The Tourminator

Depends how you define allergic reaction. Hives and runny nose? Or systemic signs of dizziness a tight chest etc. if it’s the former , a non sedating antihistamine prior to cycling should help, if the latter-whether during exercise or a short duration after, I’d suggest consulting a professional.

Is that a Cima Evolve? Please do share the final build and how the ride feels

I’ve got an entry up for grabs for substitution if anyone is interested. It’s an early bird entry so will let it go for what I paid for it. Unfortunately a work commitment came up and I can no longer participate in this event.

My vision is only minorly impaired but I’d never bought myself a pair of oakleys for this reason. Saved up for a while and got me a pair of jawbreakers with prescription lenses inserted in the middle, done by Oakley. IIRC they can do this to the EV Radar Path too. I paid around 7000 in 2024 for this. Still going well although the tinting on a couple of the lenses has worn slightly.

Not quite sure how I feel about the change from the traditional bunch sprint on the champs elysees. Given how stage 1 of the dauphine went, we could very well see the gc contenders and puncheurs taking the stage away from the sprinters. The yellow jersey winning on the champs elysees, wow that would be something hey! That being said I imagine it makes the peloton nervous and will definitely frustrate the pure sprinters. I wonder if as many of them will push to make the time limit this year knowing what the final stage looks like.

Mooi man. Skjelmose deserved that win. Definitely the smartest rider on the day.

Skjelmose and Remco bridging to Pogi. I think that's the first time in recent memory that a Pogi solo attack has been brought back. I stand to be corrected. This is gonna be an interesting sprint. My money's on remco but it could go either way.

I swore I would never spend money on a brand new colnago but I've never been more tempted. 🤩 Going to be an interesting week of classics racing. I wonder whether Remco is going to hit the ground running in his comeback tomorrow in Brabantse Pijl. I'm hoping the Ardennes make for as epic racing as the northern classics were this year.

Agree he's looking like a sensation. Groves is a multi grand tour stage winning rider and Bittner also has one. For 19 year old he's a really versatile sprinter. Reminds me almost of a young Sagan. I don't think Jumbo will send him to the Tour. Apparently he's never done a stage with 3000meters like one of the Catalunya stages. I think we'll probably count him in for next year's giro as a grand tour debut. If he continues improving like this, a tour de france debut win at the UK grand depart in 2027 wouldn't be that surprising.

I'm excited as well. If I'm not mistaken Jayco-Alula have been hedging their bets on Michael Matthews, who despite his age is still competitive in punchy and or reduced bunch finishes-see Milan San Remo last year. But they haven't really had someone to go on the attack in the classics for a while. Mauro Schmid hasn't really performed how one would have expected in the Ardennes so perhaps there's going to be room for Hatherly to step up. I'm really curious to see whether they send him to races like strade bianche and Brabantse pijl. I wouldn't be surprised if he finds a liking to those given his mtb history and the punchiness of the courses. Will be interesting to see whether they are going to let him ride a bit of the Ardennes, cobbled classics and semi classics or focus on one or 2 of them and let him refine his strengths as time goes on. Either way as you said, for him to have outclimbed Eddie Dunbar says a lot about what kind of form he's in. Exciting times!

I don't think this is the case. Looking at the results, I didn't recognize anyone who rode cat 2 last year. I think it's just merely increased interest in the WPcycling events which bodes well for the sport. I do however think that they will have to start working on enforcing clear category allocation criteria if this interest continues. I think we can anticipate similar interest in cat 3, if not more given the atlantis route, with cat 4's peloton being even bigger. I don't think the results page always tells the story of the race. All things aside, I think there's going to be a lot of exciting racing this year.

Looking forward to this race too. Think it's going to be a lot of fun in all categories!

I've never ridden consistently and recorded my data before a few months ago but last year I dropped my weight from 72 kg to 63kg from Jan to November. In November I did an ftp Test on the road and was a meagre 2.45W/kg (95% of 20 minute) But in two months I'm up to 3.1W/kg.(95% of 20 minute) Will I see consistent gains like this or is there a ceiling to which one can improve from the start of their training?