Velominati Super Prestige: Men’s Liege-Bastogne Liege 2017

There was a time when this is what Cycling looked like.

This guy. This fucking Valverde guy. How can you make it look so easy? Dan Martin was right to look like a little bitch on the podium, because that’s exactly what Valvecap made of him: his little bitch.

What kills me about him is he looks totally awesome, but I can’t find myself liking him. What’s the matter with me? Looking Fantastic is normally all I need. Maybe its because he’s bald. But that hasn’t stopped me before. Chalk it up to the great mysteries of life.

Liege is a race that’s dear to my heart; my dad and I did it together when I was seventeen and it was one of the greatest rides of my life. It’s a great classic, but today’s era of specialization means we rarely see riders contest the cobbled classics as well as the Ardennes classics. Yet, this year we’ve got Greg Van Avermaet lining up after winning Roubaix in the true Hardman style of Eddy Mereckx or Sean Kelly.

So lets make this happen people: I’m voting for GvA, nearly assuring everyone he won’t be anywhere near the podium. Appologies in advance. You know the drill: get the picks in by the time the clock goes to zero. Good luck!

[vsp_results id=”104302″/]

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

Next Velominati Super Prestige: Giro d'Italia 2017 »

Previous « Velominati Super Prestige: Womens Liege-Bastogne Liege 2017

View Comments

Oli says:

Apr 23 2017 at 8:20 pm

@wiscot

I agree. "Another level"...where have we heard that before?
RobSandy says:

Apr 24 2017 at 1:14 am

@Oli

@wiscot

I agree. “Another level”…where have we heard that before?

But only a in a few races. If he's killing it in all the Grand Tours as well then I will become very suspicious.

Also, surely he can't be stupid enough?
Randy C says:

Apr 24 2017 at 4:38 am

Nothing like a little 160 mile bike ride avg 25 mph and climbing 13k+'

Strava's a hoot. GvA ? Very cool.
paolo says:

Apr 24 2017 at 5:14 am

@wiscot

I said “fuck Valverde” on Wednesday and I’ll say it again today. It’s just not right. Every other rider’s heaving their lungs out and the Movistar shit just crosses the line cool as a cucumber.

I've never cared for him but apparently he is donating all this last weeks prize money to the Scarponi family. Class move. Chapeau Alejandro!
chuckp says:

Apr 24 2017 at 6:45 am

@Randy C

I was up early this am to have breakfast a couple of hours before a bike ride. But, was raining. So, what to do? Watch the race ! I really enjoyed watching the Cannondale team at the end put forth some efforts. Henao too. Dan Martin had a great attack but just looked to have sit his butt down at the top and at the wrong time. And boom, there went Valverde. That left turn just isn’t Martin’s corner hey?

I was up early too (usually am anyway ... even on the weekends). I have NBC Gold and the app loaded on my Amazon Fire Stick and Apple TV. Both kept asking me to validate with a code on my computer. I did and it kept rejecting the code (tried several different ones that the app kept putting on my TV screen) as invalid. WTF??? So I ended up streaming on my computer directly on NBC Gold website and hooked up HDMI cable to watch on my TV. Defeated the whole purpose of having the app on the TV. And I was able to watch the replay on the app no problem. Again, WTF???

Semi-long ride with a couple of my young gun riding pals afterwards. They were nice to the old guy.

#9 rain and hill ride Saturday morning.
Ron says:

Apr 24 2017 at 11:48 am

Wow, sad news on Scarponi. As the father of a new son, very sad to see his two sons and wife. Ugh.
Cameron W says:

Apr 24 2017 at 5:39 pm

@MangoDave

It ended up being a bit over 17 hours... I could post a strava link, but in a nutshell, 300km on the dot with 10,300m of vert metres. It almost came undone an hour in when I was descending in the dark and a wallaby crossed in front of me and tried to to take me out... it happened so fast I didn't have time to react. I've had a nights sleep, not feeling too bad, however I firmly believe tomorrow will be a real bitch...
Randy C says:

Apr 24 2017 at 6:24 pm

@chuckp

I had same issue with the app on my phone when trying to watch PR at the kiddo's last bike race… kept being rejected despite my use of correct login and pw. Yet I'm 100% fine to watch on my laptop. Squirrelly isn't it?

@Ron

That's the real heartbreaker isn't it? To see the recent photo of a very cool dude with his two young sons. Treasure every day for sure.
Lebowski Achiever says:

Apr 24 2017 at 6:28 pm

@chuckp

I've had the same issue and used the same fix. The NBC Gold site/interface was designed by a one-eared, lobotomized chimp. Perhaps a commentary on the sport's visibility in the U.S. Meanwhile in Texas you can get better coverage of high school football. There's WTF for you.
ErikdR says:

Apr 25 2017 at 9:30 am

@frank

Frank/Keepers, I'm a bit curious here (but not particularly bothered, for the record, since I've previously Delgado'd myself out of any real chance to make 'the Big League' in the VSP).

But anyway: as far as I can tell, I scored 16 points on the Women's LBL (picking the first three finishers correctly) but only 11 points doing the same here in the Men's LBL (See my post #45 above). Can this have something to do with the fact that I should have specified that I was referring to DAN Martin as my pick for second, by any chance - rather than merely writing 'Martin'? Cheers!