Tour of Britain 2023 (September 3-10)

[Mayomaniac]

I wish Affini was with another team with a stronger sprint focus as he is devastating as the second last rider - And he could win races in another team.

Imagine Affini & Walscheid leading out Milan. Big boy power for days.

 

[willbick]

I spent two weeks in the UK in August and it rained maybe 2-3 days. The weather was wonderful.
We even had a sunny day in Yorkshire!

A

I've been taking arm warmers and gilet with me for most of the "summer", and that's when it's dry, I've probably got rained on more this year than the last 5 years combined. It wasn't a bbq summer for sure.

its bizarre how humans can normalise cloudless skies and 30C+ temps for days on end in the U.K. ...

 

[yaco]

Kooij will probably do the Giro next year. There Affini will get to show plenty of this. Maybe even with Van Aert as the next in line

I have no faith that Kooij will ride a GT in 2023, especially if Jumbo want to win 3 GT's in 2024.

 

[yaco]

Imagine Affini & Walscheid leading out Milan. Big boy power for days.

Jayco would love to have Affini back and he would be given the chance to win races - Actually a Walscheid, Affini, Mezgec lead out would put Groenewegen back in the game.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Jayco would love to have Affini back and he would be given the chance to win races - Actually a Walscheid, Affini, Mezgec lead out would put Groenewegen back in the game.

That leadout would be brutal, give it to a physically imposing sprinter with lots of watts and watch others struggle.

 

[Sciatic]

For a race that's almost entirely sprint stages, this Tour of Britain has a shockingly shallow pool of sprinters competing. I guess you're running up against the Vuelta and the Canadian WT races, but still surprising.

I don’t think they lost many sprinters to the Vuelta this year

 

[Carrick-On-Seine]

Van Aert fans on Jumbo's social media are definitely getting quite frustrated. But I don't know what they expect, Van Aert and Kooij sprinting against each other? Kooij is just the faster rider, it's only logical that he gets the leadout.

As a leadout he has still beaten Sam Bennett - twice.
Affini should give that a go as well in the coming stages.

 

[theyoungest]

I have no faith that Kooij will ride a GT in 2023, especially if Jumbo want to win 3 GT's in 2024.

He has been given the guarantee to ride one, as far as that's possible of course. He hasn't signed for 2 more years at Jumbo to still not get to ride a GT, he's not a complete idiot.

 

[ashhutch1997]

And you can't even pin it on the stage host locations. The Manchester and Gloucester stages could both be a lot harder, not to mention the laughable Wrexham stage. Then put a TT in Felixstowe and you have a good route.

I live in Gloucestershire, honestly they could have created a Liege Bastogne Liege style stage through the Cotswolds. They actually went out of their way to make a stage through a very hilly area flat, absolute garbage stage design.
It's such ashame because the Tour of Britain became a fantastic race with lots of hilly/undulating stages. The 2012,13, 14,16,18,21 were fantastic editions (2014 was a particularly great edition which was pure carnage) that had really hard stages with no flat and great racing.

 

[Izzyeviel]

I don't understand the lack of time trials. the last one was 2019. 10 mile time trials are literally our thing.

 

[yaco]

He has been given the guarantee to ride one, as far as that's possible of course. He hasn't signed for 2 more years at Jumbo to still not get to ride a GT, he's not a complete idiot.

Guarantees mean nothing - He and Affini are wasting their careers at Jumbo.

 

[Andy262]

That explains why they're going through those areas, but not why they don't use what those areas have to offer. It's like we've said on the Women's Tour multiple times, it's like they just draw lines between the areas that are paying without paying any mind to what is in that area. The East Anglian Women's Tour stages riding straight past the only hills in the area before a finish too dangerous for a safe sprint are particularly galling.

The recipe for Wrexham in that last sentence.

 

[Andy262]

I genuinely feel sorry for the organisers. Putting on a pro stage race in the UK nowadays must be nearly impossible. I'm sure they're as disappointed with the parcours/startlist as anyone but I don't suppose there's much they can do about it

I guess two things:

Usually the Tour of Britain is a good warm up for the Worlds. Obviously this year that’s not the case.

I wonder if the sprint heavy parcours was originally designed with Cav’s farewell season in mind.

 

[Gwbert]

The recipe for Wrexham in that last sentence.

The Wrexham stage was such a missed opportunity - you can literally head straight west from Wrexham and take in any number of crazy and not so crazy climbs. Hardly anyone on the roads either and you could always loop back and finish in Wrexham/Chester etc if you need that stage start money. What I don’t understand is how they can create such a good final stage, but such a poor Wrexham one. It would have broken up the Olav wins a bit too.

 

[Izzyeviel]

currently the hottest day of the year in the UK.

 

[Strawberry_Jams]

the riders make the race, not the course...

edit. although saying that, there is only so much you can do.

 

[Izzyeviel]

quite nice to see cyclists use the cycle lane for once

 

[Samamba]

You think the commentator is ever gonna realize it's Van Poppel and not Bennett?

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Stage #3 Tick

 

[Samamba]

It really isn't ok that it takes 5 minutes for the commentators to realize it's Van Poppel, how bad can you be at spotting riders when it's your job. They don't even look remotely similar.

Think Bennett had a mechanical, he disappeared out of nowhere with like 1km to go.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

It really isn't ok that it takes 5 minutes for the commentators to realize it's Van Poppel, how bad can you be at spotting riders when it's your job

And they called him Bennett like five times in the final kilometer even though it was clearly Van Poppel and it just didn’t stop.

 

[willbick]

I bet Kooij doesn't win tomorrow. Organisers will have a quiet word with JV this evening

 

[tobydawq]

I bet Kooij doesn't win tomorrow. Organisers will have a quiet word with JV this evening

Lol

 

[Ilmaestro99]

To be honest the organisers deserve the Dutch Mareczko winning 6 stages for making such a mickey mouse route.

 

[MartinGT]

So glad I didn't bother to book the day off to ride out and watch lol.