Lesser Known Race Results 2017

[May0maniac]

Re:

Meanwhile the Tour of Japan is going on and Canola just won stage 2 and 3, he gets another chance in stage 4.

Kinda sad that Cunego isn't racing, he said that he would and he's still a big name in Japan.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Re: Re:

Meanwhile the Tour of Japan is going on and Canola just won stage 2 and 3, he gets another chance in stage 4.

Kinda sad that Cunego isn't racing, he said that he would and he's still a big name in Japan.

Atleast we'll be able to see him in The Tour of Belgium

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re:

Nicolai Brochner Nielsen (Riwal Cycling) won the opening stage of the Ras. He seems like an interesting prospect - he has won four UCI ranked races in four countries in four weeks.

Jan-Willem Van Schip (Delta Rotterdam) took stage 2, another guy with a few wins on the Conti circuit this year.

Matthew Teggart (An Post-CRC) took stage 3 and the first home win of the Ras. Teggart is a 21 year old just starting out at this level. He won from a reduced bunch sprint after wind made a mess of the field. Brochner Nielsen lost his yellow jersey to Dennis Bakker (Delta Rotterdam).

Bakker has 22 seconds on a group of other riders including Stephane Poulhies (Armee de Terre) in 2nd and Teggart in 3rd. He's less of an obvious prospect than the stage winners so far and this would be by far his biggest win if holds on, but he has been riding very strongly and his Delta Rotterdam squad seems good.

 

[vedrafjord]

For us Irelandics, the Rás is a bigger deal that its lowly UCI 2.2 status suggests. It's an 8 day tour of Ireland that dates back to 1953, then there were three(!) cycling associations on the island of Ireland - one each for north and south, and one that claimed to represent the entire island. The Rás was run by the non-UCI-affiliated all-Ireland association, so UCI teams weren't allowed to enter at first.

There are some serious stories from the early 'hardman' era, like the tale of Mick Murphy in 1958:

what turned Murphy into the lasting legend he became was the incredible nature of his 1958 Rás victory, which began when he took the lead on stage two, from Wexford to Kilkenny. Only Murphy’s stage didn’t end there: he then cycled around 30 miles, to “cool down”, before finishing up in a quiet field to do weight training for an hour. Then, after locating a suitably docile cow, he used the small penknife he always carried in his sock to cut a vein in its neck, letting the blood run into his water bottle, which he promptly drank.

...

Murphy would need more than just cow’s blood to get him to the finish of the 1958 Rás. On stage three, from Kilkenny to Clonakilty, his bike jammed approaching Glanmire, so he famously “borrowed” a farmer’s bike to stay in the race. The following day, on stage four into Tralee, he crashed on wet roads approaching Glangarriff, landing hard on his left shoulder. Instinctively, he got back on his bike, finishing that stage torn and bleeding, and with a broken collarbone. Obviously in agony for the next day’s stage, into Nenagh, Murphy somehow survived, fuelled by flasks of hot tea mixed with brandy. He crashed again, on stage seven, into Sligo, although by then nothing could stop him: he rode from the front on the last stage, for 100 miles, and in the end won that Rás by five minutes.

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-sports/modern-era-no-longer-permits-legends-like-mick-murphy-1.2348987

As an amateur race in a non-aligned country in the Cold War era, the Rás attracted teams from Eastern Bloc countries including Peace Race winners and was won by Polish, Czechoslovakian, and then Soviet Union (x4) riders in 63, 68, 70, 77, 85, and 89.

As pointed out by @irishpeloton, eight former Rás entrants are riding the current Giro, including former winners Bialablocki and Postlberger, Andre Greipel, and stage winner Sam Bennett. 2007 winner Tony Martin and 2010 points jersey John Degenkolb have't done badly for themselves either.

The stage wins will almost certainly go to UCI Conti teams and representative national teams, but a big part of the flavour of the Rás is the 'county' teams that are mostly now individual clubs - guys at the higher end of domestic racing but with day jobs and wives and kids who realistically will be looking to survive the time cut and make it to the end.

Finally, spare a though for Killarney CC rider Marcus Treacy who had a lousy day on Sunday:

Sitting comfortably(ish) in the bunch on today’s stage from Dublin to Longford, Treacy would suffer a double puncture after he bunny-hopped the back wheel or another rider already on the deck.

He jumped left, over a kerb and landed hard, forcing both wheels of his Canyon to blow out.

Initially there was no major panic as he had a spare bike on the team car. And it was quickly on the scene.

But more drama followed after he got two new wheels when his groupset – the uber-cool Di2 – malfunctioned and meant he couldn’t change gear.

That forced Treacy onto bike number two, his trusted winter stead; a Dolan.

Alas, that wasn’t working very well either as the derailleur literally disintegrated. It meant he couldn’t shift properly so he was forced into another bike change.

That bike belonged to his teammate Richard Maes, who spent a couple of hours in a chase group up the road.

Treacy’s misery was compounded further when his cleats weren’t compatible with the pedals on Maes’ bike.

That fact sent their team mechanic frantically searching for a pedal wrench to whip pedals off his spare and put them onto bike number three.
..

And with all the cars also up the road Treacy was alone; out the back and trying to navigate his way to Longford.

His day was to get even worse when he took a wrong turn. He rode in the wrong direction for two kilometres.

When he turned around and realised his mistake he saw the Broom Wagon go by and thought his race was over.

He was eventually put on the right road and he made it to Longford; a full 32 minutes down and the last man across the line.

http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/two-broken-bikes-one-wrong-direction-and-120-kilometres-solo/

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Coquard wins the first stage in the Tour Of Belgium, he's finally winning outside france for once. Theuns and Brandle victims from a crash in the sprint.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re:

Michael Storer (Australian National Team) wins the fourth stage of the Ras solo. Storer is 20 and is already a twice U23 Australian TT champion. He also finished 5th in the Herald Sun Tour. The kind of kid who comes with "obvious WT pro" stamped on his forehead. He had a gap of well over a minute at the finish.

Matt Teggart (An Post) took over yellow but the top 6 are equal on time.

GC
1 Matthew Teggart (Ireland An Post Chain Reaction) 12 hours 56 mins 24 secs
2 Troels Ronning Vinther (Denmark Riwal Platform Cycling)
3 Ike Groen (Netherlands Delta Cycling Rotterdam)
4 Jonas Aaen Jargensen (Denmark Riwal Platform Cycling)
5 Damien Shaw (Ireland An Post Chain Reaction)
6 James Gullen (Britain JLT Condor) all same time
7 Ziga Rucigaj (Slovenia ROG Ljubljana) at 19 secs
8 Dennis Bakker (Netherlands Delta Cycling Rotterdam) at 55 secs
9 Morgan Kneisky (France Armee de Terre) at 1 min 2 secs
10 Daire Feeley (Galway Team iTap) same time

The strongest teams in the race, An Post, Riwal and Delta Rotterdam, have won three of the four stages and include five of the six men on the leading time. The British Conti teams are all there but only JLT Condor have been really competitive with the best of the teams based on the continent. I've no idea why Tirol, the Austrian team that won the last three editions, with Lukas Postlberger and Clemens Fankhauser, didn't come this year.

If one of the Irish pair among the six leaders actually wins it will be a big deal on the local scene. An Irish rider hasn't won GC since 2008. An Post have won since and are usually involved at the sharp end, but not with an Irish rider in that period,

 

[yaco]

Storer must still be a chance to win GC if one or two of the remaining stages are hilly enough - In saying that he has limited team support.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

First stage in tour de fjords: Dries Van Gestel!
Breakaway managed to stay away.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re:

Storer must still be a chance to win GC if one or two of the remaining stages are hilly enough - In saying that he has limited team support.

It's not impossible. The Ras is generally very wildly raced, often very windy, and anyone in the top 14 (those within 1:30) still has some kind of reasonable chance. Stage 6 is the other very hilly stage, so in Storey's case that's probably his best opportunity. But today he killed the field on the Mamore Gap, which is short and brutal and much easier to create a big separation on than most of the stage 6 hills. It is hard to see him getting another gap like today, which is probably what he needs as a lot of the other decent climbers are still ahead of him on GC. Then again, he does have the TT ability to make big inroads if he gets clear so you never know.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

A lot of the riders at the Ras have been mentioning how uncontrolled and unpredictable the racing has been this year, with large groups constantly going off the front and a lot of luck involved in picking the right one. That seems to me to be likely a result of the absence of a super strong Tirol team this year - over the last three years they did a frankly amazing job of keeping some sort of order. This is what racing in windy conditions over rolling terrain with five man teams and a nearly 200 rider peloton is usually like. Particularly when half the field are domestic amateurs who may be of distinctly limited talent but who have been training all year for the race and would sell a kidney for a stage.

 

[vedrafjord]

The guys in my club are a bit concerned about the scorching 23 degree temperatures they'll have in Donegal today. Reminds me of doing a 10k in Dublin years ago - it was 22 degrees and the announcer at the start told us it was too hot so we should forget about running personal bests. We're not really built for heat in Ireland.

 

[Ricco']

Van der Poel just won the 2nd stage of the Belgium Tour, beating Gilbert and Van Aert on a reduced sprint after the race exploded on the Kemmelberg.

BAM!

 

[yaco]

Re: Re:

Storer must still be a chance to win GC if one or two of the remaining stages are hilly enough - In saying that he has limited team support.

It's not impossible. The Ras is generally very wildly raced, often very windy, and anyone in the top 14 (those within 1:30) still has some kind of reasonable chance. Stage 6 is the other very hilly stage, so in Storey's case that's probably his best opportunity. But today he killed the field on the Mamore Gap, which is short and brutal and much easier to create a big separation on than most of the stage 6 hills. It is hard to see him getting another gap like today, which is probably what he needs as a lot of the other decent climbers are still ahead of him on GC. Then again, he does have the TT ability to make big inroads if he gets clear so you never know.

Famous last words by me - Shifted a tonne of time in windy conditions for the second time this week - Mark it down to experience.

 

[El Pistolero]

Re:

Van der Poel just won the 2nd stage of the Belgium Tour, beating Gilbert and Van Aert on a reduced sprint after the race exploded on the Kemmelberg.

BAM!

Gilbert and Van Aert participated in the Golden Kilometer at 13km from the finish-line however.

Gilbert already in the lead. Tomorrow is a time trial, he has 16 seconds over Tony Martin.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Yesterday:
-Lammertink wins in Belgium, Neopro Cavagna in yellow
-Eddy won in the Tour de Fjords, he will most likely take the GC from Van Gestel (winner stage 1) since only 5 secs seperate the two now.

 

[Hugo87]

Really nice Belgium Tour for Ruben Guerreiro, hopefully he'll secured the top-10 gc classification.

But he really needs to improve his ITT, with his height (1,78m) he should be way better.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Depends on build though, you've got tall spindly climbers like José María Jiménez and Andy Schleck who were every bit as bad against the clock as you'd expect.

 

[Hugo87]

Re:

Depends on build though, you've got tall spindly climbers like José María Jiménez and Andy Schleck who were every bit as bad against the clock as you'd expect.

That's true Libertine, but last year he manage to get a 2nd place on Mont Blanc ITT just behind Adrien Costa, obviously the field of the race he's completely different compared to the level his racing now, but makes me have some hope in the future.

 

[roundabout]

Re: Re:

Depends on build though, you've got tall spindly climbers like José María Jiménez and Andy Schleck who were every bit as bad against the clock as you'd expect.

That's true Libertine, but last year he manage to get a 2nd place on Mont Blanc ITT just behind Adrien Costa, obviously the field of the race he's completely different compared to the level his racing now, but makes me have some hope in the future.

That was an uphill TT as far as I remember

 

[Squire]

Re:

Depends on build though, you've got tall spindly climbers like José María Jiménez and Andy Schleck who were every bit as bad against the clock as you'd expect.

Andy's TT is criminally underrated on this forum.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

Depends on build though, you've got tall spindly climbers like José María Jiménez and Andy Schleck who were every bit as bad against the clock as you'd expect.

That's true Libertine, but last year he manage to get a 2nd place on Mont Blanc ITT just behind Adrien Costa, obviously the field of the race he's completely different compared to the level his racing now, but makes me have some hope in the future.

A Mont Blanc TT probably also wasn't that flat..

 

[Hugo87]

Yeah just checked and it was short and hilly, so not a big indicator after all.

Probably did it even with his normal bike.

 

[roundabout]

Okay, flatter than I remember

http://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/savoie/chambery/le-parcours-du-tour-des-pays-de-savoie-2016-revele-976444.html

 

[GuyIncognito]

Guercilena compared him to Gilbert and Valverde at the start of the season, I doubt they're looking at him for time trials or stage races.

Meanwhile, some guy from Faroe finished 4th in a stage of the Tour of the Fjords a few days ago.
Never heard of him before. 1st or 2nd year pro at 27.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

Guercilena compared him to Gilbert and Valverde at the start of the season, I doubt they're looking at him for time trials or stage races.

Meanwhile, some guy from Faroe finished 4th in a stage of the Tour of the Fjords a few days ago.
Never heard of him before. 1st or 2nd year pro at 27.

Veyhe? He was 2nd yesterday too. I'd heard of him but knew nothing about him other than he was Faroese (I thought about using him on the Guess Who? game a while ago), but he has a wiki. He's won his "national" race several times but only started cycling full-time a couple of years ago as he completed his degree.