Yes, caught in the last km. Visconti attack from peloton! Edit: and it's Greipel once again. bah.
The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to
In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.
Thanks!
TRDean said:What a shame...very courageous riding today by Kern and Wilmann!!
luckyboy said:****'s sake. HTC suck.
Libertine Seguros said:Dullest, most offensive team around.
Moondance said:Kern was playing major games with Wilmann, forcing him to do all all of the work late....
luckyboy said:Yeah. They're my least favourite team, I think.
Jan the Man said:I wouldn't say I disliked them. I do find that it gets a bit repetitive, however they're very good at what they do and have two of the best sprinters in the peloton amongst their squad.
In a sense what they do should be applauded i.e. they treat each race with respect and they send a team who can win stages in every single race.
Jan the Man said:I wouldn't say I disliked them. I do find that it gets a bit repetitive, however they're very good at what they do and have two of the best sprinters in the peloton amongst their squad.
In a sense what they do should be applauded i.e. they treat each race with respect and they send a team who can win stages in every single race.
Well what they do at almost every single race they enter is to have two extremely strong time-trialists (in this case grabsch and rabon) + greipel and atleast 1 leadout guy (renshaw), which is obviously a guaranteed win here.Faserr said:These guys at Columbia aren't the superstars. There are a lot of young and new riders at the Tour of Turkey Columbia squad so that's also some great team building.
These new riders need to get into this hard chasing and that's what they learn here. Someday they will do this in the Tour. So there's nothing offensive about that racing. Of course they want to win and that's what they are doing.
It's been an exciting race because people have challenged HTC's boredom train. Unfortunately HTC's boredom train keeps winning out. It could have been really interesting with ISD trying to manage the gap to Kern with their depleted resources. At the top of the big climb it was hopeless for Greipel but when you have flat terrain and lots of ITT specialists against tired GC candidates doing track stands with each other, of course it's going to come back. And once Columbia get a chase going? That's total predictability. They have the strongest sprinter in this race by a country mile, so as soon as they put the Train of Tedium on the front, either the break's staying (which inevitably doesn't happen, when was the last time you saw a break stay away when Columbia went full bore on the front to pull it back?) or Greipel's winning.Faserr said:Mh, Libertine Seguros you are not right. I think this years Tour of Turkey is a really exciting race.
Today, they didn't ride predictable. This squad isn't that unbeatable, perhaps Greipel in the sprint but not the whole Tour of Turkey Squad. Nearly no other team would have tried to chase this break. At first they tried to bring Greipel back to the lead bunch with four guys and then they were just fighting really hard and they got the reward.
At the top of the big climb it was really hopeless for Greipel and there was perhaps only a 20 % chance for them to win this stage. They fought like no other team and they got the reward. There was nothing, really nothing predictable in this stage for Columbia. Thats bull****.
They even made this stage more exciting than Paris-Roubaix
Libertine Seguros said:a team like HTC shouldn't be allowed to race at a race like this. It's like shooting fish in a barrel, it's just statistic-padding.
Mellow Velo said:The Vuelta Castilla y Leon had Theo Bos as the only real sprinter. He won both the opening stages.
What is the difference?
It's a pity that Chicchi had to scratch, as he might have offered some resistance to Greipel.
An exciting race that is tedious and predictable? Errr.........OK.
The commentators had not a clue to either the tactics or the outcome, today.