TOB Stage 2 - Flat?

Well the weather here in Wales is grim all week but I promise Caerphilly mountain will still be rammed , and I for one will enjoy my ride to Caerphilly and the day no matter the weather

dropped delaplace and brought in House, Wiggins and Deignan.

Delaplace in the break

I think it's great to have stages that are so interesting and UK-specific in their character (manky weather, steep inclines, narrow lanes, lush greenery, sheep etc.). It can only enhance the ToB's reputation. Hopefully the crowds will still come out despite the wind & rain.

just read this- having looked at the tour of britain website, i decided it was lumpy enough and a steep enough finish to get rid of cav- I may very well regret this. this made space for visconti and house. also brought in simon yates, 10 points penalty

DrH, your right about the climbs and distances etc however i think the crosswinds or the wind in general is going to seriously hamper the teams with the less experienced ones suffering the most.

If the pro teams push it i can see this being a horrible stage for some.

it's all relative, we all know these climbs well but the profile's pretty similar to stage 4 of the vuelta, which was classified as flat and had a steeper climb than honister in it. i was 50/50 between calling it as flat or MM

It's all relative, the profile looks lumpy but only really because the scale is quite small.

http://www.tourofbritain.co.uk/stages/stage2/cumbria_route.php

Check out the profile at the bottom of this page. Honnister looks bad but is under 400m altitude. It's steep and Chestnut Hill is not long after but there's 50km between that last categorised climb and the finish. Plenty of time for it all to come back together for a sprint finish.

Also, the finish climbs 40m in the final 1km, that's a gradient of 4%, not something to really frighten the sprinters.

well thats my team screwed, oh well!

Cav was second in 2007 when the tour last finished in Kendal, 1'43 behind Alexander Serov.

Have to agree, don't see how this stage can be classed as flat-this Strava segment on Beast banks shows it at 8%.

http://www.strava.com/segments/1749696

Having spent many hours riding around the lakes, I cannot wait to see how they go up the likes of Honister Pass etc.....Flat....they are having a laugh...
If there is wind and rain, this stage could be anything but fun...

Never flat !

Even yesterdays finish was up a hill.

No Cav for me today, to lumpy.