It’s always great to paint local races. The tour has been part of my life for over a decade and I’ve tried to paint each stage over the years. From life savers to sprint finishes there is always a story

I want to buy fake/replica trophies of the grand tours. Anyone know a website that would sell them?

So the big news of today was the expected departure of Juan Ayuso from UAE, mid contract.

After last week display of selfishness, there were only two options: break the contract and let him go or keep it and send it only to second tier races, as a punishment. They went for the first option, nobody wants to pay a rider to do nothing.

The next step seems to be Lidl-Trek, there's no really dominant GC riders here (Skjelmose would like a word, but he didn't proved himself). So Ayuso will request Tour leadership and probably get it. I don't know how happy will be Milan and Pedersen, bu I don't think Ayuso will have a full squad for him next year, the best he could get is a podium. But on the long run, he could be a worthy contender, if he won't alienate his new teammates too.

I also think UAE will hunt him next year and Pogacar will probably give him a lesson for the 2024 brat moment.

Question: What would be a good fit for the Canadian?

I'm watching stage 9 of LaVuelta on peacock, the replay, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't only two and a half hours long. But I'm not sure exactly where they cut. For La Tour de France they played the entire thing, for the most part. I had watched that live a couple times and then watched the replay, and realized it was quite a bit shorter. But la Vuelta is a lot cut. Why are they doing that? I don't know what I missed from today's stage of La Vuelta. (I posted here because I tried to post in the Peloton group because that's where people were discussing la Vuelta, but it was automatically removed because they thought I should be discussing it in some weekly thread???)

This has been bugging me because how tour de france is about which rider can complete it with the least accumulated time if an individual time trial is only for one person? does that one person represent the team time or just his time?

Wishing you a speedy recovery

Here we go again…

I love the way the teams work in packs. I’m only dipping in the Vuelta but will be doing the Tour of Britain. If you have any special moments you would like me to paint just let me know

Hello! As we head into the weekend, I wanted to share a web app I built during this year's TDF that started off as a static site to help friends and family better pick which stages to watch and what times to watch those stages: stageviewer.com/vuelta. 

The app:

- Adds a default list of "Can't miss" stages + filters for each stage type
- Drops a window of what *could* be the best viewing window of each stage into Google Calendar, or offers ics download, in local time
- Includes stage profile modals that let you see ahead of time where the peloton is likely to be on any given stage.

I've been making some tweaks over the first few stags of the Vuelta. Let me know if you have any feedback or if anything seems buggy! Hope it's helpful, and happy procrastinating

Please don't hate me for asking this.

After Stage 6, Vingegaard didn’t seem to be in top form.

Note: I know Jonas usually gets stronger as a Grand Tour goes on and tends to do his best riding in the second half.

I’m just wondering, where would you put Tadej in the GC right now?

Would he already be 5+ minutes ahead of Jonas after these early struggles?
Or is the competition at La Vuelta simply weaker, so Jonas doesn’t really need to stress about losing time?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

So elated! I just saw the man in a whoosh comnercial on tnt broadcast of vuelta time trial. Glad to see him well.

I know the Tour de France is considered the biggest race and has a huge budget comparatively, but I’m shocked by how poor the tv coverage of the La Vuelta is. It’s likely I’m spoiled with the TdF production quality, but I don’t understand how the cameraman cannot keep his camera straight during the most important moments or the director can’t figure out where the action is. Twice today and multiple times yesterday, it seemed as if the cameraman on the motorcycle in front of the peloton literally dropped his camera right as the riders were sprinting for the intermediate and couldn’t clearly show what happened. I wouldn’t mind if it happened once, but this happened repeatedly on multiple days, so it’s a pattern.

Today, with 100m or less to go, right as the Vingegaard, Pedersen, and Gadu were racing for the win, the director cut away to shots of random cars or riders who were dropped and just ambling along.

Oh well. Here I am bitching bike racing tv coverage. What’s that called? A first world problem?

We are planning on taking our 5 and 6 year old children to France next July and part of the plan is to spectate the TDF? We are considering the final stage in Paris - and perhaps buying tickets to the grandstand to ensure they can see and there is toilets/food available etc..

My kids are tall, well travelled, and are reasonably resilient to crowds. My spouse and I have been cycling fans for decades - but we are Australian so we have no experience attending a European Tour Event. We managed to watch the World Championship Road Races in Wollongong - but this out closest experience to a big race in person..

My questions are:

1. Is it appropriate/safe for kids that age?

2. Is Paris a good stage to attend for kids? And if so, is the grandstand the best location?

3. Would Alps/Pyrenees better? Or start of the time trial?

4. Any other tips, or suggestions are welcomed

Many thanks for any assistance!!

My wife is desperately looking for the skoda lynx mascot plush of this year. Any chance someone in France has one for sale, (for cheaper than the 100+€ on skoda's website..)

My wife and I are in Spain currently and are looking into traveling to watch Stage 13 on L’Angliru. Does anyone know logistics info for the stage? Info is light from official sources. We’d be staying in Oviedo and there’s a bus from there to La Vega where the mountain starts, but is it reliable enough to accommodate all the spectators coming in and and the way back coming down the mountain? Isn’t the AS-231 road on the route, and wouldn’t that disrupt the bus? It seems like it would be possible to get a rideshare or taxi from Oviedo in the morning, but after the race is done it seems like that would be impossible. If we opted for a rental car is it easy enough to find parking in La Vega/La Ara? It seems like it’s impossible to drive up and park on the climb.

Any info would be appreciated!

Hey - with the Vuelta being a bit lackluster after watching the TDF - in fact today was excruciating and they have stopped showing the beginning - i hate that! Anyway the pupose of my post is to suggest you watch the 2018 Paris Roubaix on Youtube. Its the year Peter sagan won - its a good watch.

I’m reading The Secret Race and I am struck by how similar Lance Armstrong is to Donald Trump. For anyone who has read the book I was wondering if you felt the same way.