The Aviva Tour of Britain 2015 2.HC 6/9/15-13/9/15

[Pricey_sky]

With less than a week to go it's time to get this posted.

STARTLIST: http://www.procyclingstats.com/race.php?id=150762&c=3

2014 winner Van Baarle returns to defend his title, while we have Greipel v Cav for the sprints.

Live on ITV4 each day with highlights on Eurosport on the evening.

Time bonuses of 10,6,4 available at the finish with a further 3,2,1 at the Yodel sprints on each stage.

Stage 1: Beaumaris - Wrexham - 159km

Stage 2: Clitheroe - Colne - 159km
Looks like a drag upto the line of around 4% in the final km.

Stage 3: Cockermouth - Kelso - 216km
With 1.4km to go they head onto the high street of Kelso and a 600m stretch of cobbles, could be interesting in the wet!

Stage 4: Edinburgh - Blythe - 217km

 

[Pricey_sky]

Stage 5: Prudhoe - Hartside - 166km
The climb up Hartside averages around 5% for its 8km length.

Stage 6: Stoke-on-Trent - Nottingham - 192km
A lumpy stage but the hills are too far away from the finish.

Stage 7: Fakenham - Ipswich - 227km
A very long stage that should be a sprint.

Stage 8: London - 14 laps of 6.2km = 86.8km
No iTT this year so another sprint on the roads of London, slightly different finish this year on Regent street, by Piccadilly Circus

 

[Pricey_sky]

Any problems just let me know and il fix the OP, I've gone by the official road book so hopefully all is accurate.

 

[BigMac]

Nice!

 

[TMP402]

Re:

Any problems just let me know and il fix the OP, I've gone by the official road book so hopefully all is accurate.

No problem with your work but my God are those profiles hard to take.

 

[Pricey_sky]

Re: Re:

Any problems just let me know and il fix the OP, I've gone by the official road book so hopefully all is accurate.

No problem with your work but my God are those profiles hard to take.

Believe it or not the profiles were even worse a couple of years ago!

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Damn, somewhat disappointing route this year, with the Peak District stage having all the climbs so far from the finish. Small team size should compensate but with all the best stages in the first half of the race it could be a less interesting edition after a couple of pretty good ones. The East Anglian stage has the possibility for the wind to play a part, as they'll be travelling in a direction side on to the usual prevailing wind in the area, but the weather hasn't played ball when they've been in the area in the past (crashes have, though). The recent short-to-mid-length MTFs have been decent in the ToB, will be interesting to see what a slightly longer but more consistent one will mean for who contends.

 

[wendybnt]

Re:

Damn, somewhat disappointing route this year, with the Peak District stage having all the climbs so far from the finish. Small team size should compensate but with all the best stages in the first half of the race it could be a less interesting edition after a couple of pretty good ones. The East Anglian stage has the possibility for the wind to play a part, as they'll be travelling in a direction side on to the usual prevailing wind in the area, but the weather hasn't played ball when they've been in the area in the past (crashes have, though). The recent short-to-mid-length MTFs have been decent in the ToB, will be interesting to see what a slightly longer but more consistent one will mean for who contends.

It's not fenland though, you go further north for that. Stage 1 looks the best for scenery, the top of Llanberis looks like a mini Ventoux. Good to see the Bwlch in there, but I better they go up the easy side.

 

[rick james]

I'll be just outside Edinburgh for it

 

[Baldinger]

What are the gradients for the Hartside climb? This could be a perfect race for a rider like Guldhammer.

 

[wendybnt]

What are the gradients for the Hartside climb? This could be a perfect race for a rider like Guldhammer.

Much like Cragg vale that was in 2014 TdF. About 5% over 5 miles. Doesn't get much steeper than that, maybe a percent or two more in a few places.

 

[armchairclimber]

Cheers for the OP. Could be Pendle for me.

 

[Brullnux]

Shame about the route, last year's was better
Greipel to beat Cab in all but 1 sprint. Pirrazi to win the overall after getting into a break on the peak district stage.

 

[Campervan man]

Re:

Damn, somewhat disappointing route this year, with the Peak District stage having all the climbs so far from the finish. Small team size should compensate but with all the best stages in the first half of the race it could be a less interesting edition after a couple of pretty good ones. The East Anglian stage has the possibility for the wind to play a part, as they'll be travelling in a direction side on to the usual prevailing wind in the area, but the weather hasn't played ball when they've been in the area in the past (crashes have, though). The recent short-to-mid-length MTFs have been decent in the ToB, will be interesting to see what a slightly longer but more consistent one will mean for who contends.

The Peak District stage is a massive let down as there are lots of nice steep hills around. But to finish in Nottingham leads to a flat finish they should try to finish in a smaller town but then I guess money talks. Anyone able to provide a detailed map for the PD stage as I'm going to ride over to watch it.

 

[Northern rider]

What are the gradients for the Hartside climb? This could be a perfect race for a rider like Guldhammer.

There's a fairly flat section near the top as the road gets to the valley floor, then rises again to the summit with a hairpin bend. The flat section lowers the average, but it's no more than 7% ish in other stretches. The hill climb tt there is usually won in a 17 minutes and some seconds time.

 

[Brullnux]

In fairness to the organisers these are really long stages for a reasonably new 2.HC stage race in Europe. 3 stages over 200km and one is 192km, on,y one stage under 150km which is the parade stage around London. The Vuelta a Burgos never went over 170, Wallonie had only 1 over 200 and although Osterreich had loads of pretty long stages, it is a very old race in comparison.

 

[TomLPC]

It's a shame that stage 2 isn't going through the glorious Preston town, home to the world famous bus station and the first KFC in Britain. Someone needs to tell the cyclists they can't drink the tap water over here, it has crypto speridium in it and you can get stomach ache just by using it to brush your teeth at the moment.

 

[Brullnux]

Re:

It's a shame that stage 2 isn't going through the glorious Preston town, home to the world famous bus station and the first KFC in Britain. Someone needs to tell the cyclists they can't drink the tap water over here, it has crypto speridium in it and you can get stomach ache just by using it to brush your teeth at the moment.

Aw man, hope it gets better Are you guys taking a page out the history book and using alocohol instead ?

Seriously, I hope someone fixes it.

 

[TMP402]

I don't really like the Tour of Britain. The profiles again look very breakaway friendly which is exciting but doesn't give the big names a lot of incentive to go for the win. Indeed, of the 11 editions from 04-14, Wiggins, Nuyens, Albasini, Boom and EBH stand out as .HC stage race winning names. Others like van Baarle look very lucky. There is also something wrong for me when only one British rider has won in 11 editions (compared with six Australians winning the TDU in the same period). British riders have been on the podium (Cummings x2, Stannard, S Yates, Wiggins), and plenty have been in the top 10 (Barker, Downing (x 3), Fleeman, Thomas, House, Partridge, Lloyd, Tiernan-Locke, Stannard, Dowsett).

So for me it doesn't do enough to promote British cyclists. Why wasn't the course tailor-made for Hammond in 2004-05 for instance? Why didn't 2008 have a good sized ITT for Millar? If EBH could win an edition, why not design one for Cavendish? In the current era, with Rowe, Stannard, Thomas and Thwaites being good on the cobbles, why not have a long cobbled stage, or have the national RR/Lincoln GP course as a stage? And with Dowsett, Thomas and Stannard all being good TTers, have a 20km ITT.

Even if it isn't designed for British cyclists, the race has attracted many big names over the years without giving them the right course to win. Riders in the top 20 include: Bartoli, Moreno, Rogers, A Schleck, Pozzato, D Martin, Porte, Koenig, Roche, I Izagirre, Sy Chavanel, Kwiatkowski, N Sørensen, ten Dam, Pozzovivo, S Sanchez, Basso, and N Quintana.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

In fairness to the organisers these are really long stages for a reasonably new 2.HC stage race in Europe. 3 stages over 200km and one is 192km, on,y one stage under 150km which is the parade stage around London. The Vuelta a Burgos never went over 170, Wallonie had only 1 over 200 and although Osterreich had loads of pretty long stages, it is a very old race in comparison.

In fairness, it's about the aims of the race. Britain doesn't have big mountainous terrain so it utilizes the longer stages and the smaller team size to make it harder to control; they don't want it to be too imbalanced or allow a strong team to just annihilate it like when HTC had EBH win technical sprint after technical sprint in 2009. Burgos keeps the stages short because it's a warmup race for the Vuelta so a) they want to ape Vuelta characteristics and b) people aren't likely to go super deep in a really long stage there; also it's a race in Spain in early August; while some of the areas around Miranda de Ebro and Quintanar de la Sierra are pretty nice, forested areas, there's also a lot of very exposed sections where the riders are out in absolutely baking heat with no respite.

 

[roundabout]

Re: Re:

Damn, somewhat disappointing route this year, with the Peak District stage having all the climbs so far from the finish. Small team size should compensate but with all the best stages in the first half of the race it could be a less interesting edition after a couple of pretty good ones. The East Anglian stage has the possibility for the wind to play a part, as they'll be travelling in a direction side on to the usual prevailing wind in the area, but the weather hasn't played ball when they've been in the area in the past (crashes have, though). The recent short-to-mid-length MTFs have been decent in the ToB, will be interesting to see what a slightly longer but more consistent one will mean for who contends.

It's not fenland though, you go further north for that. Stage 1 looks the best for scenery, the top of Llanberis looks like a mini Ventoux. Good to see the Bwlch in there, but I better they go up the easy side.

only if you put Ventoux in the valley next to mountains which are 700 meters higher

also, I am going to guess that there won't be any TV coverage with over 100 km to go so most of the scenic part will be missed

 

[Pricey_sky]

Re: Re:

also, I am going to guess that there won't be any TV coverage with over 100 km to go so most of the scenic part will be missed

ITV4 go live at 1pm each day so yes there will probably be coverage of the last 100km or so of each stage. At least it's better than some races where we only get the final hour I suppose.

 

[postmanhat]

Re: Re:

Damn, somewhat disappointing route this year, with the Peak District stage having all the climbs so far from the finish. Small team size should compensate but with all the best stages in the first half of the race it could be a less interesting edition after a couple of pretty good ones. The East Anglian stage has the possibility for the wind to play a part, as they'll be travelling in a direction side on to the usual prevailing wind in the area, but the weather hasn't played ball when they've been in the area in the past (crashes have, though). The recent short-to-mid-length MTFs have been decent in the ToB, will be interesting to see what a slightly longer but more consistent one will mean for who contends.

The Peak District stage is a massive let down as there are lots of nice steep hills around. But to finish in Nottingham leads to a flat finish they should try to finish in a smaller town but then I guess money talks. Anyone able to provide a detailed map for the PD stage as I'm going to ride over to watch it.

http://www.strava.com/routes/1587053

Can't get away from work early enough to get up to the hills so will head for Carsington Water. Natural ampitheatre with views of the riders for about half a mile.

Where are you riding from?

Agree about the stage, very disappointing. They're going DOWN Winnats! And Beeley Moor near the end, zzzz. Nearly every other climb up that dale has 20%+ sections, and they choose the unchanging 7-8 percenter.

 

[MatParker117]

Fenn, Poels, Viviani, Kennaugh, Stannard & Swift for Sky. Guess would be Viviani for the sprints and Kennaugh for tghe GC.

 

[MartinGT]

Sky have another two riders associated in the GB Squad too

Hugh Carthy
Gabz Cullaigh
Scott Davies
Tao Geoghegan Hart
Alex Peters
Ollie Wood