- Feb 20, 2010
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For the third year running, I am making the thread on this, the greatest and most storied of German Classics (take that, Cyclassics!). There are a number of reasons to love this race, but my main one is a sentimental one; my love of cycling was born at the Rund um den Henninger Turm (as it was back then), back when I used to live on the race route. This is rather unusually this year the start of German racing season, with the Rund um Köln moving back a few weeks to sit between this and the Rund um die Braunkohle, with the Velothon Berlin bringing up the rear in June.
The race is over an interesting course, which is 200,6km in length, so a pretty reasonable length. The course has undergone a few tweaks, as has been the case pretty consistently in recent years. For the most part, these changes are for the better, in my opinion.
Profile:
The race begins in the suburb of Eschborn, which houses a number of high-rises (albeit ones that are inevitably dwarfed by their neighbours in "Mainhattan"), and begins with a flat roll down through Frankfurt's suburbs into the city centre. Eschborn's S-Bahn station falls within the same zone as the city centre, so a lot of fans will watch the start then pile into the commuter trains - not carrying any commuters on May 1 since it's a public holiday - to Taunusanlage or Hauptwache to see the finish (hey, just a tip for any forumites in the area) for a lap of the finishing circuit before heading out of town to the north, passing all three University campuses (humour me, I'm being nostalgic), the now obsolescent Bockenheim, the imposing Bauhaus architecture of Westend (the building taken from IG Farben after the war) and the newer, less central Riedberg, sat on a small hill overlooking the northern fringes of the city and serving as the first mountain prime, although really it isn't much of a climb. Last year it was just a little loop around Riedberg and they returned directly to Oberursel, but this year there's a longer lead-in with the course heading to Bad Homburg before dipping back to the southwest into Oberursel.
This starts us on the day's climbing for real, and as usual the day's first obstacle is the biggest, the Großer Feldberg, which is the highest point in the Taunus mountain range that overlooks Frankfurt and makes up much of central Hesse. This is a long climb but not especially steep climb, and the descent leads into a period of mostly either rolling or descending, broken up by the short but steep rise of the Ruppertshain. Then the riders take a brief detour into Eppstein; normally there is a small (ca 600m) climb within Eppstein itself, but unfortunately due to roadworks this has had to be removed from the route for 2013, so there will be about 30km of fairly uncomplicated flat terrain between the Ruppertshain and the next climb.
However, the organisers have found a way around this problem, and I commend them for it, for I approve of this change. That's right, an extra, bonus ascent of the race's trademark, the nasty-as-all-hell Mammolshainer Berg. This nasty climb is about 2,6km at 7%, but reaches a maximum of a Purito-tastic 26%. The route does a loop of a 15km circuit, but after the second ascent of the Mammolshain another longer loop including the Ruppertshain gives the riders a bit of a break (and make sure it's not totally torn apart here removing a number of challengers from contention) before they return to take on the brute 2 more times, the last cresting 32km from the finish (which is also an improvement on the previous route, where it was over 40km from home), before running back into Frankfurt to finish on 3 laps of a short, tight circuit around Frankfurt's rebuilt Alte Oper and the eponymous Finanzplatz area that gives the city its imposing skyline. This finishing circuit has also been tweaked, to make it a bit less twisty than in the last few years and also with the run-in now coming from Messe rather than Westend there's no need for that tight chicane with 400m to go. The route still twists and turns in its first half, but there's less risk of crashing if a sizable group comes to the end together. The short length of the circuit often means that the number of finishers is low as any who have lost minutes will be pulled from the circuit.
Right, enough about the route, let's talk about the racing.
One of the best things about the Rund um den Finanzplatz/Henninger Turm/Eschborn-Frankfurt City Loop is that you really can't tell what will happen. Despite the tweaking, the parcours does remain the same in terms of its essential components - Großer Feldberg, Ruppertshain, multiple Mammolshain climbs and the flat finishing circuits. The list of winners is really varied in style, from sprinters like Zabel and Degenkolb to GT winners like Ullrich and Garzelli. The last 5 races have been won in a variety of styles too - Kroon in 2008 outsprinted Rebellin from a group of 9, before being beaten in a two-up sprint by Wegmann in 2009; Wegmann repeated with a long-range sprint in a group of 20 in 2010, before Degenkolb headed an almost bunch sprint (with about 70) in 2011; yet last year Moreno Moser soloed in after attacking his three breakmates with a kilometre to go after he, Nerz and Firsanov bridged across to Martin, who tried to solo in from 45km. It's always tough to tell what kind of classics man this suits, as it's too hilly for many specialists in flatter classics, but the long run-in can bring versatile sprinters back into play (Zabel is a multi-time winner), and the short but steep nature of the Mammolshain followed by the need for the groups that get away to work together means groups often need powerful rouleurs as well as puncheurs in order to make the moves count.
Last year's top 10:
1 Moreno Moser (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale 4'54'15
2 Dominik Nerz (Ger) Liquigas-Cannondale +5
3 Sergey Firsanov (Rus) Rusvelo +st
4 Tony Martin (Ger) Omega Pharma-Quick Step +st
5 André Greipel (Ger) Lotto-Belisol +23
6 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) BMC Racing Team +23
7 John Degenkolb (Ger) Argos-Shimano +23
8 Daniel Schorn (Aut) Team NetApp +23
9 Daniele Ratto (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale +23
10 Aleksejs Saramotins (Lat) Cofidis +23
The startlist is interesting, with 8 World Tour teams, 7 Pro Conti teams, 7 German Continental teams and a German national team made up of a mixture of development guys and World Tour riders.
The best thing? If this is anything like years gone by you're going to be able to see each and every minute of this played out on local TV, as we had over 4 hours of live coverage the last two years.
The race is over an interesting course, which is 200,6km in length, so a pretty reasonable length. The course has undergone a few tweaks, as has been the case pretty consistently in recent years. For the most part, these changes are for the better, in my opinion.
Profile:
The race begins in the suburb of Eschborn, which houses a number of high-rises (albeit ones that are inevitably dwarfed by their neighbours in "Mainhattan"), and begins with a flat roll down through Frankfurt's suburbs into the city centre. Eschborn's S-Bahn station falls within the same zone as the city centre, so a lot of fans will watch the start then pile into the commuter trains - not carrying any commuters on May 1 since it's a public holiday - to Taunusanlage or Hauptwache to see the finish (hey, just a tip for any forumites in the area) for a lap of the finishing circuit before heading out of town to the north, passing all three University campuses (humour me, I'm being nostalgic), the now obsolescent Bockenheim, the imposing Bauhaus architecture of Westend (the building taken from IG Farben after the war) and the newer, less central Riedberg, sat on a small hill overlooking the northern fringes of the city and serving as the first mountain prime, although really it isn't much of a climb. Last year it was just a little loop around Riedberg and they returned directly to Oberursel, but this year there's a longer lead-in with the course heading to Bad Homburg before dipping back to the southwest into Oberursel.
This starts us on the day's climbing for real, and as usual the day's first obstacle is the biggest, the Großer Feldberg, which is the highest point in the Taunus mountain range that overlooks Frankfurt and makes up much of central Hesse. This is a long climb but not especially steep climb, and the descent leads into a period of mostly either rolling or descending, broken up by the short but steep rise of the Ruppertshain. Then the riders take a brief detour into Eppstein; normally there is a small (ca 600m) climb within Eppstein itself, but unfortunately due to roadworks this has had to be removed from the route for 2013, so there will be about 30km of fairly uncomplicated flat terrain between the Ruppertshain and the next climb.
However, the organisers have found a way around this problem, and I commend them for it, for I approve of this change. That's right, an extra, bonus ascent of the race's trademark, the nasty-as-all-hell Mammolshainer Berg. This nasty climb is about 2,6km at 7%, but reaches a maximum of a Purito-tastic 26%. The route does a loop of a 15km circuit, but after the second ascent of the Mammolshain another longer loop including the Ruppertshain gives the riders a bit of a break (and make sure it's not totally torn apart here removing a number of challengers from contention) before they return to take on the brute 2 more times, the last cresting 32km from the finish (which is also an improvement on the previous route, where it was over 40km from home), before running back into Frankfurt to finish on 3 laps of a short, tight circuit around Frankfurt's rebuilt Alte Oper and the eponymous Finanzplatz area that gives the city its imposing skyline. This finishing circuit has also been tweaked, to make it a bit less twisty than in the last few years and also with the run-in now coming from Messe rather than Westend there's no need for that tight chicane with 400m to go. The route still twists and turns in its first half, but there's less risk of crashing if a sizable group comes to the end together. The short length of the circuit often means that the number of finishers is low as any who have lost minutes will be pulled from the circuit.
Right, enough about the route, let's talk about the racing.
One of the best things about the Rund um den Finanzplatz/Henninger Turm/Eschborn-Frankfurt City Loop is that you really can't tell what will happen. Despite the tweaking, the parcours does remain the same in terms of its essential components - Großer Feldberg, Ruppertshain, multiple Mammolshain climbs and the flat finishing circuits. The list of winners is really varied in style, from sprinters like Zabel and Degenkolb to GT winners like Ullrich and Garzelli. The last 5 races have been won in a variety of styles too - Kroon in 2008 outsprinted Rebellin from a group of 9, before being beaten in a two-up sprint by Wegmann in 2009; Wegmann repeated with a long-range sprint in a group of 20 in 2010, before Degenkolb headed an almost bunch sprint (with about 70) in 2011; yet last year Moreno Moser soloed in after attacking his three breakmates with a kilometre to go after he, Nerz and Firsanov bridged across to Martin, who tried to solo in from 45km. It's always tough to tell what kind of classics man this suits, as it's too hilly for many specialists in flatter classics, but the long run-in can bring versatile sprinters back into play (Zabel is a multi-time winner), and the short but steep nature of the Mammolshain followed by the need for the groups that get away to work together means groups often need powerful rouleurs as well as puncheurs in order to make the moves count.
Last year's top 10:
1 Moreno Moser (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale 4'54'15
2 Dominik Nerz (Ger) Liquigas-Cannondale +5
3 Sergey Firsanov (Rus) Rusvelo +st
4 Tony Martin (Ger) Omega Pharma-Quick Step +st
5 André Greipel (Ger) Lotto-Belisol +23
6 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) BMC Racing Team +23
7 John Degenkolb (Ger) Argos-Shimano +23
8 Daniel Schorn (Aut) Team NetApp +23
9 Daniele Ratto (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale +23
10 Aleksejs Saramotins (Lat) Cofidis +23
The startlist is interesting, with 8 World Tour teams, 7 Pro Conti teams, 7 German Continental teams and a German national team made up of a mixture of development guys and World Tour riders.
The best thing? If this is anything like years gone by you're going to be able to see each and every minute of this played out on local TV, as we had over 4 hours of live coverage the last two years.
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