all words by Mike Franchetti
The Ronde market can be divided into the shiny exciting prospects (Wout van Aert, Matthieu van der Poel, Mads Pedersen, Tom Pidcock) and the hardened faces of many a spring classic (Peter Sagan, Zdenek Stybar, Yves Lampaert, Greg van Avermaet, Oliver Naesen). You can add to the mix two superstars who haven’t traditionally marked Flanders
The Clásica Sab Sebastian takes place tomorrow. The Basque race is a spikey affair that doesn’t really fit in with any other race on the cycling calendar. It takes place in Gipuzkoa at the very top of Spain and can be quite beautiful if the weather holds. It’s a quirky but popular one day race
It the end it wasn’t to be for Tom Boonen. The stars aligned a week before for Philip Gilbert but Roubaix posed too many obstacles for Quick-Step to mastermind his perfect finale. It would be Greg Van Avermaet who finished the two velodrome laps first, returning from an early deficit to drag a small group
One of my recent Twitter polls asked if we preferred a brilliant edition of Paris-Roubaix or a Tour de France decider on Ventoux/Alpe d’Huez/The Tourmalet. With 57% of the vote Paris-Roubaix was the winner and it’s considered by many to be the best racing of the season. I’ll always have love for the Grand Tours
…which leads me to today’s daily prediction: Philippe Gilbert will not win the 2017 Tour of Flanders. — Just Pro Cycling (@justprocycling) January 12, 2017 Well, I got it wrong. There was nothing in Philippe Gilbert’s post-2015 BMC form to suggest he would take to any race – regardless of the surface beneath his wheels
I confess I was not as excited for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Belgium’s curtain-raising classics weekend as the rest of the cycling world. Perhaps I was foolishly distracted by Green Mountain and the Abu Dhabi Tour, intrigued to see if Rui Costa and company could upset the leading GC guys. I’ve had no such distractions
1. Realise the new World Tour calendar is seriously mental Abu Dhabi in February? We’ve only just left there! And what’s the Tour of Turkey doing between Amstel and Liege? 2. Refuse to call ‘Giant-Alpecin’, ‘Sunweb’ Tom Dumoulin will always ride for Giant-Alpecin, okay? 3. Watch every minute of Tour Down Under coverage, setting an
It’s the end of February and we can all start looking forward to Cancellara-solo attacks, Ian Stannard defying the odds, punctures, falls, mud, velodromes and lots and lots of Etixx Quick-Step.
Just Pro Cycling 