Tour de Langkawi (24.02 - 04.03.)

[Ryo Hazuki]

It makes more sense for him, but not for Androni.

androni can't dictate what rujano wants. that's in his contract. they were over a fight in this around last summer when rujano was mad at savio for not sending a team to vuelta venezuela. he threatened to quit the team altogether. savio's fault btw who promised it to rujano but backed away from it and wanted him to ride brixia which rujano refused. rujano did venezuela with zulia team though and didn't come back again to europe until now(next week). after the giro he will return again to venezuela.

the only hope we can have for rujano to do more races in europe will be that androni become wt next year. it seems the venezuelan government is very serious about this and have already infested money in savio's team this year. last year they tried with gianetti but ran out of time. I think they will now try this project with savio.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

"Unfortunately Darren woke up Wednesday morning with chest pains and was not feeling 100 per cent which, after being checked by the race doctor was diagnosed as a muscular issue and is now being treated," team manager Jonathan Breekveldt told Cyclingnews.

Drapac have been getting closer to an elusive overall victory at the Tour de Langkawi, with Mitch Docker’s top 10 result in 2008 the start of a boon for the team in the Malaysian stage race. The team has worn the yellow jersey in five of their last six appearances.

The display of form Lapthorne had shown on the opening stage time trial in Putrajaya, and on the hilly finish to Pandan Indah on Tuesday had the team confident that the Australian, who is normally a strong climber, could potentially win the overall.

"Even with the injury, the team began the stage with the goal of putting Darren in the best possible position to defend his lead," said Breekveldt.

"We controlled the race perfectly to the base of the climb … Darren made the final selection of seven riders but when he pushed his body the chest injury became more apparent and left him unable to compete with the leaders.

the whole article stinks but the bolded part shows why I hate anglophones in cycling and they should get the **** out of cycling. they are completely delusional. do they really think they can follow rujano, serpa, victor nino on genting? it seems so and then they come up with lousy excuses like chest pain in some muscle. yeah blablabla.

in rutas america I read reports about mancebo's team getting their assed kicked in itt saying yeah we didn't have our itt bikes with us. well then take them with you or stop using it as an excuse. besides losing 2-3 minutes in 17 km. with an itt bike that's not going to be much less

 

[Escarabajo]

Usually it's the result of some sort of pact; we work together, you get the stage I get the leader's jersey - a few from recent memory include Ribeiro and Cabreira on Senhora da Graça, Menchov and Piepoli on Cerler, Contador and Rujano on Großglockner, and perhaps most extremely Valverde and Szmyd on Mont Ventoux, when Valverde practically had to stop to let Szmyd past.

Here, it's different really; Serpa can say that Rujano is his leader and so he's not going to work to distance his own teammate, in which case he's effectively the guy playing monitor over the break to give Androni some insurance. Serpa and Niño hadn't been working together. Occasionally you will see somebody who's winning a race gift a stage in similar circumstances - last year on Monte Naranco in Asturias, Tino Zaballa attacked Javi Moreno over and over again for the win, but Moreno held on. It was the last stage, and Moreno had already won a stage, so he sat up at the sprint to let Zaballa get the stage win, on the basis that he was going to win the race and felt Zaballa deserved it.

Serpa also has his undefeated streak on this finish to defend, of course.

Ever since I have been watching cycling I learned that from Colombian commentators like Héctor Urrego and Julio Arrastía Brica. Is not something new. It was understood that if someone get the yellow jersey the other one would get the stage. Now Serpa did not know for sure if he was going to get the jersey, so that could have played also. This is not the Tour where you have instantaneous information of the time gaps.

This is an old practice not new.

Ryo has his point and that's OK. To certain degree I agree with it. But not all scenarios that he mentions are the same. All situations could be different. Look what Contador did last year in the Giro. There was probably a reason behind it.

Now, we can not generilize that all Colombian riders are the same. We might get a great Colombian rider in the future that follow those implied european rules. So what. Is his personality to get along with everybody. To make more friends inside the peloton, maybe. We don't know the many reasons that any rider could have to do that. Just an opinion.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

that won't happen. the norm in colombia isn't handing out stagewins. no the norm is attacking when someone crashes or has a flat tire. and not just 1 team no everyone does it and it's perfectly normal. not even the losers of those actions complain(duarte 2009). so let alone giving someone a stage win for whatever reasons.

 

[Dundee]

Ryo Hazuki, Dude you have no idea

 

[will10]

Ryo Hazuki, Dude you have no idea

You're right, the Colombians didn't dominate on Genting. Wait...

Anyway, nice ride from Canola.

 

[Eric8-A]

Ryo, can you shed some light on what the Fundacion Rujano is? I saw it on a kit he was wearing in a picture you posted earlier in the thread. And does he switch bikes from Bianchi to Specialized when he rides in Venezuela?

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

Guardini makes it 4 stages now.

 

[Eric8-A]

Today's stage was set earlier than the rest.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

Today's stage was set earlier than the rest.

also it was short and flat, finished in just over 2 hours.

 

[Eric8-A]

How long was it?

 

[Mondrian]

it's rujano's first racing days since august of 2012. if you saw today's stage review you would've sene he attacked in the beginning slopes pof the climb and then forced until only 2 riders were in his wheel. serpa and victyor nino. when nino went serpa followed and rujano dropped. serpa could also barely hang on on the steeper parts but won the sprint that was flat quite eaisly against the unexplosive victor nino

That's Rujano for you, he always goes early and it usually works but not with a quality field - I remember it was the same last year in Italy when he initially dropped contador & co only to blow up in the latter part of the climb. As for stage vs tour discussion of Nino vs Serpa - the unwritten rules only apply to grand tours where the cycling Aristocracy (Rish cyclists) get a lot of media attention, points & financial reward for winning but at this level its everyman for himself as they all have to fight for scraps (a few dollars & UCI points). Besides there was no one else in the race to the top but Androni vs Azad so why should one give anything away to the other!

 

[palmerq]

so is guardini good, I guess he must be pretty good to dominate these sprints even though its not the top level and I remember he won a stage at the tour of qatar and in the tour of turkey... But so far untill now he has not been good when he came up agaisnt good guys...

 

[Fetisoff]

so is guardini good, I guess he must be pretty good to dominate these sprints even though its not the top level and I remember he won a stage at the tour of qatar and in the tour of turkey... But so far untill now he has not been good when he came up agaisnt good guys...

I guess we'll have to wait till May to find out (if they let him ride the Giro this year that is)

 

[maltiv]

so is guardini good, I guess he must be pretty good to dominate these sprints even though its not the top level and I remember he won a stage at the tour of qatar and in the tour of turkey... But so far untill now he has not been good when he came up agaisnt good guys...

He's just been boxed in the big races, so he has to work a bit on his positioning.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

That's Rujano for you, he always goes early and it usually works but not with a quality field - I remember it was the same last year in Italy when he initially dropped contador & co only to blow up in the latter part of the climb. As for stage vs tour discussion of Nino vs Serpa - the unwritten rules only apply to grand tours where the cycling Aristocracy (Rish cyclists) get a lot of media attention, points & financial reward for winning but at this level its everyman for himself as they all have to fight for scraps (a few dollars & UCI points). Besides there was no one else in the race to the top but Androni vs Azad so why should one give anything away to the other!

what stage are you talking about?

 

[Eric8-A]

Guardini wins again

 

[Hugo Koblet]

1. Guardini
2. Pelucchi
3. Kreder
4. Keough
5. Colbrelli

Europcar must regret not working for Pelucchi instead of Gene from the beginning

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

1. Guardini
2. Pelucchi
3. Kreder
4. Keough
5. Colbrelli

Europcar must regret not working for Pelucchi instead of Gene from the beginning

maybe something was wrong with pelucchi or he crashed in one of first stages he did lose time there after all.

 

[wirral]

Every Tour de Langkawi, the Friday stage finishes early due to Moslem prayer considerations.

 

[Bye Bye Bicycle]

stage 10:

1. Guardini
2. Keough
3. Colbrelli
4. Harrif Salleh
5. Kreder
6. Delle Stelle
7. Nateghi
8. Förster
9. Pelucchi
10. Iglinskiy

The only rider in the peloton who's able to beat Guardini had to lead out Keough the whole race...

New record set by Guardini: six stage wins during one TdL. Serpa becomes the second two-time-winner after Paolo Lanfranchi.

 

[Eric8-A]

It seems like Keough's the only rider that can come close to Guardini.

 

[Mondrian]

what stage are you talking about?

It wasn't the Giro but one of the smaller early season tours, come to think of it must have been 2010 as it came on the back of his 2010 Langkawi win.

 

[Mondrian]

so is guardini good, I guess he must be pretty good to dominate these sprints even though its not the top level and I remember he won a stage at the tour of qatar and in the tour of turkey... But so far untill now he has not been good when he came up agaisnt good guys...

His achilles heel seems to be his climbing which is why they did not take him to Giro last year. He also lacks the experience in positioning himself in strong fields but all that will come with experience at the top level.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

It wasn't the Giro but one of the smaller early season tours, come to think of it must have been 2010 as it came on the back of his 2010 Langkawi win.

then your argument is useless