Cycling

Started by Jimmy, February 18, 2010, 10:20:27 PM

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bennydorano

Was looking at betting there for various events Wiggins 5/4 to win Giro, well worth opposing, as Nibali's main aim for the year he's a good thing @3's. Froome & Contador 27/20 jf's for the TDF.

Nibali in great nick at the minute & well worth a punt in Milan-Sam Remo on Sunday @ 22/1, Sagan 6/4! Forecast not great & could suit Nibali.

gerry

both him and sagen looked good on the last climb. 
God bless the hills of Dooish, be they heather-clad or lea,

gerry

This Is Not a Story About Last Place

Taylor Phinney's solo ride during the Tirreno-Adriatico on Monday.

This is a story about a guy who finished last. Which is technically true. You can look up the results of the race, and you'll see his name, right there, lonely at the bottom. Taylor Phinney. USA. Finishing time of six hours, twenty-two minutes, fifty-four seconds. One hundred-and-ninth place. Last.

But this story is better than that.

First, about Taylor Phinney. Remember that name. You might already know it. Bike racer from Boulder, Colo., 22 years old. The son of two cycling legends, Davis Phinney and Connie Carpenter. A big dude on the bike, at 6 feet 5 inches, 180 pounds, Taylor Phinney is one of the most promising young cyclists in the world. He's already been to the Olympics twice. Won a stage of the prestigious Giro d'Italia last year. He is expected to have many great days in the sport.

Monday didn't begin like one of those days. Phinney was competing in Italy's Tirreno-Adriatico stage race, and this penultimate stage was a doozy. Up and down, down and up, 209 kilometers of punishment, including a 27% climb so comically steep that some riders got off their bikes and pushed them uphill. Many riders quit. Later the race organizer would admit that the stage was too difficult, even for elite pros.

Phinney didn't expect to win this stage. He just wanted to hang around, because the next day brought a time trial against the clock, and Phinney had a chance for a good result in that event. But the day soon unraveled. His legs weren't feeling great, and then his bike busted its chain. He had to get a replacement and chase his way back to the pack.

"I just was dangling," Phinney said on the phone, from his home in Tuscany. "We kept going over these really difficult climbs. I'd get back to the group and I would get dropped. I'd get back again, then get dropped."

Bike racing is a sport that fetishizes suffering. Anyone who's done it talks almost mystically about painful days on the bike, about the serenity achieved by pedaling through the agony. But even the best can only take so much. Soon Phinney found himself in a small group of 30 or so riders who had fallen off the main field, with about 130 kilometers, or 80 miles, left. The riders in the group began talking. Phinney said it became clear that nobody wanted to finish. Drop out now, get out of the cold. This is no shame. It happens all the time. Fight another day.

But Phinney wanted to fight now. He had to complete the race under the time limit to do the time trial Tuesday. "If I wanted to finish the race, I was going to have to do it by myself," he said.

So that's what he did. As the rest of the group abandoned the race, Phinney put his head down and pedaled. He was suddenly alone. The weather was miserable. It began to rain. And Phinney kept thinking of one thing.

"I would just think of my dad," he said.

Davis Phinney has lived with Parkinson's disease for more than half of Taylor Phinney's life. One of the great American racers of all time, a Tour de France stage winner and Olympian, Davis's day is often met by frustrating physical challenges. Tasks that were once simple take so much longer. Ordinary life requires patience.

That's what kept his son pedaling in the cold Italian rain.

"I knew that if my dad could be in my shoes for one day—if all he had to do was struggle on a bike for six hours, but be healthy and fully functional—he would be me on that day in a heartbeat," Taylor Phinney said. "Every time I wanted to quit, every time I wanted to cry, I just thought about that."

He had so many miles to ride. "It's kind of embarrassing," he said. "The race has gone by, and people aren't really expecting one rider slogging along by himself." Fans on the side of the road offered to push him up hills. But Phinney remembered a story his Dad had told him about one of his old Tour de France teams, making a pact to decline pushes.

Taylor would do the same. No pushes.

"He never lost his motivation," said Fabio Baldato, an assistant director for Phinney's team, BMC Racing, who was driving a car behind Phinney the entire route. "It was unbelievable."

"He wanted so badly to finish the race," said Phinney's teammate, Thor Hushovd, a former world champion.

Hours later, Phinney crossed the line, exhausted. He finished almost 15 minutes after the second-to-last rider, thirty-seven minutes behind the winner. He didn't make the time cut for the day, which meant he couldn't compete in Tuesday's time trial. It was a bummer, but Phinney was too zonked to be devastated. During his post-race massage, he cried like crazy. On Twitter, Phinney wrote about riding for his Dad and called it "probably the most trying day I've had on a bike." When Phinney's saga was reported on the website VeloNews, cycling fans went crazy. These have been bleak times for the sport, ripped apart by doping scandals. Phinney's solo effort—and his emotions post-race—had stirred something soulful. "Emotion is powerful and undeniably human," Phinney's mother, Connie Carpenter, said in an email from Italy.

Back home in Colorado, Davis Phinney was marveling at the whole story. You can still find Davis on his bike, usually on the fancy carbon-fiber city commuter he got from his son. Cycling remains a sanctuary—"easier than walking, in a sense," he said. But the daily routine remains full of hassles. Davis Phinney keeps a sense of humor about it, jokingly referring to himself as "Turtleboy." He began a foundation to give people living with Parkinson's tools for living well—for achieving little victories.

Davis Phinney said he didn't learn about Taylor's ride until after it was over. Friends told him how inspired they were by his son. When he heard that Taylor had been thinking about him the whole time, he was floored.

"I have almost no words for how amazing it makes me feel," Davis Phinney said. He wrote in an email to his son:

You make me so happy and beyond proud—and that is better than any medicine and can defeat any disease.

The results are wrong. This is not a story about a guy who finished last. Taylor Phinney won that race.
God bless the hills of Dooish, be they heather-clad or lea,

gerry

sagan nearly done it yesterday, surprised they rode in this weather

God bless the hills of Dooish, be they heather-clad or lea,

Orior

Anyone else heard about a Joe Brolly organised 35 mile cycle from Harlequins in Belfast? It is to do with some health charity or other and I think is on 18th May.

We could have a GAA Board pelaton special.
Cover me in chocolate and feed me to the lesbians

bennydorano



Dan Martin marks solo stage win to lead Volta a Catalunya | Cycling Weekly

Dan Martin [Garmin-Sharp] has catapulted up the general standings to take the leader's jersey at the Volta a Catalunya after winning the queen stage in a superb solo victory in Port Aine Rialp.

Martin finished the stage 35 seconds ahead of Joaquim Rodriguez [Katusha], who became virtual leader when Alejandro Valverde [Movistar] crashed on a descent 119km into the 217.7km fourth stage, which at the finish topped out at about 2000m. Yesterday's victor Nairo Quintana [Movistar] was third.

Britain's Bradley Wiggins [Sky] finished the stage in fifth, and about a minute behind Martin, to slide from second to fourth overall. The Tour de France champion is now 36 seconds adrift of the new leader.

Martin started the day ninth in the general classification and was the only survivor of a 23-man break that escaped early in the piece.

The escapees had a maximum time gap of more than four minutes but started to fracture on the Hor Categorie Port del Canto before Nicolas Roche moved off the front. Martin drove what was left of the break, picked up the Saxo-Tinkoff rider and kept going with only one other able to follow.

Sky controlled the pace back in the main group with Katusha largely letting the British-squad do the work.

Sky did not respond to an attack from Robert Gesink [Blanco] who moved within the final 15km and was joined by Jurgen Van Den Broeck [Lotto Belisol]. Gesink lost contact with Van Den Broeck inside the final 7km where Wiggins was down to just Rigoberto Uran to protect him at the front of the main group.

Martin averaged around a one-minute buffer on Van Den Broeck, who Rodriguez and Quintana caught with roughly 900m remaining. His stage win didn't look in doubt however and the climber left the latter two to race for second.

The tour continues tomorrow with the 156.5km fifth stage from Rialp to Lleid.

Results

Volta a Catalunya 2013, stage four: Llanars-Vall de Camprodon to Port Aine-Rialp, 217.7km

1. Daniel Martin (Irl) Garmin-Sharp in 6-02-40

2. Joaquim Rodriguez (Spa) Katusha at 36secs

3. Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar

4. Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Lotto Belisol at 47 secs

5. Robert Gesink (Ned) Blanco at 51 secs

6. Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky at 1-02

7. Peter Stetina (USA) Garmin-Sharp

8. Michele Scarponi (Ita) Lampre-Merida

9. Thomas Danielson (USA) Garmin-Sharp

10. Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ at 1-08

Overall classification after stage four

1. Daniel Martin (Irl) Garmin-Sharp in 18-48-38

2. Joaquim Rodriguez (Spa) Katusha at 10 secs

3. Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar at 32 secs

4. Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky at 36 secs

5. Michele Scarponi (Ita) Lampre-Merida at 39 secs

6. Robert Gesink (Ned) Blanco at 51 secs

7. Przemyslaw Niemiec (Pol) Lampre-Merida at 1-00

8. Peter Stetina (USA) Garmin-Sharp at 1-07

9. Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ at 1-13

10. Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Lotto Belisol at 1-15

macdanger2

I see Dan Martin won the Tour de Catalunya - fair play to him.

As someone who wouldn't follow cycling a whole pile, I have to say I find it hard to think that he's not on something or other. This being based on my belief that almost all cyclists are and so to beat them you have to be as well. What would the general feeling about him be, is he clean (or reasonably clean)?

gerry

its a great result by dan.  dan won it because he took a gamble on the queen stage as no one thought he could stay way and win it.

dans 100% clean btw
God bless the hills of Dooish, be they heather-clad or lea,

macdanger2

Quote from: gerry on March 25, 2013, 11:15:55 PM

dans 100% clean btw

Brilliant stuff if he is.

How would he be fixed for the TdeF or Giro later in the year?? Would he be rated ahead of Roche or similar? (Is Roche considered clean?)

bennydorano

Geat climber, probably not consistent enough there & in general. There was no Time Trial in the Tour of Cataluyna, significant as Wiggins probably would have won it if there'd have been one over 30km. Martin is middling to poor at it. He's 2nd generation Irish btw, strong brummy accent.

gerry

How would he be fixed for the TdF or Giro later in the year??   no hope, he is not paid to win the big tours.  his role there to support the team leader

Would he be rated ahead of Roche or similar? roche is a better all rounder than dan.  dan better suited to the steep stuff, but he has won more than roche

(Is Roche considered clean?) i reckon he is, as he has won feck all except one stage in china as a pro

roche in a new bigger  team this year so he has it all to prove
God bless the hills of Dooish, be they heather-clad or lea,

gerry

God bless the hills of Dooish, be they heather-clad or lea,

WeeDonns

Is that up over Scraghy Gerry?

gerry

65 mile spin yesterday, this was at the top of fivemiletown mountain
God bless the hills of Dooish, be they heather-clad or lea,

Milltown Row2

Quote from: gerry on March 28, 2013, 12:44:45 PM
65 mile spin yesterday, this was at the top of fivemiletown mountain

How long would that take?
None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after thought. Ea