Lesser known races thread 2022

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May 10, 2015
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Israel saw Cofidis and Arkea's strat spamming races, but they're doing too much now. They got like 20 points out of those smaller .1 Spanish races. No fit riders and with all due respect looks like Nizzolo (and Woods if he can ride some) is the only one who's actually good at them.

Good to see Hermans back in the mix tho. Had a horrible year with Long Covid.

Also a Movistar fail, they were better in Belgium.

BEX won't relegate. Made some smart decisions.

It's kind of embarrassing to the WT that WT teams are farming 2.1 races this hard to avoid relegation

It's even more embarrassing to see some of them fail at getting a lot of points in them.

And it's obviously the systems fault not the teams. They're in throuble cause teams like Cofidis and Arkea have been doing this for 3 years straight.
 
Feb 20, 2010
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And it's obviously the systems fault not the teams. They're in throuble cause teams like Cofidis and Arkea have been doing this for 3 years straight.
Well, that and the French and Belgian calendars are full of these small one-day races which their domestic pélotons can sustain, whereas economic issues have really hurt the bottom line for Spanish and Italian cycling in the last 10-15 years, and while Spanish cycling is rebounding - race days are increasing and races which had been moribund are now improving in field and challenge - the number of points able to be farmed in these was limited until rather late in the day and now that points can be farmed from them, they're seeing an increase in the international participation because of other teams farming the points.

It's kind of funny that the system designed around protecting the WT has resulted in, thanks to the disparity created by budgetary domination of a small handful of teams, a lot of .1 races suddenly taking on more importance than the smaller WT races.

It's also an extension of the system that Éric Boyer was complaining about all the way back in 2009, where riders who had scored a couple of middling placements in bunch sprints in races like the Tour de Pologne and the Tour Down Under were ranked higher than David Moncoutié who had won the GPM and MTF stages of both the Dauphiné and the Vuelta. Only now Cofidis are the ones who learned how to play the game.
 
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Jun 20, 2015
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I am interested in how S.Yates at San Sebastian - The finish should suit, however he's been underwhelming in one day races - Anyway this Spanish bloc is a good lead in to the Vuelta.
 
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May 5, 2010
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Kreiz Breizh Elites - awesome name, btw - is live on FB. I hope this link works.


Edit, it does! And you won't even have to be logged in on FB to watch it.
 
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Sep 26, 2020
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I guess if some of the Trek riders mysteriously disappear, we'll know why. And for once, it won't be BR2!


But we don't know the location of her local Basque bookshop.

I'm not sure Ilke the 2022 Getxo route. I think the strength in 2020 and 21 was that it could be won by a climber or by a puncheur who could either stay on on Pike Bidea or make his way back afterwards, but with Alto del Vivero before Pike, it becomes a lot harder for Nizzolo and simial riders to win, although they have also added a few addtional kilometres in-between Pike and the finish.

I know I used the same final in my Euskaltel-Euskadi tribute race, but with Berriz instead of Pike, but I didn't want a sprinter to win that.
 
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Sep 2, 2011
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Wow very close sprint in the end. Ayuso with his first pro win just ahead of Andrea Piccolo. Kelderman third. Entertaining race.
 
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May 5, 2010
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Ayuso takes the win.
Over in Kreiz Breizh, AN Ag2R (U23) rider celebrated his win ahead of Lukas Eriksson, but for some reason PCS is completely ignoring the poor Ag2R guy...
Jordan Labrosse, is the name of the guy.

Also; FDJ (conti) wins both the final stage (Watson) and the GC (Pickering) in Alsace.
 
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Nov 16, 2013
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That was hilarious, he made a perfect work to make sure Buchmann couldn't be a factor. Beautifull leadout by him for the others ...

Didn't he just make sure to keep the front position on a narrow, twisty, not to mention quite steep, final few hundred metres?

Did you expect Buchmann to be able to do anything there?

I really don't think Kelderman did anything wrong, there's no such thing as a leadout in a sprint on a 7 % incline starting from less than 20 kph, lol.
 
Aug 3, 2015
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Movistar not getting Ayuso, or even Carlos Rodriguez, as the only Spanish WT team is such a shame. They could really use just a quarter of the talent of those teams.

Was a great win. Really looking forward to Burgos
 
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Jul 20, 2017
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I'm not saying he is a tactical mastermind, but it is not a bad idea to stay in front on such a finish. It looked like Ferron was closed a few times which cost him all momentum.
If he has no jump, he should have drilled the last 400m at the exact same pace, his maximum on that distance. He tried to contest the sprint so he still had a bit left in him.
 
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