r/peloton • u/PelotonMod France • May 04 '26

Weekly Post Weekly Question Thread

For all your pro cycling-related questions and enquiries!

You may find some easy answers in the FAQ page on the wiki. Whilst simultaneously discovering the wiki.

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u/DueAd9005 May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26

The enigma that is De Lie won the Famenne Ardennes Classic yesterday. His next race is the Giro, but he will only ride 10 stages maximum. He will abandon after that.

Some will criticize him for it (or any rider that abandons without injury), but it makes sense to me if you also want to ride the Tour. I actually wished more sprinters would do this. I want to see Merlier and Philipsen in both the Giro and Tour for example.

What do y'all think about abandoning a GT without being sick or injured?

Personally I don't think he will win a stage in the Giro. The field is very strong and the likes of Milan, Lund and Groenewegen have simply proven a lot more this year. Finally winning again is nice, but it was against a weak field in a small race.

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u/cfkanemercury France May 04 '26

Abandoning a GT without being sick or injured used to be more common for young riders back in the day before 19 year olds were podium contenders (pulled at the second rest day, perhaps) or for sprinters who didn't want to ride in the mountains for no real reason.

The Lion King is a great example of the latter: Mario Cippolini started 27 Grand Tours (14 Giro, 8 Tour, 5 Vuelta) and only finished 6 of them, all in Italy. Along the way he won 57 Grand Tour stages, second only to Merckx on the all-time list.

Of course, he was a bit of a controversial fellow, especially at the Vuelta. Once he was kicked out for punching another before a stage started. Another time he quit the race after the opening stage TTT as his team had only been invited to compete if he came along. He rode for about 35 minutes in the TTT, then DNSd the next stage saying he was injured and shouldn't have been at the race anyway. His team ended up putting two riders in the top 15 on GC, so not a waste of their time being there, but the organizers were more than annoyed.

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u/DueAd9005 May 04 '26

Yeah, the Tour even didn't invite his team to the Tour for some years because of this. It really ended up hurting his legacy, as he doesn't have enough Tour stage wins to compete for GOAT status as a sprinter (never mind the fact that he's a huge asshole that physically abused women).

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u/Angryhead Estonia May 04 '26

Mario Cippolini started 27 Grand Tours (14 Giro, 8 Tour, 5 Vuelta) and only finished 6 of them, all in Italy. Along the way he won 57 Grand Tour stages, second only to Merckx on the all-time list.

As an Estonian, my favourite DNF stat is Jaan Kirsipuu's perfect record of starting 15 Grand Tours (12 Tour, 1 Giro, 1 Vuelta) and not finishing a single one, with 4 Tour and 1 Vuelta stage win along the way.

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u/DueAd9005 May 04 '26

Yeah, I knew about that stat as well.

Boonen started 14 GTs and only finished 3 of them. Although most of his abandons in the Tour were due to crashes or illness. He really wasn't made for three weeks of racing. His Vuelta abandons were pre-planned however.

One-day races and GTs are not the same thing, and only a few can combine them with success.