Lesser Known Road Racing for Women Thread

[Samu Cuenca]

It's hard to imagine someone not named Vollering or Reusser winning the ITT, but I'm not sure who the favourite is. This is Vollering's first longer ITT since the 2021 Women's Tour, where she crushed the competition, while Reusser have done quite a few since then. However it's the first of the season for both of them.

Longo Borghini starts 2 minutes before Vollering, and although she isn't a bad time trialist herself, it can't really be ruled out that Demi will pass her before the finish line or at least get close to it.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

It's still early days, so I don't really know how well Kiesenhofer is doing, but for now she's looking good.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Stiasny is doing quite well considering she missed the start.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Uraka? She isn't a Basque climb.

 

[glassmoon]

Anna " The Matematician" Kiesenhofer calculated her pace pretty well I guess

 

[Samu Cuenca]

That's some intermeditate time by Steels. I didn't expect her to be a good time trialist, but since we rarely see the riders do ITTs, surprises are to be expected.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Strong start by Longo Borghini, but the SD Worx duo should be faster.

Vollering is 14 seconds behind ELB, but Reusser seems to be going faster.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

That's some intermeditate time by Steels. I didn't expect her to be a good time trialist, but since we rarely see the riders do ITTs, surprises are to be expected.

I'd always trust a late starting Briton to be pretty decent against the clock, similar to people like Pooley and Hayley Simmonds. The British amateur and hobbyist scene is largely made up of open road TTs usually on out-and-back type courses, and IIRC a 15-mile is one of the most common distances. That equates to 24km or so, so would be a good fit for today's kind of distance. Therefore although she hasn't done many TTs as a pro, I'd suspect that she's at least done a decent number of them in her pre-pro days.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

We'll see if Vollering has a less than perfect day or if she's just been holding back for the climb. Longo Borghini was going twice as fast as Skalniak-Sójka, but that might not tell us much.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

We actually have a race on our hands!

 

[Peyroteo94]

This stage is similar to the men's stage today?

 

[Samu Cuenca]

This stage is similar to the men's stage today?

Yes.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Elisa does the best thing for the race and the worst thing for me in the Amy Pieters Trofee.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

It looked like ELB had done enough on the descent, but Vollering must have been flying down!

And then Reusser descended even faster!

 

[Red Rick]

It looked like ELB had done enough on the descent, but Vollering must have been flying down!

And then Reusser descended even faster!

ELB probably wasn't flying anymore between the T2 split and when the descent actually started.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Probably SD Worx either better planned out the descent or ELB went out too hard to still have the energy going into the descent, cos Elisa is usually a pretty good descender so I'd bank on her losing a bit in the leadin to it.

Edit: oh, just look at that animosity between Reusser and Vollering. What a terrible teammate and far more selfish than Lotte Kopecky that Demi Vollering must be.

 

[yaco]

I'll also add that the stage design for the TDF is unbalanced - It seems strange to make the last stage an ITT - The ITT should be the first or second stage and this should be backed up with 2 mountain stages - One mountain stage and one ITT does not fit into an eight stage race.

 

[awavey]

I'd always trust a late starting Briton to be pretty decent against the clock, similar to people like Pooley and Hayley Simmonds. The British amateur and hobbyist scene is largely made up of open road TTs usually on out-and-back type courses, and IIRC a 15-mile is one of the most common distances. That equates to 24km or so, so would be a good fit for today's kind of distance. Therefore although she hasn't done many TTs as a pro, I'd suspect that she's at least done a decent number of them in her pre-pro days.

She's not down on the startlist for TT nationals though, so I'm not sure if she considers it her forte.

but she's sporting one enormous black eye following her Pyrenees crash, I'm surprised there werent concussion protocols in effect which might have benched her for this race.

 

[Izzyeviel]

whats the story with our non-starters for today?

 

[Samu Cuenca]

whats the story with our non-starters for today?

Bauernfeind apparently needs to recover from some kind of minor injury that's been bugging her. Kiesenhofer hasn't done well in road races this year and might want some more time to recover/prepare for the Austrian NC. The ITT duel against Christina Schweinberger will be interesting.

 

[yaco]

Why have these riders attacked allowed Vas to join the group who is not doing anything - Surely you stop riding and rejoin the peleton.

 

[yaco]

And now Cofidis try to bring back the break - Madness!

 

[RedheadDane]

That high altitude training seems to have worked for Zigart.

 

[Lequack]

That high altitude training seems to have worked for Zigart.

Pog will be over the moon.

 

[yaco]

Can Zigart hold it on the descent - She is usually a poor descender but it's probably different when she is solo.