The One True Groupset

To celebrate Rui Costa's win in the World Championship, we offer the following tribute.

Fellow Brothers and Sisters in Campagnolo, let us pray. 

Dear Santo Tullio, since 2009 when Cuddles Evans won the World Championship thanks to his seamless multi-gear shifting up the final hill in Mendrisio, Swizzera, our faith surely has been tested. His win in the 2010 Giro d'Italia's muddy epic stage notwithstanding, was followed by the Great Twin Betrayals of BMC and QuickStep as they switched away from Campagnolo. 

We thank You for rewarding our faith last Sunday with the World Championship win of Rui Costa, of the Most Campagnolo Team of Movistar -- formerly known as Caisse d'Epargne, formerly known as Banesto, formerly known as Reynolds. 

Please guide your Apostle / Team Manager / Directeur Sportif Eusebio Unzué, who has guided Delgado, Indurain, Jiménez, Rodriguez, and Valverde, as he seeks to find new sponsorship for his team. May Unzué continue to be faithful to the One True Groupset. 

In the name of Santo Tullio, and His Son Eddy Merckx, and the Holy Delta Brakes we pray, Amen. 

Photo by Petit Brun shared under by-nc-sa 2.0.

It's Go Time For Astana

Last year Team Astana v 3.0 delivered excellent performance in the Ardennes classics, with victories in Amstel Gold Race (AGR) and Liège-Bastogne-Liège; these wins were delivered by Italian Enrico Gasparotto and Kazakh Maxim Iglinsky.

The squad may forever be associated with the controversial Alexandre Vinokourov -- seemingly unrepentant doper but brilliant rider who recently won London Olympic Gold -- who remains as General Manager. However, today's Astana is equally the team of Team Manager Giuseppe Martinelli. He first became famous as the manager of Italian squad Carrera, which became Mercatone Uno as Claudio Chiappucci retired and Marco Pantani rose. From there he worked for Saeco, being the personal director of a young Damiano Cunego. Looking at his accomplishments as manager, it is clear that this is a man who knew how to win hilly classics and grand tours.

Maxim Iglinsky at the 2007 Tour de France.
Photo from Wikipedia Common, by McSmit (GNU Free Doc License 1.2).

This season's Team Astana v 3.1 added rising Italian star Vicenzo Nibali formerly of Cannondale. With a rising Peter Sagan and ever-popular Ivan Basso, Nibali moved to Astana partly to be his own grand tour contender. But Astana has proven itself with hilly classics contenders Gasparotto and Iglinsky.

In short, Nibali may have given up on classics ambition in order to pursue grand tours as a team leader. 

It is now up to Martinelli to use his squad to match their performance last year: don't forget that Nibali was second to Iglinsky in LBL, after a gutsy solo break that nearly succeeded. It will be too bad if Nibali were to give up on classics performance completely.

What's your prediction for Astana this year, will Martinelli's boys be able to step up to the challenge? Share your thoughts below.

The Roads to Milano-Sanremo

The latest freezing spell - blanketing snow on western Europe - had thrown a wrench into the preparation of many aspirants to the throne of Milano-Sanremo (MSR). It started with the change of day, from Saturday to Sunday. Suddenly, Belgium's little known Wednesday race the Nokere Koerse appeared to be the perfect last test before the lineup in Milan. Alas, snow forced cancellation of the event.

In previous post we have thought of how the pre-season, or early season, has changed. Which roads have the winners of Milano-Sanremo taken? We start with the latest, in 2012, when cheeky Australian Simon Gerrans won. He started his year with hard riding down under, including the Tour Down Under (TDU) and the various Aussie road races. Taking a break from racing, he resumed competition only in Paris-Nice (PN) on his way to victory.

Road to Samremo 2012.

On the other hand, second place Fabian Cancellara went to do the Tours of Qatar/Oman (TQO), then after some break from racing he went to Strade Bianche (SB), Tirreno-Adriatico (TA), and finally MSR. Third placer Vincenzo Nibali and fourth placer Peter Sagan, teammates in Team Cannondale, did nearly the same thing, although both skipped Strade Bianche. The fifth rider John Degenkolb did the harder route, from Qatar/Oman to Omloop Het Nieuwsblad to Paris-Nice.

Tour Down Under, Tour of Qatar, and the early season to de Omloop

Fans of the classics: as if the snow blanket of winter had lured us to complacency, the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (OHN) is nearly upon us already. Hailed as the opener of the Belgian classics races (some other nations have had their opening races by then), we wonder the impact of emerging early season races in warmer climates on the OHN. More specifically, we wish to compare the importance of Tour of Qatar (ToQ) and Australia's Tour Down Under (TDU) on the performance of classics warriors who have done well in the OHN.

In order to do this, we made a list of wielrenners who finished in the top 5 of the OHN from 2008 to 2012 and empirically compute the correlation of their performance and their attendance at the TDU and ToQ. What are we able to find out? Read on.

What The Rainbow Misses in Paris-Tours

With a high-speed crash putting an end to Philippe Gilbert's chase of an exclusive Worlds-Lombardia double, Gilbert won't be showing up at the start line of Paris-Tours. It is too bad, because if he wins it he might be the first to ever accomplish the double of Worlds and Paris-Tours.

For a race that is officially considered a “classic”, Paris-Tours is perhaps the least prestigious among them—but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. Indeed, that it is absent from his list of 19 monuments and classics wins, Eddy Merckx cannot say that he’s won every classic.

Paris-Tours' first edition in 1896 was central France’s answer to Paris-Roubaix. The first edition followed a fairly flat course to Tours. Quickly it became known as the “Sprinters Classic”. In an effort to make it more interesting, derailleurs were banned for two years (1965 and 1966) and riders were only allowed two gears. Still, not content with what was thought to be a predictable finish, the organizers reversed the route in 1974, starting from the Tours area to somewhere in the vicinity of Paris. In 1988 the organizers decided to again reverse the route to start in Paris and end in Tours.

The Rainbow in Lombardia

Philippe Gilbert (BMC)'s victory in the World Championship in Valkenburg heralded his return to winning ways. Following his two stage wins in the Vuelta a Espana, his blistering attack on the last ascent of the Cauberg opened a huge gap immediately and put the chasers into indecision. Now that he will be sporting the Rainbow Jersey for the next year, what other races are left for him to win this year?

Photo by corto.maltese, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Fear not, for we still have Paris-Tours and Giro di Lombardia: both races he has won in the past. How will the Rainbow Jersey fare in these two races? Read our preview here and read on below for our history of the Rainbow Jersey and the fall classics.

Komentaar: the 2012 Elite Men's World Championship Race

With one blistering attack on the Cauberg, Philippe Gilbert of Belgium opened up a mile-long gap from the front of the field in the 2012 elite men's world championship; effectively redeeming his 2012 season. We were impressed by the work of the Belgian team and of course by Gilbert's sense of timing. Despite having a different finale than the Amstel Gold Race route that the course borrowed heavily from, Gilbert bested our estimate that the Spanish armada would win by sheer weight of talent and history of teamwork. Had the Spanish bet on the wrong horse? Did team Italy work too hard in the middle part of the race? We share our thoughts below.

2012 World Championship Road Race Preview

The coming World Championship in the Limburg, the Netherlands, has parcours similar to the classic race Amstel Gold.  As usually the case, it is an attrition-style long course. While it is true that the course contains the dreaded Cauberg climb as it nears the finish - it can be a death knell for the ambition of many pure sprinters - it is hard to predict how the race will go.

For one thing, the distance from the final climb to the finish line is changed enough that we think it will have a significant impact that rouleurs might make it to the finish. Or even rouleur-like sprinters.

Read on as we share our observations and historical lessons from the last two times the race was run here.

2012 Olympics Road Race: the What-If Game

Now that the Olympics Road Races (both for Men and Women) are over with, it is time to imagine: "what-if ... ?" We start with a few, feel free to share your own.

1. What if Team GB had sent a rider up into the breakaway?
   
2. What if Team GB had given the breakaway more time gap?
   
3. What if Fabian Cancellara hadn't crashed?
   
4. What if the breakaway had reached the final km all together? 

2012 Olympics Road Race Preview

Surely Great Britain (GB) sprinter Mark Cavedish (Team Sky)'s stage wins in the Tour de France have earned him top listing in most sports bets to win the Olympics Road Race on his team's home roads in London. With Team Sky effectively acting as the surrogate GB national team, that means that they have honed their sprinting train in the TdF. London's course has earned a reputation as being flat, and therefore would be advantageous for a sprinting team.

Photo by SurreyNews.  Distributed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

But poring over maps and profiles doesn't bring one closer to the experience and insight from riding it. For that, we tip our helmet to Fabrizio Viani who is a London local sharing his experience on his excellent blog.

What does it take for Mark Cavendish to win, or conversely, what does it take to beat him? Here's our take on the race, and predictions of the race.

Andy Schleck's Exit: Good News for Some, Bad for Others?

With Andy Schleck's misfortunate meriting coverage even on mainstream media, we have to revise our Komentaar of only days ago. All the non-starters reminded us of the start of the spring classics season, with injury list ever-increasing.

It seems generally agreed that the GC race is shaping up to be a two-horse race between Cadel Evans (BMC) and Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky). Notably, both of them are roleurs who excel at time-trials but can keep up with most climbers at the high mountains. Both are in excellent shape, with Wiggins fresh off a dominating performance in le Dauphiné and Evans a consistent performance plus stage wins and near-wins. Team Sky may be the stronger team compared to BMC, unless Team Sky's super-sprinter Mark Cavendish shows up and brings a few riders specifically to support him in the sprints. More importantly however, both Evans and Wiggins appear very confident as the Tour de France (TdF) approaches.

With all the above consideration, what does this mean to stage hunters, sprinters, and GC contenders?

The Road from Tour de Suisse, or Can Andy Schleck Deliver in le Tour de France?

With much discussion on Andy Schleck's lack of form as we approach the Tour de France, we take a quick look at his performance, and that of other contenders, as they go from the Tour de Suisse to the Tour de France. 

Below we show the 2010 and 2011 comparison of performance in the Criterium du Dauphine (CdD) / Tour de Suisse (TdS) versus performance in the Tour de France (TdF). GC rank in CdD/TdS and GC rank in TdF is plotted on the y- and x-axis respectively.

We can clearly see that unlike other contenders, Andy Schleck has uncanny ability to literally bound ahead of competition, significantly improving himself from the TdS to the TdF.

This year's preparation is a bit different though, with Andy Schleck racing the CdD instead of TdS.

What do you think his kans is for the Tour de France? Share your thoughts below.

Giro d'Italia 2012: the Races within a Race

With Ryder Hesjedal's heroic ride up the Pompeago, the dynamic of the Giro d'Italia GC race is turned upside down. Despite not having the strongest team in Garmin-Barracuda, he and his squad has exceed expectation. Many had bet that climbing specialists would take time away from him, instead he has taken time from them. And somewhere in there, Ivan Basso of Liquigas-Cannondale is sandwiched between the pocket rockets and the time trial specialist.

Just like in other Grand Tours (GTs), there are multiple races within the GC competition of this year's Giro d'Italia. Simply put, this is because unlike in classics races, finishing in the top-ten of a GT is of great value to an aspiring rider, not to mention the multiple jerseys on offer.

Komentaar - 13 April 2012

Here at Classiques Klassieker Classiche HQ, we intended to write a preview of this Sunday's Amstel Gold Race: with short, sharp bergs, a beer sponsor, and guaranteed sea of Orange local fans, what is not to like? However, today we are right in the middle of the spring classics season - our favorite time of the year - and we have a lot of comments to share regarding how the season has transitioned from cobbled races to hilly races. Thus, we decided to broaden our view and offer a Komentaar instead. We share our thoughts on the "new" calendar, hilly classics contenders, and what we look forward to the rest of the year. 

Chasing the Gypsy: Preview of the 2012 Paris-Roubaix

It's hard to not have the image of Tom Boonen of OmegaPharma-QuickStep (OPQS) winning last Sunday's Ronde van Vlaanderen (RvV) in our minds as we consider the 2012 Paris-Roubaix (PR). In case there is any doubt, we think that Boonen is the best classics rider of his generation. Some argue that Fabian Cancellara of Radioshack-Nissan should be there, too, but we argue back that the ways with which Boonen has earned his multiple wins show that he is in a class of his own.

Tommeke's 2012 season may be historical for two reasons. First is that he joined the elite group who has won 3 editions of RvV, in the company of Johan Museeuw, Eric Leman, Achiel Buysee, and Fiorenzo Magni.

Second is that if he wins on Sunday, he will join Roger de Vlaeminck as winner of 4 editions of PR. Back in his heyday, De Vlaeminck's black hair and dark handsome look earned him the nickname The Gypsy. While it is true that De Vlaeminck competed in a different era, it is hard to not be awed by his collection of 4x Paris-Roubaix, 1x Ronde, 2x Lombardia, 3x Milan-Sanremo, 6x Tirreno-Adriatico and 1x Liège.

In two previous posts, we examined 10 years' worth of RvV and PR. If anything else, examining the many different ways that Boonen has won his three RvV and PR is a masters class in itself. With Cancellara now absent due to an unfortunate accident, we ponder how the 2012 Paris-Roubaix may play out.

Here are our thoughts on the coming 2012 edition, on how weather may play a big role, Boonen's chances, and why Juan-Antonio Flecha might pray for it to rain.

Komentaar - 02 April 2012

The night before the Ronde van Vlaanderen we were as giddy as our five-year old selves were on Christmas Eve. After an entire winter of waiting, the Ronde is finally here!

In a previous post we had shared our thoughts on the new Ronde van Vlaanderen (RvV) route. Despite some misgivings, we thought that it was reasonable to ask that RvV finishes in Oudenaarde where the RvV museum is located. Among the misgivings was that removal of the Muur also removed an iconic symbol of the RvV that distinguished it from its sister races E3-Harelbeke, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and Dwars door Vlaanderen.

We kept an open mind about the route however, and we were excited to see what impact the Oude Kwaremont - Paterberg combo would have on the race. And boy, were we surprised. Here are some of our impressions from the race.

Why not have your Pavé and eat it, too: the 2012 Ronde van Vlaanderen

There is much consternation among fans regarding the removal of the Muur de Grammont / Muur de Geraardsbergen  / Kappelmuur from the parcours of the 2012 Ronde van Vlaanderen (RvV). Race organizers cite the wish to move the finish to a more suitable location, and a more uncertain finale, as the main reasons.

Regardless, we think that this year's race is more of an attrition race, and we share our thoughts below. And while we think that wanting to have the RvV finish is Oudenaarde is a reasonable line of thinking, we can't help but suggest a few things that could be done better: why not have your pavé and eat it (or ride on it) too by including the Muur in a race that finishes in Oudenaarde.

Exhibit A: old finish of de Ronde from Bosberg to Ninove

In a previous post we examined how the past 10 editions of de Ronde played out. It can't be denied that on half the occasion the Muur played a pivotal role in re-shuffling the cards the race had dealt up to that point.

La Primavera: the 2012 Milan-Sanremo

Much has been said of Mark Cavendish's strong form and strong team ahead of Milan-Sanremo, nicknamed "La Primavera" in Italian. To win in MSR requires discipline in winter: indeed, it is the longest classic at just around 300 km. It is characterized by a long, slow slog down the Tirrenean coast, a hectic pace up the capi or hills, a daredevil curvy downhill, and finally just enough finishing straight to encourage a sprint finish. Over its life the race has added more and more hills: the Poggio in 1960, the Cipressa in 1982.

Percorsa of the 2012 Milano-Sanremo.

In a previous article we compared the capi of MSR to that of the Climbers' classic Liège-Bastogne-Liège. In this post we examine how the race has changed in modern times, and give a bold suggestion to pretenders to the crown of La Primavera based on our analysis. We sail forth in Adriatic sea with three questions in mind. (1) Is Milan-Saremo really a sprinters' classic? (2) Who are the contenders for 2012? and (3) What advice can we offer from our analysis?

Komentaar - 12 March 2012

With Paris-Nice reaching its conclusion, and its cousin race Tirreno-Adriatico way underway, we collect our impressions from the Mediterranean sea.

Bradley Wiggins' winter coat. Photo from Team Sky.

As we mentioned, these races give a good glimpse into riders' forms, team strength, and their intentions. Without further ado, we share our observations on Team Sky, predictions on the cobbled classics, predictions on the Ardennes classics, and the state of Italian classics contenders.

Komentaar - 08 March 2012

With Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico in progress, we share some of our thoughts on team dynamics, race results, and what they mean to the big races that are soon to come.

We start with disappointment. Tony Martin's chances in Paris-Nice went down a drain clogged with rain, with terrible performance on Stage 1. See Squadralytics' take on the subject of whether weather had anything to do with it. As if to take revenge, OPQS drove a big break away on Stage 2 to eliminate the GC chances of many hopefuls - even if Tony Martin himself was left out. Watchful Wiggins, on the other hand, is in prime position to win the Paris-Nice GC. Not many contenders are left, and with his consistently strong performances we think Col d'Eze is strongly in his favor.

The big break of Stage 2 forcefully converted many GC contenders to stage-hunters. Still, Paris-Nice is a short stage race and Wiggins/Team Sky did a good job watching for finishing gaps. In particular, Richie Porte deserve kudos. Perhaps he is paying back the work that the team did for him in Algarve, where Team Sky took the race into their hands.

Ommegang to the races.

Tom Boonen has been riding as if he had found a new spirit: working hard for teammates in stages of Paris-Nice following his win on Stage 2. It is good to see his spirits up as we approach a frustrating juncture in his career where he is too big to let go but not dominant enough to crush mortals in the peloton.

Tejay Van Gardener, a young American, sat within fighting distance of Wiggins, but after a few hard days he is overshadowed by Return of the Prince of Spain Alejandro Valverde. Speaking of whom, Movistar is riding with a very united spirit that reminds us of the days of, well, Valverde. Like him or not, he seems to have a special way to motivate his teammates.