Coming up on this week’s GCN Racing News Show, is there about to be a seismic shift
in Pro Cycling?
EF Education First announce a new partnership that will see their riders take part in some
very different events next year.
The European season wraps up with Il Lombardia and the Tour of Turkey, there’s controversy
in Hong Kong in the final of the Hammer series, and it’s a successful weekend of cyclocross
for Mathieu Van Der Poel, despite doing this to his ankle:
Last week, US team EF Education First announced a new partnership with Rapha, who I’m sure
need no introduction.
Nothing new there, teams often change sponsors, but the partnership is about more than just
clothing.
Next year, we’ve been told, we can expect to see the likes of Taylor Phinney not only
competing in the traditional WorldTour races, but also at gravel and fixed gear events,
presumably meaning the Red Hook Crits and Dirty Kanza etc, and they’ll be documenting
their journey through video along the way.
Why?
Because they believe this will gain the riders more attention and more fans, and therefore
bring a bigger return on the investment from team sponsors than is achieved through competing
in 2nd tier pro level races.
The decision has not been taken on a whim - Rapha recently concluded a 2 year study
into the future of professional cycling, interviewing over 50 key players, and although the results
have not been made public, we can safely assume that their conclusion was that they could
improve on the current model.
Are they right?
Well, the opinions that you gave us last week on this show regarding the addition of gravel
sections in Paris Tours were enlightening - contrary to the opinion of Quickstep boss
Patrick Lefevere, 68% off you felt that the course change was NOT a step too far, with
Gryffes commenting: “Nobody watched Paris Tours before the change, why not adapt and
bring a bike with 28-32mm tubeless instead of running 25mm tubulars and complaining when
you puncture?
Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.﻿”
And it seems most of you are in agreement, you enjoyed the spectacle, it was something
different.
Strade Bianche is the perfect example - that is an event that has become incredibly popular
in just 12 editions.
Why?
48km’s of gravel - it’s beautiful and brutal at the same time.
It ticks all the boxes.
So why not 200km of gravel?
There’s a strong sense that cycling fans are crying out for something different, the
Red Hook Crit series being very good example of that.
On the weekend of the first of this year’s event in Brooklyn at the end of April, there
were a total of 10 UCI sanctioned road events in Europe alone.
It’s safe to say that the protagonists in Brooklyn enjoyed as much worldwide exposure
as the winner of stage 2 of the 61st edition of the Vuelta Asturias that same day.
On the other hand, there’s no doubt that the rich history of professional cycling is
a huge part of it’s appeal.
Paris Roubaix, Milano San Remo - in fact all the monuments - they’re monuments because
of their history, we don’t need to mess with them, they’re just fine as they are.
But that’s the very pinnacle of the sport - it’s races that are one or two levels
further down the food chain to which Rapha appear more skeptical.
For example, winning a stage of the Tour du Limousin will mean an awful lot to that rider,
to their immediate family, to the local newspaper and to any local hardcore cycling fans, but
it will mean very little to an international business sponsoring a professional cycling
team.
We don’t yet know exactly what new events EF Education First are planning on doing in
2019, and we don’t know exactly which of their riders will be doing them, but we’ll
soon find out, and it’s going to be very interesting to see if this experiment is a
successful one.
One thing that should be pointed out is that their budget is at the lower end of the WorldTour
scale, likely less than a third of that of Team Sky, who have not only recently signed
Egan Bernal for 5 years, but are also rumoured to have snagged the services of fellow Colombian
super talent Ivan Ramira Sosa.
EF are never going to be able to compete with that wealth and depth of talent, and so it
makes complete sense that they are thinking outside the box when it comes to giving their
sponsors maximum exposure throughout the season.
Here’s hoping that leads to job security for their riders and staff.
As ever, we would love to hear your thoughts - are EF Education First taking steps that
others will follow, or do you think pro cycling is just fine the way it is?
Let us know in the comments section below.
Talking of historical and beautiful races - it was the 112th edition of arguably the
most beautiful, Il Lombardia on Saturday.
In an effort to spice things up 8 years ago, organisers RCS Sport added the Muro di Sormano,
a cruelly steep climb with an eye watering maximum gradient of 27%.
This year, it was the pivotal point in the race.
Double winner Vincenzo Nibali went on the attack, and only Thibaut Pinot was able to
match.
And it would ultimately be the Frenchman who would snatch victory from the jaws of, well
the Shark himself.
Pinot is in the form of his life, he dropped Nibali on the last main climb with 20km’s
to go, and would never be seen again.
This time last week, Pinot had never won a one day pro bike race, but now he’s won
2.
His victory on Saturday came off the back of victory at Milano Torino two days previously
- that’s how you end your season in style!
And we’re going to go for the blindingly obvious choice for our rider of the week this
week - chapeau Thibaut Pinot.
Prior to those two races, Sonny Colbrelli produced one of the longest sprints I’ve
ever seen to win the Gran Piemonte, whilst Toms Skujins completed a solid season for
him by winning at Tre Valli Varesine.
Incidentally, if you’d like to follow the commute home from work for Thomas De Gendt
and Tim Wellens, follow the hashtag #TheFinalBreakaway on twitter and Instagram.
The Lotto Soudal duo are doing a bit of bike packing, riding home from Il Lombardia to
Belgium this week.
And yes, they’ll probably get themselves and their sponsors a lot of publicity for
that.
They’ve even got new bikes from Ridley for the occasion.
On to the rough stuff now, the cyclocross season continued at the weekend with the 4th
round of the Brico Cross on Saturday and the 1st round of the Superprestige on Sunday.
In Lokeren, the expected Van Der Poel Van Aert duel didn’t happen after Van Der Poel
made an uncharacteristic technical mistake through one of the many ditches that littered
the course.
He remounted, but soon called it a day - his ankle swelling up like a balloon.
He was taken off on a stretcher and I think we all expected him to be out or at least
a few weeks.
Not so - incredibly, he made the three hour trip to Gieten, where he managed not only
to start, but also win, comfortably.
Van Aert had his own problems on Saturday, puncturing a long way from the pits and rolling
in 6th, over a minute down on race winner Daan Soete.
And that result threw up this incredible stat from cyclocross24 on twitter:
“Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel have ridden in the same race 134 times since
they were Junior.
And always, one of them stood on the podium.....until today.
#cxfacts”
How incredible is that?!
There was no such trouble on Saturday for the women’s world Champion, Sanne Cant,
who powered her way to victory.
On Sunday, however, she was involved in a crash on the first lap that ended her chances
of victory.
Up front, it looked as though Marianne Vos would take another convincing win, but it
wasn’t to be - 22 year old former U23 World Champion Annemarie Worst of Staylaerts 777
took the biggest Elite win of her career, leaving Vos in 2nd.
The Superprestige continues this Saturday in Boom, and you can catch both the women’s
and men’s events live on our facebook page.
Stop, it’s Hammer Time.
Yep, the Hammer Series finished off in Hong Kong at the weekend with Mitchelton Scott
making it a clean sweep for the series.
In the final team time trial pursuit, the just managed to hold off Quickstep Floors,
who were perhaps still recovering from the previous race’s controversy.
Initially called as the winners of the sprint event, it turned out that two of their riders
had actually taken a lap out after puncturing, before rejoining the race in teh lead group.
They were then relegated to second, but received no further punishment.
Finally, the 6 day Tour of Turkey came right down to the wire on the final stage yesterday.
In finishing 2nd, Eduard Prades of the Euskadi Murias team overhauled overnight race leader
and winner of the queen stage, Alexey Lutsenko of Astana.
The 6s bonus that Prades picked up put him level on time with Lutsenko, but he was awarded
the win due to a better average finishing position.
Winner on the stage was Sam Bennett, but not in his usual style.
He chose not to wait for the finish and attacked with over a kilometre to go, holding on by
6 seconds.
That added to the wins that he had already taken on stages two and three.
Quickstep floors picked up their 70th and 71st wins of the season on stages 1 and 5,
through Max Richeze and Jose Alvaro Hodge respectively.
We shall finish this week with the Hammer Hong Kong.
2 events in one day, the sprint first and the chase 2nd, and it looked as though Quickstep
could snatch overall victory in the series from Mitchelton Scott after a dominant win
in the first event.
A win that was subsequently rescinded after it became clear that two of their riders had
been scoring points despite being a lap down through punctures.
It meant that Mitchelton Scott started the chase first, and with Quickstep unable to
close the 20s gap, it meant the Australian squad took victory in both the Hammer Hong
Kong and the overall series.
Right, that’s all for this week - don’t forget to give us your opinions on the future
of professional cycling in the comments section.
Speaking of which, if you’re not entirely sure what these other events are all about,
we’ve got a good example for you now.
Our very own Hank competed recently at the Red Hook Crit in Milan, find out what it’s
all about, and how he got on, by clicking down here.