Eschborn-Frankfurt (1.UWT) 1. May 2018 - 211 km

[Laplaz]

Eschborn-Frankfurt ("der Radklassiker") is back this year with a slightly harder parcours.
Feldberg, 2x Billtalhöhe, 4x Marmolshain and 3x Ruppertshain will be on the menu.
Strange that they made it harder instead of softer, because the german sprinters (Ackermann, Bauhaus, Zabel) surely would like an easy race, but with this route 2018 a bunch sprint is far from sure.
Could be a very open race tomorrow!

Provisional startlist:

AG2R La Mondiale
.. BAGDONAS Gediminas
.. BARBIER Rudy
.. DUVAL Julien
.. GOUGEARD Alexis
.. NAESEN Oliver
.. VANDENBERGH Stijn
.. GALLOPIN Tony

Cofidis, Solutions Crédits
.. BOUHANNI Nacer
.. CLAEYS Dimitri
.. TEKLEHAIMANOT Daniel
.. SOUPE Geoffrey
.. VAN STAEYEN Michael
.. VANBILSEN Kenneth
.. SIMON Julien

Sport Vlaanderen - Baloise
.. DECLERCQ Benjamin
.. DELTOMBE Kevin
.. SPRENGERS Thomas
.. VAN GESTEL Dries
.. VAN HECKE Preben
.. VAN ROOY Kenneth
.. VERWILST Aaron

Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij
.. VAN SCHIP Jan-willem
.. ARIESEN Tim
.. MEIJERS Jeroen
.. RIESEBEEK Oscar
.. VAN GINNEKEN Sjoerd
.. VAN GOETHEM Brian
.. WEENING Pieter

Fortuneo - Samsic
.. BONNAMOUR Franck
.. DELAPLACE Anthony
.. FEILLU Brice
.. FONSECA Armindo
.. GERARD Arnaud
.. VACHON Florian
.. LUNKE Sindre Skjøstad

Bahrain Merida Pro Cycling Team
.. AGNOLI Valerio
.. ARASHIRO Yukiya
.. BOLE Grega
.. GARCIA CORTINA Ivan
.. GASPAROTTO Enrico
.. PIBERNIK Luka
.. WANG Meiyin

BORA - hansgrohe
.. ACKERMANN Pascal
.. BENNETT Sam
.. BUCHMANN Emanuel
.. MÜHLBERGER Gregor
.. KENNAUGH Peter
.. POLJANSKI Pawel
.. SARAMOTINS Aleksejs

Lotto Soudal
.. FRISON Frederik
.. HOFLAND Moreno
.. MERTZ Remy
.. SIEBERG Marcel
.. NAESEN Lawrence
.. LAMBRECHT Bjorg

Quick-Step Floors
.. JAKOBSEN Fabio
.. DE PLUS Laurens
.. DECLERCQ Tim
.. GAVIRIA Fernando
.. MARTINELLI Davide
.. RICHEZE Ariel Maximiliano
.. LAMPAERT Yves

Team Katusha - Alpecin
.. KIšERLOVSKI Robert
.. MATHIS Marco
.. POLITT Nils
.. ŠPILAK Simon
.. ZABEL Rick
.. CRAS Steff
.. SMIT Willie

Team Sunweb
.. BAUHAUS Phil
.. FRÖHLINGER Johannes
.. GESCHKE Simon
.. MATTHEWS Michael
.. WALSCHEID Max
.. HINDLEY Jai
.. THEUNS Edward

Trek - Segafredo
.. BEPPU Fumiyuki
.. FRAME Alex
.. BERNARD Julien
.. RAST Gregory
.. VAN POPPEL Boy
.. CONCI Nicola

UAE-Team Emirates
.. BYSTRØM Sven Erik
.. KRISTOFF Alexander
.. CONSONNI Simone
.. FERRARI Roberto
.. GANNA Filippo
.. TROIA Oliviero
.. RIABUSHENKO Alexandr

Aqua Blue Sport
.. BRAMMEIER Matthew
.. FENN Andrew
.. GATE Aaron
.. HANSEN Lasse Norman
.. KONING Peter
.. KREDER Michel
.. PEDERSEN Casper

Dimension Data
.. BOASSON HAGEN Edvald
.. SLAGTER Tom-Jelte
.. PAUWELS Serge
.. THOMSON Jay Robert
.. KUDUS Merhawi
.. DOUGALL Nick
.. GEBREIGZABHIER Amanuel

WB Aqua Protect Veranclassic
.. MORTIER Julien
.. JULES Justin
.. KIRSCH Alex
.. PEYSKENS Dimitri
.. SPENGLER Lukas
.. VANTOMME Maxime
.. WARNIER Antoine

Nippo - Vini Fantini - Europa Ovini
.. TIZZA Marco
.. CANOLA Marco
.. KOBAYASHI Marino
.. MARANGONI Alan
.. HATSUYAMA Sho
.. LOBATO Juan José
.. GROSU Eduard Michael

Gazprom-RusVelo
.. ARSLANOV Ildar
.. BOEV Igor
.. FIRSANOV Sergey
.. LAGUTIN Sergey
.. NYCH Artem
.. KOZONCHUK Dmitry
.. TRUSOV Nikolay

Vérandas Willems-Crelan
.. DE WITTE Mathias
.. DE BIE Sean
.. LIVYNS Arjen
.. WAEYTENS Zico
.. DE BONDT Dries
.. DUIJN Huub
.. TANNER David

Wanty - Groupe Gobert
.. BACKAERT Frederik
.. PASQUALON Andrea
.. BAUGNIES Jerome
.. EIKING Odd Christian
.. VANSPEYBROUCK Pieter
.. ANTONINI Simone
.. SMITH Dion

CCC Sprandi Polkowice
.. KUMP Marko
.. KOCH Jonas
.. TRATNIK Jan
.. PALUTA Michal
.. OWSIAN Lukasz
.. ANTUNES Amaro Manuel
.. STOSZ Patryk

 

[Valv.Piti]

Looks nice

Will Gaviria be bit enough to survive? I certainly hope so!

 

[RedheadDane]

It's not "Rund um den Finanzplatz" anymore? That was seriously the coolest name for a race, conjuring up some rather strange mental images.

 

[Gigs_98]

Interesting race in general but it has no business in the world tour. The starter field just doesn't have the quality for that

 

[Laplaz]

Re:

It's not "Rund um den Finanzplatz" anymore? That was seriously the coolest name for a race, conjuring up some rather strange mental images.

Don't know exactly, but on the official website they removed the "Rund um den Finanzplatz"

 

[rghysens]

Re:

Looks nice

Will Gaviria be bit enough to survive? I certainly hope so!

Given his results in Romandie, I doubt it.

 

[fauniera]

This would be a good race for Riabushenko, if he wouldn't have to work for Kristoff.

Route is a bit harder than in the past few years, but most teams seem to be sprinter-oriented.

 

[staubsauger]

This race might be a good indicaton whether Bennett can challenge Viviani in the Giro sprints or not. He needs to beat Jacobson and Kristoff here to be a true contender for the corsa rosa. Bouhanni, Greipel & Gaviria probably ain't ready.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Beppu to take a solo win by attacking with 35kms to go.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Like the look of this route with 2x Billtalhöhe. I always wanted to toughen it up by going Feldberg - Ruppertshain - Mammolshain - back to Oberursel-Hohemark - Feldberg - Ruppertshain - Mammolshain - Mammolshain - finish, but this works well too, especially with the fact that, with 40km remaining, it's unlikely that anybody can carry an attack off from Mammolshain to the finish on their own without getting a pretty selective group, and too large a group was hitting the last couple of ascents up that climb in recent years to prevent the sprinters being far enough back that they couldn't come back; adding in the classic old climb of Hainer Weg (past the Henninger Turm!) adds another fulcrum to escape even if in and of itself it really isn't very hard (like a kilometre at 5-6% kind of level if I remember rightly) but also might get rid of a couple of spent domestiques from chase groups.

 

[RedheadDane]

What happens if a rider, like for example Sam Bennett, who's doing this while also scheduled to do the Giro gets injured? Just, bad luck?
Okay, obviously it's pretty darn bad luck for the rider involved, but will his team be allowed to call in replacement, or will they have to start the Giro with just seven riders? Guess since it's before the Giro team presentation it should be okay.

 

[El Pistolero]

Kristoff for another worthless WT win. Or Boasson Hagen and Degenkolb. It seems all the has beens and wannabe classic "specialists" are targetting this race.

 

[Laplaz]

Would love to see Canola, Politt or Tratnik winning. But probably won't happen.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

Kristoff for another worthless WT win. Or Boasson Hagen and Degenkolb. It seems all the has beens and wannabe classic "specialists" are targetting this race.

Well, yes. It's like a last chance to get a decent sized win to close off a classics campaign, so it's like a last roll of the dice for those who've had a bad spring. It's part of the fun, cos you never know quite who has form and who doesn't.

 

[yaco]

Re:

This race might be a good indicaton whether Bennett can challenge Viviani in the Giro sprints or not. He needs to beat Jacobson and Kristoff here to be a true contender for the corsa rosa. Bouhanni, Greipel & Gaviria probably ain't ready.

I doubt Bennett will be riding this race with the Giro starting in three days - This is the type of race in which Kristoff always performs well.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Fabian Wegmann excepts the parcours to be quite selective. In that case perhaps we should be looking more at Matthews and EBH and less at Ackermann, Gaviria, Bennett and Jakobsen. Kristoff looked piss poor on the hills in the classics as well.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re: Re:

This race might be a good indicaton whether Bennett can challenge Viviani in the Giro sprints or not. He needs to beat Jacobson and Kristoff here to be a true contender for the corsa rosa. Bouhanni, Greipel & Gaviria probably ain't ready.

I doubt Bennett will be riding this race with the Giro starting in three days - This is the type of race in which Kristoff always performs well.

He's on the start list.
Though, I guess it's very unlikely he'll take any unnecessary risks, will probably ride in support of his teammates.

 

[Cinemaniak]

Are they riding for Gaviria or Jakobsen?

 

[RedheadDane]

So, it's Wegmann to blame for the name change! Apparently the previous name was too difficult for international media... nonsense!

 

[Laplaz]

Big battle for the breakaway, many teams want to be there cause they know there are not many teams who can chase consequently on such a parcours. Indeed also Bora is trying altough they have Ackermann and Bennett.

 

[Laplaz]

Aaaand now they finally let them go. Saramotins, Van Goethem, Gate, Arashiro, Gerts, Tanner and Teklehaimanot in the break.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

I'm surprised to see the TV transmission has already started. Long day for the commentators...

 

[RedheadDane]

Random shot of some guy with his bike... :lol:

 

[Lequack]

Re:

[*]

I'm surprised to see the TV transmission has already started. Long day for the commentators...

It's like with the Tour de France, they like to cover the flat stages in full even though nothing happens. Seems like a waste of air time to me.

 

[RedheadDane]

I'd actually hoped the early broadcast would mean they'd also show stuff from the various other classes, thought apparently they're gonna show the finale of the U23 race.
Nothing from the rollerblade race...