Il Lombardia 2016, Oct 1st

[Velolover2]

Big Tom has announced that he is racing.

He could be dangerous if it comes down to a sprint.

 

[Red Rick]

Dumoulegend for 80km solo _O_

 

[Jungle Cycle]

That's my pick.. Dumoulin ftw

 

[42x16ss]

Re:

A great route, but sadly teams of 8 are likely to mean that a strong team like Astana or Movistar pulls most of the time and brings a leading group of 20/25 riders to the last hill. It's a shame because with smaller teams this is a route where you'd see old fashioned racing, with a group of favourites seperating itself from the rest long before the finish.. Still I hope we will see a big move before the last climb, it'd be a welcome change..

Orica are taking Chaves, both Yates, Albasini, Verona and Howson. Stephens will be driving the team car.

One of them will try and light things up.

 

[Bardamu]

I wonder how Dumoulin will go. He already lost weight for his GC 2017 plan. This will be a decent test

If he wins, he might wait with his GC-ambitions and aim for LBL instead .

 

[jsem94]

Dan Martin FTW though. Purito is a wild card for sure, no idea how he'll do given his lack of racing the past few weeks, not sure how good his training has been.

 

[Kwibus]

Only sunday predictions are poor so by the time its sunday the raineither fell on saturday or it will fall on monday.

 

[Taxus4a]

The harder one day race ever raced.

 

[Taxus4a]

Re:

A great route, but sadly teams of 8 are likely to mean that a strong team like Astana or Movistar pulls most of the time and brings a leading group of 20/25 riders to the last hill. It's a shame because with smaller teams this is a route where you'd see old fashioned racing, with a group of favourites seperating itself from the rest long before the finish.. Still I hope we will see a big move before the last climb, it'd be a welcome change..

The route is too hard for that...Valcaba is like Lagos de Covadonga, and after that is always up and down,with hard and long climbs.. it is much harder than Olimpics, I mean, climbig spoken, Olimpics was really hard, but more for the cross wids, the cobbles, the humidity...

 

[Ricco']

Only sunday predictions are poor so by the time its sunday the raineither fell on saturday or it will fall on monday.

The race is on saturday.

 

[Velolover2]

Valverde on the startlist for Milano-Torino. Doesn't if pretty much confirm him racing Lombardia?

 

[BalearicBeats]

I think Bakelants will be good, as he's shown to have the form in the past few Italian races, and he's really determined to still win something this season.

 

[Kwibus]

Only sunday predictions are poor so by the time its sunday the raineither fell on saturday or it will fall on monday.

The race is on saturday.

50% chance then

 

[Kwibus]

Re:

I think Bakelants will be good, as he's shown to have the form in the past few Italian races, and he's really determined to still win something this season.

He certainly is doing well. Coming out the vuelta with great form, but this course is too hard for him, unless they freewheel until the final climb.

 

[gospina]

Re:

Valverde on the startlist for Milano-Torino. Doesn't if pretty much confirm him racing Lombardia?

I believe we will see Valverde and Nairo at Lombardia.

Sagan has 60 UCI points on Nairo.
Movistar has 70 UCI points on Tinkoff.
Spain has 117 UCI points on Colombia.

Ill Lombardia available points (1st to 10th): 100,80,70,60,50,40,30,20,10,4

All three leaders (individual, team, country) can lose the competition on the last race! This is great!

Contador already announced for Tinkoff. Hansen, Hernandez, Kreuziger, Paulinho, Pojanski, Tosatto and Valgren. Amazing team, so they are going for it. Movistar has Amador, Anacona, Herrada, Moreno, Oliverida, Dayer Quintana and Visconti. I believe that somehow Nairo and Valverde will be swapped in.

For Colombia, so far we have Chaves, Miguel Angel Lopez, Atapuma, Uran, Pantano, Anacona, Dayer Quintana, Bernal (although he may be out due to injury), Rodolfo Torres. Some of these guys WILL place in top 10.

Purito will also be there for Katusha so Spain will have Contador, Purito, and maybe Valverde as well as many others.

 

[Asero831]

World's TTT also offers UCI points for the team classification?

 

[veji11]

Re: Re:

A great route, but sadly teams of 8 are likely to mean that a strong team like Astana or Movistar pulls most of the time and brings a leading group of 20/25 riders to the last hill. It's a shame because with smaller teams this is a route where you'd see old fashioned racing, with a group of favourites seperating itself from the rest long before the finish.. Still I hope we will see a big move before the last climb, it'd be a welcome change..

The route is too hard for that...Valcaba is like Lagos de Covadonga, and after that is always up and down,with hard and long climbs.. it is much harder than Olimpics, I mean, climbig spoken, Olimpics was really hard, but more for the cross wids, the cobbles, the humidity...

What made the olympics hard wasn't the route by itself, it was that no team could control the race with at most 5 guys for the best teams...Here the best teams will have 8 guys, all you need is a pair of strong teams wanting to control the race (say Astana and Movistar) until the last hill, and it will be controled until then, just like any other one day race you see.

 

[Eshnar]

I would understand Movistar, but why on earth would Astana want to keep the race controlled until the last hill? Aru or Rosa have no chance on Bergamo Alta against a big peloton...

 

[gospina]

Re:

World's TTT also offers UCI points for the team classification?

I do not believe so, but I realized something. For team and for country, only top 5 points riders get counted in team or country totals. From the list already announced:
Tinkoff riders that can score points: Contador, Kreuziger
Movistar riders that can score points: Amador
Spain riders that can score points: Contador, Rodriguez
Colombia riders that can score points: Chaves, Pantano, M. Lopez.

More reasons why Movistar may add Nairo and Valverde, both are point scorers.

BMC has not announced a roster yet. Sammy Sanchez will count for Spain if he races.

Movistar top 5: Nairo, Valverde, Izagirre, Fernandez, Amador
Tinkoff Top 5: Sagan, Contador, Majka, Kreuziger, McCarthy
Spain top 5: Contador, Valverde, Izagirre, Rodriguez, S. Sanchez
Colombia top 5: Nairo, Chaves, Sergio Henao, Pantano, M. Lopez

 

[pablohidalgo7]

If the weather is good, Gesink should be a great outsider. This year he has been so bad in hard weather conditions.

 

[Taxus4a]

Re: Re:

A great route, but sadly teams of 8 are likely to mean that a strong team like Astana or Movistar pulls most of the time and brings a leading group of 20/25 riders to the last hill. It's a shame because with smaller teams this is a route where you'd see old fashioned racing, with a group of favourites seperating itself from the rest long before the finish.. Still I hope we will see a big move before the last climb, it'd be a welcome change..

The route is too hard for that...Valcaba is like Lagos de Covadonga, and after that is always up and down,with hard and long climbs.. it is much harder than Olimpics, I mean, climbig spoken, Olimpics was really hard, but more for the cross wids, the cobbles, the humidity...

What made the olympics hard wasn't the route by itself, it was that no team could control the race with at most 5 guys for the best teams...Here the best teams will have 8 guys, all you need is a pair of strong teams wanting to control the race (say Astana and Movistar) until the last hill, and it will be controled until then, just like any other one day race you see.

More or less controled is no so importat to do hard a race, it could be more selective, but is not exactly the same.
if a team work seriusly in Valcaba... there wont be no much riders left to help.. Of course some teams has several good riders or even leaders, but I see more that to tactics...

When nibali attacked in Madonna del Ghisallo it was a hard route as well, but no so hard, and he faced later about 30 Km of flat, and it was possible to gather a strong peloton to cath him before the last climb.

Look the difference with this year:

The last part has a descent, a short flat, a short climb with some cobbles annd a descent to make the end moreeinteresting than a mountain finish stage and to give some oportunities to classic riders, but the previous 90 Km has no real terrain to work and it is for pure climbers.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Re: Re:

World's TTT also offers UCI points for the team classification?

I do not believe so, but I realized something. For team and for country, only top 5 points riders get counted in team or country totals. From the list already announced:
Tinkoff riders that can score points: Contador, Kreuziger
Movistar riders that can score points: Amador
Spain riders that can score points: Contador, Rodriguez
Colombia riders that can score points: Chaves, Pantano, M. Lopez.

More reasons why Movistar may add Nairo and Valverde, both are point scorers.

BMC has not announced a roster yet. Sammy Sanchez will count for Spain if he races.

Movistar top 5: Nairo, Valverde, Izagirre, Fernandez, Amador
Tinkoff Top 5: Sagan, Contador, Majka, Kreuziger, McCarthy
Spain top 5: Contador, Valverde, Izagirre, Rodriguez, S. Sanchez
Colombia top 5: Nairo, Chaves, Sergio Henao, Pantano, M. Lopez

But others can move into the top 5 of their nation/team with points won on Saturday. For example, if Atapuma were to win (I'm not predicting it, just using the example), Colombia will benefit, but as he is currently 29 pts behind Lopez, he would only improve his nations score by 71 rather than 100 by doing so.

 

[roundabout]

Someone should tell RCS that the pave is only about 200 meters long at most. The profile makes it seem like 500 meters.

Also, I would not be surprised should Julien Bernard start for TFS. He was doing the recon of the last climb with them today. Surprisingly for me, I did not see Mollema

 

[BigMac]

Not to mention it is very weak pavé, fom memory. And riders can just avoid it like they did in 2014.

 

[roundabout]

Re:

Not to mention it is very weak pavé, fom memory. And riders can just avoid it like they did in 2014.

Yes, but having walked it just a few hours ago, the better paved part (for pedestrian use) is only 1 rider wide. I should get around to uploading a few pics tomorrow so that anyone can see how that pave looks from up close.