaml]

Stuart announced his retirement,then confessed to doping very quickly as from what i understand an enquiry in France is due to name him along with others,if this is true if he has only doing this now due to above circumstances.Maybe if his name wasnt revealed would Stuart have kept quiet.

That has now been announced and he said he wouldn't have ever confessed if he wasn't going to be outed.

[Grahaml]

At last a little good news for cycling. No rider tested positive during the last Tour De France out of 622 tests conducted. Obviously history teaches us that there could well be positives even years from now but it would have been some time since no rider was caught out during the tour.

[pels]

Tour of Spain starts this Saturday, very open event plenty of contenders.
SBS showing 8 live stages starting Friday week 30th of Aug
http://www.sbs.com.au/cyclingcentral/ro ... ing-on-sbs

SBS also showing the 2013 UCI Road World Championship, great news
http://www.sbs.com.au/cyclingcentral/ro ... ive-on-sbs

[pels]

Michael MATTHEWS from GREENEDGE won stage 5 of the Veulta last night.
Good young sprinter who has won a few stages in the last few weeks.

Nibali is leading the GC at the moment, 20 riders within a minute.
SBS showing stages on Friday & Saturday night from 11:30pm
Saturday stage is the 1st big mountain stage.

[pels]

Vuelta is getting serious tonight, 1st of 3 serious mountain stages in a row.
On SBS tonight from 10:30pm
GC standings at the moment

1 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team 49:29:02
2 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 0:00:31
3 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:46
4 Christopher Horner (USA) RadioShack Leopard
5 Joaquim Rodriguez Oliver (Spa) Katusha 0:02:33
6 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 0:02:44
7 Ivan Basso (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:02:52

[MIGHTY BULLS]

looks like the Vuelta is going to go right down to the wire with Horner only 3 seconds of Nibali now with 3 stages to go including 2 mountain stages. id love to see Horner get the overall, but you would think Astana will be watching him and his team very closely now.

[pels]

Vuelta goes down to the wire on a brutal mountain stage
Horner leads Nibali by 3 secs but has been climbing unbelievable well for a 41year old
Live on SBS at 11:30

[pels]

Road World Championship on this weekend.
SBS2 showing racing from Friday to Sunday night at 10:30pm.
Mens U23 road race tonight
Womens Elite road race tomorrow night
Mens Elite road race on Sunday night, which looms as a cracker 272km on a hilly course.
106.56 km followed by 10 times around the following 16.57 km circuit. Tough course

[Pinarello]

Just looking on the UCI site for a start list for the Elite Men on Sunday night.... nothing there. Anyone know where else I can find this?

[pels]

Just looking on the UCI site for a start list for the Elite Men on Sunday night.... nothing there. Anyone know where else I can find this?

Here u go
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/uci ... start-list

[Pinarello]

Cheers Pels... exactly what I was looking for!

[pels]

Tour of Flanders on Sunday night, On SBS and Eurosport from 11ish
Cobblestones with hills should mean plenty of action.
Cancellara, Sagan Boonen are the main Favs with plenty of outsiders who have a chance.

[pels]

Paris-Roubaix on tonight starting at 10pm on SBS.
Cancellara will be hard to beat after winning Tour of Flanders last week,
but anything can happen on the cobblestones.
Really enjoy watching this race.

[pels]

Gerrans wins Liege-Bastogne-Liege, great ride

[MIGHTY BULLS]

great win for Gerro at LBL. OGE have had a massive week with Albasini winning 3 stages at Romandie and Adam Yates a stage and current GC at Turkey. one week til the Giro which i would say is my favorite race of the year (marginally ahead of TdF for me)