Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco
4 Hilly (2 HTF) | 1 ITT (Hilly) | 1 TTT
A mainstay of cycling over the years, the Vuelta al Pais Vasco is lining up its 58th edition this year and its 11th under the MGUCI reign. A race for the puncheurs, which will be broken up as well by a 29km team time trial, and a 18km ITT with a tough hill at the end - so the puncheurs shouldn't be conceding too much to the chrono men or stage racers. With two hilltop finishes, and the always tough terrain of the Basque Country, this is one tough route.
Quite the lineup here from both the PCT and PT teams, but really it's the PT teams who take the cake here, with just one real favourite in Costa from the PCT. There's no one clear top favourite, but it's probably Jack Bobridge who will go into the race as the most marked man given his excellent combination of great uphill skill, a good chrono pedigree and maybe the best TTT team in the race. The best puncheur is probably Bakelants, who is a great bet to double up for Grieg (following EBH last year) with a decent TTT and ITT behind him.
Behind them are Trofimov and De Bie, two guys with solid chrono skills and a great team for the opening stage. Van Garderen and Sagan are in the same boat but a little further behind - but the former as an ex-winner of this race obviously has the skills to do it. Meanwhile, Philips' new hope Costa will hope for a great ITT and solid performances in the hills to keep up and break into the top 5.
Aside from any miracle rides, you can't really see any other winners - there are other top puncheurs here but they will be hindered by the two TTs. Skujins is the obvious choice: one of the world's top puncheurs, but he has the odds stacked against him with his pretty crap TT skill. At least his team won't drop him, because they're Evonik. Someone who probably will get dropped on day one is Ulissi. A good bet for a stage win at least if he gets a free role after, or a decent GC placing. If he worked on his TT skills or Generali sacrificed a little to help him out (which who knows, they may have done) then maybe he could push for the top ten, but he's still a pretty awful chrono rider.
Other interesting names around are Mohoric, a very safe bet for the youth jersey, and the Gazelle duo of Kangert and Bibby, riders with very good ability against the clock, solid climbing and a great TTT squad who can push for the top 10 or better depending on how the race goes. However it will be interesting to see team tactics given they have brought the better uphill, but less good in a TT, Ginanni here as well.
Yep we did sacrifice some TT strength indeed. Which saddens me, because this means we likely won't win the TTT with the likes of Jaycolong/Gazelle etc. but hopefully also implies that Ulissi doesn't get dropped. Well at least not immediately.
Not gonna lie, I already kind of regret this choice because it's hard to imagine Ulissi getting a huge result here while we could have got a guaranteed win, but if it doesn't end up working this will at least have served as a lesson that there's just no way for things to end up in your favour when Ulissi is paired with any time trialist at all.
Also Koren might just take over as a leader if Ulissi ends up sucking immediately, who knows, my team is pretty well rounded to support him and maybe have him push above his weight even if slightly.
Ah, the classic, I think we'll do something but actually no we won't race! With Rabottini, Honkisz, Stachowiak, Kono and Bernas all 75-76 hill, hypothetically we should be a bit aggressive and maybe hope for a stage win or the KOM jersey and a GC top 20 from Konovolavas. In reality we'll be lucky to join breaks, finish up with our best rider 45th and maybe 6th in the KOM classification, with nothing resembling a stage win. But we'll be third at the first time check in the TTT! I do totally deserve that for sending a weak squad though.
Bobridge has to win this, there's not really a question there, will be interesting to see how the other spots shape up though. Thanks for the preview jandal! I laughed too much at the question mark next to Ulissi, poor Matt.
Really wanted to send Lutsenko here at first, but decided not to when I realized he'd have terrible teammates. So all we have left now is Zmorka and some breakaway possibilities. Therefore, all of my eyes will be on stage 5. Hoping for a win there!
Costa has been placed a lot higher in the favourite's list than I would've expected with all those top PT punchers on the startlist. The TTT team is decent but nothing to worry anyone. If we do get a good result out of this, it would really help get over a horrible February. Not sure what to expect from the others because they've not shown anything to get excited about yet this season.
Had reported this race last season and it was a cracker, with each stage having a new GC leader at the end of it, five different GC leaders and the one rider who actually held the jersey twice eventually finishing off the podium. Hope for another such event!
Thanks for the great preview Jandal and look forward to the race
trekbmc wrote:
Ah, the classic, I think we'll do something but actually no we won't race! With Rabottini, Honkisz, Stachowiak, Kono and Bernas all 75-76 hill, hypothetically we should be a bit aggressive and maybe hope for a stage win or the KOM jersey and a GC top 20 from Konovolavas. In reality we'll be lucky to join breaks, finish up with our best rider 45th and maybe 6th in the KOM classification, with nothing resembling a stage win. But we'll be third at the first time check in the TTT! I do totally deserve that for sending a weak squad though.
Bobridge has to win this, there's not really a question there, will be interesting to see how the other spots shape up though. Thanks for the preview jandal! I laughed too much at the question mark next to Ulissi, poor Matt.
Come on trek, don't exaggerate. Your TTT team isn't that good
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Well given that none of Caruso, Zingle or Le Gac are able to TT whatsoever I can't say I'm hoping for too much here as we're also going to lose about an hour in the TTT. I do however hope that we go for the breakaways and the KOM as a breakaway stage win would be great here.
Cornu here with hopes that he can do well in the TT stage but it won't be easy given there are multiple strong TT riders here.
No Ponzi and no EBH makes this a great opportunity for Bakelants. Hopefully he won't be dropped and can try to get close to the leader's jersey before the ITT. Of course hoping he can win, but he would need to take a lot of time on Bobridge for that to happen. Would love to see him getting his first win on a stage here.
trekbmc wrote:
Ah, the classic, I think we'll do something but actually no we won't race! With Rabottini, Honkisz, Stachowiak, Kono and Bernas all 75-76 hill, hypothetically we should be a bit aggressive and maybe hope for a stage win or the KOM jersey and a GC top 20 from Konovolavas. In reality we'll be lucky to join breaks, finish up with our best rider 45th and maybe 6th in the KOM classification, with nothing resembling a stage win. But we'll be third at the first time check in the TTT! I do totally deserve that for sending a weak squad though.
Bobridge has to win this, there's not really a question there, will be interesting to see how the other spots shape up though. Thanks for the preview jandal! I laughed too much at the question mark next to Ulissi, poor Matt.
Come on trek, don't exaggerate. Your TTT team isn't that good
We've done it several times before, we just always end up 12th!
We could get a stage win here, but i reckon that's about all we could achieve. Yates is good and i love him, but he's not capable of battling at this sort of level. Maybe a few breaks would be a nice confidence boost!
Skujins is usually the consistency in person finishing always top ten but rarely getting the big win and id be completely fine with that here as well. This race is too tt heavy to expect anything more than that.
Bobridge and Bennelong look like the favorites for the GC and TTT. We really need a podium in the TTT and for Trofimov to finish in the top-5 to consider this a success.
We come here with big expectations, I must admit. Especially as both stage 3 and 6 look to be slightly affected by the mountain stat too, making Beltran's Hill/mountain combination valuable. Then there's also stage 2 and the downhill finish there, which suit him very well.
The TT and the TTT are obviously our big weaknesses here, but hopefully we can do decent damage limitation in stage 1, and then play it aggressive with both Beltran and Vakoc on the hilly stages.
Also a very nice and informative preview, especially liked the team overview with hill and TT stat listed for all riders
Despite Bennelong probably being one of my competitors for the relegation spots, I will be rooting for Bobridge here. I think luck need to be on their side soon.
Hoping for a much needed podium here. With Gallopin, Boom, Zardini and Thurau support in the hills is as good as it can get.
Dumoulin and Frison in addition for the TTT.
Top5 is minimum though and everything below would be disappointing.
Also maybe better stage results for additional points as De Bie in Tirreno was more consistency and less stage results that delivered the good placement.
For fuck's sake, Ulissi almost made it to the finish with the rest of the team, only gets dropped with 4 km to go in fact, and loses 2'34" in 4 damn kilometres?? If it takes 34'54" to cover 28.7 km that means the average speed is about 50 km/h right? It took a bit less than 5 minutes for the team to cover the last 4 kms and Ulissi does that same thing in 7 minutes and a half? 32 km/h or so? As a professional cyclist? I paid Ulissi €7555 for this particular race day and he just kinda strolls past the finish line slower than I would after being carried for the first 25 kms? He was so much worse than Ginanni, who really looked like he at least put in some efforts in order not to lose quite nearly as much from his own teammates...
And we didn't even win the damn stage! We finished with the same time as 3 other teams! Great! Could be worse, sure, we could have been 4th, but it still stings because this is not really my A-TTTeam and we even won last year I believe. Still, not a huge point loss, and congrats UBS, I was prepared to lose this TTT in a way or another considering the planning, hopefully we can make up some points back in the coming stages!
Plus I don't understand, are we 2nd or 3rd?
and UBS are the winners! They made it to the finish a hair faster than Desigual. Generali are third, Aegon "only" manage fourth. What a finish!
Then Generali and Desigual very close to tied - in fact Viviani with a better GC time than anyone from Desigual, but it's all about the fifth man.
6
Elia Viviani
Generali - EDF
s.t.
7
Carlos Verona
Desigual
s.t.
8
Daniel Teklehaimanot
Desigual
s.t.
9
Kristjan Koren
Generali - EDF
s.t.
10
Nelson Oliveira
Desigual
s.t.
11
Artem Ovechkin
Generali - EDF
s.t.
12
Daniel Eaton
Desigual
s.t.
13
Jan Ghyselinck
Generali - EDF
s.t.
14
GaÃŽtan Bille
Generali - EDF
s.t.
15
Omar Fraile
Desigual
s.t.
Bille is my 5th man and Fraile is Desigual's 5th, so surely we would be 2nd? PCM is awful at exporting results, so I'm not going to blame you for the confusion, but I'd like this to be cleared up a bit Or I get it maybe, perhaps the TT standings during the race had Desigual ahead of us and the exports after corrected that like it often happens.
Well shit happens, and maybe Ulissi will be more aggressive in stage 2 and on, like he's been in other races (at a lower level, admittedly). Hopefully Koren being high in the standings gives him a lil boost too.
Thanks for the amazing report though, jandal. TTT are awful to report and you really made this one justice: wish PCM learnt that it's unlikely to see teams finish with the same time after >25 kms, this is far from the first time it happens.
Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco
