Minor races 2018 (contains spoilers)

[User169]

Gravel racing goes mainstream in Paris-Tours.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

Gravel racing goes mainstream in Paris-Tours.

Lots of moaning from the teams about it; some wittering in Eurosport commentary about it too. Get on with it ye great big Jessies.

 

[User169]

Lots of moaning from the teams about it; some wittering in Eurosport commentary about it too. Get on with it ye great big Jessies.

Watching it right now and it’s blimming great.

 

[mjr]

Meanwhile, in Italy, Mollema takes a win in the Cup Ciclismo, riding off the front of a misfiring breakaway with about 3km to go and taking it to the line.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

Just shows to go you that the "big" races are not always the best I suppose; not that it does, but I wanted to type something...

 

[mjr]

Watching it right now and it’s blimming great.

I've now seen the highlights and it looked like they'd filled, raked and rolled the gravel roads so the racers don't have to deal with the water-filled craters and tractor tyre ridges that us mortals have to ride around. Wimps!

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

Richeze wins the first stage in Turkey, Gaviria took a fall with about 3.5km to go. Carlton eventually twigged that it wasn't Hodeg that was in the front, at about the 3rd time of telling by Brian Smith.

 

[mjr]

What imbecile thought that an animated Tour of Turkey leader's jersey graphic by the time split was a good idea? Very distracting. Thank heavens my STB has anti logo.

Good reduced bunch sprint win for Tom Skujiŋš, with Peter Kennaugh (Bored Hands grower) finishing third after a good looking attack in the final stages. Valve pity starts the curse of the rainbow jersey by finishing in the peloton.

 

[smutchin]

Skujiŋš

You truly are the master of ASCII (or do I mean Unicode?).

Can you do the L with a stroke through it as in Michal Kwiatkowski?

 

[mjr]

Great team tactics by Group armour FDJ with Gaudou setting up Pinot for the won by selflessly pulling until he blew, then pulling over and taking Lopez out. Lopez got back on and finished second, while rainbow curse Valve pity was third. Uphill finish so the podium came in one by one.

Edit: commentary just called it an unluck for Lopez to be looking the wrong way and not see Gaudou pulling over. So I doubt the commissaries will intervene at all.

 

[mjr]

You truly are the master of ASCII (or do I mean Unicode?).

Can you do the L with a stroke through it as in Michal Kwiatkowski?

Unicode. And ł.

It's pretty easy these days. On Android, long pressing the virtual keyboard key pops up the accented variations (sometimes you have to put it into "no language" - I know not why). On GNU/Linux/Xorg/whatever, typing compose (usually shifted right alt) lets you type the letter then the accent. The weak spot is Android Bluetooth keyboards, where the best way I've got of getting accents is to flip the keyboard language: the French- Canada keyboard gets used a lot!

 

[smutchin]

It's pretty easy these days. On Android, long pressing the virtual keyboard key pops up the accented variations

Of course - you can do the same on iOS but the range of characters seems a bit limited. Hadn't thought of changing the language for more options.

 

[mjr]

Of course - you can do the same on iOS but the range of characters seems a bit limited. Hadn't thought of changing the language for more options.

Whoever decided to limit the range of characters in the pop-up on certain languages is a prize daffodil. It's as if they think it should be difficult to write foreign names correctly.

 

[nickyboy]

Lots of moaning from the teams about it; some wittering in Eurosport commentary about it too. Get on with it ye great big Jessies.

Might help if they remember that they're in the entertainment business. The old Paris-Tours was crap as a spectacle

 

[mjr]

Might help if they remember that they're in the entertainment business. The old Paris-Tours was crap as a spectacle

Alternatively, maybe their whinging will finally get tarmac cycle routes built near Tours. AIUI both V41 and EV3 have lengthy gravel sections in that area, far worse than anything the pros raced on, some within 4 miles of Tours Place Jean Jaurès!