2019 Tour de Romandie 30 April - 5 May

[Escarabajo]

Re:

I don't see why they bother with 3km prologues, it's seems like a waste of everyone's time.

+1 This.

 

[Velolover2]

Short prologue can be funny. Remember this one?

 

[roundabout]

seems like a decent enough climb

http://cyclingcols.com/col/Torgon

It's indeed the case that the prologue did become shorter around the time Romandie was moved 1 week closer to Ardennes classics. It does probably help put those coming from Liege at less of a disadvantage

 

[search]

Re:

seems like a decent enough climb

http://cyclingcols.com/col/Torgon

they don't do the final ~3k though

 

[roundabout]

yes, and it is still a decent enough climb even without the last 3k

 

[search]

yeah, it's a nice and twisty climb. But I'd be surprised if less than 20 guys finish within a minute or so

 

[Valv.Piti]

Pretty sure thats not the side they are ascending. It should have an average of over 8% and thats not the case there.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Re:

Pretty sure thats not the side they are ascending. It should have an average of over 8% and thats not the case there.

Torgon isn't a pass and as far as i know it's the only pave road up to Torgon.

 

[search]

yeah, those 8% numbers in the roadbook are not correct.

Here is la-flamme-rouge's profile:

+2.3k at ~3% afterwards

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Nice to see Vasil Kiryienka back after his cardiac trouble.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

The stage profiles are actually rather disappointing imho. However, i advise you to check the profiles on Firstcycling as opposed to Procyclingstats, they look a lot more spectacular on Firstcycling

Procyclingstats:

Firstcycling:

 

[Velolover2]

I agree, Logic.

Look like your typical, boring MTF finish stage with a huge valley between the penultimate and last mountain. The tough climb (Jaunpass) is too far away from the finish line to be important.

If you ended it on the top of an easy climb like Saanenmöser with Jaunpass being closer to the finish line, it would have been a very well designed stage.

 

[roundabout]

Profile number 2 is from the race website. And it's not a huge valley - maybe about 7 km at most.

 

[Robert5091]

The return of Kiryienka

Yep, and Little Kenny E - still warm from Tour of the Alps in a special kit - which looks rather plain and odd -

and the "Spleen Brothers" G & Swifty!

(Edit - the Sky/Ineos kit looks odd, I've realized, is because it's Ineos on the front and Sky on the back.)

 

[Pantani_lives]

Possible GC guys seem to be Thomas, Kruijswijk, Spilak, Amador, Frank. It might be interesting to see Tony Martin vs. Campenaerts in a time trial.

 

[The Barb]

Ganna for the Prologue.

Buchmann for the GC.

 

[tobydawq]

I think Sam Bennett will win the prologue.

 

[movingtarget]

Roglic for the overall.

 

[The Barb]

Re:

Roglic for the overall.

One would think so but the team has said they are riding for Kruijswijk. Roglic apparently is just there to support and get preparation for the Giro.

It's especially interesting since Roglic is such a dominating favourite.

 

[johnymax]

Re: Re:

Roglic for the overall.

One would think so but the team has said they are riding for Kruijswijk. Roglic apparently is just there to support and get preparation for the Giro.

It's especially interesting since Roglic is such a dominating favourite.

In this field (depends on G's form, I don't think it's there) and on this parcours Roglič should be an overwhelming favourite normally. But with Jumbo making Kruijswijk team leader things change. Rogla is looking ahead to the bigger goal, the Giro. This is a big opportunity for Steven to get a big win and finally take a WT stage race. But I still think there's a big chance Roglic accidentally wins this with the prologue and ITT. He needs to go full gas in those to test himself ahead of the Giro.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Temperatures will drop drastically on Friday and Saturday. It will rain heavily and might even snow. This race has written Spilak all over it.

 

[Robert5091]

Temperatures will drop drastically on Friday and Saturday. It will rain heavily and might even snow. This race has written Spilak all over it.

Sounds like the Tour of Turkey all over again. There was snow over the weekend at stage 1's finish.

The prologue's first man off 15.06 CET today, TV from 16.00 CET. Campenaerts goes early but G & Kruijswijk the last two at 17.24 & 17.25 CET.

 

[johnymax]

Temperatures will drop drastically on Friday and Saturday. It will rain heavily and might even snow. This race has written Spilak all over it.

Spilak's been very bad lately. He can't even finish races nowadays. I hope you are right, I'd love to see him competitive again. But already a top10 would be a positive surprise and a step in the right direction.

 

[Frankschleck]

Zakarin to crush them all before he wins the Giro. You heard it here first.

 

[virenque216]

You can almost guarantee that Saturday mountain stage gets shortened or cancelled with blizzard conditions above 1000m, you can see the 0C isotherm below 1000m and plenty of precipitation. Winter will return to Alps from Saturday morning