S*** Small Races Thread - 2022

webboo

Big crash in last Km in the womens. Who ever picked that run in needs to go back course design school. Narrow roads, parked cars and lots of turns.
Crazy.

Pross

webboo said:

Big crash in last Km in the womens. Who ever picked that run in needs to go back course design school. Narrow roads, parked cars and lots of turns.
Crazy.

For a stage that was never really likely to break up the peloton that finish was ridiculous but the front riders went into that bend way too hot.

Pross

Crash near the front 3km from the finish of the Tour of Limburg takes out Cav and a few of the other sprinters leaving quite a small peloton.

blazing_saddles

Cav bites the Limburg dust, 3kms from the finish

De Lie wins with ease

Pross

Very messy sprint, Bora went too early and had to slow to take the final bend.

JimD666

Very confused about the Women's Tour coverage. According to GCN they've just started. According to PCS they've been going since 11:00BST

andyp

They only got live coverage on GCN for the final 20 kms.

Pross

andyp said:

They only got live coverage on GCN for the final 20 kms.

Was that just today? There was much more than that yesterday.

Awful finish location today but the winner, Wiebes', sprint was on a completely different level to the rest who looked stuck in treacle.

webboo

Any body else read about Sam Bennett in Cycling weekly saying he’d managed to resolve the issue he had where he blew up in the last 300 metres of a sprint.
Yet in Mondays Limburg race he did exactly that failing to get past his lead out man Van Poppel..

Pross

Wiebes is absolutely dominating the sprints in the Women's Tour, it's like watching Cippo in his prime. Looked a better stage today with the hills of the Forest of Dean breaking things up quite a bit before a regrouping in the last 10km. Another tough stage tomorrow in north / mid Wales on underated cycling roads, should look quite good if the weather plays ball.

Edit - missed opportunity though, they'll be pretty close to the Bwlch y Groes and could have had their MTF there instead of Black Mountain on Friday!

blazing_saddles

Just a heads up that the sprinter's tradition Tour tune up race starts this evening.
The ZLM Tour has taken the unusual step of holding an evening road stage.
It's only just over 100 kms and starts at 6pm.
GCN/Eurosport have live coverage from 7pm.

Ironically, there aren't too many top echelon sprinters turning out.
Ineos are sending Viviani, Jumbo Olav Kooij and DSM, Sam Welsford.
Plus Bram Welten and Jakob Mareczko and that just about covers it.

blazing_saddles

Kooij obviously had local knowledge of the finish. Hit the front where it was impossible to come past.
Marezcko second, Viviani a distant third

Pross

Very messy sprint from an extremely small group at the ZLM, first three the same as yesterday I think. Ineos had 3 in the small group but Viviani just didn't have the legs. Couldn't quite work out if Narvaez had intended going for a flier to make others chase but Ben Turner jumped on his wheel so it turned into an early lead out instead.

orraloon

The coverage of the Womens Tour sans live stats on screen is well boring. Rely on the chatter from commentary team to inform who, when, where etc.

Pross

orraloon said:

The coverage of the Womens Tour sans live stats on screen is well boring. Rely on the chatter from commentary team to inform who, when, where etc.

First stage they were saying it was an issue with their graphics in which case I would have expected it to be sorted by stage 2. It just makes the race feel a bit amateur which isn't good for one of the biggest women's races.

bm5

Good job Carlton wasn't commentating on the ZLM, several Roundabouts in the last Kms. To be fair they weren't great for the run in.

blazing_saddles

I had no idea about this, but Rob Hatch and Maggie B currently commentating on a beautiful looking Swiss race.
Whole race coverage too, making it a good alternative to today’s Dauphine stage which is heading for an early finish.

Just checked and there’s an excellent field with many TdS riders in attendance.

Women have 14kms of the Black Mountain stage left.

wakemalcolm

Pross said:

It just makes the race feel a bit amateur which isn't good for one of the biggest women's races.

Clearly Ineos' fault for not having a ladies team.

blazing_saddles

The commentators called the finish of the women’s tour stage up black mountain as incredible.
It was anything but. A large group followed each other’s wheels until a bit of a lead out thinned things out, before a slow motion 200 metre sprint, won by Longo Borghini.

r0bh

blazing_saddles said:

The commentators called the finish of the women’s tour stage up black mountain as incredible.
It was anything but. A large group followed each other’s wheels until a bit of a lead out thinned things out, before a slow motion 200 metre sprint, won by Longo Borghini.

What do you expect the commentators to say?

"Well, here we have some cyclists cycling slowly up a hill, oh look one of them has won"

blazing_saddles

r0bh said:

blazing_saddles said:

The commentators called the finish of the women’s tour stage up black mountain as incredible.
It was anything but. A large group followed each other’s wheels until a bit of a lead out thinned things out, before a slow motion 200 metre sprint, won by Longo Borghini.

What do you expect the commentators to say?

"Well, here we have some cyclists cycling slowly up a hill, oh look one of them has won"

Someone's a bit touchy.
The Giro commentators didn't have a problem calling some stages and finishes as dull or lacking attacks on some finishing climbs.
On here, Roglic constantly gets criticised for the same thing.

So what's actually the problem with describing this stage as lacking any meaningful action?

blazing_saddles

Anyhow, race of the day was undoubtedly in Switzerland. Marc Hirschi out kicked Max Schachmann and Andreas Kron, from a final selection of seven riders.
A few kms from home, Clément Champoussin looked to have made the race winning attack, but his legs gave out on the final drag and he was caught and some cat and mouse stuff ensued.
Hirschi looked to have gone to his sprint too soon, but he proved surprisingly strong and held on quite comfortably at the line.

blazing_saddles

Another hidden gem, tomorrow.
Belgium gets down and dirty for the Dwars door Het Hageland. Live coverage from the usual sources.
Unfortunately, the weather forecast suggest more dust than dirt.



Top competitors

MERLIER Tim
DE LIE Arnaud
WELLENS Tim
ACKERMANN Pascal
GAVIRIA Fernando
CAPIOT Amaury
WALSCHEID Max
SWIFT Connor
ALLEGAERT Piet
TILLER Rasmus

RichN95.

blazing_saddles said:

Anyhow, race of the day was undoubtedly in Switzerland. Marc Hirschi out kicked Max Schachmann and Andreas Kron, from a final selection of seven riders.
A few kms from home, Clément Champoussin looked to have made the race winning attack, but his legs gave out on the final drag and he was caught and some cat and mouse stuff ensued.
Hirschi looked to have gone to his sprint too soon, but he proved surprisingly strong and held on quite comfortably at the line.

Intermarche came fourth and fifth which got them 110 ranking points. Only ten less than a Tour stage win. And the same as a stage win and two second at the Dauphine. It's a farce.

Pross

RichN95. said:

blazing_saddles said:

Anyhow, race of the day was undoubtedly in Switzerland. Marc Hirschi out kicked Max Schachmann and Andreas Kron, from a final selection of seven riders.
A few kms from home, Clément Champoussin looked to have made the race winning attack, but his legs gave out on the final drag and he was caught and some cat and mouse stuff ensued.
Hirschi looked to have gone to his sprint too soon, but he proved surprisingly strong and held on quite comfortably at the line.

Intermarche came fourth and fifth which got them 110 ranking points. Only ten less than a Tour stage win. And the same as a stage win and two second at the Dauphine. It's a farce.

It's great for organisers of s**t small races though as they are getting strong fields. Not so good for UCI continental teams though I guess.

blazing_saddles

RichN95. said:

blazing_saddles said:

Anyhow, race of the day was undoubtedly in Switzerland. Marc Hirschi out kicked Max Schachmann and Andreas Kron, from a final selection of seven riders.
A few kms from home, Clément Champoussin looked to have made the race winning attack, but his legs gave out on the final drag and he was caught and some cat and mouse stuff ensued.
Hirschi looked to have gone to his sprint too soon, but he proved surprisingly strong and held on quite comfortably at the line.

Intermarche came fourth and fifth which got them 110 ranking points. Only ten less than a Tour stage win. And the same as a stage win and two second at the Dauphine. It's a farce.

It’s not a farce……it’s a fix.
Disgraceful manipulation by the powers that be to achieve a desired outcome and to hell with the consequences.

Pross

blazing_saddles said:

RichN95. said:

blazing_saddles said:

Anyhow, race of the day was undoubtedly in Switzerland. Marc Hirschi out kicked Max Schachmann and Andreas Kron, from a final selection of seven riders.
A few kms from home, Clément Champoussin looked to have made the race winning attack, but his legs gave out on the final drag and he was caught and some cat and mouse stuff ensued.
Hirschi looked to have gone to his sprint too soon, but he proved surprisingly strong and held on quite comfortably at the line.

Intermarche came fourth and fifth which got them 110 ranking points. Only ten less than a Tour stage win. And the same as a stage win and two second at the Dauphine. It's a farce.

It’s not a farce……it’s a fix.
Disgraceful manipulation by the powers that be to achieve a desired outcome and to hell with the consequences.

It feels like the WRU have taken over running cycling.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Pross said:

It feels like the WRU have taken over running cycling.

Get out of here with your biathlon talk.

blazing_saddles

Pross said:

blazing_saddles said:

RichN95. said:

blazing_saddles said:

Anyhow, race of the day was undoubtedly in Switzerland. Marc Hirschi out kicked Max Schachmann and Andreas Kron, from a final selection of seven riders.
A few kms from home, Clément Champoussin looked to have made the race winning attack, but his legs gave out on the final drag and he was caught and some cat and mouse stuff ensued.
Hirschi looked to have gone to his sprint too soon, but he proved surprisingly strong and held on quite comfortably at the line.

Intermarche came fourth and fifth which got them 110 ranking points. Only ten less than a Tour stage win. And the same as a stage win and two second at the Dauphine. It's a farce.

It’s not a farce……it’s a fix.
Disgraceful manipulation by the powers that be to achieve a desired outcome and to hell with the consequences.

It feels like the WRU have taken over running cycling.

Quite.
Certainly both sports a run along the same principles of nest feathering.

blazing_saddles

I will be avoiding this place for a couple of weeks so here’s an advance heads up that there is an enormous amount of cycling covers next week.
Switzerland aside, there’s The tours of Belgium, Slovenia and Occitanie.
Plus the Ventoux Challenge.
That adds up to about 10 hours each day with more next weekend.

Good luck!