2015 Bayern-Rundfahrt May 13-17 2015 (2.HC)

[TMP402]

Never made one of these threads before so apologies for the lack of route analysis etc, however I thought it deserved a thread because it's a nice little race with a reasonably long (26.1km) ITT for a non-WT five day race.

Stage 1 just ended with Sam Bennett winning ahead of Nacer Bouhanni and John Degenkolb.

Other names in attendance: Machado, Navardauskas, Moser, Dowsett, Gasparotto.

Sadly there seems to be no TV coverage...

Edit: Teams -

UCI WorldTeams

IAM Cycling
Movistar Team
Cannondale-Garmin
Team Katusha
Giant-Alpecin

UCI Professional Continental teams

MTN-Qhubeka
Cofidis
Southeast Pro Cycling
Colombia
Bora-Argon 18
Wanty-Groupe Gobert
Team Roompot
Cult Energy Pro Cycling

Continental teams

Bike Aid
LKT Team Brandenburg
Rad-Net Rose
Team Stölting
Team Stuttgart
Team Heizomat

 

[Miburo]

Gasparotto should have been in this giro

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Stage 1:

We are in this area:

Official website:

http://www.bayern-rundfahrt.com/

Ticker for subsequent stages: http://www.bayern-rundfahrt.com/liveticker/liveticker.php?wahl=1&all=true

Barta for the GC win.

 

[Ruudz0r]

Last years parcour was so much better then this

 

[happytramp]

wow, nice result for Bennett. Some big names there.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

There is no race on earth that consistently does a worse job of utilizing the terrain at its disposal than the Bayern Rundfahrt. I thought last year's was a step in the right direction, but now we're back to the usual crap. Win the TT, win the race.

You could have a great hilly stage in the north of the Land, a nice intermediate stage in the Bayrischer Wald, a 25-30km ITT, a sprinters' stage and then maybe a shortish MTF like the one at Reit im Winkl last year, or Spitzingsee, Grasgehren for example.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Good win for Bennett in his first race back. It's five weeks since the Scheldeprijs crash. He went very long on an uphill finish, which is a tough way to beat the likes of Degenkolb. Bennett won a stage in this race last year, but beating Bouhanni and Degenkolb is obviously a different sort of task to beating Hutarovich and Raymond Kreder.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Stage 2:

Geo:

Result:
1 John Degenkolb (GER) Team Giant - Alpecin 4:25:06
2 Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) Cofidis Solutions Crédits 0:00:00
3 Enrique Sanz (Esp) Movistar Team 0:00:00
4 Sam Bennett (Irl) Bora - Argon 18 0:00:00
5 Ramunas Navardauskas (Ltu) Team Cannondale - Garmin 0:00:00
6 Willi Willwohl (GER) LKT Team Brandenburg 0:00:00
7 Jonas Van Genechten (Bel) IAM Cycling 0:00:00
8 Enrico Gasparotto (Ita) Wanty - Groupe Gobert 0:00:00
9 Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg (RSA) MTN - Qhubeka 0:00:00
10 Dylan Groenewegen (Ned) Team Roompot - Oranje Peloton 0:00:00

Ideal stage for John who delivered.

GC:
1 John Degenkolb (GER) Team Giant - Alpecin 9:55:31
2 Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) Cofidis Solutions Crédits 0:00:02
3 Sam Bennett (Irl) Bora - Argon 18 0:00:04
4 Jonas Koch (GER) Rad-Net Rose Team 0:00:06
5 Eduard Vorganov (Rus) Team Katusha 0:00:07
6 Enrique Sanz (Esp) Movistar Team 0:00:10
7 Marinus Cornelis Minnaard (Ned) Wanty - Groupe Gobert 0:00:10
8 Jasha Sütterlin (GER) Movistar Team 0:00:11
9 Johannes Weber (GER) Team Stuttgart 0:00:12
10 Rodolfo Andres Torres Agudelo (Col) Colombia 0:00:12

 

[Bushman]

Bennett with another win. This kid is brilliant.

 

[Flamin]

Bouhanni is embarrassingly bad this year. Awful move to Cofidis, but at least he has a nice paycheck.

 

[ILovecycling]

Re:

Bouhanni is embarrassingly bad this year. Awful move to Cofidis, but at least he has a nice paycheck.

I wonder why , could be a bad training programme?...

 

[Flamin]

Re: Re:

Bouhanni is embarrassingly bad this year. Awful move to Cofidis, but at least he has a nice paycheck.

I wonder why , could be a bad training programme?...

Possibly. Although Cofidis has a sh*t record of making young riders better, Bouhanni has become considerably worse in a few months, so that's pretty weird. Maybe a lack of motivation, I dunno.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

That's three second places in succession for Bouhanni, who seems to be doing a Sagan impression at this race. He won three small French races recently, which I hoped would be the start of a run of form. But the competition at those races was very weak and now that he's back up against other actually fast sprinters he keeps getting edged out. Still though, it's not like he's been far off a win here. The stage one loss was by the width of a tire.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Bennett back in yellow. Bora must be delighted - it's the team's home race and the sponsor's home race. Their team lineup here could well provide 6 of the 9 riders in their Tour selection, depending on how they plan to divide their riders between supporting Bennett, supporting Nerz and going in the breaks.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

I see what Libertine Seguros was saying about the parcours: this was the, ahem, "Queen stage" and there was a group of nearly 80 at the end. It was another uphill finish. Everyone behind Degenkolb lost a few seconds on the top seven.

Video of the finale, made somewhat mysterious by a random spectator wandering in front of the camera at a crucial moment: http://www.br.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/sport-in-der-abendschau/bayern-rundfahrt-degenkolb-102.html#&time=

 

[Dazed and Confused]

well, at least we have this on stage 4:

That should give us a winner capable of riding alone in the wind at speed over a good distance.

Anyway congrats to Bennett, his performance here couldn't be a better TdF calling card.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re:

well, at least we have this on stage 4:
That should give us a winner capable of riding alone in the wind at speed over a good distance.

Anyway congrats to Bennett, his performance here couldn't be a better TdF calling card.

I assume that there's no chance of anyone who took a lot of bonus seconds in the sprints (Bennett, Degenkolb, Bouhanni) staying even remotely close to the time trial specialists over that kind of distance. A shorter TT would actually be more intriguing, something beyond prologue length but not necessarily entirely beyond the hopes of a sprinter with a 20 second headstart. Can Degenkolb TT at all? I doubt if Bennett has ever even dreamed of riding a TT full gas rather than tootling around waiting for the next road stage, so I expect he'll get murdered.

Bennett is already confirmed for the Tour team, but it'll be interesting to see what support they bring for him. Shane Archbold and Zak Dempster (leadout pairing) surely have to go. Dempster was in the team last year, but I doubt if many people would have put money on the flying mullet riding this year's Tour this time last year.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Nothing wrong with the ITT, instead its one or two of the other stages which needs tweaking (or major repair work if you prefer).

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re:

Nothing wrong with the ITT, instead its one or two of the other stages which needs tweaking (or major repair work if you prefer).

Agreed, but with the "hilly" stages so non-selective, there's a kind of odd disjunction between the TT and the rest of the race. The TT is the GC, the other stages have nothing to do with it. If the TT was shorter, all stages would be at least theoretically relevant. You are right though that the answer is to use the terrain to put chances to gain or lose time into other stages.

 

[TMP402]

I think Degenkolb is better than people think at ITT but in a long - and technical - one like this I don't give him any chance of hanging on. Barta vs Dowsett vs Machado vs Navardauskas vs Larsson for the win and GC, surely.

Edit: especially as all of the above names are only 20-22 seconds behind Bennett.

http://www.bayern-rundfahrt.com/index.php/resultate/3-etappe

 

[ciranda]

Quaade hopefully

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re:

Quaade hopefully

Is he not better on the pan flat TTs?

 

[Bushman]

Re: Re:

Quaade hopefully

Is he not better on the pan flat TTs?

Definately. The flatter and more straightforward the better for him.

 

[ciranda]

No the course should be fine for him, maybe too short though.

He almost won a stage race in Italy last year and is pretty good uphill.

 

[thequestionmark]

Why is a technical time trial a disadvantage for Degenkolb?