Mountain Bru

+2 for the wahoo strap If you get a tickr 2x, it measures cadence quite accurately somehow. (I assume using magic)

I think his biggest thing he brings to the team is a British passport. They're a British team, and want to win with British riders. He's probably the best of the British GC riders (until Pidcock reaches full potential, or Thomas finds a new lease on life) On his day, he can outclimb the best, but he's ridiculously inconsistent. At the UAE tour, he was the only guy that could hang with Pogacar on the climbs, but then he'll randomly lose time on a cat 4 climb and ship 20 seconds. I don't think he's really proved himself as a domestique yet either and seems to only really be able to ride as a leader (or only wants to). So I think he's a super frustrating guy to have on your team as a DS. He has the ability to win, and will show phenomenal potential one day, but has way too many off days and will win time one day and throw it away the next day. Or refuse to ride near the front of the pelo and get tangled up in crashes.

Definitely. Doesn't help that both the Ecuadorians have pulled out. Narvaes looked strong on a few stages, and Carapaz should have been in the mix, but I think Bernal has really missed a reliable mountain super dom

OTL - Outside Time Limit DNF - Did not finish DNS - Did not start

Easy to forget that Bernal dominated and won the Giro in April, so not completely ineffective. Just ineffective when there's a Slovenian on the start list of a grand tour. And Porte won the Dauphine quite emphatically. They were 1, 2 & 3 at Catalunya. Carapaz won Tour de Suisse, Thomas won Romandie. Bernal is their best GC rider though, and he chose to do Giro - Vuelta rather than TDF, and got covid right after the Giro. I think there's a chance he'd be closer to Roglic if he hadn't had covid, but obviously there's no way of knowing. He seems to have gotten stronger over the 3 weeks though. Their TDF was obviously not great, and they crashed every second km, but Carapaz still finished 3rd. But Porte and Thomas were completely useless in the tour and I think that hurt their strategy.

The last two stages have made me a proper Bernal fanboy. Even though he's probably not gonna be on the podium, I love the fact that he's at least trying to shake things up and not settling for 5th or 6th. I guess that's easier when you've already won two grand tours, but it's so great to watch him try whatever he can to improve his position. I reckon if this tour was 5 weeks long, he'd have GC in the bag based on his improvement from week 1 until now.

(It's a fat bike, so the tyres are huge.....)

What an amazing stage. One of the most exciting in ages. Can't believe that Roglic and Bernal were able to stay away.

Only now? I thought was a done deal ages ago. Really good addition to the boys in yellow

Bernal looks like he's put the handbrake on. Guess that's the end of the Vuelta for him.

Roglic cracks Bernal.... absolutely mental stage

This is such a subjective thing though. Obviously you get better and worse wheels, but there are so many factors in determining the longevity of wheels, like rider weight, terrain, riding style, etc. There's probably guys on here that have been riding the same wheels for years with no issue

Pity these are sold out. https://www.on-lynecomponents.com/collections/wheels/products/pulse-28-alloy-wheelset-29?variant=31737183141959 If I needed new wheels, I wouldn't even look at anything else. Great to know you'll get amazeballs customer service from Lyne too

I love hearing your views from actually being at the race. I can imagine it's been a really tough race in the heat. Thanks for the sharing. Who are you riding for at Benelux? McNulty? Just to be clear though, I'm not accusing Majka of anything suspect. It just looked a bit bad on TV when every time they cut to him, he seemed to take a bottle from the DS. But it's part of the game, and I'm 100% sure Kruiswijk had just as much support from his DS while trying to chase.

I think having a footprint under the tent also makes a difference, and in my mind is a non negotiable when I use my tent. I bought a piece of painters drop sheet for R40 and cut out a footprint. It's primarily there to protect the bottom of the tent from stones and stuff and for waterproofing, but I'm sure it helps with some insulation. (Literally weighs 72g) If I was trying to put a space blanket under my matress, I'd also rather throw that under the tent too so it doesn't move. (A note on making tent footprints - it needs to be like 5cm smaller than the bottom of the tent on all sides so that if it rains, you don't create a bucket for your tent to sit in)

More of Before and After pic if you ask me...

Have you seen the Nemo tents with inflatable poles? I used one once.... super legit ????

Did you make the frame bags yourself? They look super neat. ????

Avoid sleeping on boulders and you'll be fine. Naturehike has some good mattresses too. Seriously though, I've slept loads of nights on a 6cm mattress and have never wished it was thicker. Even on 'gras polle' (no idea what that is in English), I've never had a problem. The individual air pockets kind of just adjust to whatever is going on underneath and keep you comfy. I'm not a super heavy guy though.

But instead of that lame empty crate, this:

Twice now he's played the ultimate "I don't know what you're talking about, Officer" card.... Well played Mr Wakefield... ???? (In case you missed it, Majka seemed to be taking a bottle from his DS almost every time the camera showed him on screen. Might just be the perception from the footage that was shown, but I only watched for around 30 minutes or 40 minutes, and I swear I saw him take like 4 bottles from the DS. The man must have been seriously thirsty.) Not taking anything away from Majka though. To pull off a 70km solo break is pretty special, even if the guys behind you are disorganized. The fact that Kruiswjik just dangled at around 90s back for what felt like an hour shows how strong Majka was too. There might have been shenanigans in the groups trying to bridge that slowed them down, but Kruiswijk would have been trying as hard as he could to close the gap, and couldn't make any head way. Really special ride from Majka.

No, definitely not. And it's huge. This is a muuuuuch better idea for anything where weight and size matter: FA Aero Mattress Or anything from NatureHike. Should be around 500g, and fold up to the size of a buddy coke bottle more or less. Stay away from the self inflating nonsense. What it means is that there's a foam insert in the mattress that you squash when you roll it up, and then when you unroll it, the foam expands and pulls air in. But then you still have to finish inflating it yourself. The problem with the foam insert is that it's heavy, and makes the thing huge when you roll it up, but doesn't add much in terms of comfort seen as you blow the thing up "past" the foam. I think my blow up mattress takes 13 big breaths to inflate, and weighs something like 450g. It's probably around 6cm thick, but that's really enough. You're gonna take more that 13 deep breaths if you try and cycle anywhere with an extra 3kg on your bike.

I'm not a fan of Lance's podcast - I feel like they waffle on about nonsense 90% of the time, and Lance has such an abrasive/macho man/look at how great I am kind of personality that I don't always enjoy it. But between him and Hincappie, they have some good insight into the inner workings of the peloton and some cool rider info, but not always too much in the way of analysis. Horner is sometimes interesting too, but I feel like his content is really time dependent and doesn't have much "re-watchability". Like in the hype of the TDF, I'll have a look at it, but never go back to it after that. In my opinion, if you want to learn about actual tactics, and kind of understand what actually cracking on in a bike race and why guys do what they do (when there's a logical reason), Lanterne Rouge's recaps, and his podcast (Lanterne Rouge Cycling Podcast) are the absolute best, and are usually pretty entertaining. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC77UtoyivVHkpApL0wGfH5w https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1sTqWskIXqSItyojGhXPyQ And if you're a bit old school, the original "bike race analyzer" is called Cosmo Catalano on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/user/cosmocatalano Old, but quality stuff and really interesting to watch "How the race was won".

Thanks. I'll check this out. I assumed you'd have to do some exporting and importing to get it to work.

I need to find one of those. Can you buy the online? ????