NGM

We mostly do. And I'm team MvDP. I really don't know any people who dislike Wout. He's a vintage belgian hardman (a flahute) and complains far too little when you consider how often he's scarified his insane talent for his team's ambitions. I'm sure there is adequate fiscal compensation, but money is temporary and glory is forever. One only needs to consider the 2021 TDF where he was let off the leash because the team's GC ambitions had gone down the toilet. He went on to win a mountain stage, a time trial and sprint. OK those come with a few caveats, but that puts him in some pretty elite company. Just my opinion.

Ah right. And presumably you are at Bora now? I think I remember a comment about the Bora team bus a few pages back. Home of my all time favorite breakaway rider: Lennard Kamna. Hopefully he is healing up well.

Yip I agree 100%. Tadej is a much more punchy rider and he has often been able to drop Jonas even on climbs. But despite being less punchy, Jonas seems to have fewer bad days, is the better climber overall and (for whatever reason) seems to deteriorate slowest in this 3 week war of attrition. He's often been underwhelming at the start of the tour but is winning the time trials by week 3 (when he's not donating them to WvA). We are all in the dark about how much training he was able to do post accident, but from the first 4 days, I wouldn't be surprised if he is still pushing Tadej in week 3. I think Tadej is still marginal favourite though. My other picks: I think remco will have a great 1st week and then fade badly. If roglic can stay on his bike for 3 weeks he might podium, but I actually think the podium will be Pogacar, Vingeguard, Rodriguez.

Looks very interesting - will check it out. Born in the 90s? Didn't you do a bike tour through canada in 2004?

Might appeal to some: A history of Rock Music in 500 songs. The creator of the podcast is thorough to the point of being obsessive. Episodes stretch to several hours long and at the current rate he might be finished by the end of this decade. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/podcast-dept/a-music-podcast-unlike-any-other Also, I'd second Cautionary Tales by Tim Harford, who's "50 inventions that shaped the modern economy" is also great.

Sometimes life gives you Lemmens

Fringe guys also hitting that colostrum I reckon.

That pogacar lost 6 minutes to Vingegaard the day after the TT doesn't mean all that much (to me). Heck, David Gaudu beat him by 5:30 minutes that day. It was just a bad day. Pogacar came 22nd. However the time trial in isolation is eyebrow raising stuff because of how much better Vingegaard was than everyone else. That you can't blame on a bad day; the entire rest of the peloton didn't have a bad day. But we mustn't forget that this raised eyebrows too: https://www.bicycling.com/tour-de-france/a34252569/tadej-pogacar-tour-de-france-win-unfair-doubt/ On the TT that day, Pogacar kept pace with Dumuolin (who had been world TT champ 2 years earlier and was the best TT rider in the peloton that year) on the flat part of the stage and then rode the fastest recorded time up the Planche Des Belles climb. Jonas did drop Tadej on ventoux in his first ever TdF where he started as a domestique, and has consistently been a stronger rider than tadej after multiple days in the mountains. And, he was taking insane risks on the downhill parts of the TT in question (2023), and put time into Tadej there too. And the bike change may have been a mistake from Pogi. I'm not defending Vingegaard. I'm just saying its not totally unprecedented. Personally I think Pogacar is the best overall rider but vingegaard is slightly better suited to 3 weeks of racing. As for doping, I wonder what products are being taken now that may be banned in several years time?

Nice to get some good news on this thread.

Jonkershoek is great but compared to whistler the trails are not really maintained. Stuff tends to get built and is awesome for a month but then becomes rutted and rocky. It evolves into something more technical as a result, which is nice in it's own way. G-Spot actually flows a lot better and has a few big gap jumps and big (better maintained) berms, etc, but doesn't have anywhere near the number of trails as Jonkershoek. @Jako De Wet btw A-Line is a specific trail name at whistler, not a reference to the more technical parts of any given trail (as the term is used pretty often in XC). Still, I would have recommended the same trails (ie: stuff I don't have the nuts to ride properly).

I'm not the biggest fan of these but I must admit I did laugh at "Tramadolito Quintana"

100%. So many people that saw action in, for example, the bush war in Zimbabwe, have serious demons to deal with now. I know myself well enough to know that I'd rather just hand over my bike. And I don't buy the keyboard bravado either.

Pinkbike comments were superb: https://www.pinkbike.com/news/first-ride-lapierre-spicy-2016.html

I'm interested to know what you'd have Allan Winde do? I'm not being facetious. I live very close to helshoogte and I don't ride over it anymore. I'm sure we can all agree that bike crime could be reduced through much better policing and reduced unemployment. In terms of policing, the local government are trying very hard to get more control, you only need to look at the headline and the author: https://wc.da.org.za/2024/02/mitchells-plain-saps-failures-urges-devolution-of-policing-powers In terms of employment, well in that regard the western cape is already flooded with economic migrants because there are so few opportunities elsewhere. But they can't fix the whole country's problems. Only voters can do that.

I was thinking this wasn't too bad until my eyes hit the rear triangle.

Looks that way. But you need to go with "Compact Plus" or "Premium" if you want SS206. I have the streaming-only "Compact" DStv package (R400pm), which doesn't have SS206 or SS207 but does have SS200-205 and has been good for streaming sports (mostly football for me) so far. "Compact plus" is one step up and DOES have SS206. The streaming packages are not much cheaper than the decoder versions, eg: compact plus (decoder) is R620pm, while compact plus (streaming) is R550pm. If I can upgrade for the month I think I will. R150 to watch the giro is worth it for me.

Thanks, I really enjoyed reading that. I've done some very long trips overseas but nothing locally. I may actually get in touch with some questions.

This is so swak. Stellenbosch to franschoek via helshoogte is the main road ride for so many people.

And choosing your parents carefully.

We are really great at that. Spelling out acronyms is our weakness though.

https://road.cc/content/news/kona-bicycles-winding-down-and-sale-307945 The industry is fine though

👆 100%. I'm all for drawing a line in the sand and leaving people's personal lives out of this.

Turn your back for one second and your prune juice has been spiked.