Christie

Interesting to read some comment after the dust started setteling: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/riders-rave-about-more-technical-courses-at-mountain-bike-worlds Sounds like they loved the course, including the junior women. These riders were the target market, sounds like the organizers got it spot on. Well done!

Hmmmm, so Horner = another Jens Voight, except his results never showed it till he starded working with Bruneel very late in his career? Jens is slowing down a bit with age, and Horner is speeding up. I dont buy it.

Not supposed to be possible ;-)

How is the grip on the shifters? DA 7800 was crap, hated it, I rode Campy in that era. DA 7900 was better, had Di2 on my last bike, but grip ergonomics still behind Campy and Sram, shifter body was too narrow imo, Im hoping they refined it a bit for 11 speed. The rest of the gruppo is superb, bike looks fantastic. Crank styling is not to my taste, but it is a super crank by all accounts, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and there are many alternatives for those who want a more conservative look.

Could have been a lot worse. Dogma, anyone?

Stainless has the same stiffness as oher steel, and there are many grades. Some grades should be in the same strength ball-park as the steel in the table above. There is no reason not to make a frame from stainless, if it is properly designed and welded, it would be better than steel, because it does not rust. More expensive, though.

I think it would be awesome in reverse as well. I enjoy hills and decends, climbing out of the valley at the end of day 2 will be epic.

The Netherlands is a nice place to ride a bike, in summer. The infrastructure etc is awesome. A lot of the time it rains, and in winter it snows sometimes, then cycling is not so great. The country is also extremely crowded. There are few places where you can ride for a distance of say 20km without going through a town of some sorts with some traffic lights and narrow streets. The wind blows more often than CT.

Zipps are the best racing wheels money can buy. A lot of top pros use Zipps even when sponsored by other brands. Some notable ones were Lance Armstrong and Mark Cavendish. There are lighter wheels (AX Lightness/Tune/Enve/Extralight combos) but Zipps are very light and in SA the difference in weight does not help much. Zipp all the way in my book.

Costs R60k then. Addict SL weighs 1000 grams for the frame and fork. The LW frame looks very nice, but there is competition already in that space: Super6 evo, Cervelo r5, etc. and Trek, Specialized will have their lightest frames there soon (if not already)

Hard to say, not a lot of detail given, but it looks like it may be a few grams heavier than the Addict SL. Probably more expensive than the Scott too.

Power cranks = a power meter? (Rotor made some spring boosted cranks a few years ago that were horrible and stuffed up riders' knees)

If you live in Europe, road bike. If you live in SA, mtb.

I wonder if history is repeating itself, like the state of road racing in SA - no hill finishes or TT s - "we dont like them because its too hard. Lets rather race some flat stuff over short distances, whoop whoop." Could it possibly be those same ex roadies now bringing ruin to mtb? Lets rather get to international standards. Nothing wrong with riding a dual susser, ask mr. Cool Harvey!

Bad news. I hope he can recover 100%

Eish, them Aussies. They have fired the Saffa coach, but it looks like he was not the problem. Imo their combo of world beaters - Langer, Hayden, Ponting, Waughs, Hussey, Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath wont be matched for a long time, perhaps not ever. Current squad cant hope to match that.

Exactly!

Major difference with cars is you can buy speed. With Bicycles the money buys bling that moves at the same speed as before. I think lots of folks are convinced that spending more would buy a sub 3 Argus, a place on the podium etc.

Doing the Giro and TDF in the same year is hard - Contador tried it recently and it dit not work. Even when the peleton was full of epo, double wins or good performances in both were rare. I think age is against Cadel too - perhaps he is using he TDF for training, and will go hard at the Vuelta? Best for Cadel would have been not to do the TDF, but I think the sponsors were getting desperate, with the BMC trophy cabinet being so empty, compared to the superrstars on the team.

Genius waaaaaay ahead of his time it seems - note the short tail helmet and bars tilted up in the mantis position!

I wonder how easily Froome will recouver from depleted shugar - perhaps not easy to do overnight. AFAIK things like glukose drips are banned.

20 sec + 200 franks penalty for Froome & Porte, 1000 franks fine for team director for feeding in the last 6km. I dont like their excuses, they should just man up.

The highest tree catches the most wind. But there were other similar jumps from mild to awesomein the recent past: Europcar was sectacular (unrealistic?) for a couple of seasons, and are now back to mild all of a sudden, with the same riders.

I read on the interwebs that Froome has never placed top 10 in a high level TT before 2011. Thats what looks like some or other performance booster to me.

The thing with science and training methods is that it is all known. The gains from new training methods, new types of intervals, oprimized aero position etc is incremental. Im pretty sure the gains of Sky come from some sort of supplement. The question for me is if the supplement is banned or not.