Ok, so we’re not going to create a race thread for ALL races this year, especially since we’re only about 10 people reading here :)
This thread is available for you to write about all the races which don’t have a race thread.
Ok, so we’re not going to create a race thread for ALL races this year, especially since we’re only about 10 people reading here :)
This thread is available for you to write about all the races which don’t have a race thread.
Boucles de la Mayenne 🇫🇷 May 28–31
There is some heavy stuff this year among the starting riders, with riders who restart competition like Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-trek), Kooij (🇳🇱 Decathlon) and Brennan (🇬🇧 Visma), on top of Cosnefroy (🇫🇷 UAE).
I didn’t check whether the prologue is televised elsewhere, but in France it is not; but the 3 stages are.
PCS profiles
Hoping Pedersen gets his first win of the season here.
I guess you didn’t imagine having to say this sentence 6 months ago!
I suppose it depends whether he comes to just restart easily and ride miles in a peloton, or if he is already in full form.
Stage 2 is the most hilly; nothing very steep but nothing flat. It is probably the most suitable stage for a Pedersen in shape, if the sprinters aim for the other stages. And perhaps Cosnefroy is past his peak shape; I mean, he won twice this month, and I see he is still expected on the Dauphiné (which surprises me a bit), but he didn’t had any significant break since January…
He won a prologue of similar length 2 years ago. That’s another possibility. This one will be more punchy, not because of slopes but because of curves; it will give a first piece of information about his punch of the moment.
Given his injury he’s had a fine spring, just… no victories. I think he’ll go for wins, he’s not in the habit of starting races where he isn’t fighting for the win.
Mwell… nobody gave a fuck about GC during the 3rd and last stage. Not only there wasn’t a single attack in the finish, but nobody tried to grab a time bonus despite the fact that there were no less than 3 Intermediate Sprints with time bonuses!
To add to the nonsense, this is on a 2.Pro, where stages almost don’t bring any UCI points, while the final GC is pretty generous in UCI points. Despite the fact that the winner broke away in the last 2 editions on the same circuit, everyone was just waiting/riding for a sprint this year.
So basically, the classification was determined by the 6 km long prologue, among the 15 riders who were in the first group in stage 2 (the hilly one).
The Pedersen case.
His prologue wasn’t a success. 20th at 15 seconds over 6 km. Pajur Romet was closer to him, than he was close to the winner…
On stage 2, as he already did a couple of times earlier this year, he rode like he had his magic legs from the previous years. Expect he hasn’t, even against the field of riders in Mayenne (which wasn’t so bad this year). The legs he has now require him to ride more intelligently. One may wonder if he wasn’t just rehearsing efforts, I don’t know.
On stage 3, his team only rode to bring him to the sprint. There was an interesting movement, far from the finish, with 2 Lotto (including Veistroffer) and 2 Lidl-Trek (including Pedersen), but the latter refused to relay the Lottos, a pity for it would have been fun and the teams leading the peloton were in complete panic when they saw this movement. On top of his tendency to start too early, he took way too much wind, for he lost the wheels of his teammate SKA. He was easily beaten by Kooij, but beat everyone else.
Since nobody rode for GC, he was the only rider, among the first 30 riders in GC, winning a place in GC ranking (actually 2 places) on the last stage, thanks to the time bonus at finish. :)
So, I had picked that name at random, to describe a completely unknown rider.
Would you believe that today, just 4 days later, the same guy wins the prologue at the Tour of Estonia?! 🤣