Dwars Door Vlaanderen

[shalgo]

Re:

I got the impression that at least Theunisse noticed Lampaert was going to attack, but knew he couldn't cope with his move anymore while in fact Boasson-Hagen and Vanmarcke fell asleep in a precious moment!

It also looked like Vanmarcke was going to respond for a moment, but got blocked as Teunissen moved across the road in front of him.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

How do you 'hide' on a climb? Not much benefit to drafting on the climbs of Liege.

Haven't been following the LBLs of the last years?
The winner doesn't make his move or show his face until one km to go. Same has been true for Flèche W for all eternity. When has that been so in Flanders, Roubaix?

But what has hiding got to do with anything? You have to work just as hard on most of the Liege climbs whether you are in a group or not. You are using 'hiding' as a pejorative term, but not being visible on 10% climbs doesn't mean that the riders are not working really hard to stay at the front of the race. And using energy to execute the tactics to battle for position before each climb and each descent.

Less entertaining does not mean that there is less strategy, or that you don't need to ride intelligently to win.

 

[DNP-Old]

Nairo 60th at 6:47.

 

[jfazendeiro]

Ranking contenders to win Tour de Flanders:
*****Philippe Gilbert, Tiesj Benoot
**** Sep Vanmarcke, Van Avermaet, Niki Terpstra
*** Zdenek Stybar, Peter Sagan
**Oliver Naesen, Yves Lampaert, J. Stuyven, G. Moscon,
*Wout Van Aert, M. Trentin, A. Kristoff

They are based only on the performances in this cobbles classics. Were excluded both those who didn't participate in any (M. Kwiatkowski, V. Nibali) and which have an undoubted status of helper in the team.

What is your opinion?

 

[Gigs_98]

Will be interesting to see what Quickstep will do on Sunday. A scenario like last year doesn't seem that unlikely since Quickstep might not have the strongest rider so they won't wait for the last Kwaremont ascent so they will probably try to open the race early again. Their team strength is just so ridiculous.

 

[Pantani_lives]

Re:

Ranking contenders to win Tour de Flanders:
*****Philippe Gilbert, Tiesj Benoot
**** Sep Vanmarcke, Van Avermaet, Niki Terpstra
*** Zdenek Stybar, Peter Sagan
**Oliver Naesen, Yves Lampaert, J. Stuyven, G. Moscon,
*Wout Van Aert, M. Trentin, A. Kristoff

They are based only on the performances in this cobbles classics. Were excluded both those who didn't participate in any (M. Kwiatkowski, V. Nibali) and which have an undoubted status of helper in the team.

What is your opinion?

Those first seven are spot on, but impossible to put in an order. I would add Kwiatkowski to make it eight favorites (or nine with Lampaert). It's pretty much four Quick Step riders against four or five individuals.

 

[Netserk]

For winning chances, I'd rank the seven as:

*** Greg, Phil, Sagan
** Terpstra, Stybar
* Benoot, Vanmarcke

 

[EroicaStradeBianche]

Great race, I think that more than one saved the legs for sunday. What to say....Vanmarcke and Boasson would lose even against their shadows...

 

[SKSemtex]

Re:

Ranking contenders to win Tour de Flanders:
*****Philippe Gilbert, Tiesj Benoot
**** Sep Vanmarcke, Van Avermaet, Niki Terpstra
*** Zdenek Stybar, Peter Sagan
**Oliver Naesen, Yves Lampaert, J. Stuyven, G. Moscon,
*Wout Van Aert, M. Trentin, A. Kristoff

They are based only on the performances in this cobbles classics. Were excluded both those who didn't participate in any (M. Kwiatkowski, V. Nibali) and which have an undoubted status of helper in the team.

What is your opinion?

Sagan will win. Not being the biggest favorite means that other favorites will not rely only on him to chase all attacks of QS.

He will be pretty invisible whole race, letting his team do the job.
On last Kwaremont Paterberg combo he will show them that he is still alive.

The only question is if he wins solo od in the reduced sprint.

 

[Forever The Best]

Re:

Great race, I think that more than one saved the legs for sunday. What to say....Vanmarcke and Boasson would lose even against their shadows...

:lol:

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Lamapert went at the perfect moment.

Teunissen closed a lot of gaps and attacked himself a few times, but maybe too many times. Still a strong sprint for 2nd though. Hopefully they are done sacrificing Teunissen for Kragh, Matthews and E.Theuns all the time and he can finally ride for himself

 

[Velolover2]

Favorite is still Greg followed by Gilbert and Sagan.

Benoot is the best of the rest. I'd rank him the 4th favorite.

 

[shalgo]

Re:

Great race, I think that more than one saved the legs for sunday. What to say....Vanmarcke and Boasson would lose even against their shadows...

There is still time for that to change. There used to be a similar running joke on this board about GVA, and they are both younger than him.

 

[search]

Re:

Lamapert went at the perfect moment.

Teunissen closed a lot of gaps and attacked himself a few times, but maybe too many times. Still a strong sprint for 2nd though. Hopefully they are done sacrificing Teunissen for Kragh, Matthews and E.Theuns all the time and he can finally ride for himself

it really is a bit of a joke that they call Kragh their "leader" for this type of races. He doesn't have a single good result on the cobbles, does he?

 

[myrideissteelerthanyours]

People are massively overrating Gilbert because he was allowed to ride off the front in some big races last year.

 

[Bardamu]

His performances in Flanders and AGR last year were among the best of the year. It deserves to be rated highly.

 

[Kazistuta]

Re:

Great race, I think that more than one saved the legs for sunday. What to say....Vanmarcke and Boasson would lose even against their shadows...

Especially when the sun is on their back...

 

[DFA123]

Re:

People are massively overrating Gilbert because he was allowed to ride off the front in some big races last year.

How should he be rated then as the reigning champion and number one rider for by far the strongest team in the race?

 

[Kwibus]

Re: Re:

How do you 'hide' on a climb? Not much benefit to drafting on the climbs of Liege.

Haven't been following the LBLs of the last years?
The winner doesn't make his move or show his face until one km to go. Same has been true for Flèche W for all eternity. When has that been so in Flanders, Roubaix?

But what has hiding got to do with anything? You have to work just as hard on most of the Liege climbs whether you are in a group or not. You are using 'hiding' as a pejorative term, but not being visible on 10% climbs doesn't mean that the riders are not working really hard to stay at the front of the race. And using energy to execute the tactics to battle for position before each climb and each descent.

Less entertaining does not mean that there is less strategy, or that you don't need to ride intelligently to win.

They cant hide on the climbs indeed, but they ride the climbs tempo until the last one anyways.
Always domestiques working until the final climb, after still 20 riders survive as they were getting an easy ride to the final anyway.
Liege has been horrible lately.

 

[LiquidCrystalDynamic]

Re:

People are massively overrating Gilbert because he was allowed to ride off the front in some big races last year.

People are rating him highly because, much like last season, Gilbert has seemed as dominant as a rider can be without actually winning. This is strange to say but so far he has been shaping races, taking control and working for teammates. Other than Driedaagse De Panne-Koksijde, his buildup has been very similar to last year. So it is safe to assume he is will do well in De Ronde.

 

[Orbit501]

Re: Re:

Trentin isn't in this race today. That was Durbridge.

Ah. My commentators ****** it up. :lol:

Not your fault, Kirby does it to us all the time.

Except Kirby correctly called the rider as Durbridge - Poor form.

Not at first he didn't. It was probably Brian Smith, that put him straight. If Kirby had read the startlist he would have known that Trentin wasn't riding.

Kirby also thought it was a Wanty rider in the ditch with Valgren, when it was clearly a WB Aqua Protect Veranclassic rider.

I realise Kirby is marmite, and I'm not a fan, but even his fans must know he calls the wrong rider more than most other commentators.

 

[Anderis]

Vanmarcke said that he didn't have good legs today. I hope he does at the Tour of Flanders.

 

[tomorrow]

Will be interesting to see what Quickstep will do on Sunday. A scenario like last year doesn't seem that unlikely since Quickstep might not have the strongest rider so they won't wait for the last Kwaremont ascent so they will probably try to open the race early again. Their team strength is just so ridiculous.

Yup, Bora and BMC can't allow attack on Kapelmuur. This is probably the last place where more than 3 quicksteppers can break fom the peloton. In the further section, the pace needed to drop Vanmarcke, GVA, SAGAN, BENOOT and their helpers would also drop Lampaert and other lesser Quickstep riders. And even though Sagan and GVA are not in top shape, they should be able to handle Gilbert, Stybar and Terpstra and keep them on a leash. Last year the main reason why Gilbert won was, that the attack started so early and he had support from many team mates. Something similar this year in E3 with terpstra. Had there been only 3 quicksteppers on top of Taaienberg, then Terpstra would have to go with Stybar or Gilbert, and besides the expected lack of cooperation from terpstras side, only one guy couldn't cover attacks of Sagan, Benoot and GVA.

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

How do you 'hide' on a climb? Not much benefit to drafting on the climbs of Liege.

Haven't been following the LBLs of the last years?
The winner doesn't make his move or show his face until one km to go. Same has been true for Flèche W for all eternity. When has that been so in Flanders, Roubaix?

But what has hiding got to do with anything? You have to work just as hard on most of the Liege climbs whether you are in a group or not. You are using 'hiding' as a pejorative term, but not being visible on 10% climbs doesn't mean that the riders are not working really hard to stay at the front of the race. And using energy to execute the tactics to battle for position before each climb and each descent.

Less entertaining does not mean that there is less strategy, or that you don't need to ride intelligently to win.

C'mon, you can't tell fleche is hard when 60 riders hit the mur de huy or 40 riders sprint to win liege

 

[rghysens]

Re:

Vanmarcke said that he didn't have good legs today. I hope he does at the Ronde van Vlaanderen.

He probably had some sore legs from sunday. He trained another 80km behind a motorcycle after G-W.