Eneco Tour (WT) August 6 - 12

[LaFlorecita]

The part of the Muur where Cancellara cracked big time last year.

No they don't finish on the muur.

Gooner no one knows if there are any profiles and where we could find them.

 

[Flamin]

No they don't finish on the muur.

Gooner no one knows if there are any profiles and where we could find them.

http://www.enecotour.com

Only profiles from stage 2,3 and 7 though.

 

[LaFlorecita]

http://www.enecotour.com

Only profiles from stage 2,3 and 7 though.

Hey thanks!

See Pisti they don't finish on the muur.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

This has to be the worst cycling race ever to have happened in Limburg

http://sport.be.msn.com/enecotour/2012/downloads/parcours/profile03.pdf

It's just insane how bad this stage is.

If it was just a random stage in a random race with random hills. Okay. But this is a hilly stage, using famous Limburg climbs, in a stage race desparate for any sort of selective stage and this what they come up with?!

I mean seriously, were trying to make a useless crap stage when they needed a good hilly stage?

 

[El Pistolero]

Hey thanks!

See Pisti they don't finish on the muur.

You have the Vesten of the Muur, the Muur and the Muur-Kapelmuur. I never said they finished on the Muur.

http://eneco.be/nl/eneco-tour-omarmt-de-muur-van-geraardsbergen

Of course it's possible the route has changed again since then, I haven't been closely following the news of this race(who has).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKjBnjLtXhE

You can see the Vesten here.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Oh I thought Vesten was a part of the muur lol

 

[El Pistolero]

Slightly uphill cobblestone finish basically.

 

[Cult Classics]

The first two times up they are doing the whole thing from bottom to top, as they did in the Tour of Flanders. The Vesten is the first part of the climb - steep still, just not quite as steep as the Muur proper, and with nicer cobbles. You can see here the end of the Vesten from Flanders 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdIvk1RecSk - the proper Muur starts as they swing to the right and the motorbike has to leave them. The third time up they are approaching the Muur proper from another direction (not cobbled - they'll join the climb from the bit where the motorbikes exit on that video link), before diving back down into Geraardsbergen and then climbing on the cobbles from the bottom of town again, only this time finishing on the Vesten.

Anyway, it is an uphill finish - it's just not finishing at the very top of the hill.

 

[Lexman]

Top 3 GC
1. Tom Boonen
2. Michal Kwiatkowski
3. Taylor Phinney

 

[LaFlorecita]

Taylor is gonna win this mark my words. Alberto for 111th place.

 

[Pentacycle]

Taylor is gonna win this mark my words. Alberto for 111th place.

Has he shown he can handle the Muur? The finish there suits him, but can he follow the attacks from the real classics guys? It could be the same as what happened to Edvald 2 years ago, when everyone sat on his wheel, while two relative outsider built up a 1 min lead on similar terrain.

Imo Boonen and Terpstra(or any other OPQS guy ofc) will attack on the last ascent of the Muur together. Boonen wins the stage, the other the overall after the ITT.
Alberto will try to do something in that stage, he'll be close, don't worry about that.
I've already 'predicted' a Contador win on the queen stage, but at the time I thought it would finish on the Kapelmuur.

 

[jmspinto]

.

A race that normally wouldn´t be of any interest, but this year it´s outstanding:

The return!!!

Lord of the wheels, king of the road!

ALBERTO CONTADOR VELASCO

 

[dlwssonic]

Taylor is gonna win this mark my words. Alberto for 111th place.

haha I like your confidence in taylor.
He can win it if he does not lose too much time in the harder stages.
Seems to be on form and there is the TT and he has a strong team for the TTT.

 

[Miburo]

Nah taylor phinney won't be good enough in the queen stage, that will be way too much for him. Without the last stage he would have a good chance but now nah especially since OPQS will make sure the last stage will be a very hard one.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Taylor will have 5 km to get back. It won't lose him the race.

 

[El Pistolero]

It's hard to come back if they race really hard.

 

[LaFlorecita]

It's hard to come back if they race really hard.

Pff, Taylor on his own races harder than the entire OPQS squad.

 

[skidmark]

golly, we've officially entered the 'throw some guys in this race to get UCI points' part of the season...

 

[Ferminal]

This has to be the worst cycling race ever to have happened in Limburg

http://sport.be.msn.com/enecotour/2012/downloads/parcours/profile03.pdf

It's just insane how bad this stage is.

If it was just a random stage in a random race with random hills. Okay. But this is a hilly stage, using famous Limburg climbs, in a stage race desparate for any sort of selective stage and this what they come up with?!

I mean seriously, were trying to make a useless crap stage when they needed a good hilly stage?

Yeh that stage is disgraceful.

I guess they figured that as they were doing a hard Flanders stage this time around, they would make the Limburg stage completely worthless. Think overall the route is probably worse off.

Geraadsbergen should be quite selective though.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Daniel Oss, Maciej Bodnar, Federico Canuti, Mauro Da Dalto, Tiziano Dall’Antonia, Alan Marangoni,Fabio Sabatini, Dominik Nerz - gas men.

 

[Forunculo]

Tony Martin out, could be Boonen desire?

 

[Pricey_sky]

Boonen or Phinney to win this.

More miles in the legs of Bertie to get ready for his Vuelta charge.

 

[snackattack]

Degenkolb in & de Kort out @argos

 

[42x16ss]

Boonen or Phinney to win this.

More miles in the legs of Bertie to get ready for his Vuelta charge.

Luke Durbridge to hopefully do well here too, the parcours suits him.

 

[Kwibus]

Terpstra could win this as well.
His TT's are very good this year and if he's able to take enough time on Phinney in the Geraardsbergen stagen he might be able to hold it.
Boonen ofcourse also a favourite. Actually this Eneco Tour should be won by a rider from QSOP.

Except we forget the return of the king. Contador will win this ofcourse. Dances away on the Muur and wins the TT.