Some equipment chat today. Nothing massively insightful but I said I’d share it anyways. This post won’t be for everyone so I am just highlighting that now in case you are bored stuff reading through this. I hope that Malte enjoys it though 🙏😭 Wheels are the Vision Metrons in the 45 and 60mm options. Internal 23, external 32. Steel spokes. Not the lightest or the fastest but they aren’t a disadvantage - some teams on Shimano wheels or DT Swiss or swissside for example 🤢 Picnic and FDJ can be thrown in here too. Even Rovals are not my cup of tea - too narrow unless you are on very smooth roads. I’m quite picky on wheels as you can see but Vision gets a pass which is good. Theres no mainstream world tour wheel brand which gets a gold star from me - you need to go to Panda Podium for that. Bahrain which is another Vision sponsored team are using the gravel wheels for the Belgian classics which are a nice bit wider. They’re using 32mm front and rear which would sit quite nicely so I’m hoping that the EF guys get to use them too for the Belgian classics in particular - big gains. Otherwise they are going using the Vittoria Corsa TT tyres in a 30mm as their standard race tyre. The training bike has a 52 x 39 (sram) chainring and for races they’ll have the option of 54 x 41. Not sure about 1 x options yet but hopefully they have them. I completely disagree with 1 by for road unless you have deep pockets where you have multiple bikes or live in Florida or something. But for pros the aero and weight gains are definitely worth it. They’ll probably use the gravel groupset too for some early season classics but we haven’t heard about this yet. They have a guy who is the aero/equipment expert so riders can message him as much as they like to theorise some potential equipment decisions for particular races. No two races are the same so it does make sense to tinker around with different wheels, tyres, gear ratios, skinsuits and so on depending on the course. I can imagine that Malte would regularly avail of this service 🤑🤑

Race schedule for men and women (and the broadcast list for those watching in USA). We’re in the process of getting a spreadsheet made so you can enter your pick easily for each stage of a specific race. Basically the rules are simple: Stage races you pick one person for each stage (CANNOT repeat picks, no Pog every summit finish ok). 1st - 25pts 2nd - 24pts ——————— 25th - 1pt 26th and on - 0pts We’ll be mostly using the honor system because I feel like we should only be responsible for our own score. Also, I think it would be fun to track the 10 classics from Strade-Bianche to LBL cumulatively, let us know your thoughts on this. I think it’ll mix things up since you’ll have to pick smartly! If you have any comments, questions, things to add, etc feel free to message me, message @Mary H , or just comment here!

Ok folks, bold move. I’m deleting zwift and upgrading to training peaks premium which includes virtual. Anyone have similar thoughts ? I’m nervous 🤣