There is something to love about a race that makes a deviation to its route for the simple joy of sending a fleet of professional riders up a fiendishly steep and narrow ramp. The Cote du Stockeu offers zero benefit to the route from a logistical standpoint – in fact, all it does is complicate things. On the way down from the Cote de Wanne – usually at breakneck speed – the race enters the small down of Stavelot. Just before hitting the town proper, you make a right turn and ascend a wall that does little more than become steeper as it twists it way up for 2.4km. Riding the route with Museeuw during Keepers Tour, he quietly tried to dissuade us of riding it, “You don’t need to do this for me; I’ve never enjoyed this one.”
At the top lies the monument to Merckx and his 525 victories. Upon reaching it, the route takes a sharp left turn and descends right back down to exactly the same spot from which it climbed up. This is why I love this climb so much; its just free pain for the racers – a steep climb just for the sake of making their legs hurt a bit more. Shortly thereafter, the route rolls down a few valleys and arrives at the Cote de la Redoute (The Fearsome), which signals the beginning of the finale. Its too far from the finish to make a winning move, but if you’ve got bad legs, you’ll be left behind to suffer all the way to Ans.
Amstel has been sorted, as has La Fléche. Both were won by an outsider. I don’t think the big names will let that happen again. Surely Gilbert and the Sag Wagon will have their act together this time around.
Check the start list and enter your picks in by the time the countdown clock goes to zero at midnight on Sunday morning Pacific Time. The winner of this monument will post for the next year with the LBL Winners Badge. Good luck.
[vsp_results id=”23150″/]
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
@Mikael Liddy
Agreed. Especially as he was sitting on the wheel of Nibali and another Astana guy at the time. If you've burned your team matches then you can't expect someone else to help you chase down.
@ramenvelo
Ya, me too. But at that point anything woulda helped. I even tried this:
Wow, this is big. Garmin makes good on it's spring racing. Dan Martin has been slowly working his way up the pro ranks.
Adrian appears to be the winner here. Nice work! These results are provisional. I will wait for the moaning of disputes to die down before any final results go up.
[vsp_results id="23150"]
[/vsp_results]
Why did I put f'ing Froome in my picks? And Gilbert, you ruined me. Oh it's good I'm not making a career of this betting. I suck at this.
Gotta find Sean Kelly's Eurosport comment on youtube. I wonder if he actually showed emotion.
@Mirko
That would be a no, at least during the live broadcast.
@Gianni its my theory the bands are cursed, similar to the heisman trophy
@all
As of now, if you pick a rider who's last name is ambiguous, you must contest the matching prior to the race starting or be specific enough in your pick that we know which rider you mean.
A case in point is choosing "Martin" and disputing the pick after Dan wins and Tony is a no-show. As of now, disputes on ambiguous names will be rejected at our discretion; it smells strongly of the Piti Principle.
Nevertheless, results are updated:
[vsp_results id="23150"/]
Yeah, hey another point. Martin, JRod and Martin? Guess I need to throw my computer.
Ryder is a bit of an ungainly rider, very dichotomous. He is a beautiful rouleur, going Phantom Aero etc, but then from no where when he's climbing in that big gear, its all a bit like a bag of spanners.
When J-Rod went, I thought it was over and that doping little pocket rokkit would have it sorted. Not so! Martin to the rescue! Loved it! And Valve-cap - he was there and I was sure he would get carried to the finish line. All in all, I can't remember more riders whom I didn't want to win getting to the line in the front group and having a guy like Martin take them all for a ride. Fantastic stuff. LBL, I love you.