• The Cycling News forum is still looking to add volunteer moderators with. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

115th Paris-Roubaix 2017 - April 9, 257k

Page 52 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

KGB

Apr 16, 2015
480
0
0
Volderke said:
SKSemtex said:
What are you talking about? Mons-en-Pevele was too late. I am talking about Arenberg. Shell he ride hard with Sagan from that point, when Sagan was strong and committed it would be a totally different race.

I am talking about how hard pro riders can ride a race. You seem to happily ignore the fact that after a hard-raced section of cobbles, everybody is having a moment of trying to catch their breath. Arenberg was raced really hard. If you fail to understand that they couldn't go much harder and that the asphalt after Arenberg was strong headwind... I rest my case.
You are complaining some riders should have raced harder while on average they went more than 1km/h faster than the previous record.
Sections with bad cobbles where difference could be made (like Bersee, Mons-en-Pevele, Carrefour) all had a headwind so you cannot simply get rid of guys following wheels.
One guy could but that guy finished his cycling career last year.
 
Apr 1, 2013
426
0
0
Re: Re:

KGB said:
Nothing wrong with Johny D.tactics.The same did Tepstra to Sagan.Only suprise is here QS and specially Boonen did not have solution for that.Karma is *** sometimes.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with the tactics as such, I am just saying I am glad it didn't pay out (pure defensive riding is ok for some underdogs like Louis Meintjes, but, at least in my opinion, not for the big boys like John Degenkolb or Quintana) .... and you are right with pointing out on QS: as Tom B was so much hyped prior to the race, a number of backpacks at his rear must have been expected (surprised John D was the only one ...), so they should have had some thoughts about how to get rid of those .....
 
Re: Re:

KGB said:
loge1884 said:
I guess the usual discussion "what would have happend, if ...." is pretty pointless ... it didn't and that's it ...

my conclusions are:
- GVA did certainly not steal his victory ... he's a well-earned winner (as would have been Zdenek Stybar in my opinion)
- Peter Sagan looked pretty strong 3/4s of the race, was extremely unlucky - however his showing in the last quarter of the race does not suggest he would have won even without the punctures (we'll never know though)
- one thing I am very happy about is John Degenkolb's tactic of wheelsucking Tom Boonen the whole race didn't give any pay-out ... I hope he will not turn into a Gerrans ver. 2.0
Nothing wrong with Johny D.tactics.The same did Tepstra to Sagan.Only suprise is here QS and specially Boonen did not have solution for that.Karma is *** sometimes.

I have to say Trek's tactics were pretty questionable tbh. Did they really expect Stuyven to win against those guys? And even when Stuyven was dropped Degenkolb still didn't do anything but sit in Boonen's wheel.
 
SKSemtex said:
It is funny how GVA is still underrated in the peloton. If Sagan had the same problem before Arenberg as GVA had, the Peloton would fly away and nobody, nobody would have a chance to join back (we saw it last year).

Boonen lost his race on Arenberg not when he did not join GVA. What did he want? To beat Degenkolb on Velodrome when he had a problem last year with Haymen?

Inrng is making the argument that Tony Martin went to the front at Arenberg to basically ride tempo and get in the way so Kristoff could make it back on, which ended up saving the race for van Avermaet. http://inrng.com/2017/04/the-moment-the-race-was-won-paris-roubaix-2017/

I'm not sure about that, as Strava shows Arenberg being raced about the same pace as previous years: https://www.strava.com/segments/7006059 (although maybe they could have gone faster considering the tailwind - how much tailwind do you get in a sheltered forest anyway?)

Considering Tony Martin was a one man wrecking ball in PR for Boonen last year, I do wonder would things have turned out different this year if Martin was still a Quickstepper though.
 
Re:

loge1884 said:
I guess the usual discussion "what would have happend, if ...." is pretty pointless ... it didn't and that's it ...

my conclusions are:
- GVA did certainly not steal his victory... he's a well-earned winner (as would have been Zdenek Stybar in my opinion)
- Peter Sagan looked pretty strong 3/4s of the race, was extremely unlucky - however his showing in the last quarter of the race does not suggest he would have won even without the punctures (we'll never know though)
- one thing I am very happy about is John Degenkolb's tactic of wheelsucking Tom Boonen the whole race didn't give any pay-out ... I hope he will not turn into a Gerrans ver. 2.0

How do you steal a victory - especially in a race like P-R - anyway? You need to be there in the finale, which is kinda hard to be if you aren't strong, and avoids back luck, of course.
Though I guess you could steal the trophy. Might be a bit hard to run with in this case...
 
Volderke said:
SKSemtex said:
What are you talking about? Mons-en-Pevele was too late. I am talking about Arenberg. Shell he ride hard with Sagan from that point, when Sagan was strong and committed it would be a totally different race.

I am talking about how hard pro riders can ride a race. You seem to happily ignore the fact that after a hard-raced section of cobbles, everybody is having a moment of trying to catch their breath. Arenberg was raced really hard. If you fail to understand that they couldn't go much harder and that the asphalt after Arenberg was strong headwind... I rest my case.
You are complaining some riders should have raced harder while on average they went more than 1km/h faster than the previous record.
Sections with bad cobbles where difference could be made (like Bersee, Mons-en-Pevele, Carrefour) all had a headwind so you cannot simply get rid of guys following wheels.
Where is all this headwind stuff coming from ? Not a particularly windy day but what wind there was came from the south making it easier to attack. Which secteurs run N to S ?
 
Eyeballs Out said:
Where is all this headwind stuff coming from ? Not a particularly windy day but what wind there was came from the south making it easier to attack. Which secteurs run N to S ?

Wind was South-west. If you would care to look at the circuit, you would see that some notable secteurs go towards South-west: half of Haveluy, whole of Bersee, begin and end of Mons-en-Pevele, first part of Camphin en Pevele and most of Carrefour de L' arbre. Pretty decisive secteurs, but not so now because of the wind.

To prove this: just look at Haveluy images and where the dust goes once they go straight to the North... Yes, dust goest East. And yes, GvA is 50s behind peloton who rode really fast on Wallers, so those people saying GvA had a comfortable ride with BMC up front... Think again!
https://youtu.be/NEij13TN9Oo?t=6102
 
Volderke said:
SKSemtex said:
I was a little bit disappointed with Boonen. I also expected him to go win or die. He looked so strong on cobbles.
He was just to scare of Sagan. Sagan showed him several times that he is willing to make the race hard but all his attack were neglected. It looks like Sagan was the only rider who wanted the ride PR not conservatively. :sad:

It is funny how GVA is still underrated in the peloton. If Sagan had the same problem before Arenberg as GVA had, the Peloton would fly away and nobody, nobody would have a chance to join back (we saw it last year).

Boonen lost his race on Arenberg not when he did not join GVA. What did he want? To beat Degenkolb on Velodrome when he had a problem last year with Haymen?
He wasted his energy in so many pointless attacks instead of riding hard with committed Sagan.

PR used to be the race for strongest rider and each cobbled sector should have his victims. The regrouping we saw yesterday was ridiculous. The cream of the cream was Greipel repeatedly attacking in places where we should have 4-5 strongest guys riding for victory.

Boonen tried to get rid of Sagan and Degenkolb just after Mons-en-Pevele. He almost succeeded, but Degenkolb did a hell of an effort to bring Sagan back. After that, and all the action on his favourite cobbles (Bersee) with headwind, Boonen realized he could not get rid of Degenkolb and when Stybar attacked and GvA attacked and even Sagan attacked and Degenkolb just kept following his wheel... He knew he had a major wheelsucker and decided that Stybar was the best chance for podium/win.

To say that the regrouping was ridicilous clearly shows you don't have any idea how this race at 45/h AVERAGE in 20 degrees was ridden. Are you suggesting they had to ride even harder while it was clear that all the KOM's on strava on the headwind segments are smashed and also KOMs on asphalt in between? Only KOMs on cobbles with headwind still stand. So to say that they 'allowed' regrouping is ridiculous. They couldn't go harder.
https://youtu.be/NEij13TN9Oo?t=11469

With 36km to go, when Oss was out in front; Langeveld sneaked away; Roelandts bridged across, with van Baarle and Moscon in front of the group, letting the gap grow. That was when Stybar attacked (perfect timing), and Stuyven tried to go after him, though de Backer tried to chase him; and next we see Stuyven, Greg, and Moscon chasing Stybar with a gap to the rest with Sagan in between. Sagan gets up to the trio, and Boonen closes the gap. So far, so good. I think QS handles the situation after the big merger with 40km to go and up to this point perfectly.

Unfortunately, the production isn't as good as it should be at this crucial point in the race (pictures of Oss that don't tell us anything about the gap he has; a bunny figure on the side of the road etc.). We see Stuyven with a dig that Boonen is on immediately, and later from a heli-shot we see Sagan has gotten away again, while Greg looks around at the front behind with Moscon and Boonen on his wheel. Stuyven digs again, now with de Backer and van Baarle immediately on him. Now we get a large section of the irrelevant chasers (Burghardt), so who knows what the *** happens...

Oss now enters Templeuve and Sagan catches up to Stybar, Roelandts, and Langeveld on the first part of the cobbles. Somehow, the situation is now that de Backer is on the front behind with Boonen on his wheel and everyone going super slow. Apparently, Greg, Moscon, and Stuyven have gotten away, and that is what lost QS the race. How the hell did they escape? Why is Tom not chasing them furiously? On the cobbles it seems like it is Wallays who leads the chase (as slowly as possible with Roelandts up ahead), and after Sagan punctures, the race has been settled.

Now, no matter if they rode for Stybar or Tommeke at this point, it is a total clusterfuck how what was looking so good ended up for them. I don't get it.
 
I agree with that being particularly bad tactically, but I would guess that Degenkolb's leech-like behavior got to him and made him so annoyed that he began focusing more on the German than GvA who was the bigger danger.
 
I blame it on that terror rabbit (It really looked like a nightmare easter rabbit!).

After the race, I realized that coverage was actually pretty bad. They missed a lot of decisive moments and moves (I remember when they showed Demare chasing I said something about chauvinistic French TV people, but I also joked he was maybe still in contention and finally he got 6th!).

To give some examples: At Bourghelles they were still only 20seconds in front (Oss, GvA group: https://youtu.be/NEij13TN9Oo?t=12426 while the GPS on screen says it's 38 seconds but you can just time it at the end of the cobbles, Naesen was leading the bunch there)

At the end of Carrefour, GPS says the difference between Boonen and GvA is around 30 seconds, but at the end of Carrefour the difference (timed myself) is 40 seconds. So GvA really pushed hard on Carrefour.
 
Re:

Volderke said:
I blame it on that terror rabbit (It really looked like a nightmare easter rabbit!).

After the race, I realized that coverage was actually pretty bad. They missed a lot of decisive moments and moves (I remember when they showed Demare chasing I said something about chauvinistic French TV people, but I also joked he was maybe still in contention and finally he got 6th!).

Yeah I was also annoyed by the shitty coverage. We missed a lot of action because the director apparently thought it would be more interesting to show us Demare or some other guys that were dropped in the background instead of showing us what was going on at the front of the race. Would have loved to see how GVA managed to get away from Boonen and Degenkolb, but nooo :rolleyes:
 
I'm glad you're joining my vendetta against Jean-Maurice Ooghe. He's a lot worse in mountain stages.

The other side of Paris-Roubaix
1491837815-julien-morice.png
 
Wonder what will happen, when they will face Briastre with the downhill section in the rain. They went over 55 kph on that. Hayman, Dumoulin and Tommy V are left from the last rain & mud edition in 2002, after Tommekes farewell. It is about time. Bring on the rain for 2018.
 
Jul 16, 2010
17,455
5
0
Btw, Roubaix has more pages of discussion than the Ronde thread.

My methodology never lies. ;)

(I think the Ronde is more beautiful though)
 
Mar 13, 2015
2,637
0
0
Re:

El Pistolero said:
Btw, Roubaix has more pages of discussion than the Ronde thread.

My methodology never lies. ;)

(I think the Ronde is more beautiful though)

Volta a Catalunya has more than both, so things are clear :p
 
Started to rewatch from Arenberg. My god, the coward that is John Degenkolb. When Bodnar unwillingly takes off with Sagan with 78 to go (because Lotto rider leaves a gap), Degenkolb is the next rider in line so he accelerates to close the gap. Then Sagan looks back, sees a gap opened up and puts the hammer down. Degenkolb at that moment is literally 3-4 bike lengths back but as soon he sees Sagan going he immediately stops pedalling and starts waving to the other guys to close the gap.

Then GVA goes to the front and takes a strong pull. Sénéchal, Oss, Stuyven and Degenkolb follow. GVA flicks the elbow and drops back behind Degenkolb. Oss takes over with Stuyven in his wheel. Then Degenkolb for some reason AGAIN just stops pedalling and lets Oss and Stuyven go. WTF.

I didn't really catch all of it live, but that's the most negative piece of racing I have seen in my life. Disgusting.
 
Re:

Flamin said:
Started to rewatch from Arenberg. My god, the coward that is John Degenkolb. When Bodnar unwillingly takes off with Sagan with 78 to go (because Lotto rider leaves a gap), Degenkolb is the next rider in line so he accelerates to close the gap. Then Sagan looks back, sees a gap opened up and puts the hammer down. Degenkolb at that moment is literally 3-4 bike lengths back but as soon he sees Sagan going he immediately stops pedalling and starts waving to the other guys to close the gap.

Then GVA goes to the front and takes a strong pull. Sénéchal, Oss, Stuyven and Degenkolb follow. GVA flicks the elbow and drops back behind Degenkolb. Oss takes over with Stuyven in his wheel. Then Degenkolb for some reason AGAIN just stops pedalling and lets Oss and Stuyven go. WTF.

I didn't really catch all of it live, but that's the most negative piece of racing I have seen in my life. Disgusting.

I also enjoyed another time in the race (I can't remember the exact amount of kilometres left, sorry, but I think it was around Mons-en-Pévèle) where a small gap had established itself in the favorites' group. Degenkolb is accelerating to close it, then looks back, sees Sagan, and immediately stops his effort, so Sagan can get to do it.

Or maybe I didn't enjoy it that much.

It was an awful, awful piece of riding by him yesterday.
 
Re: Re:

tobydawq said:
Flamin said:
Started to rewatch from Arenberg. My god, the coward that is John Degenkolb. When Bodnar unwillingly takes off with Sagan with 78 to go (because Lotto rider leaves a gap), Degenkolb is the next rider in line so he accelerates to close the gap. Then Sagan looks back, sees a gap opened up and puts the hammer down. Degenkolb at that moment is literally 3-4 bike lengths back but as soon he sees Sagan going he immediately stops pedalling and starts waving to the other guys to close the gap.

Then GVA goes to the front and takes a strong pull. Sénéchal, Oss, Stuyven and Degenkolb follow. GVA flicks the elbow and drops back behind Degenkolb. Oss takes over with Stuyven in his wheel. Then Degenkolb for some reason AGAIN just stops pedalling and lets Oss and Stuyven go. WTF.

I didn't really catch all of it live, but that's the most negative piece of racing I have seen in my life. Disgusting.

I also enjoyed another time in the race (I can't remember the exact amount of kilometres left, sorry, but I think it was around Mons-en-Pévèle) where a small gap had established itself in the favorites' group. Degenkolb is accelerating to close it, then looks back, sees Sagan, and immediately stops his effort, so Sagan can get to do it.

Or maybe I didn't enjoy it that much.

It was an awful, awful piece of riding by him yesterday.

Yeah, I'll keep my focus a bit more on Degenkolb now for the remainder of the race. Didn't know yesterday it was THAT bad. You could cut him some slack if it was a smart thing to do, but it's stupid as well.
He could have gotten rid of Boonen for good (looked like his obsession anyway so), sit back and let Bodnar, Stuyven and Oss do the work. Then have a 3-way battle with Sagan and GVA ftw.
 
Apr 1, 2013
426
0
0
Re: Re:

Flamin said:
Yeah, I'll keep my focus a bit more on Degenkolb now for the remainder of the race. Didn't know yesterday it was THAT bad. You could cut him some slack if it was a smart thing to do, but it's stupid as well.
He could have gotten rid of Boonen for good (looked like his obsession anyway so), sit back and let Bodnar, Stuyven and Oss do the work. Then have a 3-way battle with Sagan and GVA ftw.

I am a bit biased against Degenkolb as he is the darling of the german Eurosport pundits (Karsten something I believe) .... in any race he enters Dege seems to be the clear favorite, best and hardest working rider, only deserved winner and so on - of course races he's not on the roster he would have won easily ... other german cyclists get some favorable mentioning as well (nowhere near John D though), funny enough André Greipel being the one exception (and therefore my favorite german rider .... :) )