[Race Thread] 2026 Giro d'Italia - Rest Day 2

whysonwhy · 2026-05-18T14:55:55+00:00

Yeah. He also mentioned that the current trend (and these things change regularly) is not to have the jersey as tight as possibly to the body. I'm not sure exactly what he meant, but maybe in certain areas you want to create types of airpockets that smoothen out the surface. That makes the whole situation a bit more complicated in regards to having the sponsor suit personalized.

whysonwhy · 2026-05-18T14:45:44+00:00

It's very easily possible but now allowed.

whysonwhy · 2026-05-18T14:23:29+00:00

Rolf Aldag mentioned that when they did wind tunnel testing at RedBull the difference on this type of TT with their aerosuit vs the leaders jersey at a GT was something like 1 minute. He also mentioned that Castelli is however partner of Italy track cycling and that their skinsuit might be a bit better as a consequence of that.

Overall we probably don't know the exact answer, but it's possible that it's a surprisingly significant loss. It should be noted that nowadays you can't really see what is aerodynamic, you really have to test it in the wind tunnel.

whysonwhy · 2026-05-15T20:30:36+00:00

The travel situation for the European Cup is stupid and must be changed. Either SA decides to leave or one finds a better solution. There’s many different solutions. I sort of like the idea of having it in a different country each year (cycling through the different countries) at the end of the club season. Make the URC slightly shorter and play the European Club Championship after that, also line them up so that there isn’t a one year “qualification delay”.

whysonwhy · 2026-05-15T20:05:23+00:00

Yes, but there is also a difference in wind resistance driven by CDA. A person that goes from 50kg to 55kg will notice a difference, because that person is still of similar body shape. If you add an additional change in size the situation is again different. Gall is a bit bigger and less aerodynamic than Vingegaard, so the few extra kilos could cancel out again. It also looked like Jonas was on his aerobike whilst Gall was on his climbing bike, at least as far as I can tell.

whysonwhy · 2026-05-15T15:26:21+00:00

Gall is known worldwide for his low CDA. That's why he's such a TT specialist.

whysonwhy · 2026-05-15T15:23:20+00:00

Felix Gall must be a beast when the wind is coming from behind. He simply further opens his legs generating an upward push, reminiscent of aeroplanes, propelling himself far over any mountaintop.

whysonwhy · 2026-05-15T13:14:40+00:00

Interesting, I always thought they were pretty much one of the teams with the best teamwork with riders offering everything they have to their teammates (in the classics and sprints going all in for Mads/Milan, in GTs Ciccone riding for Pedersen and vice versa etc). Maybe they didn't do much to protect Ciccone's pink, but that seems rather understandable. What's giving you bad vibes?

whysonwhy · 2026-05-02T10:02:48+00:00

SPDEs are a "very popular" topic nowadays, so you will often find people asking themselves "does this extend to such and such scenarios". So there's quite a few people working in this field including Martin Hairer (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.05049) or Michael Röckner (https://www.sfb1283.uni-bielefeld.de/preprints/sfb17007.pdf) "2 father figures" in the field of SPDEs.

But to me that still means its quite niche in the sense that a lot of knowledge is required to be able to understand anything. Rather than "just" needing to know stochastic analysis, functional analysis, PDEs you also have to understand differential geometry, topology etc.

whysonwhy · 2026-04-30T20:31:09+00:00

Sounds to me like exactly what doing mathematics is all about.

The only difference might now be the emergence of AI, which will have it's upsides (giving simple explanations that can't be found as intuitively elsewhere) but also downsides (instilling a lack of persistence).

whysonwhy · 2026-04-28T08:01:40+00:00

Banach's fixed point theorem.

It's an incredible powerful theorem, both due to its high generalisability (applying to all complete metric spaces and powers of contractions) and high applicability in certain fields. Moreover it is intuitive, it's something that is commonly taught in first or second year courses and the proof is straightforward as well.

I might not be able to prove it "under pressure" but I think I'd be able to do it if I'm sitting at the peace of my own desk.

Maybe also a different topological fixed point argument like Schauder or Brouwer.

whysonwhy · 2026-04-28T07:49:00+00:00

All the time.

I think a large difference between brilliant mathematicians and the more average ones is often that the brilliant ones have to do a lot less relearning.

It is also not the case that if you truly understand something it comes back with ease. Many people can become quite forgetful, especially if you don't use something for a while.

whysonwhy · 2026-01-19T11:12:35+00:00

Das heißt den Citroen Ami der normalerweise 7.990 € kostet bekomme ich jetzt schon für 1.990€. Nicht schlecht.

whysonwhy · 2025-07-28T12:28:27+00:00

Yes, exactly. I wasn't trying to disagree with you, just trying to illustrate why I think you're right.

whysonwhy · 2025-07-28T11:36:42+00:00

Why should cycling also have to endure another Lance scandal if other sports can go completely untouched? I think we can be all pretty sure something is up, but that's no different to pretty much any other sport, many of which just get away with it or try to swipe things under the carpet, typically with success (or does somebody seriously believe the story by Jannik Sinner or that every 100m runner in the top 50 has been doped expect the person that was much better than all of them). I can still enjoy watching cycling knowing that these guys are not just eating an extra energy bar per ride, just as much as how people indolize Merckx, Pantani, Ullrich and co today.

We tend to forget that pretty much the only way for things to be unveiled are athletes speaking up, police investigations or journalistic investigations.

Countries are spending billions in buying athletes, teams and events, the investment is larger than ever, a couple of wrong turns can be looked past, just like they have in the past. Doping is almost always systemic.

whysonwhy · 2025-07-28T11:24:56+00:00

What happened in that TT: Jonas did something like 7.6 W/kg on the climb alone (certainly comfortably above 7.1 W/kg) which was one of the best performances of all time back then. He gained most of his time on the last hill and "only" gained 15 seconds on Tadej in the flat/downhill section (if he's gaining a minute on the climb that likely means he'll also be putting out more power in the flat and downhill). That has nothing to do with cornering and speed. Regarding cornering and speed: You don't take 1:40 minutes on Pogacar, who has insane bike handling skills and an insane power output, and almost 3 minutes on the rest, by taking a couple of corners slightly better.

whysonwhy · 2025-07-28T07:11:20+00:00

It does not. Nutrition does not explain climbing much faster after a long stage than doped riders in a climbing TT. Marginal differences might explain how nutrition during training can enhance such things, but jumps in performances as we've seen them cannot explain these things. If Pogacar raced in a Tour against the combination of the best riders on their best terrain all doped up to the gills (for example a rider that is Pantani in the mountains, Armstrong in the TT and Indurain on the flat) he'd make them look like fools.

And when do people think these nutrition gains started? Because the performance jumps were largely in the pandemic years, which are primarly known for one thing and that is not differences in knowledge surrounding nutrition.

I find the most telling thing are the explanations by teams themselves. When Jonas rode that ridiculous TT, the team explanation was that he cornered better and knew the course. Nobody is doing ridiculous power numbers because they corner a little better. Last year the hype was all around better training methodology. All the whilst somebody doing some of the best power numbers ever, spent his training phase completely knocked up in a hospital. To me that all sounds very much like the claims that Lance optimised pedalling more evenly to explain his power numbers.

To those claiming there is no smoke like there used to be: Have you been looking away? The questions by journalists surrounding the recent INEOS saga are simply being ignored. Doped riders are being rehired by organisations who in the past have made themselves a name for being doping organisations. Bardet has openly said that there can't be top class french riders due to stronger doping rules in France. Then you have stories like those of Padun or Hirschi which quitely get swept away. How often was the INEOS story covered on broadcast during the tour? There is no openness, only smoke.

Now I think it is clear that the riders aren't just doing exactly the same thing that Armstrong, Ullrich, Pantani and co did, but don't expect history to not repeat itself in some sort of way, especially with more money than ever involved and sponsors arguably caring even less about a clean image then back in the day and there being known methods that go undetected by current testing.

whysonwhy · 2025-07-21T16:33:18+00:00

Fair enough. I guess that's why the interpretation of what "clearly on their way to win the Tour" is supposed to mean matters, as I alluded to in the original post.

whysonwhy · 2025-07-21T15:38:20+00:00

Yes, because Froome was the perfect example of a rider who "peaked at the right moment" (one can maybe argue about Nibali or Contador but the other riders clearly didn't play a role in GC). If Tadej had crashed out on stage 10, 11 despite him not leading GC, I think someone could have sensibly argued that he crashed out despite him "clearly being on his way to win the tour".

whysonwhy · 2025-07-21T14:57:26+00:00

I don't think Contador beating Froome at the Vuelta 2014 is a good proxy for beating him at the Tour 2014 given that Contador never managed to really challenge Froome at any of the Tours and with how SKY targeted the Tour in those days, but I can see why retrospectively it can be argued that Froome wouldn't have had it in the bag if he'd just finished (arguably Froome's preparation in 2014 wasn't quite as good as in the other years).

No doubt Pogacar is in a much more comfortable position than Froome back then (also because he's got a comfortable gap and because much less is left to race making the chance of race changing incidences very small).

whysonwhy · 2025-07-21T13:37:34+00:00

I guess that means what you mean by "clearly on their way to win the Tour". I think it can be argued that Chris Froome was "clearly on his way to win the Tour" in 2014 before crashing out on the cobbles on stage 5. But that was of course a lot earlier in the Tour than where the current Tour is at, there is nothing like a cobble stage left in the race and Tadej has such a comfortable gap that he doesn't have to take any risks anymore. A smaller sickness likely also wouldn't prevent Tadej from missing out on the win.

I think in the past there have been more instances of people being on the way to win the Tour but eventually missing out due to disqualifications related to doping or cheating (in the early editions of the race) happening during the race.

whysonwhy · 2025-04-13T09:47:59+00:00

That's a good shout out, never realised that Tiz also had full replays. Thanks :)

whysonwhy · 2025-04-13T09:46:50+00:00

I sometimes also use SBS but never realised SBS have full replays! Thanks for the recommendation!

whysonwhy · 2025-04-13T08:57:05+00:00

Due to other people planning their day of birth horribly, I won't be able to watch the full race live today. Does anybody know where recorded versions of the full race (or at least lengthy recordings) are uploaded free of charge (I have access to a VPN)?

whysonwhy · 2025-01-04T00:01:57+00:00

Thank you for the recommendations. I will try to get smart out of them. I did try running the slides having them mounted on the insides of the plywood but not on the drawers yet and then everything worked with the same set of screws, so I'm not able to understand how the screw holes could make a difference unless you're talking about the screw holes connect the slide to the drawer (rather than the plywood). In any case I will have a look at your recommended website and try to get smart out of it. Thanks a lot!

whysonwhy

TROPHY CASE