Velominati Super Prestige: Women’s Ronde van Vlaanderen 2016

Queen Lizzie leads the chasing group up the Oude Kwaremont

Has anyone checked the weather report for Sunday? Seriously. Have you checked? Wind. Rain. This. Is. Going. To. Be. EPIC. And you can all thank me for that because this is the year I chose not to head over there, naturally. I’m annoyed that we didn’t do a Women’s Gent-Wevelgem; we somehow missed it even though we should know better because Belgium is way ahead of all the other countries in terms of holding both Men’s and Women’s events. But we’re not missing this one.

Queen Lizzie has been crushing it this year, but since I can’t find a start list I’m just assuming she’s on it for Sunday. The weather will be a real wild card because wet cobbles are very different to gobble up than dry cobbles, especially when it comes to cornering hard and climbing steep bergs; if they haven’t trained riding the Paterberg or Koppenberg in the wet, those could be decisive in the outcome. And while we focus on the cobbled climbs, there are significant secteurs of pavé on the flat and rolling terrain, sometimes involving tight, high speed corners; wet cobbles could play a significant factor there as well.

And I’m not an expert on wind strength, but 16 kmph of wind seems like it might be strong enough to blow some of the ladies off the road if they are on deep section rims, so that will be interesting as well.

Remember there are prizes on offer; Don Walker is giving a free custom steel frame to the winner of the VSP overall, and Café Roubaix is awarding a set of their CR Wheelworks Arenberg wheelsets to the runner-up. Third place gets a free V-Kit. Boom. So get prognosticating and get your picks in before the clock goes to zero. Good luck!

Update: Thanks to @hudson for a start list.

[vsp_results id=”40379″/]

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

Next Velominati Super Prestige: Men's Ronde van Vlaanderen 2016 »

Previous « On Motors and Bikes: The Next Ride

View Comments

fenlander says:

Apr 4 2016 at 5:10 am

@frank

I am developing a dangerous crush on Lizzie.

Same here too,have a pic of her in full world champ gear and bike on my desktop plus a cycling weekly poster of her crushing everyone on her way to the title.

Hope she does the women's tour of Britain so that I can embarrass the VMH by getting a ProCycling cover signed,,,,
Oli says:

Apr 4 2016 at 5:19 am

So we're judging the winner of the Ronde by her accent and how cute she is? Awesome. Great to see how far we've come in valuing women's racing.
Wietse Verbrugghe says:

Apr 4 2016 at 7:29 am
@frank
@Wietse Verbrugghe
@frank

I don’t know where you get your weather forecasts, but no way it’s going to be a rough day Sunday. The whole weekend will be sunny, warm and mostly dry. Also, no wicked winds, at least not compared to Gent-Wevelgem last week, although it never really stops being windy around here. Just a heads up, don’t expect too much.

VSP PICKS:

Queen Lizzie

Johansson

D’Hoore

Blaak

Longo Borghini
Back on Weds when I was showing it, Google was predicting a shit storm. Disappointed it will be warm and sunny!
No worries, though, if they keep on racing like that! Let's hope for next Sunday.
Buck Rogers says:

Apr 4 2016 at 8:44 am

Evie Stevens flying the colours for the Yanks in cyclingnews.com interview of Team Boels-Dolmans:

""The secret to their success?

“We train really, really hard, and we have no social life,” said Armitstead.

Evie Stevens, who rode in support of Armitstead today, piped up to add: “We trust each other, and we commit, and we eat a lot of fucking oatmeal.”"

Pass the Quaker Oats, please!
Buck Rogers says:

Apr 4 2016 at 8:45 am

And what der fuerk!!!

Why is there no Women's Paris-Roubaix???

Fucking blows!
Minnesota Expat says:

Apr 4 2016 at 8:55 am

@Oli

So we’re judging the winner of the Ronde by her accent and how cute she is? Awesome. Great to see how far we’ve come in valuing women’s racing.

Well, my wife is quite the Peter Sagan fan. She really doesn't know much about cycling, the pro peloton, the classics, grand tours, or Slovakia for that matter, but she likes watching Peter Sagan. In fact, when he is on TV, she just stops everything and stares.

Why? Is there something attractive about Peter Sagan? His aggressive riding style? Maybe his choice of socks? Bottomline, I don't care why, if it means she'll sit with me and watches two hours of a race. Bonus: She doesn't object to scheduling vacations around UCI events!
chuckp says:

Apr 4 2016 at 11:26 am

@frank

I am developing a dangerous crush on Lizzie.

It's taking you this long???
Mikael Liddy says:

Apr 4 2016 at 3:37 pm

@Oli

So we’re judging the winner of the Ronde by her accent and how cute she is? Awesome. Great to see how far we’ve come in valuing women’s racing.

Ahem!

Way ahead of you on that one, fully fledged fangirl right here. Led Johansson for the whole finishing straight & still beat her in the sprint.
davidlhill says:

Apr 5 2016 at 4:14 am

@Oli

So we’re judging the winner of the Ronde by her accent and how cute she is? Awesome. Great to see how far we’ve come in valuing women’s racing.

Not to be picky, but I didn't notice any comments on how cute or otherwise Lizzie is. The comments to me implied the crush is there because of her penchant for crushing her opposition.

And in an earlier thread for wearing the champions kit properly.