You nailed it with describing this as a new golden age. The key is the new spirit the best riders bring to the racing. Pog, WVA and MVDP race every time they show up.
Having the top GC rider approach racing like this is a sea change from the days of Armstrong and then Froome when peaking and focus on July seemingly dominated every thought and each pedal stroke.
Pog is the new patron of the peloton. Not a mafia don patron (sorry Lance) or a gentleman patron (shouldn't Froome be the knight not Wiggo?) but a precocious, irrepressible patron whose willingness to try and fail both brings himself a full range of successes and opens the field for others to step into the spaces his impulsiveness opens up.
And great to see a rider like Matteo Jorgensen take a bite of the same GC (Oman) and cobbles (E3) stew. The Movistar man's performance in Harelbeke is an indicator of how the best riders have set a n adventurous, attacking tone for the entire peloton.
Thrilling is right! A great race.
You nailed it with describing this as a new golden age. The key is the new spirit the best riders bring to the racing. Pog, WVA and MVDP race every time they show up.
Having the top GC rider approach racing like this is a sea change from the days of Armstrong and then Froome when peaking and focus on July seemingly dominated every thought and each pedal stroke.
Pog is the new patron of the peloton. Not a mafia don patron (sorry Lance) or a gentleman patron (shouldn't Froome be the knight not Wiggo?) but a precocious, irrepressible patron whose willingness to try and fail both brings himself a full range of successes and opens the field for others to step into the spaces his impulsiveness opens up.
And great to see a rider like Matteo Jorgensen take a bite of the same GC (Oman) and cobbles (E3) stew. The Movistar man's performance in Harelbeke is an indicator of how the best riders have set a n adventurous, attacking tone for the entire peloton.