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Tour de France Discussion
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 07-03-2023 10:47
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World Champion
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The Conglomerate is going to have to step up to defend their thread of the year title!
Naturally I will follow the race with great interest now, to see if I'm right about everything.
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| ember |
Posted on 07-03-2023 11:31
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Team Leader
Posts: 6849
Joined: 27-03-2008
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Sensational preview, pure quality. Thank you a lot for putting in the work, Fabianski, but also to everyone who has contributed and helped out, especially Abhishek and bbl.
I’m hyped! This is the greatest MG race there is.
As said in the interview, we hope to challenge on several stages, having Kragh for the prologue, Dainese as a wildcard on the flat stages, and then most importantly Amezawa and Preidler to chase breakaway glory in the mountains. The latter is key for us to have successful Tour, I really hope we see them aggressive from early on! |
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| redordead |
Posted on 07-03-2023 11:45
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4883
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Need to have the right bunch of talents at a wildcard one year 
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 26-11-2024 17:24
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 07-03-2023 11:48
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Classics Specialist
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Thanks for an amazing preview, cunego (and everyone). Definitely one of the top-5 best previews I've read this year. Looking forward to what my boys can perform in their final GT for at least a year probably, I hope Matti wins at least one stage so we can be forever remembered in MG history 
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 07-03-2023 13:03
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2633
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This preview is a work of art
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 07-03-2023 13:09
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Directeur Sportif
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ember wrote:
Sensational preview, pure quality. Thank you a lot for putting in the work, cunego
Sorry, had to correct that
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 07-03-2023 13:32
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Grand Tour Specialist
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Thanks for fixing that, I would definitely not have had the time (nor the motivation) to do this fantastic piece of art! Thanks a lot for your innovative initiative, cunego, and to all those who contributed! It was a great idea, perfectly executed - I think we should have a "Preview of the Year" award just for this one
I'm usually hyped for the Tour as well, but GC-wise I'm afraid it'll just be a boring race. However, if the overall winner is clear in the first half of the race already, and given Herklotz' pretty weak mountain support team, we might be in for some great breakaway fights.
On the other hand, PCM often is too much like real life, other teams will just chase down the escapees and leave empty-handed. Hoping it'll be different here
Thanks again for the preview, and good luck to all participants!
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| ember |
Posted on 07-03-2023 14:20
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Team Leader
Posts: 6849
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Thank you! Embarassing mistake, really, as I knew cunego was the guy writing the PM questions too
Thank you for having done all the work and put it together, cunego! |
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| cunego59 |
Posted on 07-03-2023 18:35
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Team Manager
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ember wrote:
Thank you! Embarassing mistake, really, as I knew cunego was the guy writing the PM questions too
Thank you for having done all the work and put it together, cunego!
Fab has written some absolute banger previews, so I don't mind that association at all 
Thanks for all the nice words, everyone
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 08-03-2023 01:05
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 16429
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Hey hey hey, cunego didn't do it all alone.
Fantastic preview, should be a great race. But Herklotz needs to win.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 08-03-2023 02:45
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Grand Tour Specialist
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This is some of the greatest work I’ve seen out into the MG in a while - congrats Cunego, this is amazing!
I hope it isn’t a total dead rubber up too and Morton and/or Tenorio can push Herklotz to his limits. Really hope Kemboi and Manninen dominate the flat stages and take in a few points
Also awesome to see Brenes tied 3rd in days in the KOM jersey. It was one of our saddest moments to see him lose it on the last mountain stage to Carthy three years ago, he was so agonisingly close to finally taking home the jersey.
Edited by Eden95 on 08-03-2023 02:57
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| OlegTinkov |
Posted on 08-03-2023 08:39
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Small Tour Specialist
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Will be hard for the race itself to outshine the preview love the team photos!
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| redordead |
Posted on 08-03-2023 09:19
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4883
Joined: 18-10-2017
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I'm already stealing PT points with Zariff 
On the other hand Pogacar again with the now customary bad prologue
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| SotD |
Posted on 08-03-2023 09:19
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World Champion
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Great job describing the prologue, and a very surprising battle for the win. Big congrats to the two top guys here!
Nice to see Nsengimana briefly in the hot seat, and actually performing rather well. Delco even better in the end! Giannoutsos below par, but it was Chiarello who was all over the place being one of the worst in the entire field. He's not great, but he shouldn't be that bad!
For our goals of the race it doesn't matter though, as I want to see our riders be aggressive, so getting off to a poor start sets the scene really.
Ideally we can use the bad start to feature in the 2nd stage fighting for the KOM jersey off the gun! Would be a great way to start the race. And then it will be interesting to see if the bumpy ride favours the likes of Bouglas or if we have to wait for stage 7 to see him make his presence.
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 08-03-2023 09:48
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Team Leader
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I guess I need to moderate my expectations.
Congrats to cycleyorkshire, it's always greatly rewarding to take the first stage of a GT!
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 08-03-2023 09:59
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World Champion
Posts: 13915
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The preview is as great as most of us probably assumed it will be when cunego contacted us to answer the questions 
The sprint field looks rather weak this year so maybe Van Poppel can actually score some good points.
Some of our rivals in the bottom of the rankings are looking to score quite good in this Tour, which is not great news for us. And some even started from the first stage. Congrats, ryant.
The four editions of the Tour brought some surprising winners, but after that it only went to well established GT riders. I don't think we'll see a return to the early editions any time soon
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 08-03-2023 10:45
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Classics Specialist
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I see a result like this from Vlasov and I get upset that I let him go, it was for the greater good back then but he's such a beast! Incredible report!
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| ember |
Posted on 08-03-2023 12:31
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Team Leader
Posts: 6849
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Thank you for rolling out the stage, cunego! The graphics and spectacors next to the road combined with having a pre-stage favourite, made me feel the hype/nerve more than usual.
And so close for Kragh! Unfortunate to be on the wrong side of the decisive second there.
Oliveira taking it is a surprise, but it's also a prologue Congratulations, ryant!
Looking at Preidler and Amezawa's prologues, I'll vote we turn the GC upside down and stop the race right now More seriously, their prologue efforts are fine, this wasn't a stage for them, the mountains and hills will hopefully be with aggressive racing. |
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| cio93 |
Posted on 08-03-2023 12:37
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World Champion
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It has begun!
Cunego has indeed delivered on the promise his questionnaire foreshadowed, no questions remaining.
The prologue could've been better, but the time gaps are irrelevant by the TTT at the latest. The stage looked lovely either way!
As per my statements, tomorrow's stage holds a very dear place in my heart, but would preferably be uneventful as it's not hard enough to look for any splits.
Stage 4 however should become the first battleground, and the gap to yellow is at least within bonus seconds range.
With Ganna graduating from TTT duties to a leadership role, we needed loanees to fill the gap, so I hope Fabianski will enjoy Bissegger and Brunel stepping onto the biggest possible stage for their GT debuts!
Another fallout of Ganna maxing out were our serious cap struggles last off-season, which meant both Stüssi and Vasyliv as our best Herklotz domestiques had to be sold. Ollfardh correctly spots the mountain support as the weak point in our lineup, and hopefully Herklotz can deliver on the consensus expectations well enough for nobody to exploit this.
We brought in Madouas as an all-purpose superdomestique to put a band-aid on this issue, it remains to be seen if this weakens our TTT lineup in a significant way. It's also the first ever Grand Tour for maxed Florian Stork, our now second best German stage racer.
Still, two 75mo domestiques for the race favorite is a risky place to be in, but to end with a positive, we have managed to at least fill half of the 8 spots with Germans again!
And with the remaining four riders being French and Swiss, it's again a Herklotz support squad consisting exclusively of riders from Germany and its neighboring countries.
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| knockout |
Posted on 08-03-2023 14:47
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7735
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All our riders outside the top 100, distanced last in teams classification, so no surprises here...
Kinda regret not having Chavanne or Stoltz in my team anymore for this stage after years without proper prologues in GTs but we know why we did those moves...
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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