2016 Road World Championships Elite Men's Individual Time Trial - *unmasked spoilers*

godtabh

Good banter here

https://twitter.com/nicholasroche/status/786195577872809984

https://twitter.com/ryanmullen9/status/786219242043633664

irishrover99

MPFGLB wrote: »

BTW using words like shamed are inflamatory

Inflammatory,come on. We are talking about cycling, not Donald Trump

harringtonp

MPFGLB wrote: »

NIco is not a TT specialist and Mullen is

You hear "TT speciaist" bandied around a lot here and I do wonder what exactly it means

- Don't they all do TT work just like they all train on their road bikes.

- The current Irish national champ is not a TT specialist

- Dunbar was never thought of as a TT specialist yet he works hard at the discipline and is doing extremely well at it. And it seems to mean that his career long long range brakes are akin to TTing (certainly mentally) apart from the bike setup.

- All the GC riders have to work hard at TTs and do reasonbaly well in them even though most of them aren't considered specialists

Its just a label that some have and some don't as far as I see.

dastardly00

irishrover99 wrote: »

I would at least expected Roche to be closer to Mullen after trashing him recently.

Just because Roche 'thrashed' Mullen in the National Championship ITT this year doesn't mean that it can't happen the other way round. And that we should be shocked if it happens.

Time trials are tough, there's nowhere to hide, and it's very much a case of 'on the day'. Nico didn't have a great performance, whereas Mullen had the ride of his career. Hence the time difference between them. Simple as.

As the others have mentioned, Nico is a solid TT rider with many years of experience, and Mullen is a TT specialist but still a rookie pro. While their careers overlap, Nico will beat Mullen and vice-versa in different races. That's cycling.

Mullen finished way back in 22nd place in the European Championships ITT back in the middle of September. 13 of the riders who finished ahead of him that day also competed today in Doha. Mullen beat them all today except Castroviejo (6 seconds gap). Should those 12 riders who got 'thrashed' by Mullen today be 'ashamed'?

odyssey06

Come on folks, lets stay positive! It wasnt an all ireland tournament, it was the worlds, so lets not focus on the relative performance of two of our best riders against each other.
Nico has given us highs and lows over the years, and now we have terrifying highs and dizzyying lows to get through with Ryan.

pelevin

I'll revise my earlier statement.

Imo Mullen & Roche both shamed the nation today particularly given it's the 100th anniversary of 1916. In 1916 Germany were in the middle of a disastrous World War, and yet look what Tony Martin did out there today. Makes you think.

Oh and to add, if this was Twitter & I knew how to do it, I'd add a hashtag Pride.

Beasty

Let's face it, this course was never going to suit Nico. A few hills and I'm sure he could have done a bit better. However it was ideal for someone like Mullen assuming the weather/temperature did not get to him (which it clearly didn't)

smurphy29

harringtonp wrote: »

You hear "TT speciaist" bandied around a lot here and I do wonder what exactly it means

- Don't they all do TT work just like they all train on their road bikes.

- The current Irish national champ is not a TT specialist

- Dunbar was never thought of as a TT specialist yet he works hard at the discipline and is doing extremely well at it. And it seems to mean that his career long long range brakes are akin to TTing (certainly mentally) apart from the bike setup.

- All the GC riders have to work hard at TTs and do reasonbaly well in them even though most of them aren't considered specialists

Its just a label that some have and some don't as far as I see.

They don't all do TT work just like they train ont heir road bikes. In fact if you read interviews with them you would be surprised how little TT work they do. Have a read of Vaughters' assessment of Pierre Rolland's testing for example. TTing is a highly specialised discipline, totally different to road racing, it's about riding at a high level in a very particular aero position. At elite level a good roleur won't necessarily make a great tester. It's not the same as riding in a long range breakaway, not by any means. Not all GC riders work hard at testing; Nibali only went to do wind tunnel testing for the first time long after he was established as a GC rider.

The current Irish champ is not a TT specialist, that's true, but he only had to beat one TT specialist to be national champ, and said specialist was out of form.

pelevin

Good piece on Mullen's ride. Says he was actually out in close to the worst of the heat:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/world-championships-mullen-awed-by-fifth-place-in-time-trial/

kumate_champ07

compression clothing is banned but this looks like some kind of tape that may have a similar effect

also whats giving the bulk near the centre, thats surely not just his spine?

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/51516b6adff3a84578d99e6dee43aa67d53a1b07/0_234_4812_2888/master/4812.jpg?w=1920&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&



the first photo wont link but it gave a better view

robyntmorton

Looks like a back full of ice cubes, which is a technique a lot of the riders used today to keep cool.

kumate_champ07

robyntmorton wrote: »

Looks like a back full of ice cubes, which is a technique a lot of the riders used today to keep cool.

maybe

thats also a trick used when the bikes are being weighed, ice cubes down the seat tube

dastardly00

pelevin wrote: »

Good piece on Mullen's ride. Says he was actually out in close to the worst of the heat:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/world-championships-mullen-awed-by-fifth-place-in-time-trial/

Some of the quotes from Mullen are hilarious!
Well worth a read.

harringtonp

smurphy29 wrote: »

At elite level a good roleur won't necessarily make a great tester.

Very true though I would think great testers should make very good roleurs. We have seen that in the past from Martin, Cancellara etc. Will be interesting to see if Mullen shows some of the same going forward.

bazermc

There's more spectators on the road when I go for my Sunday spin than this.

harringtonp

bazermc wrote: »

There's more spectators on the road when I go for my Sunday spin than this.

That's money for you, the only reason events like this and the future world cup are held there.

Lusk_Doyle

pelevin wrote: »

just to have been in the hotseat for so long will be in itself a real nice addition to it all.

Aren't all the seats over there hot?

neris

robyntmorton wrote: »

Looks like a back full of ice cubes, which is a technique a lot of the riders used today to keep cool.

Some riders had those camelback water bag thingys on to drink out of aswell. You could see the mouth piece tubes sticking out their skin suits.

kumate_champ07

neris wrote: »

Some riders had those camelback water bag thingys on to drink out of aswell. You could see the mouth piece tubes sticking out their skin suits.

I didnt think they were UCI legal, aero bottles were banned but I think theyre ok now, but if you have water on your back you are changing the airflow. it looks like Tony has less drag , he has artificially changed his body shape

pelevin

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

I didnt think they were UCI legal, aero bottles were banned but I think theyre ok now, but if you have water on your back you are changing the airflow. it looks like Tony has less drag , he has artificially changed his body shape

I would think it very likely given the extreme weather, such things as this might have been ok'd. They could genuinely have had very serious medical things happen as shown in the women's TTT.

68 lost souls

In the UCI commentary on their live feed the mentioned that they been passed for use due to the heat

usheeeen

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

I didnt think they were UCI legal, aero bottles were banned but I think theyre ok now, but if you have water on your back you are changing the airflow. it looks like Tony has less drag , he has artificially changed his body shape

I thought that when they were banned they were in the front of the skinsuits? Making the space between the chest and legs smaller when in the tt position. They might have said that is still banned.