One of the best cycling seasons I can remember this year I think. With some big downsides, tho.
Lombardia and Flanders were great and Roubaix was an actual 10/10. Very rarely do you see a better race - I don't think I have. The 2 last monuments were boring, but nobody actually expect anything different at this point.
All the cobbled races were good. Thats really cycling's bread and butter as of now.
The Giro was a legit good race. Some underwhelming stages, but overall a classic. Not nearly as good as 2015 and defo not 2010, but up there. By the looks of things, the 2017-edition seems to be able rival 2010.
Tour obviously very shitty. It was as bad as 2012, if not worse. I think it was worse. Hmm. But the Olympics really made up for it to some extend.
The Vuelta ended up being a very good race despite its laughable parcours which intended to punish those who wanted to attack from afar. Still, it somehow delivered. Some very good stages.
So overall some very, very good classics racing with Lombardia, PR, RvV and the Olympics. Strade and E3 also always delivering. The one weekers generally were decent, but suffered under cancellations early on. Overall, the GT's 2016 were good, but the biggest of them all failed to deliver big time because Quintana was shit and Contador crashed.
Really enjoyable race and was ecstatic when he won it - played Uran in particular perfectly. It would be a shame if any of those four didn't win though. Also felt for torres as he was the only one to give a predictably fruitless but gutsy attempt at a bridge -deserved 5th. What a performance Just so great to see him get it to cap off a fine year proving last year's Vuelta was no fluke! So weird to think that he's the first non-European winner but makes sense. Also shows the progress he's still making after the crash - fittingly his first monument in the same region of said crash. Hope he does Giro-Vuelta again but I guess he and the team may also want to know how he stacks in TDF - plus with Yateses should be interesting to see how they balance double acts - can't see them doing three but who knows. The big GT win must be coming from one of them.
Really enjoyable race and because it should be the final WT-level race what a way to finish
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Very nice race yesterday and really good to see Chaves get the win for he is for me one of the best riders of the year, other than Sagan perhaps if he wins the worlds. Orica have had a really good year, their chicks are coming home to roost - going to be difficult to keep the Yates boys + Chaves under same umbrella but they do seem to have a great spirit.
Urinal for once actually served something decent up and indeed Cannondale finally come good in the second to last race that really matters.
Methinks Sky have another Poels type rider here in Rosa - Landa/Konig mind you were duds so they have mixed records.
But back to the race really nice watchable hilly monument reminded me of olden days ones with regular selections not wait for last climb jobs which plays into hilly sprinters hands.
