114th Paris-Roubaix - UCI World Tour (10/4-2016)

[cellardoor]

Re: Re:

WTF!!!!!!

This was racing of old. Action from km 0. Everyone did his best. All the front deserved the victory. Even Boasson Hagen.
Boonen is a hero. Best cobbled rider ever. Such a beast today.
Hayman!!! Matthew Hayman! Incredible ride. When was the last time where a rider won Paris - Roubaix from the early breakaway?
Erviti is a boss. Sieberg and Saramontins as well. Is really nice to see such reliables gregario doing such races.

Best Paris - Roubaix I've ever seen.

Now to the boring Ardennes...

There is a new standard in cycling. The Ardennes will be brutal too

Haha right. The ol' soft pedal to a slow motion, uphill "sprint."

Should be amazing.

Honestly, sometimes Huy finale is best the week can offer, at least it's not worst than we expect, while AGR and LBL........I don't know why I still get excited everytime they come.

Both AGR and LBL have been hurt by course modifications. The addition of the extra loop post-2012 Worlds has rendered climbs like the Keutenberg irrelevant in AGR, which is just sad. The Subida a Huy has long been the puncheur sprint par excellence, bar that year around 2008 or so when Fabian Wegmann almost made it solo from distance but was caught about halfway up the Mur. LBL has suffered since introducing RAF I fear, it's a hard enough climb that fear of it means people are afraid to expend energy before then, and then there's a fairly sizable break of downhill and flat before St-Nicolas which means you often have domestiques work their way back there, leaving us with it all in the last 7km or so. I'm in favour of either using some harder climbs earlier and removing RAF (the problem with which is that by making the race easier rather than harder you end up with a bigger bunch at the finish that's harder to get away from) or reinstating the Côte de Colonster between RAF and St-Nicolas - it's an easier climb but would mean it would be harder for domestiques to get back to the front group and so more mano a mano racing could go on ahead. The best LBL in recent years was the Nibali/Iglinsky one, let's face it.

They've been hurt by Bettini retiring.

 

[cineteq]

Re:

Boonen was the rider that put cancellara and sagan out of the race, and that is the biggest prove that he was the moral winner.

On second thought, Sagan is the moral winner. Avoiding crashing with Cancellara was the highlight of the race

 

[cantpedal]

Re:

Anglos 1 and 3...

Riders 1 thru 3 thru.......

 

[TMP402]

Adrien Petit 10th

 

[Irondan]

Stybar 110th, I was hoping he would have made it into the mix.

 

[jmdirt]

Congrats MH! Prior to his crash a month ago, I wouldn't have picked him, but after the crash no one could have predicted this. He must have absolutely pounded his stationary trainer while his arm was healing!

 

[spalco]

Re: Re:

In other news Viviani in hospital after being hit by a moto

When will the organisers actually do something about this? Seems like almost every race now is happening.

The race officals' car nearly took out Hayman or Stannard (I don't remember) during one of their attacks in the finish too.

 

[cellardoor]

Brilliant race! Really happy to see Matt Hayman win even though I was rooting for Boonen. The old adage goes that if you want to win you have to be prepared to lose and I think Boonen worked just a bit too hard and closed one too many gaps in the finale.

 

[TMP402]

Re:

Kristoff finished outside the top 10 of a monument for the first time since 2013, after 10 top 10s in a row.

Good stat.

 

[cellardoor]

Re:

Stybar 110th, I was hoping he would have made it into the mix.

Pretty sure he crashed due to Cancellara going down.

 

[mr. tibbs]

Re: Re:

In other news Viviani in hospital after being hit by a moto

When will the organisers actually do something about this? Seems like almost every race now is happening.

The race officals' car nearly took out Hayman or Stannard (I don't remember) during one of their attacks in the finish too.

That's what I was just thinking, too. And the car was dodging between the group and (of course) a moto.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

In other news Viviani in hospital after being hit by a moto

When will the organisers actually do something about this? Seems like almost every race now is happening.

The race officals' car nearly took out Hayman or Stannard (I don't remember) during one of their attacks in the finish too.

If that's the same incident I'm thinking of, I think Hayman used the car deliberately. He saw it accelerating past and immediately jumped on its wheels to get a bit of drafting. Probably looked more dangerous than it was.

 

[Andro]

Re:

Great ride by Sagan to finish 11th

his cyclo-cross manoeuvre to avoid crashing over Cancellara was arguably the highlight of this race

https://twitter.com/Peter_SagFan/status/719184174033342464

That is just insane.

 

[Irondan]

Re: Re:

Stybar 110th, I was hoping he would have made it into the mix.

Pretty sure he crashed due to Cancellara going down.

I thought that was Terpstra, but maybe it was both? IDK

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

Stybar 110th, I was hoping he would have made it into the mix.

Pretty sure he crashed due to Cancellara going down.

I thought that was Terpstra, but maybe it was both? IDK

Terpstra definitely went down, idk about stybar

 

[cellardoor]

Re: Re:

Stybar 110th, I was hoping he would have made it into the mix.

Pretty sure he crashed due to Cancellara going down.

I thought that was Terpstra, but maybe it was both? IDK

I think they both crashed.

 

[ILovecycling]

Re:

Mark Cavendish finishing 30th is pretty respectable.

Wow,very solid!


Still pissed about Sagan and Canc, it could have been even more epic

 

[Lupi33x]

Re: Re:

In other news Viviani in hospital after being hit by a moto

When will the organisers actually do something about this? Seems like almost every race now is happening.

The race officals' car nearly took out Hayman or Stannard (I don't remember) during one of their attacks in the finish too.

That's what I was just thinking, too. And the car was dodging between the group and (of course) a moto.

It was Hayman, but he saw it coming because it instigated his attack. He hoped to draft behind that car, but it was going too fast. (and this is concerning because why did it need to go past that quickly)

As for the number of crashes caused by motos and cars, what can organisers do... its just bad driving and bad motorbike riding. They need to lift their standards which seem to have fallen in recent years.

 

[Mr.White]

Re: Re:

Stybar 110th, I was hoping he would have made it into the mix.

Pretty sure he crashed due to Cancellara going down.

Stybar was dropped from Cancellara/Sagan group already at Arenberg. It was Terpstra who crashed

 

[elfed68]

Re:

Stybar 110th, I was hoping he would have made it into the mix.

Obviously had no one strong enough to wheelsuck.

 

[SeriousSam]

Fantastic race. I hope Amstel and LBL will also deliver (FW always delivers)

 

[rhubroma]

What a crap shoot, Hinault was right.

 

[BigMac]

Re: Re:

Mark Cavendish finishing 30th is pretty respectable.

Wow,very solid!


Still pissed about Sagan and Canc, it could have been even more epic

I think people are making strong cases as to how the race wouldn't have been as good had Cance and Sagan been in the mix, but you never know.

 

[jaylew]

Re: Re:

Mark Cavendish finishing 30th is pretty respectable.

Wow,very solid!


Still pissed about Sagan and Canc, it could have been even more epic

I don't think so as the race would have played out differently. I wanted to see them in the mix too, particularly Canc, but I highly doubt the racing would have been as good.

 

[TMP402]

Re: Re:

Mark Cavendish finishing 30th is pretty respectable.

Wow,very solid!


Still pissed about Sagan and Canc, it could have been even more epic

I think people are making strong cases as to how the race wouldn't have been as good ha Cance and Sagan been in the mix, but you never know.

It could only have been as good if one or both of them had joined up only in the last 15km and were as tired as the front group. For either of them just to have powered away once they caught the main group would have pleased some and still counted as a pretty good edition but deprived us of a great final few km of intrigue.