A turkey in Turkey

I just turned on Stage 5 of the Tour of Turkey. Since I watching at work, I do not have sound on. What the bleep is going on.

I tuned in with 14 km to and a ten man break had 8:45 lead. Four km later, another minute had been added. Has the entire peloton quit, figuring the overall is lost? With seven km to go, the lead had grown to 11 minutes.

Watching the time gap go up was like watching a stop watch. The time was growing, second by second.

Crazy stuff? How did they get this huge lead? This is probably a radio-free race. Was that an issue? Very strange.

Five km - 11:35 lead

Three km - 11:57

Two km - 12:21

One km - 12:25

Finsih - 11:55

After considering who was in the break, I kind of understand what happened. Most, if not all, the ProTour teams had someone in the break. Race leader NetApp was unwilling or unable to do all the work to keep the break close and maybe the other smaller teams were in the same situation. The big teams probably controlled the pack and the gap grew. I will have to read the race report later.

Tour of Turkey

Im watching Stage 3 of the Tour of Turkey. I must say that the turquoise bike rack on the red Cofidis team car most innapropriate. No wonder they lost their ProTour license.

And now there is an uphill crash. I love those.

UPDATE: I now see that the Caja Rural team also has a turquoise bike rack. Perhaps the racks are being supplied by the race organizers. I apologize to Cofidis.

Liege picks

I have no time for much typing. This is Sunday morning and the race is already started. But, there are still 150km to go. The only unique stat I will give is that there are only about 15 riders entered in the race that have finished top 10 in the past five years.

My picks:
Gesink
Hesjedal
Nocentini

Happy Easter, everyone.

A note about Fleche

Im typing this while the race is still going on. I made the selections I did because I was looking for a bit of a challenge. If I wanted to select a couple that I strongly felt would place well I would have picked Basso and Vinokourov. We'll see how they do. Back to the race...

Fleche Wallone picks

My Amstel Gold picks were okay. Sammy Sanchez was an unimpressive 56th place @ 2:46. Fabian Wegmann did a little better with 20th @ 2:13. I'm really happy with my choice of Ben Hermans. Ben did me proud with his 8th place, only 18 seconds adrift of Phil Gilbert.

We now move on to Fleche Wallone and the tough uphill finish on the Mur du Huy. This is another race where if you get top 10 once, you will likely get there multiple times. There are a lot of riders with multiple top 10s in the past five years. Also notable is the number of riders who have finished top 10 that are NOT at the race this year. Several are serving doping suspensions or retired from the sport after being caught doping. Plus, there are a few retirees and some injuries that further reduce the number of past top 10 riders. In total there are only 17 riders on the start list that have been top 10 in the past five years. This would seemingly present an opportunity for some other riders.

Back to the subject of multiple top 10s in this race. Fourteen people have had multiple top 10s in the past five years. Leading the way is Al Valverde with four top 10s, but he is on suspension. Those with three top 10s are Dave Rebellin (suspended), Cadel Evans (injured) and Damiano Cunego. Another ten riders have had two top 10's. I wont list them all but one name that I would have never guessed is Michael Albasini. And, he finished 11th last year otherwise he would be mentioned with some big names. The last three years he has finished 7th, 9th and 11th. I am curious whether this relatively anonymous rider can pull out another strong performance.

Speaking of anonymous, I am choosing some lesser names for my Fleche Wallone picks

In alphabetical order...
Jerome Coppel - This is a bit of a shot in the dark. He's a good young rider that can climb and is probably the leader of of his smallish Saur-Sojasun team so he should have as much support as his team can provide.
Bert De Waele - De Waele has been hidden away on the Landouwkrediet team for his whole career. Thus, he does not get a lot of exposure. He is a not-so-young 35 year old but in the last few years he has turned in some nice placings in big races. Tenth an the '09 Flanders. Last year he finished 4th at Amstel and 12th at Fleche
Ben Hermans - Ben treated me well on Sunday. I'm willing to ride the wave.

Cyclotrope

I stumbled across this short video and found it intriguing. Perhaps you will, too.

Headline of the Day

From Cyclingnews:
BMC changes tactics for Fleche Wallonne

Does this mean they are going to win a race?

Amstel Gold

I've been completely out of the loop. Last weekend I got smacked around at the Hermann Omnium. After being humiliated on Sunday, I learned of some family health issues and spent much of the past week either at work or the hospital.

Training did not happen until this morning when I rode an hour on the trainer. The health issues are improving and I am planning on doing the Delmarvelous Crit tomorrow. I'm racing Master's since it is earlier and will allow me to get to the hospital earlier.

All that having been said, I gave my Amstel Gold picks very little thought. I, just now at 9:30pm on Saturday, glanced at the start lists for about 15 minutes and compared them to past results to make sure I am not picking someone that I don't allow myself to pick.

There is a good track record with two of my picks and I decided to take chance on a youngster for the third.

Fabian Wegmann - This may not be a good pick because I think he will be asked to serve as a domestique for the Schlecks. But, he has had three finishes in the 11-20 places in the past five years.
Samuel Sanchez - Here is another rider that has three 11-20 finishes. Good consistent results are bound to yield a top 10 finish eventually. Right?
Ben Hermans - Ben is my longshot. I have no good reason for picking Hermans. I just think he is a good young rider.

Roubaix Picks

Im late with making these picks for Roubaix. I just returned home from the first day of Tour of Hermann. I got my butt handed to me in a TT and Crit. I'm hot, sunburned and a little cranky. Not sure how much I am going to type.

First a little analysis, as usual. Roubaix is a race where, if a rider does well once, he is likely do well multiple times. As evidence, only 31 riders have finished top 10 in the past five years. Four of those riders are retired. Another two are injured and not racing, while another two simply are not on the start list. That leaves only twenty-four riders that have finished top five.

Tops among them is Tom Boonen. Bonnen has been top 10 each of the last five years. He's almost a sure bet, barring some mechanical issues. The next most consistent is Juan Antonio Flecha with four top fives. Cancellara and Hoste are next with three top fives.

Whereas, the riders that finish top five are rather consistent. Those that finish between places 11 thru 20 are very transient bunch. Almost as if they luck into a reasonably good finish. Forty-five riders have finished between places 11-20.

Okay, onto my picks. In alphabetical order...
Lars Boom - the Flandrian bergs may have been a bit too much for Boom but he is a powerhouse and Roubaix should suit strengths a bit better
Marcus Burghardt - BMC was arguably the strongest team in Flanders. Burghardt is another big powerful guy that seems like he should do well. The question what the team pecking order will be.
Vladimir Gusev - Gusev has the qualities to do well. In fact he has finished top 10 before only to get disqualified because of an illegal train crossing. So, I'm taking full advantage of my rules of not picking a top 10 rider in this case.

Roubaix weather

The weather forecast for France this weekend??? 90% chance of scary, yellow eyeballs.

Wiggins

Kudos to Bradley Wiggins. Looking over the start list for this weekend's Paris-Roubaix, Wiggins is the only rider entered that has a reasonably high level of Grand Tour GC aspirations.

All the other GC riders are training or racing in Pays Basque. I can understand that logic, since the Basque race is more suited to a GC rider. But, I miss the days of Grand Tour riders racing in Roubaix. The practice seemed to disappear with the '90s. Indurain, Pantani, Ullrich, Armstrong???? NO. NO. NO. NO.

Another sad part of bike racing that seems, for the most part, to have disappeared.

Crazy Basques

This week I have been watching streaming coverage of Pays Basque.

Frankly, it is taking a little getting work getting used to the graphics used during the race. All the French, Italian, Belgian terms that I am used to do not apply.

Basque is truly a bizarre language. Usually, you can relate some words to an english equivalent. Not so with Basque. For instance, the leaders of the race are "Lasterketa burua" Huh? Very strange. Near as I can tell a chase group in "Tropel burua". I suppose a "burua" is a group but I am not certain.

I wonder if Google Translate has Basque as a language.

Tilles Crit

The day after another humbling beat down of my self-confidence at Hillsboro-Roubaix, we faced the Tilles Park Crit. Tilles Park is kinder, gentler race with flowing bends and gentle rises in terrain. That's not to say there cannot be some hard racing but, generally, you can sit in the pack survive quite nicely.

Sunday, the wind was blowing quite strongly and made the prospects of a tougher race greater. The difficulty of the race itself never came to fruition. If you put your nose of the front or tried to escape, then the race and wind felt difficult.

I tried to race smart and get some solid racing in my legs. My fitness does feel very high right now so I need to be careful in choosing the length and timing of my efforts. I did feel frisky halfway through the race and put in an attack. In reality, the attack was stupid because nobody went with me so it was doomed to fail. Then, as I crossed the start/finish line the prime bell rang. Great! The prime bell just after an attack is so disheartening to me. Especially when my ability to recover is poor right now. Once the bell rang, there were visions me getting dropped running through my head. I figured the bell would stir up the pack's aggressiveness, I would get caught and then not be able to catch onto the fast moving peloton as it blew by me.

For whatever reason, they did not seem eager to chase. Only after rounding the first bend did I see a Chris Connolly up the road, which could explain the unwillingness of the pack to go for the prine. I know it dashed my hopes of a prime but figured I would push onward and see how long I could hold off the pack. Surprisingly, I kept gaining ground on the leader. Rather quickly, actually. I moved to the opposite side of the road as Connolly to try and make it harder for him to get on my wheel for the finishing stretch. Turned out that he didn't even try.

And, so, I had actually won a rare prime for me. What did I win? Two golf certificates. Yay!!!! Oh wait, I don't golf. Anyway, it was fun to win something for a change.

Late in the race a group of seven guys did manage to roll off the front and stayed away to the finish. None of our team's three riders made the cut but we raced pretty well.

Body beautiful

Cyclists often of less than impressive upper bodies. But, the legs... they usually look pretty good. Even skinny climbers can have some good legs. But these? These leave me speechless. And not in a good way. Photo taken by Greg Henderson on the Team Sky bus

Ahhhh

Danilo Napolitano explains how much better his bladder felt after taking a natural break.

De Ronde picks

I'm back to destroy the illusion that I know how to pick races. Amazingly, I picked Matt Goss to win Milan-San Remo a couple weeks ago and the darn fool actually won. How am I supposed to follow up that?

It is interesting to note that there has not been any strongly consistent top 10 finisher. Most people would probably think that this is a race that this year's top favorites, Cancellara and Boonen, almost always do well. That's not necessarily the case. Both riders have finished top 10 only twice in the past five years. Boonen has finished top 20 in those other three years. Cancellara had only those top 10's. That is surprising considering that people talk this year as if he is unbeatable.

BMC teammates Ballan and Hincapie lead the way with three Top 10's in the past five years. After them, is a whole pack of riders with two Top 10's besides Boonen and Cancellara. Devolder, Gilbert, Hoste, Kroon, Leukemans, Nuyens and Pozzato all fit the bill.

But, I cannot pick any of those guys. I originally wrote down seven names that would meet my requirements for NOT having finished top 10 in the past five years. Unfortunately, it turns out that I cannot choose three of them after all.

Without further ado, in no particular order...
Lars Boom - my gut tells me his teammate Langeveld might have a better chance but Boom is wearing 51, as if he is team leader, so maybe Langeveld will be working for him. Besides, I have a weakness for CX riders.
Edvald Boasson Hagen - Flecha is probably Sky's leader and Hagen is dealing with Achilles issues so this likely will not be a good selection. I'm crossing my fingers
Daniel Oss - His teammate, Sagan, is probably a better pick but I chose Sagan at M-SR and don't want to pick him again. That said, I saw a photo of Sagan having to put a foot down on the Koppenberg while training this week. I do like Oss and feel he will do fine.

Hillsboro Roubaix

What do you say about a race that you have never finished? Oh sure, I'm sure I could have finished some of them if I wanted to ride alone for half the race. But, that's not my cup of tea. Especially on days like this with a strong winds.

The weather was nice. Sun was abundant. Warmth, a little less so. Temperatures were comfortably in the 50's, however, so there is reason to complain.

If I wanted to complain, I would mention the stop, accelerate, stop, accelerate, stop, accelerate... that happened much too often in the first five or six miles. I had Cat 5 flashbacks.

My legs were crap from the very start. This was not helped by being on back end of the pack and suffering ever present accordian affect. Thirteen or fourteen miles into the race I finally let a gap open up. I didnt quit though and I chased for a little while and managed to catch onto the tail of the pack again for a few miles only be stung a little while later.

A larger gap opened and then, inconceivably, the gap leveled out and was staying steady. One man against ninety. I caught and dropped a few others that had fallen off the pace and carried on in pursuit of the pack, just up the road.

Miracles do happen. I rounded a left hand turn and found the field neutralized by an official for repeated violations of the center line rule. Thanks for giving me a second life, guys.

We began rolling again and my legs could not respond. Almost immediately I began fading off the back. A mile or two later I turned on the main road heading into town with a gap of 20 or 30 seconds. Once again, my legs suddenly seemed to come to life into a cross/headwind. Push, push, push. Am I imagining things? Am I actually getting a little closer? Push, push, push. I again catch and drop a handful of riders that fell of the pace.

Sure enough. Slowly, gradually I reeled in the pack and caught a little breather for a few miles. All the chasing was for naught. Once we reached the two hills before reaching town I again drifted off the back. I tossed in the towel this time and only gave a half-hearted effort on the finishing circuit.

I was done and pulled out of the race after the first of two laps. It seemed more prudent to save the legs for Sunday's crit than beat myself up for no reason.