Tour Of Britain 12th to 19th September

[Henrik]

EBH is such an amazing rider. Next year he will ride as a protected rider in the classics and the TDF. I wonder how much "Eddy" will make of it...

 

[Anonymous]

oh ive known for years how good, but i actually though pozzato might give him a run for his money today, katusha where hanging in there nicely, but last two hundred metres, made it look easy in the end..

 

[stefrees]

i think the ToB has been great this year, great to see the big teams- columbia, katusha, rabobank, garmin- actually bring decent teams and ride hard. columbia have been awesome, must be great experience for the brit teams to race like this. think thomas and cummings have actually come up best of the brits (downing has been good in the springs and will be a great sky signing, but i mean in terms of animating race these 2 look like taking a step up) but ebh is in a different league. i think sky could be a big force next year

 

[Anonymous]

another great day, and the thomas de gendt/EbH show continues...

thomas already won the mountains jersey and leads the sprints jersey
Ebh in yellow and leading in the point competition.. this really is turning into the two man tour..

we only cycled along the river and over that bridge a few weeks ago..

 

[Frosty]

Only looked a few pages back but no mention of Malcolm Elliott? At the age of 48 he's not doing badly back there in 16th at 49 seconds

 

[Anonymous]

Only looked a few pages back but no mention of Malcolm Elliott? At the age of 48 he's not doing badly back there in 16th at 49 seconds

hes doing ok, while doing nothing.. to be fair over half the riders are within one minute, the ones further back are mainly injuries, crashes or breakaway riders who have been caught and dropped..

hes doing ok, top 10 a few days, pretty much as expected really.. top bloke though.. hes got another couple of years in him yet

 

[timturpinfleck]

A good finish to the ToB with an enjoyable stage from Hatherleigh to Yeovil to give Ben Swift his first victory and nice to see Pozzato helping him out. Looked liked an excellent atmosphere in Hatherleigh and justified why the smaller towns should host stages. Nice to see the final climb of stage 7 so near to the finish. Stage 8 was entertaining with the fight for 2nd and 3rd position and large crowds again.

Hopefully the ToB can build on this and go on to make this race bigger and better. I feel a mountain top finish would be good for next year and perhaps this could be incorporated into a split stage to provide a town finish in the afternoon. If they do increase it to 9 stages next year then it would be good to see the introduction of a time trial and some harder hill climbs - climbing Winsford Hill via Wiveliscombe would have provided a more justified Cat 1 climb and how about some Hors category climbs as I'm sure this would be possible with the steepness of some of our rides.

The TV coverage was better than last year's where we had long features on the host/finish towns (that would be fine if the show was longer or on the BBC with no adverts). Definitely better than when we had a short highlights show on the BBC after the end of the race.

Next year's race should be interesting with the participation of Team Sky and will we see a showdown between EBH and Cav (if Missouri doesn't get funding for a fourth year), that's assuming EBH will be back to defend his jersey. Just hope we can get such a strong field again with the introduction of those 2 Canadian ProTour races.

 

[Mellow Velo]

EBH is such an amazing rider. Next year he will ride as a protected rider in the classics and the TDF. I wonder how much "Eddy" will make of it...

Classics, yes, definitely.
Protected for the TDF, in what context? Certainly not in terms of the GC.
Sky squad looks almost bereft of GTGC riders, other than Thomas Lovkvist.

One can only hope and assume than the remaining signings bring more depth and backbone to the three weeker squad.

 

[Henrik]

Classics, yes, definitely.
Protected for the TDF, in what context? Certainly not in terms of the GC.
Sky squad looks almost bereft of GTGC riders, other than Thomas Lovkvist.

One can only hope and assume than the remaining signings bring more depth and backbone to the three weeker squad.

Not for the GC no, more like a free role if I remember his comments right. Lovkvist looks like their best GC ATM, but I assume they will sign a better GC rider before next season.

They need some more quality before next year, not that many great riders there. But then again, I'm sure will will see new signings in the comming weeks.

 

[Mellow Velo]

Agreed. They should have a wicked bunch of "scavengers", for picking up stages.