Welcome back to the GCN Racing News Show - on the menu this week, some Dutch beer at the
Amstel Gold, a piglet at the Tro Bro Leon and some Belgian Waffles at the, well at the
Belgian Waffle ride.
Plus we’ve got more from the Commonwealth Games and a Tour de France tune up in Brittany.
We shall start, though, with Amstel Gold, which marks the transition really of the Spring
classics from cobbles to climbs.
What I like about this transition is the fact that Amstel is also like a crossover - riders
from the cobbles like Sagan, Van Avermaet and Vanmarcke, competing against the climbers
warming up for Liege such as Valverde, Nibali and Uran.
Twelve riders broke clear at the start and managed to steal a whopping sixteen minute
advantage.
Eventually there were panic stations behind as the gap was still large with seventy kilometres
remaining, making the race particularly fast.
The first proper action came on the steep slopes of the Keutenberg, former winner’s
Romain Kreuziger and Enrico Gasparotto got a gap and bridged to what remained of the
lead group, whilst Greg Van Avermaet and Rudy Molard got stuck in nomansland behind.
Michael Matthews challenge came to a disappointing end after a puncture caused by this piece
of metal, the Australian must be wondering when he’s going to get a bit of luck this
season.
Eventually the front group was caught and then further whittled down to just ten riders,
including pre-race favourites Sagan and Valverde, and it did feel like all eyes were on them.
The other riders seemed to sense that, and when Michael Valgren made a second scintillating
attack, only Kreuziger reacted whilst the rest looked at each other.
Gasparotto escaped too, and for a long time sat agonisingly close to the two up front.
For Valgren it must have been a nerve wracking sight - the Italian both outsmarted and outsprinted
him two years ago, and he wasn’t going to let that happen a second time.
He kept on the power enough to prevent Gasparotto bridging, and even managed to encourage Kreuziger
to take a final turn, before easily outsprinting him to the line.
It was a measured, calculating and mature victory for Valgren, who has now won both
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Amstel Gold in the same season.
According to Cafe Roubaix, the only other rider to do that is Eddy Merckx.
No pressure for the future Michael.
I particularly like it when a winner is also a nice guy, and that certainly seems to be
the case with Valgren - lots of fellow professionals took to social media to express their congratulations,
and I think this tweet from Mark Cavendish sums things up:
I’m officially a Michael Valgren fanboy.
If you watch him race, you like him.
If you speak to him, you like him even more.
And so it seems even more fitting to award Valgren this week’s rider of the week award.
We had been considering giving it to Lawson Craddock, though - the EF Education First
rider had been a part of the early breakaway, and incredibly managed to cling on to finish
9th.
Trainingpeaks have once again been kind enough to show us his power from the race, and it
was quite the day in the saddle.
His average power for 6hrs40 was 285w, normalised to 329w, not far off Taylor Phinney’s from
Paris Roubaix, but when you consider that Craddock weighs seventeen kilograms less,
I’d say it’s even more impressive.
As was the effort to get into the break in the first place, twenty two minutes of attacking
where his normalised power was four hundred and twelve watts.
His variability index in that period was 1.26, variability index being normalised power divided
by average - this basically shows that the effort was far from steady, with lots of accelerations
as he tried to get into the breakaway of the day.
The final 18 minutes of the race saw his normalised power still very high, at three hundred and
ninety two watts, bear in mind that’s into the seventh hour of racing and after two hundred
and fifty kilometres.
What I particularly like though is this graph.
We often talk about matches burned in races, sustained periods where you go into the red.
You only have so many matches to burn in a race, and here we can see them in red - Craddock
burnt a few at the start, but then managed to ride a very controlled race in the break,
leaving him with a vital few matches in reserve for the end.
Thanks to Trainingpeaks and Lawson’s coach Jim Miller for the insight, really intriguing
stuff which puts pro level racing into perspective.
Total kilojoules burned?
Six thousand nine hundred - hence tweets like this from US Champion Larry Warbasse the day
before.
Finally, the race also marked the last Amstel Gold for Dutchman Bram Tankink, and this is
how many jersey’s he’s worn over the course of his 18 year career, as modelled perfectly
by himself, here.
The women’s race split apart far earlier in the race - with sixty kilometres to go
a group formed out front, again on the Keutenberg, and although many of the favourites had missed
it, they soon forged a two and a half minute lead.
With most teams represented, there was nobody to really make a concerted chase, and it soon
became clear that the winner would come from the front group.
From that group of 8, World Champion Chantal Blaak attacked on the Cauberg with twenty
kilometres to go, taking an in-form Alexis Ryan with her, they were joined by Amanda
Spratt over the top.
However the group had swelled back to 6 as we headed inside the last ten kilometres of
the race, and then 8, temporarily, at the foot of the Cauberg for the final climb to
the finish.
Lucinda Brand was the first to attack, Amanda Spratt also gave it a nudge, and with only
Blaak able to follow, we were down to three.
Over the top, though, with Alexis Ryan and Riejanne Markus not far behind, it seemed
as though Spratt was riding to keep a place on the podium, understandable perhaps given
that she’s never finished on the podium if a WorldTour one day race previously.
The sprint between Brand and Blaak was taken in some dominant fashion by the World Champion.
Just like the men’s winner, Blaak delivered a cool, calm and collected performance, and
with it a popular home win.
Before we finish with Amstel Gold, we’d like to say get well soon to Lucy Kennedy,
who suffered multiple fractures after a nasty crash in the race.
Brabantse Pijl typically marks the transition over from the cobbled classics to the hillier
one days as we head towards the Ardennes.
It doesn't have quite the level of rider as a race such as Amstel, but nevertheless serves
as a good warm up for those who do take part.
A minutes silence was held at the start in honour of Michael Goolaerts, and in a really
nice show of respect, the race was attended by the entire Verandas Willems Crelan team,
even those not racing on the day.
There was a particularly strong move from Jack Haig of Mitchelton Scott and Tosh Van
Der Sande who were caught with just 12km’s to go.
A counter attack went immediately with the likes of Enrico Gasparotto, Carlos Verona
and Serge Pauwels, but counter attacking the counter attack was Tim Wellens with seven
kilometres remaining.
He opened a 20 second gap with quite astonishing ease, and whilst the chasing peloton swept
up the rest of the escapees, they made little or no dent on Wellens lead.
In the end, he had plenty of time to sit up and salute the crowd.
2nd on the day was last year’s winner last year’s winner?
Sonny Colbrelli, with Wellens’ teammate Tiesj Benoot in 3rd.
We also had the first ever Brabantse Pijl for women, so very well done to the organisers
for that.
There, a group of 8 rider including Marianne Vos were caught with 5km’s to go, where
we had a sprint from a group of around 20, won by Ale Cipollini’s Marta Bastianelli.
The former world champion already won Gent Wevelgem just a couple of weeks back, and
this marks her 5th win of 2018.
Leah Kirchmann finished 2nd whilst Marianne had enough strength left to take third.
Tro Bro Leon is sometimes referred to as the hipster’s classic - a term I think coined
by journalist Daniel Frieve.
This race was really, kind of the original Strade Bianche.
It’s a race which started in 1984, and takes in multiple sectors of gravel farm tracks
that are far rougher than their Italian equivalent.
Rain started to fall inside the last twenty kilometres making conditions slippery - twenty
one year old Norwegian national champion Rasmus Tiller found himself alone up front with fifteen
kilometres remaining, but five km’s further on he hit the deck, and got caught by the
group behind.
Lapporte of Cofidis made a move with six kilometres to go, and that was the one that stuck.
Despite the best efforts of last year’s winner Damian Gaudin, he couldn’t close
the gap to his compatriot, who took his 4th win of the year.
Fair play to Gaudin, though, he spent much of the finale yoyoing off the back of the
group, but somehow managed to find the strength to attack at the end.
Now you’ll probably be wondering who won the piglet, awarded each year to the first
Breton.
Well, the lucky man this year was Olivier Le Gac, and here he is pictured having a shower
with the piglet in front of him.
Oink oink.
The one day Tour du Finistere in France on Saturday gave us a glimpse as to what is to
come on a tricky and technical stage five of this year’s Tour de France, and as such
it attracted a number of riders who’ll be looking to do well this July, amongst them
Romain Bardet, Warren Barguil, Tejay Van Garderen and Richie Porte.
A dozen riders, including Bardet and Van Garderen, broke clear on the ten kilometre finishing
circuit, and coming out best in the sprint was Jonathan Hivert, possibly best known for
taking a paris nice stage victory this year after refusing to work with Nills Pollitt
on the run in.
Over at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast of Australia, and it was once again
the home nation that dominated proceedings on the road, just as they did on the track.
Cameron Meyer somehow managed to win the Time Trial despite his preparations being mainly
concentrated on the velodrome, whilst Katrin Garfoot took a convincing win in the women’s
event.
In the road race, it was Steel Von Hoff’s turn to shine, a performance made all the
more incredible by the fact that he had broken four vertebrae just seven weeks earlier in
a crash at a local crit.
This is what his rehabilitation looked like soon after, - thanks to his team, Bennelong
Swiss Wellness team for providing the pics - to take Gold so soon after being in that
state is quite remarkable.
Apparently doctors weren’t too pleased when he took his brace off earlier than recommended,
but it seems to have worked for him.
Chloe Hosking sealed the Australian dominance by winning the women’s road event is what
was a very well drilled team effort.
We should also give a shout out to Wales, too, who managed a silver with Jon Mould in
the men’s and a bronze with Dani King in the women’s.
And also huge congratulations to Annie Last - sister of our very own Tom.
She won gold in the MTB cross country, there will be more on that on GMBN’s race news
show, as well as the GCN Show tomorrow.
Taking the racing indoors, this Saturday saw the Zwift KISS EU Crit Series Finals come
to London.
20 finalists from across Europe battled it at the live finals following the winter long
crit series.
A new format took in primes and eliminations in the points classification.
In both the men’s and the women’s races, it came down to a reduced bunch sprint.
Kristin Flack, the Norwegian Zwift National Champion took the women’s European crown,
whilst Gavin Dempster from Scotland took the men’s title.
And now for something a little different.
The Canyon Belgian Waffle Ride is an annual event in California now in it’s seventh
year, and organisers say it’s the most unique cycling event in the US.
It’s One hundred and thirty three miles, or two hundred and fourteen kilometres over,
a mixture of road and then seventeen dirt sections that total forty miles themselves
- there are even fourteen water or footbridge crossings and thirteen categorised climbs
- it’s tough, let’s say that.
And these aren’t your Strade Bianche sectors or even Tro Bro Leon, they are properly ‘gnarly’
as I think the locals would say.
Winners on the day were Brian McCulloch in the mens, and Larissa Connors in the women’s,
who backed up her win from last year, claiming that the secret to success is eating waffles
for breakfast year round.
Of course events like this though are just as much about taking part, and that looks
like a fun, but hard, event to take part in.
That’s it for this week’s show - join us next week for La Fleche Wallonne and then
the oldest classic of them all, Liege Bastogne Liege.
In the meantime, if you’d like an explanation on the difference between normalised power
and average power, we answered that, and more, on last week’s Ask GCNything, which you
can find here.