Conundrum and question

Gkam84 wrote:I just have a

Gkam84 wrote:

I just have a feeling HTC might be able to keep Cav safe and in a decent placing if it doesn’t split to much at the front

I dont think Cav is team leader for Roubaix – HTC seem to be backing Bernhard Eisel, and Cav will more likely work for Eisel than the other way round. But I’d still be surprised if HTC got a man on the podium (even if Goss’s amazing form from MSR has carried this far) – Spartacus is already talking about making people ‘fasten their seatbelts’ from the front and that’s nigh on guaranteed to blow it apart when he does.

Love PR – gotta be my favourite race.

Climbs? Hills? You might want
Climbs? Hills? You might want to have a look at the profile 😉

http://www.letour.fr/2011/PRX/COURSE/us/le_parcours.html

(Edit: Forgot this quirk of ASO websites – they always default back to the first tab. So you need to click on “Profile of the stage” under “Maps and routes”)

It has been said, though, that the cobbled sections themselves are the hills of Paris-Roubaix.

I looked back over the top ten of the last decade or so on Wikipedia. Not a bunch sprint in sight, one year there was a six or seven man sprint for the non-podium places. Rarely, you might get a three-way sprint for the podium.

Typically, the top ten will come home in dribs and drabs, some riders on their own, some in pairs or threes, rarely more.

As Geraint Thomas said when we spoke to him about the race, the bunch sprints at Paris-Roubaix aren’t at the end of the race, they’re at the start of the cobbled sections and particularly at the more difficult ones seen as key to the race.

That, and the fact that the riders get strung out and gaps are caused by crashes etc, as well as riders going off the front, means that the field is split all over the place well before the end – it’s not like a long, flat Tour de France stage where a break can get ten minutes up the road before being reeled back in and 198 riders cross the line to be given the same time.

Very difficult to envisage a sprinter such as Cav or Farrar winning this. That isn’t to say they couldn’t be fighting out their own private sprint finish in a large bunch further down the order, which could be worth some Fantasy points should you pick them.

What makes the PR good is
What makes the PR good is that is can be won by a breakaway – and if it isn’t it is a usually a small selection of riders. No stats to hand but I would say that there is seldom a bunch sprint as per TdF flat stage. This is what makes the northern classics so good, they are fecking hard and you need to be fecking hard to win one. Cue Sean Kelly “Well yes, you’re certainly on the rivet for this one”. Translates to it’s death out there… You can’t fake it and you can’t sit in and win in the last 100m – of course if Cav got near the line with a few others you’d put money on him, but he’s not really big enough and strong enough to do this kind of riding. Boonen and those guys are massive (well, for cyclists) in comparison to Cav. I’m not saying he’s slow and weak mind, but I wouldn’t put your cash on him…

Can’t wait 🙂