Tour de L'Ain spoiler

FJS

Nice little tour this, last stage finishing on the epic 19% Grand Colombier. Will be interesting to see Rolland and Thibault fight it out for title of next French hope.

Prologue yesterday won by 20 year old Rabo Continental Wilco Keldermanm who looks about 8 years old: http://www.telegraaf.nl/telesport/wiele ... ielersport
5 of total of 6 Rabos in the top 20!

1. KELDERMAN Wilco RB3 00:04:33
2. BARTA Jan APP 00:00:00
3. PERAUD Jean Christophe ALM 00:00:01
4. COPPEL Jerome SAU 00:00:01
5. DUMOULIN Tom RB3 00:00:03
6. MANGEL Laurent SAU 00:00:04
7. BOVENHUIS Jasper RB3 00:00:04
8. HUREL Tony EUC 00:00:05
9. OOSTLANDER Sander SKS 00:00:07
10. IMPEY Daryl APP 00:00:08
11. KANGERT Tanel AST 00:00:08
12. GAUTIER Cyril EUC 00:00:08
13. TAARAMAE Rein COF 00:00:09
14. OLIVIER Daan RB3 00:00:09
15. TUFT Svein CSM 00:00:09
16. POELS Wouter VCD 00:00:10
17. LELAY David ALM 00:00:10
18. SINKELDAM Ramon RB3 00:00:10
19. PICHON Laurent BSC 00:00:10
20. BOULO Matthieu RLM 00:00:10

Echo et les Boniments

The Eternal Return of the Ghost: Jimmy Casper (Saur) won stage 1 today in St. Vulbas.
Popular Casper (well, still sorta popular round here, like I saw him the other night at the Dijon Criterium...) clearly has another reason to celebrate: he got himself a nice little 2-year contract with AG2R. Cycling fans on French forums are being skeptical but then they always are: "Who??? What kind of a transfer is that? How old is he? A 2 year contract? What the f --- came on the AG2R people? Is he joining as an assistant DS or what?"
Casper is 33 years old and this year he won the GP of Denain. In St. Vulbas he outsprinted Romain Hardy (Bretagne Shuller) and Chaigneau from Skil. Kelderman keeps the jersey.

Echo et les Boniments

After a great show at the Tour d'Alsace ten days ago, FDJ climber Thibaut Pinot , 21, is brimming with confidence. Today he won stage 2 of the Tour de l'Ain in Bellignat and took the leader's jersey. It was a flattish stage with a 3rd cat hill located only 6km from the finish. Taaramae attacked there and was caught by Pinot and Wouter Poels. Pinot won the sprint, with the peloton coming in at 12 secs.

Stage 2:

1 Thibaut Pinot FDJ 3:43:14
2 Rein Taaramae (Est) Cofidis
3 Wout Poels (Ned) Vacansoleil
4 Sylvain Georges Big Mat - Auber 93 0:00:12
5 Thomas Damuseau Skil
6 Romain Bardet Espoirs France
7 Johnny Hoogerland (Ned) Vacansoleil
8 Robinson Eduardo Chalapud Gomez (Col) CeP
9 Romain Hardy Bretagne - Schuller
10 John Gadret AG2R

GC:

1 Thibaut Pinot FDJ 7:04:14
2 Rein Taaramae (Est) Cofidis 0:00:02
3 Wout Poels (Ned) Vacansoleil 0:00:05
4 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Rabobank 0:00:11
5 Jan Barta (Cze) NetApp
6 Jean-Christophe Peraud AG2R 0:00:12
7 Jerome Coppel Saur - Sojasun
8 Sander Oostlander (Ned) Skil 0:00:18
9 Daryl Impey (RSA) NetApp 0:00:19
10 Tanel Kangert (Est) Astana


Tommorrow's stage should be good -strictly for climbers:

http://www.tourdelain.com/le-tour-de-la ... s/engages3

FJS

Pinot - Rolland : 1-0

ednwireland

spent a very pleasant few days watching this last year, the grand columbier is one tough climb, i was suprised at the size of the publicity caravan, have a couple of tour de l'ain baseball caps

supposed to be live coverage on france 3 on sat

http://rhone-alpes.france3.fr/evenement ... rique=8117

Echo et les Boniments

ednwireland wrote:

spent a very pleasant few days watching this last year, the grand columbier is one tough climb, i was suprised at the size of the publicity caravan, have a couple of tour de l'ain baseball caps

supposed to be live coverage on france 3 on sat

http://rhone-alpes.france3.fr/evenement ... rique=8117

Yeah, Grand Colombier is a tough climb indeed with one sordid super hard part going up 18-19%. It's often used for bike racing (Dauphiné, elite races and even 2-3cat events...) I remember having to deal with it as an amateur, some twenty years ago. Ouch.

So today was packed with climbs: lots of attacks and a grupetto reaching the line 23 minutes behind the leaders Poels and Rolland, the former outsprinting the latter. Moncoutié was with them but hey, he cannot sprint, you know that. Poels has the jersey and, by all accounts, looked good today. But Rolland is just 22 secs behind him in the GC, Moncoutié Peraud and a few others are not far either so anything can happen. Poels is not alone though, Vacansoleil teammate Hoogerland is up there too. (Watch out tomorrow Johnny, France Television will cover the final stage.)
Behind the first three, the leaders group came in at only 24 secs including a few French big names (Gadret, Coppel, Peraud) but no Pinot who lost 5:53 and most of his illusions today. But there will be other stage races, time is on his side.
First group also included one of my all-time cycling heroes (and I'm old...) Svein Tuft of Canada, a loveable character and the guy with the most bizarre curriculum vitae in pro cycling.
Taaramae went for it solo again but he cracked in the final kilometers, eventually losing 2:28.

Stage 3:

1 Wout Poels (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 3:16:04
2 Pierre Rolland (Fra) Team Europcar
3 David Moncoutie (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne 0:00:02
4 Romain Bardet (Fra) France Espoir Team 0:00:24
5 Johnny Hoogerland (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team
6 Warren Barguil (Fra) France Espoir Team
7 Cyril Dessel (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale
8 Florian Guillou (Fra) Bretagne - Schuller
9 Jerome Coppel (Fra) Saur - Sojasun
10 Leopold Konig (Cze) Team Net App

GC:

1 Wout Poels (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 10:20:13
2 Pierre Rolland (Fra) Team Europcar 0:00:22
3 David Moncoutie (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne 0:00:28
4 Jean-Christophe Peraud (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:41
5 Jerome Coppel (Fra) Saur - Sojasun
6 Svein Tuft (Can) Team Spidertech Powered By C10 0:00:49
7 Leopold Konig (Cze) Team NetApp 0:00:56
8 Hubert Dupont (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:59
9 John Gadret (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale
10 Warren Barguil (Fra) France Espoirs

ednwireland

thanks for the reports

my poor attempts at climbing th egrand colombier last year
(my excuse i'm only back cycling a couple of years)
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/62457541
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/62457513

http://flic.kr/p/8uy26m
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10351061@N00/4917012157/

frenchfighter

Moncoutie, Pinot, Taaramae and others attacked at the base of this monster (18 km à 7% de moyenne) on the final stage.

Pinot sucked Moncoutie's wheel the entire time before jumping him for the win....no class from this guy 15yrs David's younger (he was ahead in the wind all the time from about 6km).

Two Colombians in top 10: Atapuma (9ème) et Chapalud (5ème). Warren Barguil of France was tenth and is only 19.

Classement 4ème étape :

1. Thibaut Pinot (FRA, FDJ) les 134,8 km en 3h45'17"
2. David Moncoutié (FRA, Cofidis) à 3 sec.
3. Leopold König (TCH, Team Netapp) à 1'04"
4. Darwin Atapuma (COL, Colombia es Pasion-Café de Colombia) m.t.
5. Wout Poels (PBS, Vacansoleil-DCM) à 1'08"
6. Maxime Méderel (FRA, BigMat-Auber 93) à 1'13"
7. Robinson Chapalud (COL, Colombia es Pasion-Café de Colombia) à 1'14"
8. Rein Taaramae (EST, Cofidis) à 2'50"
9. John Gadret (FRA, Ag2r La Mondiale) à 3'40"
10. Hector Paez (COL, Colombia es Pasion-Café de Colombia) à 3'41"

Classement général :

1. David Moncoutié (FRA, Cofidis) en 14h"05'55
2. Wout Poels (PBS, Vacansoleil-DCM) à 43 sec.
3. Leopold König (TCH, Team NetApp) à 1'31"
4. Maxime Médérel (FRA, BigMat–Auber 93) à 1'48"
5. Robinson Chalapud (COL, Colombia es Pasion-Café de Colombia) à 3'26"
6. Pierre Rolland (FRA, Team Europcar) à 3'53"
7. John Gadret (FRA, Ag2r La Mondiale) à 4'14"
8. Jean-Christophe Péraud (FRA, Ag2r La Mondiale) à 4'18"
9. Darwin Atapuma (COL, Colombia es Pasion-Café de Colombia) à 4'30"
10. Warren Barguil (FRA, Eq. de France Espoirs) à 4'31"