Tour of Britain 2024, September 3-8

[Berniece]

While the final week of the Vuelta a España begins in Spain, the national cycling race also starts in Great Britain. The Tour of Britain (3-8 September) has several big names on the list of participants again this year, including Tim Pidcock, Julian Alaphilippe and Remco Evenepoel.

Livestream

Top Competitors

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Stage 5

Stage 6

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Really easy route (although their hands were kind of tied with the organisational issues), if certain people had no interest in testing their legs for the WC QS could confidently ride for a Magnier GC win.

 

[Berniece]

Really easy route (although their hands were kind of tied with the organisational issues), if certain people had no interest in testing their legs for the WC QS could confidently ride for a Magnier GC win.

Evenepoel said Alaphilippe and himself will go for it the first three stages, and afterwards he'll help with the leadout of Magnier. So I still expect them to go for GC with the team, and then some stages with Magnier.

 

[search]

Today's finish has been used twice before, both times resulting in a sprint of ~half the peloton - although Dowsett was only caught with 100m to go in 2019.

The sprint is a bit of a sketchy one, on street cobbles, and with a slight bend to the line. If Evenepoel decides to take over the leadout today already, Magnier should be hard to beat, I assume.

View: https://youtu.be/zyQ30fddcvE?t=220


Tomorrow's stage looks likely to decide GC, with some hills around ~50k out. There's another steep one at 9k to go (same one Hayter won the Nationals on this year), but it's basically only 200m long.

 

[Jagartrott]

Super excited about this. Wait, no, I'm not.

If the peloton wants, these are all bunch sprints. Strangely, there are zero top sprinters here.

 

[Prim]

Anyone know where to watch this?

Edit: It´s being streamed here

 

[KenFiamingo]

Pity we won't be seeing an epic finish like this:

View: https://youtu.be/gkq-xA0_zY4?si=bOFYA_BuP5Hlxi1L

 

[Squire]

Really easy route (although their hands were kind of tied with the organisational issues), if certain people had no interest in testing their legs for the WC QS could confidently ride for a Magnier GC win.

Yeah, Quickstep really have power to choose how this race is won. I guess an early Evenepoel attack, accompanied by someone like Pidcock and/or Onley will not be brought back. But as you say, if they wanted they could have taken Magnier to the finish of all these stages. Van Uden will probably struggle to survive the toughest stages, so even if he's by far the best sprinter here, he probably can't win the overall.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Evenepoel said Alaphilippe and himself will go for it the first three stages, and afterwards he'll help with the leadout of Magnier. So I still expect them to go for GC with the team, and then some stages with Magnier.

Let me rephrase: if Evenepoel and Alaphilippe weren't riding this race specifically to get some actual racing in their legs ahead of the Worlds, then QS could just as easily try to win the GC with Magnier as with either of them. But in the context of Worlds prep, it makes more sense to make the race hard, which as Evenepoel has said is their plan A.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Yeah, Quickstep really have power to choose how this race is won. I guess an early Evenepoel attack, accompanied by someone like Pidcock and/or Onley will not be brought back. But as you say, if they wanted they could have taken Magnier to the finish of all these stages. Van Uden will probably struggle to survive the toughest stages, so even if he's by far the best sprinter here, he probably can't win the overall.

Not convinced Van Uden is that much faster than Magnier and (if actually in form again) Vernon in a flat sprint. It's also a shame Matthew Brennan has been removed from the startlist, would have been interesting to see how far he already is compared to those three.

 

[Tim Cahill]

QS a bit too strong, ISN brought a good team but no idea whether Blackmore can carry his form through. He's been in Andorra all weekend racing so not convinced. He could challenge Mangier but the other two are obviously a bit too much for him at this point. Evenepoel playing down expectations can be taken at face value I think, no need for any mind games here, but even if he's crap he's still good unfortunately.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

They somehow managed to make a race even less selective than the 2018 Women's Tour, when they had a Northampton stage as the most selective and Coryn Rivera won both the GC and the intermediate sprints competition without leaving the péloton once.

The Northampton stage was better than this one. Seriously, how is it even possible to make a stage from Sheffield to Barnsley this bad?

 

[Berniece]

There's a legal livestream that can be viewed on Youtube

 

[Tim Cahill]

Excellent to see Alaphilippe visiting the local patisserie, really getting involved with the culture. The Cuire au poulet are my favourite, took me through university.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Worst race route of all time. So much good riding in those islands and instead let's do sprints to fking middlesbrogh and derby

 

[Strawberry_Jams]

Worst race route of all time. So much good riding in those islands and instead let's do sprints to fking middlesbrogh and derby

Do you not remember last year?

 

[awavey]

Worst race route of all time. So much good riding in those islands and instead let's do sprints to fking middlesbrogh and derby

Yet as we say time and time again with the British races, they can only visit locations that are willing to pay for them, and they all want bunch sprint finishes, the race isn't profitable enough to choose any better.

That restricts the kind of racing you can have. It doesn't completely get the route planners off the hook as they seem to do very little in exploring harder routes within their starting and end points and just often follow NCN routes.

But there's not much love for cycling in the UK, GBNews reported on the race, that they called a "tournament " for some reason, warning drivers of six days of traffic delays as their headline !!!

This is the level of engagement any race organiser has to overcome to get races in the UK happening and that's before you get the petty politics of local councils involved who are so car centric in their outlook they can't even begin to fathom a race like this.

Even those signed up & involved are only interested in tourism boosts in a post holiday season economy, they're not seeing it as cycling or sport.

 

[Coffeeplanter]

Nobody on the planet would get a sudden urge to visit Newark-on-Trent or Wrexham by watching the ToB.

 

[Strawberry_Jams]

Nobody on the planet would get a sudden urge to visit Newark-on-Trent or Wrexham by watching the ToB.

No, apparently you need two Hollywood stars to do that for some reason.

 

[Tim Cahill]

 

[Tim Cahill]

Nothing like a well-arranged hedgerow and a solid, weathered British roadside wall, this is what it's all about.

Alaphilippe attacks/Blackmore follows, looking pretty sharp

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Nothing like a well-arranged hedgerow and a solid, weathered English roadside wall, this is what it's all about.

Excuse me?

 

[Tim Cahill]

Excuse me?

I edited it before any Scots could notice don't worry

 

[Coffeeplanter]

Ladies and gentlemen, the Olympic champion is in the lead.

 

[Coffeeplanter]

Tobias Foss full panic mode seeing a free wheeling Remco at the front.