Biggest dissapointment of the Cobbled Classics 2013

[FignonLeGrand]

I imagine that's a result of poor tactics from BMC, not the individual riders. It would be nice if BMC would stop burning their young talent to support a guy like Hushovd who clearly is done.

For me the biggest dissapointment was tactics or lack of. Why BMC, SKY and OPQS waited behind Cancellara and didnt attack him relentlessly was a big miss for me. Watching EBH lose the wheel in RVV was far too predictable and continues the general cynical, conservative tone of cycling at the moment. Classics become less interesting year on year, route tinkering doesnt mean anything if teams dont take any proactivity.

 

[Pentacycle]

I imagine that's a result of poor tactics from BMC, not the individual riders. It would be nice if BMC would stop burning their young talent to support a guy like Hushovd who clearly is done.

Where did they burn him? Phinney's always been free to choose his own schedule, and I've rarely seen him do his domestique duties in the classics. Atm he's worse than Hushovd, who would at least have made the front peloton if he didn't have all those gearing problems in PR.

BMC did have the best tactics possible; their best guy was in front(GVA) while the lesser riders(Schar, Phinney) attacked early to put pressure on Cancellara.

 

[Nick C.]

I went with Thomas. Hushovd is past it. Pozzato is, well, Pozzato. I guess I could have gone EBH, but he seems to be a second class citizen over at Sky. There was so much hype, or maybe just in what I read, about Sky's new training method for the classics and the results were pfft and Thomas was on the list.

 

[karlboss]

The biggest disappointment was that Boonen and Ballan were out. I'm also disappointed GVA didn't win anything, i don't expect him to, but with that many top 5 results, he'll have to win something big someday, I'm hoping RVV.

 

[42x16ss]

The reason they attacked early was most likely that they didn't feel like making the final selection in any other way. Did anyone seriously believe Phinney was a possible winner at Roubaix? He finished several minutes down last year, and he had a knee injury which only cleared up a week before the race.

And BMC's best man was definitely GVA...

Phinney admitted to the press after the race that when he got into the break he went from thinking "Gee, this is a nice move!" to " Ah cr@p, I've gone too early. This is gonna suck!"

He was never going to win, but he is capable of making the final selections. A top 10 was definitely on the cards if he rode smarter. Same for Hayman. Instead they decided to mark Stuart O'Grady

 

[TeoSheva]

Pippo and Chavanel..

 

[Pentacycle]

Phinney admitted to the press after the race that when he got into the break he went from thinking "Gee, this is a nice move!" to " Ah cr@p, I've gone too early. This is gonna suck!"

He was never going to win, but he is capable of making the final selections. A top 10 was definitely on the cards if he rode smarter. Same for Hayman. Instead they decided to mark Stuart O'Grady

He was never in the break afaik, and how do you know if he's capable of making the final selection? There are dozens of riders who think they can, but Phinney just isn't that good (yet).

 

[42x16ss]

Sorry, that was a typo!!! Got Hayman and Phinney switched

The ton of work that Phinney did to bring back the early break could have been much better spent IMO. BMC didn't need to control things, they should have made RST do the work.