Tag: Cannondale Garmin

Caleb Ewan’s impenetrable wall of bikes – VCSE’s Racing Digest #42

Tour of Poland 2015

So Marcel Kittel got the monkey off his back (or should that be Gorilla?) in his first race since the Tour finished; the 2015 Tour of Poland. No doubt the win was hugely cathartic for the Giant Alpecin rider although if it was meant to herald a return to the heady days of 2014 where he won for fun it didn’t quite go according to plan.

Kittel took the opening stage victory from Orica’s Caleb Ewan and he was in the mix again the following day until a touch of wheels with Lampre Merida’s Sacha Modolo caused an accident that left practically the entire peloton stuck behind the tangled two wheeled wreckage where most of those involved in the bunch sprint were piled on top of one another. Missing from the crash scene was Kittel but he had already lost position before Ewan’s downfall. As he crossed the line behind stage winner Matteo Pelucchi, Kittel showed more emotion than he had at point of victory the day before; erroneously thinking the IAM sprinter had blocked him previously.

Pelucchi took another win the following day with Kittel trailing in a distant 7th as the stage delivered a kick before the line. He lost the overall race lead a day later and that was the end of the beginning of Marcel Kittel’s return to front line racing. His stage one win and the bizarre end to stage two at least delivered some drama to the uninspiring parcours that the race organisers chose for the opening few days. When you have become used to cycling being used as a sometimes not so subtle advertisement for the local tourist board it did seem a bit strange that this years race seemed to have decided to celebrate Poland’s urban rail infrastructure. One stage looping up and down a dual carriage way bisected by a tram line would have been enough; three was probably over doing it.

The second half of the race demonstrated how the Tour of Poland can often throw up an unusual result. Stage 4 provided an unlikely breakaway win and this was followed by the GC changing hands daily as first Bart De Clercq, then Sergio Henao and finally Jon Izaguirre pulled on the leaders jersey. Henao had been in the situation of holding the race lead into the final day’s TT stage at the Vuelta a Pais Vasco earlier this year. If there’s a safe place for your money it’s definitely not betting on Henao winning a stage race when a TT is the deciding factor. It’s still hugely enjoyable just to see the rider racing again after a career threatening injury but Henao is unlikely to be offered the chance of leading Sky in a race that really matters to them anytime soon.

And just as the spores of wild funghi spread across the undergrowth the sponsorship mushrooms of the Tour of Poland continue to multiply. If there’s a symbol of the race for me it’s these inflatable bulbs that line the race route as I have noted previously (here and here). Maybe this was the motive for the finishing circuits on this years race as the mushroom count for this years race surpassed both of the previous years combined. It’s part of the race’s charm that a sponsor can get maximum bang for their buck and yet random members of the crowd can get to the stage winner to claim an autograph of bidon before even the soigneur has handed them a coke and a towel.

Continue reading Caleb Ewan’s impenetrable wall of bikes – VCSE’s Racing Digest #42

A Giro minute – Giro week 1 and 2 round up

Giro d’Italia 2015 

Apre le deluge: suddenly Richie Porte’s two minute time penalty for taking a wheel from Simon Clarke doesn’t seem so important. The (now erstwhile) Sky team leaders result on yesterday’s stage to Madonna di Campiglio had echoes of the collapse in form that he suffered when he assumed Chris Froome’s role in last years Tour. On the day after the long TT stage, where it had been widely assumed (beforehand) that he would at least prove to be a contender if not the dominant rider (in the event losing time) Porte was shelled from the peloton on the penultimate climb and lost the best part of half an hour to Alberto Contador and Fabio Aru.

This years winner? - Alberto Contador
This years winner? – Alberto Contador

Porte had started the stage after some speculation that he could have withdrawn from the Giro after a lacklustre performance in the TT and another morale sapping time loss the previous day when he had been caught up in an accident just outside 3km to go and was forced to ride in on a teammates bike that was at least two sizes too big. There was talk of a knee injury and the suggestion that pulling out of the race now would give him time to prepare for this years Tour where he would be back on super-domestique duties for Froome. Whatever the motive behind the decision for Porte to line up at the start yesterday it’s hard to come up with a valid reason for him to stay in the race now. Sky had already promoted Leopold Konig into their GC leadership role ahead of the stage after the Czech had leapfrogged Porte into the top 10 and it is difficult to see that he can offer much support with the collapse in form appearing to be as much mental as physical (if indeed there is any physical issue).

Porte’s fall from grace has been as surprising as it has been swift. Less than a week ago he had looked well placed; in a podium spot and only 22 seconds down on Contador. Losing time due to a puncture towards the end of stage 10 to the leaders need not have been that injurious but the two minute penalty conferred for taking a wheel from fellow Australian (but crucially not a teammate) Clarke must have been the first crack in the Porte edifice that was crumbling by the weekend. With race wins in Paris Nice and Trentino and plenty of race miles under his belt Porte was many people’s favourite going into the Giro (mine included) and his demise has raised rather more questions than; “Can he win a grand tour?”. He wasn’t the only pre-race favourite to lose time on stage 13 but the reaction of the other rider involved is in sharp contrast to Porte’s misery.

Alberto Contador hadn’t given too many hints as to what we could expect of him in the Giro. His programme ahead of the race had provided one or two cameos of the dominant rider of previous years but in some ways it was only the fact that he is Alberto Contador that made you think he would be a factor in the first part of his double grand tour target in 2015. Contador has had his own share of misfortune too. The risks of an outstretched arm, snapping photos of the onrushing peloton are well known to the riders in 2015 and Contador was the last in a line of dominos brought down by an amateur photographer as he approached the line on stage 6. A dislocated shoulder might have spelt the end of his race and arguably his year but Contador continued and it’s almost as if the injury never occured now.

If anything Contador has seemed at most risk from his isolation in the leading group when the road has gone skywards. Half of the summit finishes in this year’s race have been dealt with now, albeit with the hardest climbs still to come but the ageing Tinkoff domestiques have been found wanting while Aru has often had four or five supporters around him (think: the cast of ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ v ‘The Inbetweeners’).But Contador’s strength is Aru’s weakness and the Astana rider hasn’t yet been able to turn his advantage in teammates into time taken from his chief rival. If anything we could be seeing the cracks appearing for Aru too. He took a fortuitous race lead after Contador had been caught up in the same crash that effected Porte on stage 9. Aru wasn’t expected to keep the Maglia Rosa for long in the following day’s TT but he looked shaky on yesterday’s stage with teammate Mikel Landa taking the win and looking the stronger rider of the two. It was probably a bit of mischief making on Contador’s part to suggest this to the media post stage and with Landa a further two minutes behind a change of leadership is perhaps premature. Astana might be able to use an Aru, Landa ‘one-two’ to their advantage in the final week, particularly if Contador is unsupported but at this point it’s difficult to see past El Pistolero for the GC.

Another rider to have fallen by the wayside in this years race is Rigoberto Uran. After podiums in the last two years I expected at least the same from the Etixx rider but he’s another rider that’s looked out of sorts over the last couple of weeks. Uran has suffered with a lack of support on the climbs but he lost a lot of time in the TT (he won the ‘flat’ TT stage in last years race). Might Etixx question whether or not Uran has what it takes to deliver a grand tour result after this Giro? Perhaps, although I think it’s more likely that the team will retrench from their ambitions, focussing more on week long races with the new sensation Julian Alaphilippe.

Outside of the GC battle this year’s Giro has thrown up some interesting stages. I confess that the first week passed me by as I holidayed with the bike in Spain. I missed Orica sharing the Maglia Rosa among three riders during the opening stages and I would have enjoyed seeing Davide Formolo taking his maiden grand tour stage victory. As RCS continue to dredge up ever more spurious reasons to ‘celebrate’ Marco Pantani it’s good to see an Italian rider emerging in a team (Garmin Cannondale) where at least his performances can be believed in.

Is that the US live feed i’m watching? – VCSE’s Racing Digest #41

Milan San Remo 2015 

If ever there’s a race to follow a script, at least as far as when something actually happens it’s got to be Milan San Remo. Every year there’s a rumour of, if not an actual route change to be implemented with the intention of making the race easier / harder for sprinters / climbers. And if the parcours is changed you can be pretty much certain that it won’t make the slightest difference and it will be fine to go to the garden centre (it’s a UK thing) or have dinner with the family and tune in when the race reaches the Cipressa.

And so it goes that the 2015 variety of MSR followed the script pretty much to the letter. Sure the key incidents were specific to this years edition but we could have easily foregone an hour or so of super slow motion rain jacket removal or watching riders going through the musettes.

OK, so if you had tuned in with 25km to go you would have missed the crash on a wet descent that took out one of the Sky team and allowed Geraint Thomas, Luke Rowe and Ben Swift to go clear of the peloton. They mopped up the last of the break but were caught by some determined chasers including Greg van Avermaet and Zdenek Stybar as they climbed the Cipressa. Sky were ostensibly working for Swift, but it’s hard to imagine that Thomas wouldn’t have had the green light to go for the win too. It was the Welshman who launched the last forlorn attack of the day on the Poggio with van Avermaet’s BMC teammate Daniel Oss for company. With those two caught on the descent it was down to a sprinters selection to contest the win on the Via Roma (the 2015 route change natch).

There were some choice names here too; last years winner and arguably race favourite Alexander Kristoff, Peter Sagan, Bling Matthews and Paris Nice stage winner Davide Cimolai. I signed off my last post with the prediction that Sagz wouldn’t do anything in MSR and so it proved; fourth place is not what Oleg Tinkoff expects (more of which later). My money was on Kristoff after he got back into the leading group with the help of the smartest guy in the peloton Luca Paolini. But who surfed the wheels from way back to deny them all? John Degenkolb, the Mr Versatile of the sprinters (this is the guy who finished on the podium at Paris Roubaix last year). OK, he was hardly long odds for MSR but I don’t remember him winning from so far back before. It’s a great win and should give Degenkolb equal billing at Giant alongside Marcel Kittel now (if he didn’t have it already).

I wonder if the result doesn’t have implications for another Giant rider. Warren Barguil has struggled since his breakthrough stage wins at the 2013 Vuelta. His situation reminds me a little of Mark Cavendish’s short stay at Sky, albeit they’re different types of rider. If Barguil is going to develop as a stage racer and certainly a grand tour rider it’s hard to see how he can do this at Giant, which is a team that is to all intents and purposes predicated as a sprint outfit. Much as I think Giant would want to keep him I can’t help wondering if Barguil would do better elsewhere. Dave Brailsford has talked about winning the Tour with a French rider, might Barguil fit the Sky mould?

Since Ben Swift claimed the final podium spot in last years MSR he’s been touted as a classics rider. When the Sky threesome went clear I thought he had a great opportunity to win the race solo if he could have used Rowe and then Thomas to leap frog over the final two climbs. This would have relied on the rest of the peloton to wave the metaphorical white flag perhaps, but it looked like Swift didn’t really have the legs in the sprint either. Classics wise Sky are now in worse position than they were a year ago. Ian Stannard may have repeated his Het Nieuwsblad win from 12 months ago but the teams MSR result is disappointing in comparison. Sky really need a result in the Ronde or Roubaix to show that they have taken a step forward in one day racing.

Volta Catalunya 2015 

I could have been forgiven for thinking I had tuned in to one of the US races so bad was the television feed from the Volta Catalunya (they seem to have dropped the ‘a’ in 2015) this week. The weather hasn’t been all that but we lost an entire ‘live’ broadcast yesterday (stage 2). There was a silver lining in that I didn’t have to see an Alejandro Valverde stage win though.

Alberto Contador
Alberto Contador

It’s been quite a fun race so far. The peloton completely messed up the time gaps to the three man break on stage 1 allowing CCC rider Maciej Paterski to take the win and the best part of a 3 min lead on GC. It was as you were GC wise after stage 2 and then the big hitters started to emerge today on stage 3.

Chris Froome has returned to racing after missing Tirreno Adriatico through illness and based on today’s performance he’s still not quite there. Froome had only Richie Porte left for support on the final climb as Tinkoff took advantage of several crashes on the descent of the penultimate climb to do some damage to the peloton. Bjaarne Riis has been suspended from Tinkoff for reasons that aren’t entirely clear (there’s a good article about that here) although Sagan’s result in MSR has been suggested as the catalyst. Alberto Contador looked in good shape today, almost back to his stage win earlier this season in the  Ruta del Sol as far I was concerned.

The Contador group that led into Girona included Porte, Rigoberto Uran, Fabio Aru and Garmin Cannondale pair Dan Martin and Andrew Talansky. While Contador seemed most concerned with Porte taking his turn on the front (Aru and Uran knew their place and rode when they were told to), no one seemed to be taking much notice of AG2R’s Domenico Pozzovivo. He attacked as the group reached the outskirts of town and by the time anyone had decided to respond it was already to late and Pozzovivo had a relatively easy win after a preceding hard 155 kms.

Paterski relinquished his race lead to Pierre Rolland who may well lose the leaders jersey in turn tomorrow on the queen stage to La Molina tomorrow. The big names are around 2.20 back on Rolland and Froome isn’t so far away another 20 seconds or so behind. If he can come back the way he did after Contador took his (Ruta del Sol) stage win earlier this year with one of his own at the same event, the GC could be Froome’s for the taking. There are plenty of other names in the mix though and tomorrow’s stage is likely to be a good one. Let’s hope they sort out the TV pictures.

Maxima minimised – VCSE’s Racing Digest #39

Etixx have (another) day to forget

Het Niewsblad and Kuurne Brussel Kuurne represent the start of the season proper for me. Races take place in conditions that I can recognise from my own rides and it the Flandrian landscape doesn’t feel too dissimilar to the windswept Essex roads that I do the majority of my miles on. I’m not sure of the exact reason(s) why OHN isn’t easier to catch on something other than a streaming site, but I guess money must have something to do with it. Having said that if Eurosport can manage to show the GP Samyn why can’t they get the Sporza feed for OHN? Particularly as they use the same channels pictures for the following day for KBK.

Le Samyn took place today and Etixx Quick Step had another ‘mare. With the kind of representation in the leading group that other teams would dream of and Gianni Meersman last wheel in the sprint train you’re thinking ‘win’ right? Um.. well.. apparently not. Lotto Soudal (nee Belisol) rider Kris Boeckmans went early and Meersman ended up second.  Lotto didn’t exactly set things on fire at the weekend, so the win was probably as significant for them as the (ahem) misfiring Etixx boys losing out. Ok, so this isn’t a race that will make or break their season, but Eitixx have to be wondering how they can turn numerical advantage in the last three races into only one victory.

Just the one (1 day) race in Italy this weekend then..

I’m looking forward to Strade Bianche on Saturday. Wouldn’t it be great if it rains? Of course the weather isn’t something that RCS can arrange and if the race is run in the same conditions as last year it shouldn’t spoil the fun. Last years edition featured Peter Sagan having one of those days that Etixx seem to be having currently. Ironically it was an Etixx rider that beat him twelve months ago; Michael Kwiatowski. While last years winner will be absent from this years edition (he’s at Paris Nice), the runner up is riding. Sagan will race on Saturday before turning his attention to Tirreno Adriatico the following week. This will be my first sight of Sagan since his move to Tinkoff. I wonder how Sagan will go this year. The massive contract must be nice but how long will it take Oleg to take to Twitter if he feels that he isn’t getting the return he thinks his investment justifies?

There’s plenty of other interest in the list of provisional starters. Simon Gerrans is fit again and this is the kind of race that should suit him. Cannondale Garmin are bringing 2013 winner Moreno Moser who hasn’t done anything since to be honest, so I guess I mention it as an example of talent that’s (currently) unfulfilled. One rider who I think could go really well on Saturday if he’s allowed to is Sky’s Peter Kennaugh. Sky have a pretty mixed up squad of classics and grand tour riders so it’s not clear to me what the Sky game plan could be.

What’s disappointing about this weekend is that Strade Bianche won’t be bookending things with Roma Maxima. The previous two editions of what was a revival race meeting had produced something really decent to watch and it’s a shame that the race has been pulled. It’s another example of the precarious nature of the sport that an event that looked to have been well supported locally and enjoyable to follow on TV has disappeared from this years calendar.

Every cloud though; at least Alejandro Valverde won’t be able to defend his title!

Continue reading Maxima minimised – VCSE’s Racing Digest #39