This week on the GCN Racing News Show, we look at how Ashton Lambie absolutely SMASHED
the individual pursuit world record.
Things hot up, literally, at the Vuelta a Espana, we’ve also got the Boels Ladies
Tour, and a look into the ultra endurance world with the Race to the Rock,
Oh, and quick disclosure, today I will mostly be imitating anchor man, reading out everything
that Dan Lloyd has written for me.
Before we start proper - a quick reminder to head over to our Facebook page to get your
racing fix.
This week we’ll continue to do highlights and analysis of each stage of the Vuelta a
Espana, plus daily highlights of the Tour of Britain, AND, love coverage of the GP’s
of Quebec and Montreal - make sure you head over to our GCN Cycling page on Facebook for
all of that.
Now, let’s start with this quite incredible world individual pursuit world record.
In 1996, Chris Boardman set the time of four minutes and eleven seconds, but since he did
that while adopting the superman position, which was subsequently banned, many though
that it would never be broken.
But then, 7 years ago, in 2011, Jack Bobridge bettered that time by just over half a second.
And that’s where it stayed, until Friday that is, when the relative unknown, Ashton
Lambie of the USA, lopped a whopping 3 seconds off the record, completing the 4km event at
the Pan American Championships in a little over four minutes and seven seconds.
He then back that up with a 4:09 in the final, so all of a sudden, Ashton Lambie has ridden
the two fastest Individual Pursuits ever, quite remarkable.
Now, to put that into perspective, that’s an average speed of 58.3kph, from a standing
start, and at his peak, he did a 14.4 second lap, a speed of 62.5kph, or 38.8mph.
As ever, Xavier Disley has made an illuminating visual of this ride.
It was done at the Aguascalientes velodrome in Mexico, which as you’ll probably know
is at altitude, and according to Xavier, starting out fast and then trying to hang on is a good
tactic to employ at altitude, as the lower air density reduces the deceleration compared
to sea level.
If you’ve never heard of Lambie, and we have to admit we hadn’t before his astonish
ride - his back story is an interesting one.
He started out riding gravel events in Kansas, setting several records in the area and finishing
in the top 10 at the Dirty Kanza.
Soon after he would transition to grass track racing in a corn field, and now, just two
years later, he’s a world record holder.
congratulate Lambie on his success and make him this week’s GCN Rider Of The Week.
Back onto the road now, the field where Dan Lloyd is frankly a demiGod.
As we mentioned in our intro, things have been hotting up in more ways than one at the
Vuelta a Espana.
Temperatures hit over 40 degrees on a couple of the stages, and it’s that, almost more
than the terrain which has made the first week particularly tough.
In winning stage 8 by outsprinting Peter Sagan, Alejandro Valverde made it two stage wins
from 8, increasing his career tally to 11, with a total of 96 top 10 placings on Vuelta
stages, but possibly even more impressive than that is the fact that the last time Valverde
finished outside the top 50 of a bike race was two and a half years ago.
Valverde had, however, missed out on an opportunity to take the leader’s jersey back on stage
4, which saw Ben King emerge victorious with a stinging sprint at the end of the climb.
Behind, Simon Yates was back to his attacking self, stealing almost 30s from most of the
other GC favourites, something that, according to teammate Jack Haig, wasn’t part of the
plan.
Haha ‘you’re supposed to keep a bloody lid on it mate!’.
Well I, for one, hope that Simon Yates continues to struggle to keep a lid on it, there’s
no doubt he makes races much more exciting.
The Vuelta has also seen a number of nasty crashes, and so all things considered, it’s
quite incredible that it wasn’t until stage 8 that we got our first abandon - Maurits
Lammertink.
Quite incredible given that Tiesj Benoot crashed on stage 7 and lost half his knee, look away
if you’re squeamish.
OUCH!
Julian Duval was amongst a number of riders who were taken down just after the finish
line on stage 6, after a race helicopter blew some barriers into their path, clearly shown
by this video taken by Rushverde on twitter.
Loic Chetout found himself quite exposed to the elements on stage 9
Whilst Ian Boswell has been managing to get through despite a nasty crash on stage 4.
We often talk about what a hardy bunch pro cyclists are, but it’s been as evident as
ever at this year’s race.
Today is the first rest day of the race, and as things stand, Simon Yates holds a slender
one second advantage over Alejandro Valverde, with Quintana a further 13s back, but the
entire top ten still only separated by 48 seconds.
Ben King became king of the Covatilla on stage 9, pushing himself almost beyond his limits
to take his 2nd stage win of the race.
Here's what he had to say after.
The Tour of
Britain kicked off yesterday and saw the return to competition of Geraint Thomas and Chris
Froome, both of whom looked, well, like they’d piled on a few pounds since July.
Probably a marginal gain given how flat the UK is and how bad the weather…
Stage 1 was expected to finish in a bunch sprint, and although Julian Alaphilippe and
Bob Jungels attempted to rip up the script, attacking on the small climb which came in
the last 10km’s, they were ultimately brought back.
Gaviria launched first, but Greipel muscled his way past and just held off Caleb Ewan
for the win.
It was almost like he was sending a not so subliminal message to his team, Lotto Soudal,
who have have replaced Greipel with Ewan as their main sprinter for the next few years.
Annemiek Van Vleuten made no secret of her form as the World Championships loom - she
comfortably won the prologue of the Boels Ladies Tour and then soloed to victory on
stage 1.
That, despite taking a wrong turn on the final descent and losing most of her lead.
Not to be outdone, former world champion Amalie Dideriksen also went back to back, sprinting
to victory on stages 3 and 4, whilst her Boels Dolmans teammate and current world champion
Chantal Blaak continued the team’s success the following day around the hills of Limburg.
They couldn’t worry Van Vleuten, though, who carried an 18 second advantage over Lucinda
Brand into the final day’s TT, which she would extend to 52 seconds after taking a
third stage win.
2nd place overall would go to Ellen Van Dijk after her teammate Brand crashed on that final
day.
Over to the ultra endurance world now where we shall start with the Race to the Rock - a
solo, unsupported mainly off road based race to Uluru, a massive sandstone Monolith.
This year’s event started in Cockle Creek in Tasmania, at 6:22am on the 1st of September.
Conditions were far from ideal in Tasmania, where the riders had to cope with the cold,
the rain and even the snow as they went onto the central plateau on day 2.
Only Emma Flukes and Sarah Hammond braved that section as the snow was falling, and
it really was brave, with temperatures down to -8 degrees C.
After missing the ferry, Sarah and Adam Lana caught a flight to Melbourne and resumed their
ride there, whilst Emma missed it and fell behind.
Sarah has won this race for the last two years, and as things stand she’s almost 40km’s
in front of Adam, but with with over 3000km still to cover, there’s a hell of a long
way still to go!
She really is a legend in the world of ultra endurance, and cycling in general.
OK - that’s all for this week, next week we’ll have an update on the race to the
rock, the 2nd week of the Vuelta, the GP’s of Quebec and Montreal, and the Tour of Britain.
We’ll see you then.