108th Paris-Roubaix

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thelankyman

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I doubt that you could say that Cancellara would be unexpected to win considering he won it two years ago and won the Tour de Flanders on the weekend. He is probably the favourite infront on Boonen to win. Based soley on the fact that he was able to ride away from boonen at Flanders. Anyway should be good. Seeing it with some friends at his bike shop. Whoo hooo. Dont forget the Melbourne-Roubaix in a few weeks!
 
Australia

Australia

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some great value bets still available if thats your thing

hard to go past cancellara though
 
G

Garrath

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Looks like it's going to be a nice sunny day. Not what the type of weather the Hell of the North should be ridden in.

Yeah money is on Cancellara, though he could have another bad day and let O'Grady take the glory again. That would be cool.
 
Bodin

Bodin

GMBC
I can't pick the winner, because there are two bleedingly obvious favourites and it's just going to come down to the luckier one of the two. Have given cyclingnews.com a fairly good reading over the last couple of days in the lead up and it's not helping me pick a winner.

Doesn't stop me being bloody excited. Going to be pretty tired at work on Monday.
 
bear the bear

bear the bear

Is a real bear
Bodin said:
I can't pick the winner, because there are two bleedingly obvious favourites and it's just going to come down to the luckier one of the two. Have given cyclingnews.com a fairly good reading over the last couple of days in the lead up and it's not helping me pick a winner.

Doesn't stop me being bloody excited. Going to be pretty tired at work on Monday.
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I'm going for the dark horse.....Juan Antonio Flecha
 
dr_rob

dr_rob

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If you have a healthy broadband connection, and need more cycling than SBS can deliver, then I offer this link:
http://www.fromsport.com/c-9.html


It links to sites streaming any cycling live (i.e EuroSport). It's a bit hit and miss, and not always in English, but I watched a fair bit of the Track Cycling Worlds this way.
 
Tomas

Tomas

my mum says im cool
I pretty much went to bed once i saw Cancelara make the move. When he blew his lead out to 2 minutes with 20kms to go, the TV went off.

What an epic TT'er, he's a machine.
 
T

thelankyman

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Tomas said:
I pretty much went to bed once i saw Cancelara make the move. When he blew his lead out to 2 minutes with 20kms to go, the TV went off.

What an epic TT'er, he's a machine.
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Very impressive. One that he was willing to try it, two cos he made it and three cos the pack of 9 riders was losing time to him

Boonen must be spuing. Instead of realising that Cancellara was going to win and saving his energy for a spring finish or an attack, he just kept leading the pack out. Very bad tactics.
 
Bodin

Bodin

GMBC
thelankyman said:
Boonen... Very bad tactics.
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That's debatable. I'm not saying that to be disagreeable, but I simply don't know what you think Boonen might have done better. The one, single time that Boonen took it easy and left it to the OTHERS to watch Cancellara was the split second that effectively ended the race.

Cancellara had a better team for the first two thirds of the race and the reality is that Boonen's only human - he had to relax at some point - and Cancellara picked his moment well. Boonen was quoted as saying that all of the others (Flecha, Hushovd, etc...) instantly started racing for second place and they were telling him that pretty much as soon as Cancellara got 5 seconds up the road. Everyone is shit-scared of the guy and all of these other current "heads of state" will be long-forgotten when we're still reminiscing about Cancellara in 20 years.

The reality is that Cancellara and Boonen are currently so far ahead of the rest of the peloton in the one day classics that tactics are basically irrelevant. It just comes down to whoever is better on the day between the two of them and Cancellara's in the best form of his life (in both fitness AND luck) and is not having any bad days at the moment...
 
Sic

Sic

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I think if Boonen cant win it he doesnt much care for second.

I still cant believe no-one else except Boonen was willing to chase Cancellara, it really did look they just gave up and fought for second. Sure Cancellara is incredibly strong but I think they could have caught him if they'd tried which was a bit disappointing really.

When I saw the riders up the front I imagined it would be a pack sprint for the finish, I guess Cancellara is pretty scary to try and beat.
 
C

C Dunlop

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If Boonen had more team mates/help in the front pack, they could have chased Cancellara down, but no one is going to organise a chase for the sake of being beaten by Boonen (and probably Cancellara too) rather than sitting in, racing tactically and having a chance at second.
 
sockman

sockman

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Tomas said:
I pretty much went to bed once i saw Cancelara make the move. When he blew his lead out to 2 minutes with 20kms to go, the TV went off.

What an epic TT'er, he's a machine.
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Yeah, same here. Up until this point it was pretty exciting racing too. Every time a move was made, the pack picked it up a notch and chased... then Cancelara won...
 
T

thelankyman

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I think that Boonen was doing the right thing by attacking Cancellara when the pack was still formed. He wanted to break it up. Boonen did make a mistake when he went to the back of the pack and started eating. That is not what I called bad tactics, it was purely a mistake.

What I meant by bad tactics is that Boonen kept leading the pack when no other rider was keen to do more than a short roll at the front. I know the other riders were tired but they also couldn't be bothered, they were racing for second. Boonen should have realised that after 15km of chasing that he was destroying his chances of getting second and eased off to try and get second place. It seemed that for Boonen it was all or nothing. He wanted to win or die trying. Whilst I think that they are bad tactics I totally respect him for it.

I would love to see the Roubaix with ALL the top riders, including the GC guys, just to see how that makes things pan out. Can you imagine Cancellara with the support of the Schlecks. It wont happen as none of the GC guys want to get injured and it doesnt suit their leadup to the Giro
 
Carlin

Carlin

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Ditto again.

I kept saying 'I'll go to bed at 50ks to go'. It was a good strategy: saw the race-winning move, could still function in the morning.
 
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