The Official UCI 2019 Yorkshire road World Championships ***Spoilers***

blazing_saddles

UCI World Championships 2019 Yorkshire events & routes: full race programme:



Day 1, Saturday 21st September 2019: Beverley-Tadcaster-Wetherby-Harrogate circuit (route map), para-cycling road races (C1 event)
Day 2, Sunday 22nd September 2019: Harrogate circuit (route map), mixed team time trial (two 14km circuits)
Day 3, Monday 23rd September 2019: Harrogate circuit (route map), junior women ITT (one 14km circuit); junior men ITT (two 14km circuits)
Day 4, Tuesday 24th September 2019: Ripon to Harrogate (route map), U23 men ITT (32.5km, route plus one circuit); elite women's ITT (32.5km, route plus one circuit)
Day 5, Wednesday 25th September 2019: Northallerton to Harrogate (route map), elite men's ITT (54km route only)
Day 6, Thursday 26th September 2019: Richmond to Harrogate (route map), junior men's road race (144.5km, route plus three circuits)
Day 7, Friday 27th September 2019: Doncaster to Harrogate, junior women's road race (91.5km, route only) (route map); and U23 men's road race (192.5km, route plus three circuits) (route map)
Day 8, Saturday 28th September 2019: Bradford to Harrogate (route map), elite women's road race (149.5km, route plus three circuits)
Day 9, Sunday 29th September 2019: Leeds to Harrogate (route map), elite men's road race (284.5km, route plus seven circuits)




UCI 2019 mixed team time trial

The mixed team time trial at the 2019 UCI Road World Championships in Yorkshire is a new event. It's a relay, in which a national team of three men ride the course first, then hand over to a team of three women. The female riders start when the second man crosses the line; the final time is taken when the second woman crosses the line. Both the men and women race the 14 kilometres Harrogate-circuit once. The fastest total time wins.



Both men and women will get a first taste of the circuit that plays a crucial role in their respective road races. It is a testing lap with three short climbs and a number of false flat sections. The first uphill is on Otley Road, which climbs in 1.6 kilometres at 3.4%.



The road continues on a long straight before a right-hander leads onto Pot Bank. The route drops down to cross the Oak Beck stream to climb out of the valley on the other side.
This scenario repeats itself on Penny Pot Lane. The riders descend to the Oak Beck stream to return to climbing. Quite steep at first, the teams clamber out of the small valley. The gradient eases as Penny Pot Lane turns into Cornwall Road then Harlow Moor Road.



The teams turn left on Harlow Moor Drive, which runs along the south side of the Valley Gardens, down to the Royal Pump Rooms. Then it's left, back up the other side of the Valley Gardens. A right turn on Hereford Road takes the teams into a well-to-do residential area, with large houses, wide roads, and plenty of trees. It's fairly flat at first, but Kent Road descends to the A61 Ripon Road. There, there's a sharp pull up to the crest of the hill, before plunging down towards Harrogate, and turning right on Swan Road. Swan Road leads back to the Royal Pump Rooms. From the Royal Pump Rooms, all the teams have to do is bend left on Crescent Road, along the edge of the Crescent Gardens, then turn right up Parliament Street past the Turkish Baths and Bettys, to West Park and the start-finish point.





The first team starts at 13.10 and the last team is expected to finish around 15.30 – both are local times (BST).

The probable favourites are the Dutch, who although minus the big stars, still bring a strong collective.
Jos van Emden
Koen Bouwman
Bauke Mollema
Amy Pieters
Lucinda Brand
Riejanne Markus

High cuisine.



A Yorkshire attack dog.

blazing_saddles

The Time Trials.
Monday 23rd September 2019

The junior men's individual time trial is two laps of the Harrogate circuit, for a total distance of 28km. While there are no long climbs, there are plenty of short, sharp ones - in fact, for almost the whole route, it's either up or down. The advantage of the route is that it's never far from the centre of Harrogate, which should mean plenty of vocal support for the competitors.

The junior women's individual time trial is one lap of the Harrogate circuit, a distance of 14km.



Tuesday 24th September 2019

The elite women's individual time trial is 30km. The route is from Ripon, via Ripley, Birstwith, and Hampsthwaite, to Harrogate. Ripon to Ripley is on the A61. After that, the riders take a B-road up to Bedlam, then drop down Clint Bank to Birstwith. Next, it's up to Clapham Green, and down to Hampsthwaite. The ups and downs and corners make this the most interesting part of the course. The competitors reach the A59, which takes them to the New Park roundabout; that just leaves the pedal into town and the West Park finish line.

The U23 men's individual time trial is on the same day, and uses the same Ripon to Harrogate route, as the elite women's ITT. Both courses diverge off the A61 at Ripley, taking in Bedlam, Birstwith, Clapham Green, and Hampsthwaite. They then come into Harrogate via the A59, and rejoin the A61 which takes them to the finish line on West Park. The total distance is 30km.



Wednesday 25th September 2019



The elite men's individual time trial is a 54km route from Northallerton to Harrogate. Heading south out of Northallerton, it's quite flat as it passes through Morton-on-Swale, and crosses the A1M at Leeming Bar, before reaching Bedale.
After Bedale, there's a series of dips and rises as the course crosses rivers. One of the rivers is the Ure, at about the 20km point, just before Masham. From Masham, the route is popular with local cyclists: Grewelthorpe, Kirkby Malzeard, and Risplith, then on to Ripley. Here it joins the A61 (less popular with this local cyclist). The A61 Ripon road leads to the finish on West Park in Harrogate.





Favourites for the elite men's individual time trial include Rohan Dennis, Primoz Roglic, Victor Campenaerts, Stefan Kung, Jonathan Castroviejo, and Jos van Emden.

Lanterne_Rogue

Haven't checked any results for the paracycling, but it sounds like the sides of the road saw Yorkshire's now traditional reaction to a bike race going past if this tweet from Colin Lynch (aka Pokerface of this parish) is anything to go by:

Wow. Just wow.

Thanks to all the people in Tadcaster, Harrogate and all points in between.

That was a special day on the bike. Like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

People cheering: all day long.

And a wall of sound at the finish in Harrogate.

Thank you
@Yorkshire2019

https://twitter.com/FormerTTchamp/status/1175447048667222016?s=20

Pross

Mixed TTT was surprisingly entertaining on a tight, twisty and wet course. A fairly inexperienced GB team held the lead until the top seed final group of Italy, Germany and The Netherlands set off and were just holding onto bronze when the final three women's teams set off but looked destined for 4th at the final time check. Unfortunately Longho Borghini punctured and her two team mates left her but then seemed indecisive on whether to wait when she started chasing them down. She eventually got back but by then they had slipped back behind GB by 5 seconds leaving GB with bronze, Germany took silver about 30 seconds quicker than GB and The Netherlands about 20 odd seconds faster for gold. Quite a decent format.

Lanterne_Rogue

Went over to Harrogate for today's racing with my daughters. Had a good walk around the team buses, wished good luck to a couple of riders, then went into the fan zone to explore. Nearly got kicked out the Rapha store for claiming 'rapha' was Latin for 'stick an extra thirty percent on the price tag', then found a spot right by the start ramp to watch the riders going off - we were lucky not just to find a gap but the only place in the whole start section my youngest could see over the barrier, which felt like a bit of a design flaw.

Had a great time - they did a good job of keeping things happening during the racing, and the slightly funky relay format actually works pretty well, or at least did from where we were. I reckon most teams lost a couple of seconds through watching the big screen instead of the start lights, so there are marginal gains to be had there.

Moment of the race was the massive groan when the Swiss woman stacked it - the whole crowd instinctively felt for her despite it being nominally good for GB, although my personal highlight was Julie Leth being relaxed enough to wave to my kids on the ramp.

I don't particularly enjoy watching time trials on TV, but we all really enjoyed ourselves today. Hopefully some of the atmosphere came across despite the wet weather.

Lanterne_Rogue

Also ought to mention the huge cheer when Longo Borghini got back on. Massive effort for several km to do so.

bm5

Watched on tv but was not expecting a lot. But I thought it worked quite well. The main problem is the amount of time it takes to wait for each wave to complete before the next ones start. Young GB team did well. Bauke Mollema was the happiest man in Yorkshire. And there were cows!

blazing_saddles

Here's a pretty good source for all the info and more on the coming week. Enjoy the racing.

https://speedyhedgehog.com/index.html

rick_chasey

Bit more representative of what tourists eat in Harrogate....

Dorset_Boy

Elynor Backstedt takes bronze in the Junior Womens TT, a Dutchie in second and a Russian in first.

bobmcstuff

The relay TT seems to have gone down quite well.

Cycling podcast suggested it might be worth doing the second wave after all the first waves are completed to add to tension (i.e., you'd already have the intermediate placings). But glad to see something new working well.

m.r.m.

Every TT format needs to incorporate the possibility of riders catching those ahead in some way; while balancing that against those behind or those caught not drafting.

bobmcstuff

Van Vleuten is heavy favourite for tomorrows' women's TT (at 1/6, with the next rider, Dygart, at 7/1).

Lanterne_Rogue

BM5 wrote:

Watched on tv but was not expecting a lot. But I thought it worked quite well. The main problem is the amount of time it takes to wait for each wave to complete before the next ones start. Young GB team did well. Bauke Mollema was the happiest man in Yorkshire. And there were cows!

I suspect that with this really being the first time this has been run at this level there was a fair bit of contingency built into the gaps between waves to allow for unexpected glitches or crashes (probably wise, given the weather). Not sure how slowly some of the women who'd been dropped rolled in either, which was possibly a consideration. There might also have been logistical considerations in terms of 'resetting' camera and support vehicles to the right places.

I don't know what it was like on TV, but if I were organising it with a crowd in mind I think I'd have looked for a way to bring the riders closer to the start as they finished so that they could be interviewed straight away. For obvious reasons (when you'd seen where the team coaches were) the traffic flow once they'd finished was very much away from the hotseat area, so we never heard from anyone other than GB. That'd help fill some of the gap between waves, I think, and add some insight into what the route was actually like etc.

One change I'd definitely make is to provide the riders with a clear traffic light system further down the start to focus on, rather than lights at their feet - I got the impression half the teams were oblivious to the actual signal to go and it's hard to see how they could look both at the lights and at the direction they wanted to go in. It certainly wasn't like the usual TT system that was used for starting each team overall (rather than the second half of the relay) which was a clock counting down a decent distance along the runway.

Dorset_Boy

Even in today's dry conditions it looks like all the riders are being very cautious as they come down the ramp and along the temporary road.

inseine

No ticker on Cycling news for the junior mens TT and the UCI site is woeful; I think Leo Haytor is doing a decent ride, but can't be sure.

larkim

underlayunderlay wrote:

One change I'd definitely make is to provide the riders with a clear traffic light system further down the start to focus on, rather than lights at their feet - I got the impression half the teams were oblivious to the actual signal to go and it's hard to see how they could look both at the lights and at the direction they wanted to go in.

Why not use some form of handslings instead and turn it into a "real" relay? Both first two riders across the line have to handsling a separate rider from the second leg etc, thus avoiding the ramp altogether. Would make a) for a bit of TV excitement and b) show a direct connection between the teams.

inseine

Hayter provisionally 4th.

bm5

The Russian rider in the women's juniors went off at the deviation and still managed to win!

dabber

Don't know what the weather is like in the Ripon/Harrogate area at the moment (Met Office reports looks wet) but I hope it isn't as bad as down in not so sunny Surrey at the moment. Not exactly good TT weather.

shirley_basso

Jan Bakelants complaining about the course (or did so 2 days ago)

rick_chasey

Shirley Basso wrote:

Jan Bakelants complaining about the course (or did so 2 days ago)

He wasn't really if you listen to the interview.... Just feels it's quite dangerous in the wet, but then he also prefaced it by saying it was fun, so...

shirley_basso

Probably found myself reading some CN clickbait

Lanterne_Rogue

Dabber wrote:

Don't know what the weather is like in the Ripon/Harrogate area at the moment (Met Office reports looks wet) but I hope it isn't as bad as down in not so sunny Surrey at the moment. Not exactly good TT weather.

Have just driven from York to Wakefield and it's awful - standing water on the roads in some downpours meant traffic slowing to 40mph or less, and having to use fog lights to be visible (except for the inevitable idiot in a light grey car who always wanted an invisibility cloak). It's also bunched up into sudden showers of really heavy rain so if it stays like this there could be a strong element of chance favouring riders who start at the right time.

Pross

underlayunderlay wrote:

Dabber wrote:

Don't know what the weather is like in the Ripon/Harrogate area at the moment (Met Office reports looks wet) but I hope it isn't as bad as down in not so sunny Surrey at the moment. Not exactly good TT weather.

Have just driven from York to Wakefield and it's awful - standing water on the roads in some downpours meant traffic slowing to 40mph or less, and having to use fog lights to be visible (except for the inevitable idiot in a light grey car who always wanted an invisibility cloak). It's also bunched up into sudden showers of really heavy rain so if it stays like this there could be a strong element of chance favouring riders who start at the right time.

Unless visibility was less than 100m they may have been the only one not breaking the law (assuming they had some form of lighting).

bm5

There's a bit on the road now which is like cycling through a river.
Not sure this is safe

joe_totale-2

BM5 wrote:

There's a bit on the road now which is like cycling through a river.
Not sure this is safe

https://twitter.com/cronoescalada/statu ... 9134586880

carbonclem

Some crazy crashes in standing water on the course today. Apparently the fan zone is shut due to weather too.

gweeds

Chuffing hell - that's nuts. Would be tricky on a standard bike let alone balls-out on a TT rig.

gweeds

Slideytime

https://twitter.com/GosuSM/status/1176445781173256192

rick_chasey

Such a shame.