Classics! Pave! The best part of the season is here already.

Stannard is a beast. Epic-Misstep have epically misstepped.

First classic of the year!

Ian Stannard of Team Sky gets in a breakaway featuring three Etixx-QuickStep riders, including legendary Classics specialist and former world champ Tom Boonen, and current Paris-Roubaix champ Niki Terpstra.

Should be an easy EQS win, right?

Nope



Consensus seems to be that instead of Boonen attacking with 5 km to go, they should have had Terpstra (a better TT rider) attack and kept Boonen (a better sprinter) with Stannard. The two possible results there are Terpstra pulling away with the win (a la last years Roubaix) or Boonen outsprinting Stannard.

Just watched that, wtf Quick Step, seriously.

The second attack after he pulled back Boonen was feeble. Don't know how long the break was away, but Stannard obviously wasn't going to have been putting in any shifts, and looked miles the fresher there.

How the Race was won has a good overview of the race. EQS break started with about 40 km to go. As Cosmo points out, the group of 3 couldn't attack Stannard because they had to keep the pace up to prevent the next group of 3 riders from catching them. Otoh, the next group of 3 riders also featured another EQS rider, Stybar, current World Champion (of cyclocross).

Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne:

Gilbert goes out on a break 4 km from the finish.

Can the peloton catch him?

Can EQS make up for yesterday's debacle?

Can Cav outsprint Kristoff?

Stybar is not the world champion of cyclocross.

Thanks for posting this with the suspenseful questions.

Such an exciting attack by Gilbert and what a finish. And I'm loving Matt Stephens' commentating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_UC..._Championships

OIC. That was last year's race. Looks like he didn't even compete in the 2015 WC.

What is the state of race radios in the peloton? I was listening to a podcast that said one of the reasons for the Etixx Misstep in Omloop was the lack of race radios. Was it banned for that race only or for all races?

Also, I'm wondering if people are being too unfair to Etixx for that race. While 3 against 1 sounds good in theory, it also meant that Stannard could wheel suck for an entire hour while every one else was taking turns in the front. Would it have worked out better for EQS had it been 2 EQS riders, 1 Sky, and 1 other guy, meaning all 4 would have to take turns up front?

Radios are only for the highest ranked UCI events, i.e. whatever they call the World Tour these days its hard to keep track. This means The grand Tours and major classics have radios and everything else doesn't. I think most 1 week stage races also will have them.

Considering everyone had ample time to talk to the car in Het News I think the lack of radios is not to blame. The major error I felt Quick Step made was in not having Terpstra and Boonen switch roles in the finale. I think Boonen has even said this in the Flemish media.

Terpstra attacking and saving Boonen for the sprint worked pretty well in Paris-Roubaix last year. I think since Tom has never won this particular race they were trying to maximize his chance of winning it over the team's if that makes sense.

It worked well for Terpstra, not so much for Boonen. Some have speculated that Boonen did not want that (Boonen not winning) to happen again, which is why he attacked before Terpstra.

Nice thread, will be popping in for sure.

The cycling season is heating up. Paris-Nice starts tomorrow. Tireno-Adriatico starts Wednesday (featuring the last 4 of the last 5 grand tour champs: Froome, Quintana, Nibali, and Contador.)

Today was the Strade Bianche:

I love Strade Bianche. The white roads give it such a unique feel.

Someone on commentary made a good point - that if it wasn't such a new race and had 100 years of history, it would be a monument for sure.

Also, lolValverdepodiumaments. Although to be fair he actually did a good chunk of work in this one.

It was not a race for him, but Vanmarcke looks really shape this spring, he'll be hard to beat at Paris-roubaix and other cobbles World tour race

Stybar isn't too bad in those either, and i expect Boonen to be good as well

awesome cycling season so far (although it's the first year i really follow all the races). very excited for tireno adriatico (especially stage 5 next sunday with 16k mountain top finish).

Froome out of Tireno with illness and looks like Boonen might have broken his collarbone falling in Paris Nice

Really disappointing. Was really looking forward to Contador vs Froome 2015 round 2 at Tireno.

Sucks for Boonen too. And especially Gerrans, who fractured his arm at Strade Bianche, his first race back since breaking his collar bone.

That sucks for Boonen but I'm sure Quick Step are happy they can now ride for their true best cobble rider like terpstra and stybar instead of doing the race for boonen who fail in the end

Lol

Cool video showing an overlay of Greg Henderson's power data over the last 10 km of stage 2. He's the leadout man for Griepel--hit 1200 watts at one point.

http://www.suffervision.com/v/4890014747983872

Nice stage today in Paris Nice, Gallopin could be really good in April for the classics

Everytime I watch Kwiatoswki he attacks way to early and get burned with 30km left. He might be the dumbest tactician in the peloton. Obviously burnt all his teammates with the classic EPQS 4 man breakdown