gent wevelgem... wider tires win? (spoilers)

[Hank Scorpio]

Originally Posted by thwart

Missed the race this morning, but looks like the eventual winner was running wider tires than MvdP.

(wonderful pic by Cor Vos)



... and he's not bouncing on the cobbles.

I see the UCI sock measuring guy took the day off.

[weisan]

Past winners

2001 United States George Hincapie U.S. Postal Service
2002 Italy Mario Cipollini Acqua & Sapone–Cantina Tollo
2003 Germany Andreas Klier Team Telekom
2004 Belgium Tom Boonen Quick-Step–Davitamon
2005 Belgium Nico Mattan Davitamon–Lotto
2006 Norway Thor Hushovd Crédit Agricole
2007 Germany Marcus Burghardt T-Mobile Team
2008 Spain Óscar Freire Rabobank
2009 Norway Edvald Boasson Hagen Team Columbia–High Road
2010 Austria Bernhard Eisel Team HTC–Columbia
2011 Belgium Tom Boonen Quick-Step
2012 Belgium Tom Boonen Omega Pharma–Quick-Step
2013 Slovakia Peter Sagan Cannondale
2014 Germany John Degenkolb Giant–Shimano
2015 Italy Luca Paolini Team Katusha
2016 Slovakia Peter Sagan Tinkoff
2017 Belgium Greg Van Avermaet BMC Racing Team
2018 Slovakia Peter Sagan Bora–Hansgrohe
2019 Norway Alexander Kristoff UAE Team Emirates
2020 Denmark Mads Pedersen Trek–Segafredo
2021 Belgium Wout van Aert Team Jumbo–Visma
2022 Eritrea Biniam Girmay Intermarché–Wanty–Gobert Matériaux
2023 France Christophe Laporte Team Jumbo–Visma
2024 Denmark Mads Pedersen Lidl–Trek

[BdaGhisallo]

Originally Posted by Hank Scorpio

I see the UCI sock measuring guy took the day off.

I wonder if the sock length regs apply to the shoe covers that the three of them are using, though?

[trener1]

It's interesting that VdP doesn't use gloves especially out on the cobbles, I wonder why.

[Dave]

If it was up to me I'd limit sock length to the normal about ankle bone height. Tall socks just look stupid and once everyone uses them, there's no advantage to them. Same goes for the new long jersey sleeves.

[teleguy57]

Originally Posted by trener1

It's interesting that VdP doesn't use gloves especially out on the cobbles, I wonder why.

Boonen rode bare-handed as well as some other classics riders. One explanation I heard was that friction between hand and glove caused more blister issues than hand to bar tape. I know I prefer riding without gloves -- which has no correlations with World Champions' choices

[benb]

Pretty sure they are skipping gloves due to a claim of no gloves being a marginal aero advantage.

Clearly this picture is an AI hallucination, the bike on the leftmost rider has a hole where the seat tube is supposed to be.

More seriously when you look at a picture like this AND you know you don't have to work on those bikes, then the all internal cabling/hoses look damn clean and sexy.

Big tires are a huge puncture advantage, you have to first finish to finish first, so there is lots of talk about where the tradeoff is between aero loss due to the rims not being wide enough for the widest tires versus the puncture resistance advantage and the rolling resistance advantage on a cobble section like this.

Great photo.. having shot bike races my only nit is the shutter speed is very high freezing all motion. It's the safe way to do it but I think it's super cool when they nail the shutter speed to the point the chains and spokes have a little bit of motion blur to give more of a sense of motion. But this is pretty much a 9.5/10 for getting all three of them with great expressions and some good crowd expressions as well plus just the right amount of separation between subject and background. They are even traveling left to right in the frame which gets judged as a superior photo to objects moving right to left.

[saab2000]

It is indeed a great photo. Cor Vos and Graham Watson were always the ones to watch for. I’m sure there are others but their work is top notch.

[VC Slim]

Originally Posted by benb

Pretty sure they are skipping gloves due to a claim of no gloves being a marginal aero advantage.

Clearly this picture is an AI hallucination, the bike on the leftmost rider has a hole where the seat tube is supposed to be.

More seriously when you look at a picture like this AND you know you don't have to work on those bikes, then the all internal cabling/hoses look damn clean and sexy.

Big tires are a huge puncture advantage, you have to first finish to finish first, so there is lots of talk about where the tradeoff is between aero loss due to the rims not being wide enough for the widest tires versus the puncture resistance advantage and the rolling resistance advantage on a cobble section like this.

Great photo.. having shot bike races my only nit is the shutter speed is very high freezing all motion. It's the safe way to do it but I think it's super cool when they nail the shutter speed to the point the chains and spokes have a little bit of motion blur to give more of a sense of motion. But this is pretty much a 9.5/10 for getting all three of them with great expressions and some good crowd expressions as well plus just the right amount of separation between subject and background. They are even traveling left to right in the frame which gets judged as a superior photo to objects moving right to left.

Yes, great photo. Love how it captures the gap under VDP’s front wheel.

[Hilltopwalters]

I still have PTSD from going on a ride without gloves and shearing away most of the skin on my palms while simultaneously being at the very most edge of breaking both of them. Whenever I see these guys without gloves it just reminds me of that pain. But, I'm also not a CX champion many, many times over. And, as others have said - this is a great photo.

[crankles]

Originally Posted by benb

Pretty sure they are skipping gloves due to a claim of no gloves being a marginal aero advantage.

I doubt that...at least for MvdP. Plenty of pics over the years of him racing cross with no gloves in all sorts of conditions. I just don't think he likes em.

[Spoker]

N=1 but Jasper Suyven flatted on the Ploeg street. Don't know if he was on tubulars, but he was in the lead 4 up to then .

[flying]

Originally Posted by GregL

Here’s hoping the next two weekends bring epic racing. RvV and PR are my favorite races of the year.

Greg

Mine also & I always look forward to these as well as the other classics. The epic Mur de Huy finish at Fleche Wallone is always so exciting

I am hoping WVA does something special at either RvV or PR I think he really deserves one.....not that anyone else doesn't

[GregL]

Originally Posted by crankles

I doubt that...at least for MvdP. Plenty of pics over the years of him racing cross with no gloves in all sorts of conditions. I just don't think he likes em.

I read somewhere that some pros ride without gloves because they feel bare hands will get fewer blisters over the cobbles. If I can find the reference, I'll update this post.

Greg

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by GregL

I read somewhere that some pros ride without gloves because they feel bare hands will get fewer blisters over the cobbles. If I can find the reference, I'll update this post.

Some pros are also known to double wrap their handlebars for better shock absorption, but the photo doesn't look like that is the case here. Although maybe that's just for extreme events like Paris-Roubaix.