General News Thread

[May0maniac]

Re: Re:

More likely they demand 5 wildcards from the UCI because of the riders per team reduction.

Androni, Israel Cycling Academy, Bardiani or Nippo, Wilier and Vital Concept IMHO!

Vital Concept? That would be a bit of a surprise.
I've heard some rumours about Aqua Blue wanting to get a Giro wildcard, but nothing about Vital Concept.
Caja Ruraj are now also riding De Rosa bikes, but they are probably happy with a Vuelta wildcard and a few shorter Italian stage races.

I thought it was quite suspicious RCS waited which team didn't get a Tour invitation until the Giro wildcards are announced. Plus, in a sprinters field with Gripe, Viviani, Ewan, Marcezko, Nizzolo and Sbaragli to invite Bryan Coquard would certainly be a quality addition. But that's just my personal opinion!

Durning the last few years they haven't invited Direct Energy/Europcar to Milano-Sanremo, so I don't think that they actually care about Coquard.
Someone like Cipo will probably try to use all his influnce and power to get Bardiani a wildcard to promote his bikes.

 

[staubsauger]

Re: Re:

More likely they demand 5 wildcards from the UCI because of the riders per team reduction.

Androni, Israel Cycling Academy, Bardiani or Nippo, Wilier and Vital Concept IMHO!

Vital Concept? That would be a bit of a surprise.
I've heard some rumours about Aqua Blue wanting to get a Giro wildcard, but nothing about Vital Concept.
Caja Ruraj are now also riding De Rosa bikes, but they are probably happy with a Vuelta wildcard and a few shorter Italian stage races.

I thought it was quite suspicious RCS waited which team didn't get a Tour invitation until the Giro wildcards are announced. Plus, in a sprinters field with Gripe, Viviani, Ewan, Marcezko, Nizzolo and Sbaragli to invite Bryan Coquard would certainly be a quality addition. But that's just my personal opinion!

Durning the last few years they haven't invited Direct Energy/Europcar to Milano-Sanremo, so I don't think that they actually care about Coquard.
Someone like Cipo will probably try to use all his influnce and power to get Bardiani a wildcard to promote his bikes.

That's a real good point. Didn't thought about that one.

Ciccone is the future while Cunego sadly enough is the past. So I would rather take Bardiani than Nippo. Both should target the blue jersey, anyway.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Very nice Spanish calendar now, Aragon is the latest of the resurrected races with 3 stages in the middle of May. Sure, would be nice had they been a day or two more, but I'll take it! Together with Euskadi Murias and Burgos BH getting pro conti along with Caja it looks pretty bright for the future of Spanish cycling compared to just a few years ago. Aragon comes at the end of a nice little spot in the Spanish calendar with Castilla y Leon, Vuelta a Asturias, Communidad de Madrid and Vuelta a Aragon. All of those stages races will be 3 day stage races - not too bad. All these stage races will be raced from 20/4 to 13/5.

Id still prefer Mallorca to be a stage race rather than 4 classics, but it doesn't really matter. And Murcia of course, just 3 stages would be great. How many races are still missing?

 

[Squire]

Re:

How many races are still missing?

Setmana Catalana and Euskal Bizikleta off the top of my head. I also the miss the Urkiola one-day race. It had a very nice list of winners. An MTF classic, very spanish (or Basque, rather).

 

[roundabout]

Galicia as well

This is how it was 20 years ago (ctrl+f Spain)

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/results/1998/cal98.html

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

How many races are still missing?

Setmana Catalana and Euskal Bizikleta off the top of my head. I also the miss the Urkiola one-day race. It had a very nice list of winners. An MTF classic, very spanish (or Basque, rather).

Oh yeah, thats two very nice races. Setmana Catalana was pretty big once, but maybe 2 longish stage races was too much. Euskal Bizikleta was basically just Pais Vasco later in the year, wasn't it?

 

[mariposa]

The Vuelta a Murcia announced the route for the race on 10 Feb yesterday. The same finish into Murcia City off the Collado Bermejo as last year when Valverde won in spectacular style. The rest of the route is quite different to the last few years with a more undulating course before the big climb of the day.

There will also be a women's race on 22 April

http://www.vueltamurcia.es/noticias/presentada-la-38o-edicion-de-la-vuelta-ciclista-murcia-2018-gran-premio-banco-sabadell

The race route maps seem to have disappeared from the above kink at the moment

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Wildcards Parijs-Roubaix
Cofidis (Fra)
Delko Marseille (Fra)
Direct Energie (Fra)
Team Fortuneo (Fra)
Veranda's Willems-Crelan
Vital Concept (Fra)
WB Aqua Protect Veranclassic

No Wanty, I'm a bit dissapointed but WvA will be there !

 

[Max Rockatansky]

L-B-L finish line will move from Ans back to Liège in 2019. Let's hope they make a good route before the new finale.

 

[Breh]

Re:

Wildcards Parijs-Roubaix
Cofidis (Fra)
Delko Marseille (Fra)
Direct Energie (Fra)
Team Fortuneo (Fra)
Veranda's Willems-Crelan
Vital Concept (Fra)
WB Aqua Protect Veranclassic

No Wanty, I'm a bit dissapointed but WvA will be there !

I'm not too familiar with the PCT circuit but why are VWC and Veranclassic in over Wanty and Sport Vlaanderen?

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

L-B-L finish line will move from Ans back to Liège in 2019. Let's hope they make a good route before the new finale.

No uphill sprint is definitely an improvement.

It's difficult to tell the exact impact a route change will have, but it's good to see organisers in the Ardennes classics change things up after years of boring editions. Worked miracles for AGR last year (though of course it remains to be seen whether it will be like that all the time or not).

 

[Breh]

Yes. And that way, FW can just keep its finish and image.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Re: Re:

Wildcards Parijs-Roubaix
Cofidis (Fra)
Delko Marseille (Fra)
Direct Energie (Fra)
Team Fortuneo (Fra)
Veranda's Willems-Crelan
Vital Concept (Fra)
WB Aqua Protect Veranclassic

No Wanty, I'm a bit dissapointed but WvA will be there !

I'm not too familiar with the PCT circuit but why are VWC and Veranclassic in over Wanty and Sport Vlaanderen?

VWC because of the WC cyclocross Wout Van Aert (and I've heard there was some sweet-talking involved)
Veranclassic is a solid team with some good cobbled riders (Vantomme, Kirsh, Ista, Jules and Peyskens) I imagine both teams will at least manage to reach the finish with a rider, unlike Delko last year

 

[May0maniac]

The Giro del Trentino invitations:

 

[Valv.Piti]

That graphic is horrible, for a moment I thought DD was a Pro Conti team.

 

[GuyIncognito]

Re: Re:

Wildcards Parijs-Roubaix
Cofidis (Fra)
Delko Marseille (Fra)
Direct Energie (Fra)
Team Fortuneo (Fra)
Veranda's Willems-Crelan
Vital Concept (Fra)
WB Aqua Protect Veranclassic

No Wanty, I'm a bit dissapointed but WvA will be there !

I'm not too familiar with the PCT circuit but why are VWC and Veranclassic in over Wanty and Sport Vlaanderen?

VWC: Van Aert is box office in Belgium

Veranclassic: I have no idea

 

[Breh]

Re: Re:

Wildcards Parijs-Roubaix
Cofidis (Fra)
Delko Marseille (Fra)
Direct Energie (Fra)
Team Fortuneo (Fra)
Veranda's Willems-Crelan
Vital Concept (Fra)
WB Aqua Protect Veranclassic

No Wanty, I'm a bit dissapointed but WvA will be there !

I'm not too familiar with the PCT circuit but why are VWC and Veranclassic in over Wanty and Sport Vlaanderen?

VWC because of the WC cyclocross Wout Van Aert (and I've heard there was some sweet-talking involved)
Veranclassic is a solid team with some good cobbled riders (Vantomme, Kirsh, Ista, Jules and Peyskens) I imagine both teams will at least manage to reach the finish with a rider, unlike Delko last year

Nuyens made some trips to Paris for lobbying, yes.
I'm probably just annoyed they got an invite because I can't stand Nuyens and the "WvA goes road racing" hype in Flanders.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Petr Vakoc and Laurens De Plus (both Quick-Step) have been hit by a truck whilst training in South-Africa. Vakoc has broken multiple vertebrae and has to be operated.

 

[pastronef]

Re: Re:

Nuyens made some trips to Paris for lobbying, yes.
I'm probably just annoyed they got an invite because I can't stand Nuyens and the "WvA goes road racing" hype in Flanders.

same here, I can't stand WvA at all

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Looks like Darts is shunning the "podium girl thing"
http://www.bbc.com/sport/darts/42841620
How long can cycling resist?

 

[manafana]

Re:

Looks like Darts is shunning the "podium girl thing"
http://www.bbc.com/sport/darts/42841620
How long can cycling resist?

to be fair to cycling, darts oggled its podium girls and they used show them walking off till recently. For me in cycling they do have a place for sponsors, I'm happy for each race to decide how it wants to do a podium

 

[fauniera]

Roubaix parcours 2018

http://www.hautsdefrance.fr/paris-roubaix-2018-le-parcours-est-devoile

 

[Alexandre B.]

Wild-cards for the Ronde:

Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise
Wanty Group-Gobert
Veranda’s Willems-Crelan
WB Aqua Protect Veranclassic
Cofidis
Vital Concept
Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij

No Direct Energie (Chavanel) and no Wilier Triestina (Pozzato), despite their previous results at the race.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

I will never stop being irritated by the fact that Cofidis get invites to every single race they are even slightly interested in. You would think from their calendar that they were head and shoulders above every other PCT team.

 

[May0maniac]

Nooo, I wanted to see Pippo in the RVV.