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The Cycling Thread

Nebby

Well-Known Member
Dec 27, 2013
3,363
6,377
Been another great TDF. Fingers crossed Cav gets one more crack next year, but not sure if heā€™s got the team or the legs to grab that stage win. The new kids are seriously rapid.
 

PCozzie

Well-Known Member
Sep 9, 2020
4,098
19,105
Been another great TDF. Fingers crossed Cav gets one more crack next year, but not sure if heā€™s got the team or the legs to grab that stage win. The new kids are seriously rapid.
I can't see him going for it TBH. I know Astana have offered him a ride but he went all in for this year's race and what with everything that's happened in his life over the last few years it would take a serious mental and physical effort to do it all again when he expected to be winding down with a few 'testimonial' races.

Would love to see him do it, but tied with Merckx is no bad place to be.
 

1961beavera

"We haven't got a plan so nothing can go wrong'"
Jun 15, 2009
1,430
1,767
Just caught up on the first full day on the Worlds from Glasgow, track yesterday GB 2 golds (Tidball leaving it till the last bend in the Men's Scratch), silver by 0.075 in the Women's Elite Pursuit and some brilliant disabled events. Looking forward to watching mountain bike downhill racing, only seen snippets before but seeing some interviews with riders looks mad. Road and cross country moutain bikes to come.

Fills the gap between Le Tour and Vuelta.
 

1961beavera

"We haven't got a plan so nothing can go wrong'"
Jun 15, 2009
1,430
1,767
Having seen Le Tour's route for next year, two things.

1. Cav is wishing he had retired.
2. Mountain goats only need apply,

2802 M

The height of the summit of the Bonette pass in the Alps, the highest tarmac road in France, which will be the ā€œroofā€ of the 2024 Tour.

52 230 M

The total vertical gain during the 2024 Tour de France.

 

Marty

Audere est farce
Mar 10, 2005
39,885
62,562
Having seen Le Tour's route for next year, two things.

1. Cav is wishing he had retired.
2. Mountain goats only need apply,

2802 M

The height of the summit of the Bonette pass in the Alps, the highest tarmac road in France, which will be the ā€œroofā€ of the 2024 Tour.

52 230 M

The total vertical gain during the 2024 Tour de France.

Also it will be so strange not having a Champs Elysees finale because of the Olympics that start so soon after.
 

PCozzie

Well-Known Member
Sep 9, 2020
4,098
19,105
Having seen Le Tour's route for next year, two things.

1. Cav is wishing he had retired.
2. Mountain goats only need apply,

2802 M

The height of the summit of the Bonette pass in the Alps, the highest tarmac road in France, which will be the ā€œroofā€ of the 2024 Tour.

52 230 M

The total vertical gain during the 2024 Tour de France.

Looks like it's favourable (ish) for him up to stage 13. 8 flat, 3 hilly and only two mountain stages*. If he hasn't got that stage win by then it looks really tough after, especially with the last chance sprint on the Champs Elise replaced by an unwinnable ITT.

*Haven't looked at the profiles of the flat/hilly stages so don't know how many finish with kickers or a random cat 2 with 30km to go.
 

tubbygold

Well-Known Member
Jan 12, 2021
899
2,498
Having seen Le Tour's route for next year, two things.

1. Cav is wishing he had retired.
2. Mountain goats only need apply,

2802 M

The height of the summit of the Bonette pass in the Alps, the highest tarmac road in France, which will be the ā€œroofā€ of the 2024 Tour.

52 230 M

The total vertical gain during the 2024 Tour de France.

Smells like another Danish victory.

ā€¦ delicious!
 

PCozzie

Well-Known Member
Sep 9, 2020
4,098
19,105
David Walsh interview of Mark Cavendish for tomorrow's Sunday Times. Always have thought Walsh on of the best profilers in sports journalism. Not a long interview, but as usual with Cav, some interesting snippets.


Mark Cavendish walks into the bar of the Hotel Villa Gadea in Altea on Spainā€™s Mediterranean coast. Before coming here to meet him, Iā€™d been trying to think of great sprinters who, late in their careers, were able to win at the Tour de France. Not many. Alessandro Petacchi at 36, AndrĆ© Darrigade and Robbie McEwen at 35. This summer Cavendish, the greatest of them all, will try to win at 39. Crazy or what?
Maybe not crazy. Different, though. As he sits, he doesnā€™t look his age. You recall the kid winning for the first time at the Tour. ChĆ¢teauroux 2008, his hands caressing his temples as he crossed the line, the expression of surprise fake or real? We werenā€™t sure. He was smarter, more clued-in than any 23-year-old had a right to be. He has aged like a fine Bordeaux, maturing into something special.

So many lives packed into the past 16 years. Cavendish the winner. Cavendish the broken. Cavendish the abandoned. Until, ultimately, Cavendish the cycling legend. Thirty-four stage victories, 12 more than the next best sprinter, Darrigade. He overtook the Frenchman with his victory on the Champs Elysees in 2012. That was 12 years ago.
Cavendish celebrates his first Tour stage win at ChĆ¢teauroux in 2008 and, right, winning at the same place 13 years later

Cavendish celebrates his first Tour stage win at ChĆ¢teauroux in 2008 and, right, winning at the same place 13 years later
PASCAL PAVANI,GUILLAUME HORCAJUELO/POOL/AFP
Then on the next yearā€™s Tour, he struggled through the first week on a course of antibiotics for his bronchitis and still won the fifth leg into Marseille. At the finish that afternoon, the 84-year-old Darrigade came to say ā€œwell doneā€. Here was a man with a similar physique to Cavendish, the same mentality, who could shake his hand and say, ā€œI know what it takes, son, to do what youā€™ve done.ā€
Cavendish has long believed that we, the chroniclers of his story, donā€™t get it. An example: that win into Marseille got him into fourth place in the all-inclusive list of stage winners at the Tour. The next day some of our brethren wrote that if Cavendish could win one more, he would go to joint third on the all-time list, behind just Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault.
It seemed to him we were the beast that couldnā€™t be fed. Twenty-four stage wins, not enough. And now, in this Spanish hotel, heā€™s bristling from a just-completed press conference where, as if to annoy him, the question resurfaced. He wants someone to explain this to him.
ā€œOne thing I want to ask you, why do these cycling journalists ask me if I think I can get another Tour stage? What does it matter if I do or if I donā€™t? Iā€™d like to know their opinion on how it affects my career. What does it matter if I donā€™t win another Tour de France stage? I have literally won 34 of them. The very fact that Iā€™m going for a 35th means I have 34, do you know what I mean? If Iā€™d won 36, Iā€™d be going for 37.
Cavendish poses with Merckx after equalling his record of 34 stage wins at the 2021 Tour de France

Cavendish poses with Merckx after equalling his record of 34 stage wins at the 2021 Tour de France
EPA
ā€œFor me, it doesnā€™t matter, nothing changes. Iā€™m super happy with my results, and the journey Iā€™ve taken as a person in that time. The friends Iā€™ve made, the memories Iā€™ve created. Iā€™ve had a wonderful career and I will be retired for a long time after.ā€
Then the angst passes. ā€œI suppose it means youā€™ve done something right if theyā€™re asking you that question.ā€
What is it about him? No athlete Iā€™ve written about is more loved than him. Hoping he can explain it, I tell him about his popularity. ā€œI have no idea, but it is truly humbling. Maybe I have never hidden behind a mask, I have always tried to be real. I think thatā€™s relatable. If you are not real, a lot of people wonā€™t like you. Trying to be real, you see the good of me, and the bad of me. Itā€™s the real good and the real bad.
ā€œThatā€™s why Iā€™ve always got upset when somethingā€™s been perceived bad, do you know? Something thatā€™s not what happened, do you see? Likewise, Iā€™m not going to take credit for something I havenā€™t done, because of my name. Iā€™ll just try and be real and I always ask that people are real with me. With the kids, they have to be straight, they have to be real, my own kids, that is. I tell them, donā€™t hide behind something.ā€
Consider his career in the sport, his life outside it. So much has happened, and much of that out of the ordinary. The boy, in his final year of primary school on the Isle of Man, is persuaded to sit the entrance exam for the prestigious private school King Williamā€™s College. The task was to compose a poem, write about a musical instrument or create a short story. ā€œWhy canā€™t I do all three?ā€ he said.
His work earned him a full scholarship to King Williamā€™s. He thought about what being separated from his friends would mean to his life and turned down the scholarship. Instead he went with his mates to Ballakermeen High School. Think of him at 14, leaving for the ferry on Friday afternoon, rucksack on his back, road bike beneath, his outstretched left arm holding on to his track bike.
Once on the ferry heā€™d sit and shoot the breeze with the truck drivers. Landing in Liverpool, heā€™d make his way to the train station, get both bikes on board and head for the National Cycling Centre in Manchester. Rod Ellingwoth, the nurturer of young talent at the centre, asked him: ā€œHow did you get here?ā€ Heā€™d list the different legs of the journey. They thought: ā€œThis kid is something else.ā€
Itā€™s hard to reckon with the success he enjoyed in the early Tours. Four stage wins in 2008, six in 2009, five in 2010, five in 2011, three in 2012. An idiot fan threw urine over him on the 11th stage of the 2013 Tour and then a year later, desperate to win the opening stage in his mumā€™s home town of Harrogate, he crashed in the finishing straight, smashed up his shoulder and was out of the race.
Crashing on the sprint on the Tour stage between Leeds and Harrogate in 2014 was a career low point

Crashing on the sprint on the Tour stage between Leeds and Harrogate in 2014 was a career low point
REUTERS
What does he do? He comes back, wins another stage in 2015 and then another four in 2016. Then the really bad times. Diagnosed with Epstein-Barr virus in 2017, he struggled with his mental health. Now into his thirties, it seemed the light was going out. He finished outside the time limit on Stage 11 in 2018 and didnā€™t get selected for the Tour by his team in 2019 and 2020.
He casts this as a general observation but itā€™s personal. ā€œYou see with a lot of sportspeople who become successful very young, theyā€™re never told ā€˜noā€™ or theyā€™re wrong. And itā€™s usually from people who have something to gain from them. Once things arenā€™t going their way, then people kind of f*** off and people who actually matter, who were the ones saying ā€˜noā€™ before but werenā€™t listened to, they are the ones that are still there.ā€
Out of the darkness came the great comeback. Five years after his previous win in the Tour, he claimed four victories in 2021. Then, four months later, another upheaval. In the early hours of November 27, criminals broke into his home in Essex. He had just got out of hospital after a crash and a collapsed lung. He was in bed with his wife, Peta, and their three-year-old son when they entered his room, beat him while wielding a knife and escaped with two valuable watches.
Two of the burglars were given length prison sentences early last year. Even now, more than two years after the ordeal, he finds it very difficult to talk about. ā€œYou would never wish that on anyone. It wasnā€™t a nice time.ā€ Does he feel it left a scar? ā€œYeah, no trust in anything really, I guess. It wasnā€™t very nice. We donā€™t live in a fairytale world. I guess, we were lucky, thereā€™s people that come out worse from home invasions. Weā€™re still here to talk about it. Material things can be replaced.ā€


His greater maturity, he says, is down to having children and learning to be a good father. His happiness with the world, he puts down to the team friendship and culture he has discovered in the Astana-Qazastan team. The team have recruited a group of riders specifically to help him in this yearā€™s Tour and he is excited by the challenge.
I mention that he seems more content than ever and then comes the reminder that with Cavendish you can never be sure of his response: ā€œI donā€™t know,ā€ he says. ā€œIsnā€™t it strange that now I am lot more content in myself than I ever was. Yet I lack self-confidence like I never did before. Ten years ago, I had so much self-confidence, yet I fought against the world. Now it is the complete opposite.ā€
How does the lack of confidence express itself? ā€œAh, it just does. Itā€™s something to talk to my therapist about, Iā€™m afraid. Sorry. Itā€™s for my psychologist.ā€
Why is it, I ask him, that bunch sprinting has generally not been a game for the older cyclist, the one in his mid-thirties and beyond, suggesting that itā€™s hard to have the fearlessness of youth when youā€™re no longer young. ā€œFor me, itā€™s not that. Do you know what it is for me? The sportā€™s changed so much that itā€™s very, very physically difficult for a sprinter to be a professional cyclist. The physiological demands of a cycling race are so much tougher than previous. Itā€™s f***ing horrible. On a physical level, on a suffering level, itā€™s horrible.
ā€œThe mental strain of spending most of the race alone with a team-mate out the back, trying to make a time cut. In 2008 when I did my first Tour that I won stages in, there were like 12 HC (hors catĆ©gorie, beyond categorisation) Category 1 or Category 2 climbs. Twelve. In the 2024 Tour, there are 28. Itā€™s hard, and I think you donā€™t want to do that for very long if youā€™re a sprinter, or you canā€™t. I know how to do it, I know how to suffer.ā€
Remarkably, heā€™s prepared to go there again this summer.
 
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