It’s been a busy week in cycling - here’s what’s happened.
Fleche Wallonne in Belgium was as captivating as ever thanks to the finishing climb of the
Mur de Huy.
Marianne Vos claimed her fifth win here, at the end of a very agressive race.
In the men’s race, an audacious last minute attack from Carlos Bettancur of AG2R La Mondiale
fell just short, with Dani Moreno of Katusha taking the win, and Sergio Henao of Sky Procycling
also edging past the flagging Colombian.
In Italy, the Giro del Trentino saw the last head to head before the Giro for the two big
favourites - Vincenzo Nibali of Astana and Bradley Wiggins of Sky Procycling.
The final day showdown petered out with a brilliant show of strength from Nibali while
Wiggins suffered a mechanical problem and a mild tantrum.
The Tour of Turkey started on Sunday, with Marcel Kittel of Argos Shimano taking a chaotic
sprint win in a stacked field in the opening stage, and then Aidis Kruopkis escaped the
carnage of the second stage to take the win.
And Liege Bastogne Liege rounded out the classics with a much lauded display of team work from
Garmin SHARP.
Ryder Hesjedal attacked in the finale, giving his cool headed team mate Dan Martin an armchair
ride.
He then saw off an attack by Jauquin Rodriguez of Katusha, dropping him within sight of the
line.
When we caught up with Dan earlier in the year, he had this to say about his hopes for
the classics:
We’ll assess the winners and losers of the 2013 classics season later in the show.
We had a lot of guesses as to the winners of Liege Bastonge liege, and fleche, but no
one managed to get both.
In fact Skypekai, was the only person to guess even one right, so we’ll send you the GCN
t-shirt.
Get in touch, and we’ll sort you out.
Tech News:
The Myocycle anti-injury app was also in the news this week.
A collaboration between Brett Lancaster of Orica-GREENEDGE and his long time physio Cher
Hetherington, it is a one stop self diagnosis app to help identify probable causes of injury,
and suggested methods of treatment using Myotherapy.
This could be a great resource for cyclists, as not everyone has access to physios on demand.
It’s available now on the apple app store.
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Last week we covered the launch of the new SRAM hydraulic RED brakes.
Matthieu Mottet, technological coordinator at the UCI has reafirmed that they are still
not sanctioned for use in races.
This could mean that pros will no longer be at the forefront of technological development.
Let us know what you think, do you agree with the UCI?
Or should they help to introduce disc brake technology.
So As the classics season draws to a close, and the cycling media is full of teams and
riders bemoaning a lack of results or performances, we’ve rounded up the winners and loosers
of the 2013 classic season.
Radioshack salvaged a poor few months off the back of Cancellara’s incredible performances,
and Cannondale have got their inaugural season as title sponsors off to a great start with
the help of Peter Sagan.
In the ardennes, Roman Kreuzinger finally made good his promise and landed a major win
for Saxo-Tinkoff bank.
And Garmin landed a major coup de gras with an inspired performance, particularly from
Ryder Hesjedal and of course eventual winner Daniel Martin.
The biggest winner though was surely MTN-Qhubeka, scoring a great win in Milan Sanremo in their
first season at pro conti level.
Truely giant killing.
And the loosers?
Both the mega budget teams of MSky and BC will have some nerevous meetings ahead of
them in the next couple of weeks, as neither team landed a victory.
In fact, they only had one 2nd and one thrid place each, in 13 races.
But perhaps the biggest fail came, not from Luca Paolini’s red leg warmers or Sagan’s
podium etiquette, but from Belgium.
For the first time in 95 years not including according to @infostrada2016 , “This is
the first time... ... that no Belgian rider has won any of the Spring classics of HC or
above.”
Let us know what you think?
What is the biggest classics fail of 2013?
So, a busy week in Cycling, and here at GCN we’ve been following suit.
We’ve been in search of some of the best roads in Europe and some sunshine, to shoot
more how to videos that you’ve requested.
And as the Giro d’Italia looms, we’ve got plenty of shows to whet your appetite.
Take a look.
See you next week.