All roads lead to Harrogate: Pro cycling 2019

[ursus arctos]

Van Vleuten in the break.

Absolute legend.

[ursus arctos]

Maps and profiles for both courses

The women climb the Kapelmuur with about 18km to go.

[ursus arctos]

Chantal Blaak leads all the way over the Muur and looks to be the strongest today

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Blaak wins by over a minute. Van der Breggen wins the chasing group sprint. Great performance by AVV in her first race back.

[delicatemoth]

And Blaak does indeed ride away from the rest for a fine solo win.

Men's race looks like the peloton is going to shatter quite soon.

[ursus arctos]

Fine win by Stybar yesterday.

30km to go in KBK, which seems very likely to end in a bunch sprint.

[longeared]

Sporza's coverage has been geoblocked, the buggers.

That corner on the roundabout that Trentin just cut, seem to remember several riders taking that route in previous years.

[ursus arctos]

Jungels trying to time trial to the line.

[ursus arctos]

And does!

[longeared]

Brilliant win by Jungels there and a fine finale. Old Deceuninck trick of chucking riders up the road and forcing others to chase. Quite a weekend for them really.

[ad hoc]

Women's cycling race forced to pause after lead rider catches men's race
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...y_to_clipboard

[ad hoc]

Sorry just seen DM mentioned this on the previous page

[Me Old Flower]

GP Le Samyn today. Will be interesting to see how British Conti teams Canyon, WIGGINS, and newcomers Swift Carbon get on.

[longeared]

Good race that and another win for Deceuninck as Florian Senechal outsprints Aime de Gendt, Boom and Terpstra after Tim de Clercq didn't quite have the legs to stay away. There was a WIGGINS rider in the front group towards the end and a Canyon rider crashed on a descent with a Lotto with about 15k left, otherwise didn't see anything of the British teams.

[ursus arctos]

They should just rename this race as le Grand Prix Le Fevere.

[Me Old Flower]

Callum Skinner has announced his retirement from cycling at the age of 26.

[ursus arctos]

AVV rides away from the field to win Strade Bianche

[ursus arctos]

Alaphilippe, Van Aert and Fuglsang have gone off the front with 21 km to go That may be the final selection

[longeared]

Groenewegen wins a lively opening stage of Paris - Nice where the wind blew, the peloton split and several riders lost time - Chaves and Soler among those who conceded a minute. Unusually there was an intermediate sprint at 3k from the line which all the sprinters steered clear of and we had a GC sprint for the time bonus, Kwiatkowski and LL Sanchez already picked up five seconds in the course of the day.

[caja-dglh]

Jeez. The news about Kelly Catlin is just awful.

[ursus arctos]

RIP Kelly Catlin

What an awfully sad story.

[longeared]

Echelon-tastic in Paris-Nice today thanks to a ferocious crosswind. There's only about twenty riders in the lead group, the next group is at about a minute back and there's plenty more behind that. Bardet's just taken a time bonus, Bernal and Quintana the other names up the front.

[ursus arctos]

Echelons with 5 km to the finish

[longeared]

Groenewegen won the stage from a front group of seven, including Bernal bossing it in the winds.

Some huge gaps on the developing results sheet - Yates lost 6:44, at 8:27 were Soler, Henao, Lopez, Ion Izagirre. Aru lost more than that. Barguil and Gorka Izagirre both crashed out, Cavendish is also down as a DNF, not sure why but his season so far suggests retirement might start to cross his radar soon.

[ursus arctos]

Hatch must have mis-identified Yates in the run in, as he had him in the group that finished about a minute behind the leaders.

Dimension Data has a whole seem to be a mess. Cavendish's form certainly doesn't help.