Race Thread

[lemon cheese cake]

Good race once again dominated by the Dutch. Shame about the mechanicals Van Anrooij and, to a lesser extent in terms of distance from the pits, Kay. Kastelijn seems to really suit these fast courses, similar to van der Heiden, and it's just a shame her technical skills have let her down a few times recently. I did see on twitter someone basically giving her some grief about it saying she is a danger to riders and should be banned. I really think there is no need for that as she isn't be a European for no reason especially on what was quite a technical circuit with banks, loads of cormers, ditchs etc. Next year I feel might be her breakout year ( if you ignore the euros win) if she can nail down hard in the off season on the technical skills.

 

[sir fly]

Thought Alvarado would drop Worst somewhere during the final lap, but it wasn't the case.
Van Anrooij situation was heartbreaking.

Let's see men now...

That's it, it seems.
Just a matter of commitment from MVdP.

Iserbyt is an interesting rider. Wonder if he'll stick off or try himself on the road as well.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Iserbyt very commendable. Hard to tell how deep Mathieu had to go. Seemed like he only had to push one lap. Pidcock again with a massive relapse.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Mathieu wasn't good today, you could see it quite quickly.
That's why he saved up for 1 really good lap (get 20s gap) and then consolidate. I think if this was any difficult course and not his favorite course of all, he could've lost here

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Mathieu wasn't good today, you could see it quite quickly.
That's why he saved up for 1 really good lap (get 20s gap) and then consolidate. I think if this was any difficult course and not his favorite course of all, he could've lost here

He reiterated today, that he isn't as good as he was last year. I'm starting to think, had Wout been close to his form of at least 2 years ago, we could have seen battles like those from 2014-2015 again.

On the other hand, you see Iserbyt makes one mistake, there's a gap of 10 meters... and that's it. The competition needs to be able to ride virtually faultless if they want to have a chance. Same with Aerts last week. Being able to push Mathieu, but ultimately failing due to technical inferiority, even when they are more or less equally strong on a given day.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Thought Alvarado would drop Worst somewhere during the final lap, but it wasn't the case.
Van Anrooij situation was heartbreaking.

Let's see men now...

That's it, it seems.
Just a matter of commitment from MVdP.

Iserbyt is an interesting rider. Wonder if he'll stick off or try himself on the road as well.

Pauwels Sauzen don't tend to do a massive road program, with the races being mainly in the BeNeLux or France and he's just resgined until 2024 with the team.

 

[christopherrowe]

I may have already said this upthread somewhere, so I may be simply reiterating that I am loving this Alvarado/Worst contest we're seeing play out week to week in races across multiple series (and the UCI rankings).

 

[sir fly]

Pauwels Sauzen don't tend to do a massive road program, with the races being mainly in the BeNeLux or France and he's just resgined until 2024 with the team.

Yes, I checked after posting the comment.
Being young and seemingly having a powerful engine in the small package made me think he could find a place on the road.

 

[Barkintheeye]

So MVDP lost some 12 seconds in the crash at Loenhout and additionally some 20 seconds more from traffic up to the Materiaalpost (35 seconds down on Iserbyt). It looked like he lost more and probably he was somewhat off-balance for a while after the crash but a 30-40 second advantage will nut suffice for the other riders against MVDP at least not on a fast twitchy technical course.

Can the flat Dübendorf UCI WC course prove challenging enough for MVDP or will he prevail again with superior skills and engine?

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

The flat course suits him more actually. If it was a hard climbing course with a lot of mud then Aerts or Iserbyt could've challenged him (especially a good Aerts). Or a good WvA (but that's impossible given the injury recovery).

On a flat course there is almost no hope. Unless he disables himself somehow

 

[Red Rick]

Yeah but WvA and MVDP were a few classes more dominant in CX than guis like Stybar. Both probably always had more aerobic engine, so they needed to sacrifice less anaerobic engine to compete on the road in the first place.

 

[RedheadDane]

That was one of the weirdest crashes I've seen in a long time, Stybar…

 

[sir fly]

Rainbows for the end of the year.
Pretty convenient.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

17/18 for this season, and 28/29 for whole 2019

sjeesh

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Yes, I checked after posting the comment.
Being young and seemingly having a powerful engine in the small package made me think he could find a place on the road.

IIRC, Wuyts did mention him (Iserbyt) wondering how far he could go in hilly races. So it's certainly not a dumb assumption to make.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

did you read this? @Logic-is-your-friend

Van der Poel over het ontbreken van 'de flits': "Nauwelijks op interval getraind"

Interview Mathieu van der Poel heerst ook deze winter in het veld, maar de Nederlander heeft naar eigen zeggen niet ‘die flits’ van vorig seizoen. Daar gingen we na afloop van de cross in Bredene iets dieper op in. “Het heeft vooral met een gebrek aan intervaltraining te maken”, verduidelijkt...

www.wielerflits.nl

So he barely trained on interval and is trying to ride the cross season as 'economic' as possible. He will do interval training for the worlds though

 

[lemon cheese cake]

IIRC, Wuyts did mention him (Iserbyt) wondering how far he could go in hilly races. So it's certainly not a dumb assumption to make.

Certainly from his performances in a couple of editions of the Koppenberg cross he can do well. However we've also seen Van Der Poel struggle at the same race but perform well at the classics so maybe that's not the best to go by. Though there are no eyepopping results for him on the road at the standard races the team does like the Boucles de le Meyenne, Tour de Liege etc

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

did you read this? @Logic-is-your-friend

Van der Poel over het ontbreken van 'de flits': "Nauwelijks op interval getraind"

Interview Mathieu van der Poel heerst ook deze winter in het veld, maar de Nederlander heeft naar eigen zeggen niet ‘die flits’ van vorig seizoen. Daar gingen we na afloop van de cross in Bredene iets dieper op in. “Het heeft vooral met een gebrek aan intervaltraining te maken”, verduidelijkt...

www.wielerflits.nl

So he barely trained on interval and is trying to ride the cross season as 'economic' as possible. He will do interval training for the worlds though

I had not read it, but i had guessed it: https://forum.cyclingnews.com/threads/race-thread.18685/page-41#post-2411276

;-)

 

[sir fly]

Nothing new in the New Year.
MVdP keeps smashing the field and Iserbyt continues with strong performances though he needed a couple of laps to recover from matching MVdP's tempo before securing the second place.

Alpecin-Fenix doubled again.

 

[Mavic]

I thought Iserbyt was in October form again. Guess not, or even October form isn’t good enough to remotely trouble Mathieu.

Oh well, was good to see Piddy being up there though. Just didn’t have enough to best Iserbyt. Still a positive performance and hopefully a sign of things to come.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Definitely almost back on early season form I'd say. Looked like he was able to recover well after the beginning effort marking VDP. Id say if Pidcock had been a little more conservative in the way he compeleted bridging over to Iserbyt he might have hung on to a sprint, as the way he charged through Vanthourenhout and paced the penultimate lap looked almost as if he expected the race to be one lap shorter than it was.

 

[Mavic]

Definitely almost back on early season form I'd say. Looked like he was able to recover well after the beginning effort marking VDP. Id say if Pidcock had been a little more conservative in the way he compeleted bridging over to Iserbyt he might have hung on to a sprint, as the way he charged through Vanthourenhout and paced the penultimate lap looked almost as if he expected the race to be one lap shorter than it was.

Yep, only problem is, by the time he recovered Mathieu was too far gone. No one recovers better than Mathieu. As for the final laps, I think it was more that Mathieu consolidated and took it easier than Iserbyt actually making ground head to head.

As for the women, Sanne Cant has been such a disappointment this season. She’s been a shadow if her former self. The Dutch will take 1-5 at the worlds unless she peaks just at the right time.

 

[Ricco']

Alpecin-Fenix doubled again.

Tripled actually, with Antoine Benoist winning the U23 race. And it' not the first time this year. From memory this happened too at least in Hamme (Vandeputte, Alvarado, MVDP), Koksijde (Vandeputte, Alvarado, MVDP), Loenhout (Rouiller, Alvarado, MVDP), and now in Baal.

Marcel Meisen also has won in Pétange, Luxembourg, making it 4 wins on the new sponsors first day.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Nothing new in the New Year.
MVdP keeps smashing the field and Iserbyt continues with strong performances though he needed a couple of laps to recover from matching MVdP's tempo before securing the second place.

To me it seemed rather that Iserbyt just consolidated his lead. He knew or felt Mathieu was gone and couldn't match him, and it seemed like he was waiting for the group with his teammate Vantourenhout, not to recover but because riding alone for more than half the race was pointless. It was just that for the classification he didn't need to worry about Mathieu, and there was nobody else to cause a threat there. I think the idea was to get Vantourenhout on the podium, but that didn't work out. His GC was never in any danger. I think he also alluded to it in the post race interview.

I thought Iserbyt was in October form again. Guess not, or even October form isn’t good enough to remotely trouble Mathieu.

Had Iserbyt had this current form the first few weeks Mahtieu made his comeback, he might have troubled Mathieu a bit more. But it's illogical to think Mathieu hasn't improved since then either. I think both are now better than 6 or so weeks ago, so nothing changed. Whether or not Iserbyt is better than in october, i don't know. It's almost like what happened in Namen (hypothermia) sparked his form again.

Also, we can all agree Mathieu is a phenomenon. It would be a bit disingenuous to assume Iserbyt who is riding his first full pro year, would casually be kicking Mathieu's ass. If you would take away Mathieu, who is an outlier, Iserbyt would pretty much be dominating the season in his own right.

--------------------------

Thibeau Nys now showing his skills. A few months ago he did it in practice, now he actually did it in the actual race. Watch the videos:

Zo fietst (!) Thibau Nys een trap op | sporza

Thibau Nys kent het crossparcours in Baal als zijn broekzak. Dat demonstreerde de junior vanochtend in de Grote Prijs Sven Nys. De 17-jarige crosser liep de trappen niet op, neen, hij reed ze op.

sporza.be

He want's to go pro in two or three years.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

I remember from watching all seasons with Sven Nys, that they always showed Thibau when he was there, playing on some little hills with his bike. From really young age as well. His technique must be pretty awesome compared to most..