Volta Ciclista a Catalunya 2019, March 25-31

[Koronin]

Valverde has to be the favorite, but the field is loaded. What a quality win it would be for El Tibo!

Well for our own teams a 1st and 2nd for our boys would be very helpful. How is Tibo's sprinting, as the title could easily come down to bonus seconds.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Froomey and LRP will fight it out.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

Froomey and LRP will fight it out.

Froome will be bad.

Then people will get hopes up for the Tour.

Then Froome will laughe at those people

 

[rick james]

Froome to be a mess and the forum to have a semi over a hopeful failure at Le tour

 

[Bavarianrider]

Re: Re:

Bernal vs. The Yates Bros.

There is going to be a massive sprint of 20 climbers. And you know who is going to win that sprint!
Very underwhelming route and CN put it. This race do not deserve this start list!

Maybe the start list is that good because the race is not over extremely difficult? Ever thought bout that. The route is great for a race in march.

 

[Velolover2]

Re: Re:

Bernal vs. The Yates Bros.

There is going to be a massive sprint of 20 climbers. And you know who is going to win that sprint!
Very underwhelming route and CN put it. This race do not deserve this start list!

There are bonus seconds in this race? Still, I don't know if Valverde is the favorite. Movistar has a strong team but it's hard to control two Yates brothers and Bernal at the same time. Mas is also in the race.

 

[Velolover2]

Re:

Froomey and LRP will fight it out.

Don't except too much right now. Porte is coming back from an illness and this is just warm-up for Froome.

But if Froome decides to race Tour of California, we could get a fun battle between them.

 

[Pantani_lives]

Strong line-up in a race with a lot of middle mountains. It remains to be seen who of the big names will ride for the win. For some of them it will just be a preparation race for the Giro or the hilly classics.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

Are there no climbs above 6% average in Catalunya? Anyway, the strong lineup will hopefully deliver a spectacle regardless.

Vallter 2000 is a legit climb. Rest, not so much.

Plus, once you consider the wider Catalan areas, there's more outside of the current political entity of Catalunya, in Andorra and French Pyrenées-Orientales.

 

[Tonton]

...looks pretty steep to me .

 

[HelloDolly]

It will be the Yates versus the young Colombians (Bernal, Quintana, MAL, Sosa) with Dan Martin and Valverde doing a sterling (non wining) job as they always do in Catalunya before the Ardennes

 

[Koronin]

Re:

It will be the Yates versus the young Colombians (Bernal, Quintana, MAL, Sosa) with Dan Martin and Valverde doing a sterling (non wining) job as they always do in Catalunya before the Ardennes

Remember Valverde has won the last two editions along with 3-4 stages in the last two years and has won 3 total Catalunya's.

 

[JosephK]

Re: Re:

Froomey and LRP will fight it out.

Froome will be bad.

Then people will get hopes up for the Tour.

Then Froome will laughe at those people

Yes, Froomey probably just shows up for a little training in the Volta, a little sightseeing. Maybe doing a little dom work for Bernal. When it gets to the TDF, he'll show up in typical TDF skeleton form. One look and everyone else's face will drop. No Giro in his legs for the TDF, this year.

 

[Velolover2]

Stage 1 is really hard. Movistar could shred the peloton and put Valverde up for a sprint if they wanted to do it. The combination of the two mountains and the murito leading up to mountain 2 should be enough to eliminate all the sprinters including Matthews-types. But I except the pace to be very gentle. You don't want to spend too much energy before Vallter 2000 and La Molina.

Valverde himself has toyed with the idea: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/valverde-not-ruling-out-bid-for-volta-a-catalunya-lead-on-stage-one/

The pure sprinters definitely wouldn't survive. But it's unlikely that the hardy ones like Gibbons, Matthews and Impey will get dropped unless Movistar decide to go nuts. There is simply too much flat after the Formic pass.

 

[Koronin]

Sounds like he's going after both stage wins and GC from his comments.

His comments sound a lot more like the Valverde we're used to hearing from.

 

[search]

it could go either way. In 2017 the stage was basically the same (just with a different first climb) and it ended up with a peloton of 150 sprinting for the win

 

[Velolover2]

Re:

Sounds like he's going after both stage wins and GC from his comments.

His comments sound a lot more like the Valverde we're used to hearing from.

If he is smart, he will collect bonus seconds from the immediate sprints.

In most stages, they don't come very far from the finish line. Add bonus seconds from winning/finishing 2nd or 3rd and he'll have a good chunk of time before Vallter. There is even a bonus sprint just before Vallter 2000.

 

[Blanco]

Re:

It will be the Yates versus the young Colombians (Bernal, Quintana, MAL, Sosa) with Dan Martin and Valverde doing a sterling (non wining) job as they always do in Catalunya before the Ardennes

What sterling, non winning job as always are you talking about?!
Valverde won 2 overall titles + podium + 8 stages in his last three appearances!!!
What is winning then, if this is non winning?!

 

[Robert5091]

The guys doing the Giro should be in better form so one of them should win it - Bernal & Sosa (with Dawg doing dom/training stints) should shine and it'll be interesting to see how S Yates does against them.

Stage 3 should give us some idea who's in good shape (unless it becomes a sprint in the last 500m.)

 

[Guszek]

Re: Re:

Edit: And how weird that there is a Catalan speaking city in Sardinia?!

This part of Sardinia had been occupied by Crown of Aragon. Majority of original population was displaced from this area and replaced by people from Aragon, Catalonia etc.

 

[Poursuivant]

Adam Yates v Bernal v Valverde. I’ll go with Yates to get over Tirreno-Adriatico.

 

[Lequack]

The Yates brothers and oversized glasses, name a more iconic duo.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Never been a big fan of this race. The route is usually rather boring, they always use huge highways and in general the most boring looking streets and the racing is usually rather predictable. It's one big mtf with action on the last 5 k, maybe another day with some minor gc action and that's it. Of all the wt one week stage races in spring this is probably my least favorite

Seconded.

Thirded

Maybe it's because I prefer stage races with ITT's (they usually don't have one here, correct?), but I've never taken much interest in this race. You have P-N and T-A to really kick off the serious one week racing, and then later you have P-V. Catalunya just seems to be the one in-between that doesn't mean as much. From memory it also doesn't seem to be a great indicator for the Giro or the Tour (let me know if I'm wrong though).

 

[perico]

Vallter is a beast. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

 

[perico]

Re:

A real stellar line up. Looks like Chaves is on domestique duties again though.

Where he should be. Since 2016, he's been almost as good as Fabio Aru in the GTs.