Lesser Known Road Racing for Women Thread

[Mina.S]

Zigart has improved her descending and is better than Gigante at this skill.

I agree with this. She has openly said she paid someone to help her over the past year and at Suisse it was evident that she was better than Gigante.

 

[yaco]

I agree with this. She has openly said she paid someone to help her over the past year and at Suisse it was evident that she was better than Gigante.

At Suisse on the final descent stage, Zigart dropped one group and Gigante dropped three groups.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

When the gap is only 8 seconds, Chabbey doesn't have to drop Žigart by much to win this. Winning the stage could be enough in itself. It could become as close as the first edition of the modern Tour de Suisse, but it is also possible that the gap will remain the same. Chabbey has stepped up over the last months and is pretty much the only FDJ rider you can claim has progressed this season.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

When the gap is only 8 seconds, Chabbey doesn't have to drop Žigart by much to win this. Winning the stage could be enough in itself. It could become as close as the first edition of the modern Tour de Suisse, but it is also possible that the gap will remain the same. Chabbey has stepped up over the last months and is pretty much the only FDJ rider you can claim has progressed this season.

Wollaston?

I'd also argue Rayer has progressed this season over last season, but is still behind where she was 2 years ago.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Marty just said that the outcome Chabbey would want is coming to the line with the likes of Žigart... er... Marty, she needs to gain time on her. Yes, she can win if she takes the stage and Žigart is outside the top 3, but she wants to gain time.

And she's doing it. Not a big gap but it's enough if it holds. Blasi got to buy the stage win in exchange for collaboration, because Blasi is threatening Kastelijn's podium making it 2 on 2, whereas if Blasi wasn't a threat to the podium then it would be all down to Žigart.

Blanka descending like her life depends on it and has caught and gone through the Žigart group, and Urška has run wide and probably now really struggles to defend the GC because she's lost all momentum and is now nearly 30" back on Chabbey and on her own. Blasi struggling to stay with Chabbey but gets back on as it flattens out.

Vas about to make contact, whereas the rest of the group - now somewhat swollen - is holding up for Urška it seems. Vas will now be an anchor for the other two, however, as she does not have GC aims and has the best sprint of the three.

Gap coming down, Benito has turned herself inside out, but they are just hanging there. Going to be touch and go here. Žigart typically holding the gap but not gaining. However into the last kilometre it could get dicey, Chabbey will likely be made to lead out and should just put her head down and do it. Labous trying to disrupt, with a bit of help from Bredewold.

Chabbey keeps flicking her elbows but she just has to TT to the line now and ignore the other two. She'll have it if she does... and entirely as expected, Blanka pops out to take the stage win, Chabbey picks up the 4" on the line, and has enough to take the GC with the group coming in at 11 seconds anyway, losing a few seconds in the last kilometre as expected thanks to others stopping to help. Urška looks pretty gutted, it's possibly that mistake on the descent that cost her because obviously it brought the gap up to 25" or so, but at the same time they probably don't get the help that they got from elsewhere if they were still only hanging 10-15" off the front and it might have incentivized more counter-attacks too.

 

[yaco]

Blasi must be disappointed. Thought on the descent that she had a certain stage victory until Vas went like a rocket on the descent.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Nooo, Urska

Pog will revenge this next year in Romadie hopefully

 

[Lequack]

Tomorrow she'll lose the GC. She has the same problem as Gigante, she doesn´t ride well in the peloton and struggles on descents.

 

[yaco]

Except, she lost it on the final climb.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Wollaston?

I'd also argue Rayer has progressed this season over last season, but is still behind where she was 2 years ago.

Wollaston has had a fine season, but since I've had high expectations on her behalf since the 2022 I'm not surprised.

Rayer hasn't been injured this year so that has helped her massively, but people like me and you, who watched the 2022 Alpes Gresivaudan Classic, certainly didn't expect her to just be doing donkey work and even be part of lead outs at this point in her career.

Still she has plenty of time ahead of her and the most important is of course that she is in a good place, both mentally and physically, which hasn't always been the case over the last three years.

 

[RedheadDane]

Pretty close in the prologue in West Bohemia. How close?
This close:

Rnk	Rider	Team	UCI	Pnt		Time	Avg
1	Cuylits Mauro	Lotto Development Team	5	5		6.50,95	32.413
2	Schwarzbacher Matthias	UAE Team Emirates Gen Z	1	2		0.01,67	32.282
3	Golliker Joshua	EF Education - Aevolo				0.01,94	32.260
3	Remijn Senna	Alpecin-Deceuninck Development Team				0.01,94	32.260

(And it was a super long one too. A whole 3.7 Ks!)

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Wiebes takes her 1 millionth victory ahead of this year's Lotto Cup winner Susanne Andersen and Shari Bossuyt, who gets her first podium since her comeback. The irony of the GP Lucien Van Impe now being a flat race for female sprinters isn't lost on me. They obviously have to move it to a different country to put the cherry on top.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Wiebes takes her 1 millionth victory ahead of this year's Lotto Cup winner Susanne Andersen and Shari Bossuyt, who gets her first podium since her comeback. The irony of the GP Lucien Van Impe now being a flat race for female sprinters isn't lost on me. They obviously have to move it to a different country to put the cherry on top.

I look forward to them resurrecting the multi-climb Monte Serra stages with MTFs from the 90s Giro Donne editions for Luperini... and calling it the GP Mario Cipollini.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I look forward to them resurrecting the multi-climb Monte Serra stages with MTFs from the 90s Giro Donne editions for Luperini... and calling it the GP Mario Cipollini.

Or the Sarah Gigante Ocean Road Race being a downhill ITT from the top of Col de Joux Plane.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

The third edition of the women's Tour de l'Avenir starts this afternoon. This year it will be held alongside the men's race throughout, but a rest day ahead of the last day of racing has been introduced in order to balance things out. 5 of the top 6 placed riders from last year are returning to the race. Only Eneritz Vadillo is missing and it doesn't seem likely that she will be riding again this season.

In addition to Marion Bunel, Isabella Holmgren, Paola Blasi, Julie Bego and Eleonora Ciabocco, it's also worth mentioning this year's TdFF white jersey winner Nienke Vinke, who "only" finished 19th last year, but was 7th in the inaugural edition (the Dutch team also features previous top 12 finishers Rosita Reijnhout and Maud Oudeman, so it's not a given who will end up being their strongest card), and Lore De Schepper, who won the prologue in 2024 before getting hit by gastritis and being forced to abandon, among the favourites, as well as the likes of Gaia Segato, stage winner from last year Églantine Rayer, MTBer Carolina Flores, who finished 13th in '24, Nicole Steinmetz, Malwina Mul and Natalia Garzon as potential outsiders. The field also includes one current junior in Tsige Kahsay of Ethiopia who represents the WCC team.

If any of the stages ends in group sprints, which isn't unlikely, then we have a fairly decent selection of fast finishers in Marie Schreiber, Fleur Moors, Imogen Wolff, Millie Couzens, Scarlett Souren, Federica Venturelli, Julia Kopecký and Linda Riedmann.

But the race is also missing some names that are eligible. With two time trials, albeit both being uphill, it's a shame that Antonia Niedermaier isn't racing since this could have given her a rare chance to show off her rainbow jersey in competition. She would also have been the favourite on paper for the overall victory. Fariba Hashimi finished 8th last year, but now that she isn't part of the WCC anymore she isn't able to ride. Ena Comte and Titia Ryo, who finished 10th and 15th respectively, haven't been selected for the French team, and Mara Roldan hasn't yet recovered from her crash in the Tour of Britain.

Speaking of crashes, Solbjørk Minke Anderson has not yet returned to the level she had before she broke collarbone last year, which kept her out of both this race and the Olympics. However there isn't a Danish team in this year's edition anyway, which is possibly a result of a wish to cut costs, but also because we've only just had a new national coach appointed after a four months vacancy. If a agreement had been made to send a Scandinavian team instead, like the Austria-Luxembourg one, we could also have seen Stina Kagevi here. Other riders whose countries aren't taking/can't take part include the likes of Viktória Chladonová and Alena Ivanchenko, and then there also well known names in Zoe Bäckstedt, Cat Ferguson and Nienke Veenhoven who haven't been selected by their nations.

Prologue, 3 km

Stage 1, 130 km

Stage 2, 137 km

Stage 3, 81 km

Stage 4, 76 km

Stage 5a, 42 km-ish

Stage 5b, 10 km, MTT

 

[jmdirt]

https://www.bikeradar.com/features/opinion/uci-minimum-weight-rule

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Bego has set the fastest time for now, but I'm not sure it will last for long. Kiros is actually in the top 10 at the moment, but only 1/3 has finished yet.

 

[hayneplane]

I look forward to them resurrecting the multi-climb Monte Serra stages with MTFs from the 90s Giro Donne editions for Luperini... and calling it the GP Mario Cipollini.

The Memorial Marco Pantani is also a race the man himself could never win ending in around 45 flat kilometres.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Bunel beat Bego's time but is 8 seconds behind Mijntje Geurts, who is less proven on longer climbs than the Dutch names I mentioned in the preview.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Holmgren smashed it in the end, but it's worth noting that she also had a lead over Bunel after the prologue last year, although it was only half of what it is here despite it only taking about 50% longer to ride. Ciabocco, on the other hand, lost pretty much the same amount of time to Holmgren compared to last year, and Blasi cut her gap by 4 seconds.

 

[yaco]

I was impressed with the ride of talia Appleton. She came second in the Provelo super league in Australia which is the series which gave the winner a contract with the Liv Alula Conti team. Lets see what she can do in the rest of the race.

 

[RedheadDane]

Might just be me, but maybe someone who has already done a GT(ish) - like Holmgren - shouldn't be riding l'Avenir?

 

[Samu Cuenca]

They're are about halfway through today's stage. Blasi crashed earlier, but it's not the worst day to do that on, although you never know how much damage a longer climb can do in a field like this. Most of it is quite easy though.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Som riders were dropped on Col des Brosses, including my outside pick Nicole Steinmetz. Gery won the QOM sprint. 30 km left which are mostly downhill, but includes a 2-3 km climb at 4%.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Gery has won the stage as well ahead of Ciabocco and Moors.