Velominati Super Prestige: Ronde van Vlaanderen
Ok, ok, settle down now people. Take your seats please. You’re all a little bit on edge, like some cycling Gamblers Anonymous group that’s been let out for the weekend with a pocket full of bills and the name of the nearest bookie. But in your excitement, you managed to crash our server, delaying the fix you so desperately crave.
But wait no more. You’ve warmed up on the gateway races, now it’s time for the hard stuff, as grimy, rough and unadulterated as the roads of Flanders themselves.
You see, there’s this bloke I know who knows a bloke, hangs around the Velominati bike sheds, seems to know a bit about the racing game. Reckons he’s got a sure bet for the weekend. A cert. A dead-set shoo-in. Number 1 in Race 3 of the VSP at Flanders. Fella reckons you could put your left one on it. Absolutely Faboolous or something he’s called. He’s got form (and, judging by the way he shelled the nags on last week’s card, possibly a motor). But word is there could be a late plunge on the other fella, Boom Boom Boy, so maybe a bob each way might be the way to go. I’d watch out for those not-so-roughies though, the likes of Gilbert, Devolder, Ballan and Thor will be waiting to pick up any leftover chaff and could steal away the win, leaving you as frustrated as a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.
So what’s it gonna be then? Take the sure thing, or the other sure thing, or throw a dart at the board and hope it sticks? It’s time to study the form guide, search the dark recesses of your soul, throw out any logic, and pencil in your picks on the ticket provided at the bottom of the comments. Whether you’re canny, savvy or just plain tinny, the coveted Obey The Rules bumper sticker is waiting. Is your bumper worthy?
The only thing for certain is that bicycle racing will be the winner on the day.
Last comment retracted. You hvae to stay away if you’re gonna be the boss…regroupment. What an upset! WIDE.FUCKING.OPEN.
Ballan – UGLIEST MAN IN THE PELOTON – makes a solid move! Brought back…
Big George in for the kill once again!
@Buck Rogers
I’d love to see Georgieporgie pull something out!
So many guys in brutal, brutal form.
Wow, for some reason I didn’t do the math and didn’t check when the race was airing…woke up this morning…and it was already on!
Last 5 kms right now. Oooh boy, this is going to be an awesome finish!
and again with 4km!!!
God DAMN Cancellara can ride!
I love cycling
Holly Fuck
What the FUCK was Chavenal doing pulling at all in thelast 3 K?!?!?!?!?!?
Damn and he was in my original top 5
blimey. what a race.
@Buck Rogers
Boonen was cooked. Chavanel was given the green light to ride for himself. Ride of the day, in my opinion. Heartbreaking that he left the sprint just a little late (some spilt milk here: I had Chavanel to win). But some gutsy rides! Nice little handshake between Chavanel and Cancellara in the last 3-4k. Classy stuff.
What a finale! Chapeau to Faboo who in the face of certain defeat refused to give it up; and to Boonen who made a slightly too last-minute effort to come across. We’re poised for quite a Roubaix!
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OK now lets go ride.
I gotsta know: where on earth were Garmin-Cervelo? Can these guys just not get it together?
That was unbelievable. What a race. It’s now 2:15am and I have to get up and go to work in 4.5 hours. It’s gonna take at least that long to calm down enough to sleep. Oh well. Can’t say it wasn’t worth it. Roll on Roubaix…
Faak that was awesome. Where can I get the DVD?
Staf Scheirlinckx must be thinking that he is still asleep and dreaming. Never even heard of that guy’s team, say nothing about him as a rider!
@Buck Rogers
I’m with you (albiet with slightly less punctuation) – with Tomeke METERS behind, I can’t understand anyone giving him the green light to work. In a a 3-man group, having one person breaking the rhythm would have put Boonen at the front in Merebeke. I’m sure of it. But that’s racing; it was super risky to wait til the last moment like that, and that’s that.
Today proved that bike racing is so unpredictable. Fuck, I love this sport.
Note: A Walloon speaking Flemmish sounds weird. GIlbert is getting interviewed on the Flemish feed.
@Steampunk
Boonen did not quite have it on the bergs but DAMN when he finally decided to come off of Ballan’s wheel with 700 meters to go he closed pretty quickly. I still wonder if Chav had not pulled at all in those final 3k’s … but then again, what a race!!! Cannot wait for my group ride this afternoon!!!
As if the race wasn’t exciting enough, it’s pure awesomeness that so many Fellow Followers are all pumped up from just watching that race.
G’phant – fuck, you’re a Hardman! Stay up all night watching races and only catch a few hours of sleep. Good man, good man.
I have all Sunday in front of me. Just back to the U.S. after eight weeks abroad & I haven’t been out for a ride yet. Supposed to be high 60s and sun today. Ooh, boy!
Enjoy your post-race euphoria, lads.
That’s about as good as it gets no?
@Steampunk
Agreed. Seems like that final 10-15k was perfectly suited to the “well rounded” team. Thor attacks on the Bosberg, Heino goes up the road with Gilbert, T-Bone in the sprint. All these different combos we’ve been reading about and Garmvelo does shit. WTF, not one of those blokes anywhere to be seen in the selection. American football teams that are stacked like that and then lose get coaches fired all the time.
@Nate
Get in touch with @G’Phant. He’ll send you loads of Flemish bootleg DVDs.
@G’Phant – got them Friday, been watching them ever since. RAD.
@Marko
Agree completely. I was surprised to hear Vaughters tell those guys not to work…you can’t expect to sit in and have that work out. BMC did the lions share – I would have loved to see Hinkey pull something together, but alas I think his dream will go unfulfilled.
It would have been great to see Boonen take it, but he just didn’t have the guns on the bergs; Roubaix will be interesting. Faboo’s confidence shaken, Boonen strong at the end, unpredictability of racing prevails. LOVE.IT.
@Steampunk
Seriously! I love Garmin but they have an uncanny ability to under deliver every single time. They better step it up for the TDF and get a stage this year.
What. A. Race!! Absolutely awesome.
Can’t say I liked Vaughters’ call, but I reckon it was the right one – if Farrar & Thor couldn’t go make the final selection without pulling, what would pulling have done for them?
I’m not sure Chavanel even knows how to ride for other blokes! Or conversely he was shamed into taking a turn having surfed the Fabian wave for quite a time. Either way, he did at the wrong time, and lost out.
Triffic stuff!
Big props to Staf Scheirlinckx. That must have been the ride of a lifetime. Guy must have found himself in the selection and just kept going.
Chavanel did spend a lot of time looking over his shoulder waiting for Boonen to materialize. And it wasn’t clear that if Boonen did reconnect he wouldn’t be dragging half that second group with him. For his part, you have to figure that Chav was probably the freshest of the trio, and you can see the team car telling him to go for it at that stage. I wonder, too, if Nuyens didn’t cut into his line during the sprint; Chavanel seemed to pull up more than once in the final 100m.
Garmin-Cervelo: Vaughters’s tweets are coming in fast, furious, and defensive. He sounds pretty pissed. At critics. But probably riders, too. I joined the feed at 65km left; where on earth was Haussler?
I guess I’m dense or something. Did I get two points because I had Boonen in the top five and he finished in the top five (though not the spot I put him in)?
@Cyclops
Not as dense as me for leaving Bone-doggle out (I like it, Frank!). But you also had Spartacus, no? That makes two in the wrong spots = 2 points?
The other thing I don’t get is: didn’t it look like Boonen initiated the move that sent Cancellara up the road on his own to what seemed like the inevitable at the time? Why was Boonen intent on trying to shed the bigger group in order to isolate Cancellara? That didn’t make much sense to me. It didn’t seem obvious that the four-man group up the road was in trouble (although it did quickly evaporate shortly thereafter).
@Steampunk
There’ll be some interesting (read PISSED OFF) converstaions in the Quick-Step hotel tonight. 2nd and 4th will NOT please the team management at all! I would love to hear what Chav and Boonen have to say. In Chav’s defense, Tomeke should have been there and did not have it on the bergs but if he could have got up to that trio, the win was a gievn for him. did you see how he closed after coming off of Ballan’s wheel. Man, he still had a sprint in his legs.
@Steampunk
Always thought JV was a bit of a nancy, today only confirmed it. What a piece of shit. I do not know why he argues so hard for radios, his team would do better if he shut the fuck up! :)
Chavanel, what a wheelsucker!
Agree. but what else could he do?
You are right, this is the limit of professional racing.
When you are not the captain you can’t choose to ride properly.
At the end of the day he was not so weak,
so F mark at the quickstep team car.
Are we seriously criticizing Quick Step for finishing second and fourth? Especially since they seemed to be the only team with a plan to counter Cancellara? And on the one hand we’re upset that Chavanel pulled in the last 3km and now we’re complaining that he didn’t pull the whole way? Captain or no, Chavanel was under no obligation to tow Cancellara to the line. If Boonen had the legs to close that well at the end, he shouldn’t have missed the split went Nuyens went in the first place. Ballan was cooked. So was Gilbert. Boonen must have fancied himself in a group sprint, but failed to read the group: no one was going to let him get into a sprint.
@Pedale.Forchetta
I cannot wait to hear the riders comments when they are published. Esp Cancellara’s and Boonen’s. Such a great race and it will be interesting to hear what everyone says that was actually in the race.
And what to make of this headline on Slipstream’s website: “Race report: Farrar leads as Garmin-Cervelo fights to the end at Flanders”. I’m not too sure I agree with the spin.
@Steampunk
Second and fourth is more than ok! But only from a sponsor point of view.
In terms of sport, in my opinion, the team car did find the courage (or call it as you like)e to give the green light to Chevanel, that was showing a fantastic state of form, but no, Boonen is the captain.
Excuse me, I was trying to say:
…the team car did not have the courage to…
@Steampunk
Oh yeah, I totally believe that the team will be PISSED that they “only” got 2nd and 4th. After last year’s Flanders, Quick-Step was royally pissed that they “only” got second. And with 1.5 guys in at the actual kill, and to walk away with 2nd, no doubt in my mind (I admit that “my mind” is a bit of a crazy place) that there will be some SERIOUS discussion tonight and pressure for next week.
@Marko
totally agree, there was an article in Procycling about Garmin having too many classics specialists and i think that came back to bite them on the arse the team wasn’t working for one person rather playing wait and see to look at who is there and ‘feeling good’ further in. Personally i’m looking forward to the day when Thomas won’t be held back by working for Flecha, really, really pleased to see the British champions jersey in the mix at the end of really big races
@Marko
This is probably the better, optimistic interpretation from Vroomen.
Today Cancellara posture after the finish, was exactly the same as the one at the Milano Sanremo…
Incidentally, another top 15 finish for Rollin. The guy’s having an incredibly consistent spring!
For me Faboo’s day will weigh heavily in my picks for next week. I think he spent everything he had in the tank and then some. Very different from a year ago when he seemed to have a much easier time. This opens up P-R a bit more I think without such a clear favorite. And if past is prelude, maybe we’ll get a sprint in the velodrome this year.
I may have only garnered two points on the day but I didn’t tip any of the Garmin riders as I felt strongly they wouldn’t factor. I am bummed that my hunch, at least where they’re concerned, was correct.
And how did Pippo DNF? Shit he was there sucking wheels until the last 10k or so it seemed?
@Pedale.Forchetta
What’s the deal with the Katusha number plate?