S*** small race thread 2018

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  • yourpaceormine
    yourpaceormine Posts: 1,245
    LL Sanchez took today's stage at the Alps.
  • specialgueststar
    specialgueststar Posts: 3,418
    Quite interesting that FdJ now have only non-French riders apart from Thibaut who is leading the GC -- ok so not THAT interesting but not sure that will have happened before!
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 22,730
    Enough of the Alps, what about Crazy Croatia and that eternal climb on roads from the turn of the Century? (that's 19th to 20th)
    Last year, they could only manage to climb to the half way mark and that was enough for Jan Polanc to drop Nibali.
    This year, the full Monty took so long I had to go back and check: one hour and fifteen minutes for the winner, Konstantin Siutsou.
    Last man home took exactly two hours!
    Ended on little more than a goat track, atop a knife edge of rock, with sheer drops to match.
    Best of all we had Siutsou and Weening doing track stands, a la Contador and Schleck, inside the final 1.5kms.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • bobmcstuff
    bobmcstuff Posts: 11,444
    Is that on video anywhere? Sounds rad
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 22,730
    bobmcstuff wrote:
    Is that on video anywhere? Sounds rad

    Live on Eurosport after Tour of the Alps.
    Highlights at 8-30pm on ES 1, or else the player.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • bobmcstuff
    bobmcstuff Posts: 11,444
    Blazing Saddles wrote:
    bobmcstuff wrote:
    Is that on video anywhere? Sounds rad

    Live on Eurosport after Tour of the Alps.
    Highlights at 8-30pm on ES 1, or else the player.
    Turned out to be live on ES Norway exactly as I put it on, with 2.5 to go.

    Gutted for Weening, it was very funny watching Siutsou putting in big digs and looking round to see Weening right on his wheel.

    Prefer Norway commentary to Kirby :D
  • gweeds
    gweeds Posts: 2,613
    Blazing Saddles wrote:
    Enough of the Alps, what about Crazy Croatia and that eternal climb on roads from the turn of the Century? (that's 19th to 20th)
    Last year, they could only manage to climb to the half way mark and that was enough for Jan Polanc to drop Nibali.
    This year, the full Monty took so long I had to go back and check: one hour and fifteen minutes for the winner, Konstantin Siutsou.
    Last man home took exactly two hours!
    Ended on little more than a goat track, atop a knife edge of rock, with sheer drops to match.
    Best of all we had Siutsou and Weening doing track stands, a la Contador and Schleck, inside the final 1.5kms.

    Absolutely bonkers. And utterly riveting.
    Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter.
  • phreak
    phreak Posts: 2,953
    Blazing Saddles wrote:
    Enough of the Alps, what about Crazy Croatia and that eternal climb on roads from the turn of the Century? (that's 19th to 20th)
    Last year, they could only manage to climb to the half way mark and that was enough for Jan Polanc to drop Nibali.
    This year, the full Monty took so long I had to go back and check: one hour and fifteen minutes for the winner, Konstantin Siutsou.
    Last man home took exactly two hours!
    Ended on little more than a goat track, atop a knife edge of rock, with sheer drops to match.
    Best of all we had Siutsou and Weening doing track stands, a la Contador and Schleck, inside the final 1.5kms.

    Sveti Jure is definitely on the bucket list of roads to ride.
  • red.rider
    red.rider Posts: 1,215
    Today's Tour of the Alps stage is a recce of the Worlds course, but it misses out the final nasty climb so that it doesn't ruin all the fun in September.

    The combined highlights of the full tour should be good to watch, if such a thing exists...
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    Blazing Saddles wrote:
    Enough of the Alps, what about Crazy Croatia and that eternal climb on roads from the turn of the Century? (that's 19th to 20th)

    I loved that. It was just something different. Looked brilliant too. The lack of any kind of consistent gradient made it looks really hard.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • RonB
    RonB Posts: 3,984
    S5 of the Tour of Croatia today. Another MTF, but not quite as crazy as Thursday's stage, just 15km at ~6% which should decide the GC.

    tour-of-croatia-2018-stage-5-profile-83c00fb911.jpg

    Overall Classifications here
  • knedlicky
    knedlicky Posts: 3,097
    RonB wrote:
    S5 of the Tour of Croatia today. Another MTF, but not quite as crazy as Thursday's stage, just 15km at ~6% which should decide the GC
    The overall average may be 6% but the average between 2 and 3 kms before the finish (top of Poklon Pass) is just over 12% average, so where a decisive move may occur.

    They ride over the Poklon pass twice, first from the NW, then later (as the final climb to the finish) from the SE, they going back up where they earlier descended.

    The first time over, about halfway through the stage, might well break up the field because its average slope is nearly 9% for 6.7 km, with the average between kms 2 and 3 of the climb being about 13.5%, the high 19.3%. They should be on this climb about when the live TV broadcast starts.

    Edit: It doesn't appear that there will be a live TV broadcast today. :(
  • RonB
    RonB Posts: 3,984
    Thanks for the extra info.

    On Eurosport2 in UK
  • knedlicky
    knedlicky Posts: 3,097
    St. 5: Rabac - Poklon/Učka (156,5 km)
    1 Manuele Boaro (Ita) Bahrain - Merida 4:15:54
    2 Lukasz Owsian (Pol) CCC Sprandi - Polkowice 0:00:07
    3 Alessandro Tonelli (Ita) Bardiani - CSF 0:00:10
    4 Johnatan Cañaveral Vargas (Col) Bicicletas Strongman - Colombia Coldeportes 0:00:12
    5 Tadej Pogacar (Slo) Ljubljana - Gusto Xaurum 0:00:24
    6 Niklas Eg (Den) Trek - Segafredo 0:00:24
    7 Daniel Pearson (GBr) Aqua Blue Sport 0:00:47
    8 Pieter Weening (Ned) Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij 0:00:48
    9 Kanstantsin Siutsou (Blr) Bahrain - Merida 0:00:48
    10 Nick Van Der Lijke (Ned) Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij 0:00:52

    Overall GC:
    1 Kanstantsin Siutsou (Blr) Bahrain - Merida 23:29:01
    2 Pieter Weening (Ned) Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij 0:00:08
    3 Yevgeniy Gidich (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 0:00:53
    4 Radoslav Rogina (Cro) Adria Mobil 0:01:15
    5 Niklas Eg (Den) Trek - Segafredo 0:01:24
    6 Daniel Pearson (GBr) Aqua Blue Sport 0:02:10
    7 Ruben Dario Acosta Ospina (Col) Bicicletas Strongman - Colombia Coldeportes 0:03:01
    8 Artem Nych (Rus) Gazprom - RusVelo 0:03:08
    9 Gianluca Brambilla (Ita) Trek - Segafredo 0:03:37
    10 Domen Novak (Slo) Bahrain - Merida 0:04:15

    Weening tried to attack and drop Siutsou during the final km of the climb but failed.

    So 4 of the original break (Boaro, Owsian, Tonelli and Cañaveral Vargas), which formed with 17 riders after only 10 km and was reduced to 11 after the first climb up the Poklon Pass (75 km), were still in front at the finish (156 km). Another successful break – it's becoming the regular story of the season.
    Owsian and Tonelli were both in yesterday's break too, Tonelli dropping his breakmates on the final climb to solo the last 22 km.
    Surprised to see Tonelli up on the daily podium again – he struck me as an disorderly rider on his (albeit successful) solo break yesterday, I mean fidgetty style and poor line.
  • DeVlaeminck
    DeVlaeminck Posts: 9,108
    Good little race, some of those city centre finishing circuits would raise a few eyebrows in higher profile stage races!
    [Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]
  • knedlicky
    knedlicky Posts: 3,097
    Kristoff won Eschborn-Frankfurt for the fourth time consecutive time. Good work beforehand from his QST team.

    Matthews was second (he was faster in the last 100 m of the sprint but started too far back and also had to divert around Naesen), and Naesen third (who led the sprint into its last 100 m, after overtaking Bennett shortly beforehand, until then Kristoff took the lead about 70 m out).
    Gaviria was in contention as possible victor, looked like he was going to try a long sprint, but he eased up immediately after the corner 300 m out, as if he had had a sudden technical defect.

    For a while the remainder (Bole, Bernard, Spilak and Buchmann) of a 10-man, later 8-man break from about 45 km out looked like they might just hold on, but they were caught about 3 km out. Of them Bernard was impressive the whole time the break was away. The max lead of the 7-man break was 1'15“.

    This later group of 10 riders formed fairly quickly as riders broke away from the peloton to first join then replace a 7-man break, which was starting to disintegrate.
    This earlier 7-man break had been started by Teklehaimanot about 45 mins after the start, and had lasted over 3 hours, with a max lead of 4'40“.

    Kristoff said afterwards "I actually didn't feel that good and was dropped for a while. At the end I had a bit of luck, because my rivals misjudged the last curve. I'm very happy“.
    (I presume he means the slight right curve about 150 m before the line, which Matthews took slightly wider than Kristoff)

    Buchmann said "We unfortunately didn't have enough of a lead. Ten seconds more would perhaps have done. In the break not everyone put in a full shift“.
    (I think he's referring to both when the group was 10-strong - when the pace was too much for Ashiro and Politt to contribute – as well as when the group was 8-strong – when De Plus then struggled while Gogl let his teammate, Bernard, do all their shifts).

    Didi Senft was amongst the spectators on one of the climbs.

    1 Kristoff 05:13:25
    2 Matthews 00:00:00
    3 Naesen 00:00:00
    4 Pasqualon 00:00:01
    5 De Bie 00:00:01
    6 Bole 00:00:01
    7 Bennett 00:00:02
    8 Boasson-Hagen 00:00:02
    9 Tratnik 00:00:02
    10 Lobato Del Valle 00:00:02

    Kittel DNF.
  • inseine
    inseine Posts: 5,788
    Kristoff won Eschborn-Frankfurt for the fourth time consecutive time. Good work beforehand from his QST team.

    ?
    http://cyclinganddesign.blogspot.fr/
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 22,730
    inseine wrote:
    Kristoff won Eschborn-Frankfurt for the fourth time consecutive time. Good work beforehand from his QST team.

    ?

    Dunno.
    Maybe it's a sarky reference to Fernando Gaviria, whose nightmare season continues.
    He was leading into the final corner, but, after four laps, decided to go straight on.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,262
    Blazing Saddles wrote:
    inseine wrote:
    Kristoff won Eschborn-Frankfurt for the fourth time consecutive time. Good work beforehand from his QST team.

    ?

    Dunno.
    Maybe it's a sarky reference to Fernando Gaviria, whose nightmare season continues.
    He was leading into the final corner, but, after four laps, decided to go straight on.
    He started his sprint with 500m to go and lasted for about 200 of them. I think he didn't know where the finish was.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • Mad_Malx
    Mad_Malx Posts: 5,183
    RichN95 wrote:
    Blazing Saddles wrote:
    inseine wrote:
    Kristoff won Eschborn-Frankfurt for the fourth time consecutive time. Good work beforehand from his QST team.

    ?

    Dunno.
    Maybe it's a sarky reference to Fernando Gaviria, whose nightmare season continues.
    He was leading into the final corner, but, after four laps, decided to go straight on.
    He started his sprint with 500m to go and lasted for about 200 of them. I think he didn't know where the finish was.

    ^that's what it looked like to me. Gavriria was slapping the handlebars 200m out.
  • ClaudeH
    ClaudeH Posts: 78
    It was very strange because they must have done the final crit-like circuit 3 or 4 times before the finish. You would have thought they wouldn't have messed up the finish quite so badly.
  • knedlicky
    knedlicky Posts: 3,097
    inseine wrote:
    Kristoff won Eschborn-Frankfurt for the fourth time consecutive time. Good work beforehand from his QST team.
    ?
    Yes my mistake :oops:

    In the editing of my text (partially prepared in Word before posting), I inadvertently moved the 'irritating' sentence ('Good work beforehand from his QST team') to the wrong place in my text. Sorry!
    However its wrong place in my report doesn't diminish the good work done by QST beforehand, albeit for Gaviria.
    And it wasn't a sarky reference about Gaviria, who for whatever reason then muffed it.

    I'd be more interested to know whether anyone saw how things turned out diffferently from what I wrote.
    ClaudeH wrote:
    It was very strange because they must have done the final crit-like circuit 3 or 4 times before the finish. You would have thought they wouldn't have messed up the finish quite so badly.
    They did the final circuit 2¾ times, so went 3 times over the finish line.
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,262
    Blazing Saddles wrote:
    Tour of San Juan just now.
    Argentine Gonzalo Najar turns back the clock to 1995 with one of the most ridiculous climbs in recent memory.
    On 18kms of 4% train territory, he simply rode away from the likes of Majka and his WT mates, early on.
    Won the stage by a mere 2 seconds shy of 2 minutes from, of all people, Oscar "Baby Face" Sevilla.
    The rest nowhere.
    Going back to this race in January, Blazing can spot doper - Najar has been busted for CERA (so more 2008 than 1995)
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 22,730
    RichN95 wrote:
    Blazing Saddles wrote:
    Tour of San Juan just now.
    Argentine Gonzalo Najar turns back the clock to 1995 with one of the most ridiculous climbs in recent memory.
    On 18kms of 4% train territory, he simply rode away from the likes of Majka and his WT mates, early on.
    Won the stage by a mere 2 seconds shy of 2 minutes from, of all people, Oscar "Baby Face" Sevilla.
    The rest nowhere.
    Going back to this race in January, Blazing can spot doper - Najar has been busted for CERA (so more 2008 than 1995)

    Apologies, but I can only find this so far.

    http://www.ciclismointernacional.com/go ... -san-juan/

    I take a certain amount of grim satisfaction from this one, as at the time, I felt my intelligence was being insulted.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,262
    Blazing Saddles wrote:
    RichN95 wrote:
    Blazing Saddles wrote:
    Tour of San Juan just now.
    Argentine Gonzalo Najar turns back the clock to 1995 with one of the most ridiculous climbs in recent memory.
    On 18kms of 4% train territory, he simply rode away from the likes of Majka and his WT mates, early on.
    Won the stage by a mere 2 seconds shy of 2 minutes from, of all people, Oscar "Baby Face" Sevilla.
    The rest nowhere.
    Going back to this race in January, Blazing can spot doper - Najar has been busted for CERA (so more 2008 than 1995)

    Apologies, but I can only find this so far.

    http://www.ciclismointernacional.com/go ... -san-juan/

    I take a certain amount of grim satisfaction from this one, as at the time, I felt my intelligence was being insulted.
    All official now, with the bonus that one of his teammates was on the roids

    http://www.uci.ch/pressreleases/uci-sta ... -san-juan/
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 22,730
    Nice to the return of this Spanish stager, after 13 long years of absence.

    http://www.vueltaaragon.es/

    Could it be that after a decade of decline, things are finally on the up in Spain?
    Anyhow if you have seen the ads on Eurosport, you will already know they are picking up the available coverage with one hour in the evenings, after the Giro.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • specialgueststar
    specialgueststar Posts: 3,418
    Blazing Saddles wrote:
    Nice to the return of this Spanish stager, after 13 long years of absence.

    http://www.vueltaaragon.es/

    Could it be that after a decade of decline, things are finally on the up in Spain?
    Anyhow if you have seen the ads on Eurosport, you will already know they are picking up the available coverage with one hour in the evenings, after the Giro.

    That's good news! Applause for the organising committee.

    Nice jersey

    MAILLOTLIDER-1024x675.jpg
  • m.r.m.
    m.r.m. Posts: 3,486
    Solid jersey!
    PTP Champion 2019, 2022 & 2023
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 22,730
    4 Jours de Dunkerque live here each afternoon, this week.

    http://corsairetv.fr/live

    currently 40kms or so to go.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • hommelbier
    hommelbier Posts: 1,556
    here as well.
    http://www.weo.fr/direct/
    not the most inspired commentary though (French)

    well timed run by Marc Sarreau to pip Bryan Coquard on the line - Bouhanni back in 9th.

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