The Shit, Small Races Thread

takethehighroad

Great race, this. Marked a changing of the guard last year as Kristoff beat Hushovd to become the new "Top Norwegian"

Good scenery, too

rick_chasey

Hushovd showing he's from a different era in creased up jersey.

frenchfighter

Coquard:


v

Kristoff



With an appearance from Serpa:


Watch out for:


Photos by the heavyweight Kare.

specialgueststar

Richmond Racer 2

The Arctic Race throws up some great images.

Thanks for posting these, FF

frenchfighter

remove

frenchfighter

6 man teams. Its live on Eurosport later.

specialgueststar

deep end for Bouhanni junior ! second race as a pro after Polynormande - which out of all Cofidis riders only Bouhanni senior managed to finish

frenchfighter

Stage 1 Results
NOR 1 KRISTOFF, Alexander (KATUSHA) 4:58:26
NOR 2 BOASSON HAGEN, Edvald (MTN - QHUBEKA) + 4
IRL 3 BENNETT, Sam (BORA-ARGON 18) + 6
ITA 4 BONIFAZIO, Niccolo (LAMPRE - MERIDA) + 10
BEL 5 VAN STAEYEN, Michael (COFIDIS, SOLUTIONS CREDITS)
DEN 6 GULDHAMMER, Rasmus (CULT ENERGY PRO CYCLING)
BEL 7 CAPIOT, Amaury (TOPSPORT VLAANDEREN - BALOISE)
SUI 8 ELMIGER, Martin (IAM CYCLING)
FRA 9 TURGIS, Anthony (COFIDIS, SOLUTIONS CREDITS)
10 HOLST ENGER Sondre (IAM CYCLING)







Photos by Kare.

Kristoff:
“I didn’t win the whole summer so it was about time. I’m glad I did here in the Arctic Race. Now I can relax a bit because I have a win. In a five-man team, it’s always difficult but today my guys did a great job even if we were one rider down. I was in a perfection position in the last kilometer. I was the strongest in the last climb to finish. I’m happy to pull it off. I’d rather have a stage win in the Tour de France but it’s good to be winning again. This is the first step of the preparation for the world championship. It couldn’t have been a better start of the Arctic Race of Norway. I was never leading the race last year so it’s cool to have this jersey. We’ll see how long I can keep it. Tomorrow it should be possible but stage 3 is quite hard for me. I’m pretty sure I’ll lose it on stage 3 but you never know. I was expecting to win today. Tomorrow it’ll be the sprinters again, so my rivals will be [Bryan] Coquard, MTN [Boasson Hagen], [Sam] Bennett, [Niccolo] Bonifazio, Sondre Holst Enger from IAM. There are many good sprinters here!”

frenchfighter

Lovely scenery again!

frenchfighter

frenchfighter

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19678919#p19678919]SpecialGuestStar[/url] wrote:

deep end for Bouhanni junior ! second race as a pro after Polynormande - which out of all Cofidis riders only Bouhanni senior managed to finish

Came in 2mins down today which is not bad considering there were dribs and drabs down to 11 mins down.

blazing_saddles

Impressive win for Sam Bennett, today.
Easily the quickest finisher ahead of Kristoff et al.

frenchfighter

Gaviria takes a win in the Czech tour.

frenchfighter

'Mountain' stage yday won by Hermans off the back of his Polish form. Taraamae nearly got the win but the block header wind hurt. Meintjes was top ten on the stage.

The_Boy

totally-my-man-next-year Latour wins the queen stage of Tour de l'Ain. Geniez takes the overall.

frenchfighter

Oh come on Latour, excellent. I put him on my list back when he was attacking Quintana and Contador in RdSud.

The_Boy

Apparently Guppy Vuillermoz wins the Olympic RR test event. And if that isn't a shit, small race I don't know what is.

disgruntledgoat

Petr Vakoc wins the tour of the Czech Republic for QS who have 3 riders in the top 5

frenchfighter

Another interesting stage today with the riders coming in quite broken up. Nice to see Rein not giving up and made quite the effort and ended up taking the overall title! He went in a small group about 20km out. Very impressive.

Final General Classification
EST 1 TAARAMAE, Rein (ASTANA) 16:42:02
SUI 2 DILLIER, Silvan (BMC RACING) + 8
RUS 3 ZAKARIN, Ilnur (KATUSHA) + 31
NOR 4 BOASSON HAGEN, Edvald (MTN - QHUBEKA) + 1:02
SUI 5 FRANK, Mathias (IAM CYCLING) + 1:04
NOR 6 EIKING, Odd Christian (TEAM JOKER) + 1:17
DEN 7 GULDHAMMER, Rasmus (CULT ENERGY PRO CYCLING) + 1:19
FRA 8 TURGIS, Anthony (COFIDIS, SOLUTIONS CREDITS) + 1:31
BEL 9 HERMANS, Ben (BMC RACING) + 1:33
SUI 10 WYSS, Marcel (IAM CYCLING)
NOR 11 LAENGEN, Vegard Stake (TEAM JOKER) + 1:41
NED 12 TOLHOEK, Antwan (TINKOFF - SAXO) + 1:42
NOR 13 HOELGAARD, Markus (TEAM COOP-OSTER HUS) + 1:54
BEL 14 TEUNS, Dylan (BMC RACING) + 2:07
NOR 15 BYSTRØM, Sven Erik (KATUSHA)
BLR 16 KOSHEVOY, Ilia (LAMPRE - MERIDA) + 2:11
EST 17 KANGERT, Tanel (ASTANA) + 2:22
FRA 18 HIVERT, Jonathan (BRETAGNE-SECHE ENVIRONNEMENT) + 2:24
NOR 19 GALTA, Fredrik Strand (TEAM COOP-OSTER HUS) + 2:25
GER 20 VOSS, Paul (BORA-ARGON 18)

andyp

Sounds like BMC shenanighans, Hermans leading GC, Diller goes with Taaramae, wins the stage but the team lose the overall. Strange tactics.

FJS

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19680843#p19680843]The_Boy[/url] wrote:

Apparently Guppy Vuillermoz wins the Olympic RR test event. And if that isn't a shoot, small race I don't know what is.

Pauwels 2nd, Bardet 3rd
Everyone saying it's a very hard parcours. 4km @ 11% average (!) plus 4 km at 6 %, every lap. https://www.strava.com/activities/369585836
Carlo Bomans, Belgian national coach says it'll be for Contador, Froome, Nibali, Quintana or Aru next year. Early August is also perfect to carry your TdF form through. Looking forward to it already, especially with world championship parcourses being flatter the coming years

frenchfighter

Thank goodness for that. Get tired of the sprinters/classics races especially given the classics men of the last few years have shown they lack cojones.

frenchfighter

"Pierre is marvelous - I’ve been a directeur sportif for several years and rarely have I seen a young guy able to achieve such things in stage races," he said.

"I knew he was a very good rider but, honestly, I didn’t think that in his first year he’d be able to do what he has done. He must now learn how to channel his resources and continue his development next year in WorldTour races."

specialgueststar

still developing - supposed to be only 2kg heavier than Contador - not sure from that photo - but what a talent

andytee87

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19680952#p19680952]andyp[/url] wrote:

Sounds like BMC shenanighans, Hermans leading GC, Diller goes with Taaramae, wins the stage but the team lose the overall. Strange tactics.

It was a pretty tough finishing circuit, I think there were four laps with a 3 km climb with 10% ramps, plus another . Hermans jammed his chain mid-climb with 3 laps to go, and due to lack of radios the teams didn't realise/had an excuse to say they didn't and hammered most of the climb. As soon as he bridged back Bennett went off the front after intermediate points, so Katusha chased it for Kristoff, plus set it up for Zakurin to go for stage win. Taaramae had a teammate in the attack too for a while. Dillier rode smart, did no work until Zakurin dropped Taaramae for a spell on the climb. Once it was back together he sat on to salvage something for the day- mature stuff I'd say. Hermans went deep bridging back to the group, and then they kept pretty full gas to the end.

But yes, I think someone needs to look into BMC finances, could be a lot of Bet in Play/ Spot betting on losing races from winning positions.... Van Avermaet has been sharing his tactics

dish_dash

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19681007#p19681007]andytee87[/url] wrote:

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19680952#p19680952]andyp[/url] wrote:

Sounds like BMC shenanighans, Hermans leading GC, Diller goes with Taaramae, wins the stage but the team lose the overall. Strange tactics.

It was a pretty tough finishing circuit, I think there were four laps with a 3 km climb with 10% ramps, plus another . Hermans jammed his chain mid-climb with 3 laps to go, and due to lack of radios the teams didn't realise/had an excuse to say they didn't and hammered most of the climb. As soon as he bridged back Bennett went off the front after intermediate points, so Katusha chased it for Kristoff, plus set it up for Zakurin to go for stage win. Taaramae had a teammate in the attack too for a while. Dillier rode smart, did no work until Zakurin dropped Taaramae for a spell on the climb. Once it was back together he sat on to salvage something for the day- mature stuff I'd say. Hermans went deep bridging back to the group, and then they kept pretty full gas to the end.

Agreed. That's basically what I said in the Eneco thread.

Arctic race was stunning! Had the other half agreeing that a trip to Narvik should be arranged...

frenchfighter

Kare

takethehighroad

Oscar Sevilla (yes, that one) won the Vuelta a Colombia for the third year running

andytee87

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19681181#p19681181]dish_dash[/url] wrote:

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19681007#p19681007]andytee87[/url] wrote:

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19680952#p19680952]andyp[/url] wrote:

Sounds like BMC shenanighans, Hermans leading GC, Diller goes with Taaramae, wins the stage but the team lose the overall. Strange tactics.

It was a pretty tough finishing circuit, I think there were four laps with a 3 km climb with 10% ramps, plus another . Hermans jammed his chain mid-climb with 3 laps to go, and due to lack of radios the teams didn't realise/had an excuse to say they didn't and hammered most of the climb. As soon as he bridged back Bennett went off the front after intermediate points, so Katusha chased it for Kristoff, plus set it up for Zakurin to go for stage win. Taaramae had a teammate in the attack too for a while. Dillier rode smart, did no work until Zakurin dropped Taaramae for a spell on the climb. Once it was back together he sat on to salvage something for the day- mature stuff I'd say. Hermans went deep bridging back to the group, and then they kept pretty full gas to the end.

Agreed. That's basically what I said in the Eneco thread.

Arctic race was stunning! Had the other half agreeing that a trip to Narvik should be arranged...

Haha, I just noticed that. Think it was one of those results where if you didn't watch it you'd question what they were playing at.

Agreed with the scenery though, think they may have had a lucky week weather wise which helped. I've ridden near Stavanger, which is Tour des Fjords area, and that is just as nice. Google Lysebotn climb as a ride, and Priekestolen (if you watched Vikings tv series you might recognise it) and Kjeragboltn for hiking.