Sunday, April 5, 2015

Wevelgem - Hard Blowing Makes the Job Tricky

If you're riding the Tour of Flanders tomorrow, you're probably in bed by now, or at least you should be. But seeing as "The Ronde" is just around the corner, I better take care of the Gent-Wevelgem write-up. Yes indeed, Gent-Wevelgem this year took place in what, by all accounts, were windy conditions.
Although the prospect of being "blown-off" doesn't appeal to professional cyclists, they have a job to do. So the hard ones went out there and did it. And the pussies quit. That's why only 40something riders actualy finished. Even recent classics revelation G Thomas has a blowy moment to contend with on his way to taking third place.


So, last week, king of the hard-men was Luca Paolini, who is usually to be seen doing the spade-work for Alexander Kristoff, but rode hard and smart to take an impressive win.



Having the least quitters was good news for the Kloefekappers.

Stage 4


Those Beans of Bile continue to stay on top in the overall. If you've been keeping up with those transfers, I imagine our teams are all looking pretty similar by now as we head into the bestest couple of one-day races of the season. The difference is in the details.

Overall

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Thursday, April 2, 2015

E3 Harelbeke - G Hits the Spot

With E3 Harelbeke more than a week behind us, it really is about time I devoted some blogging inches to what was turned out to be an excellent race. As is often the way in these bike-race things at this time of year, there were some crashes. Along with the many members of the Bile Beans that hit the deck, the biggest casualty was classics superstar Fabian Cancellara, who saw his Spring season come to an end with some fractured vertebrae.

The race was still on though, and coming into the finish a three-man group of Sagan, Stybar and Thomas were out in front. A canny attack left Stybar chasing for second, while Sagan faded spectacularly and got caught by the bunch.

A Thomas-Stybar-Kristoff 1-2-4 did the Bile Beans no harm, but it wasn't quite good enough to match the Stybar-Trentin-Kristoff 2-3-4 of Enrico666.

Stage 3


 Time I wrote up Gent-Wevelgem I suppose.
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Friday, March 27, 2015

Dwars door Vlaanderen - Topsport come out on Top

What's up Pance Fans? Seeing as E3 Harelbeke was today, I guess it means it's time to catch up on the happenings at Dwars door Vlaanderen, which I believe happened around Flanders a couple of days ago. 

If like me, you've been around for a few years, (and judging by the by the state of the Tour de Pance league, you have), then you have probably noticed that Quickstep, or whatever they are called this season, are the team to beat at this time of year. So I think a "chapeau" is in order to the cycling minnows at Topsport Vlaanderen, who managed to work over Quickstep's talented, and I imagine well-paid World Champion, Michal Kwiatkowski to take a 1-2 at Dwars door Vlaanderen. I've always had a soft-spot for Jelle Wallays when I cast my eyes over the Velogames start list, because he has an awesome and pun-worthy name, (please leave any catchy Jelle Wallays puns in the comments, and I'll try to recycle them next year when he's riding for a proper team).

Unfortunately, I like to stick to the ProTour boys for my picks, so Jelle didn't get the call-up for the Bile Beans. In fact, no-one got the call-up for the Bile Beans, as I didn't get my shit together to make any transfers. I did have some guys pencilled in, but seeing as they wouldn't have scored any points, it was probably for the best. My loss  was the Kleofekappers gain.

Stage 2


 Hopefully, coming up before Gent - Wevelgem, will be the E3 report. I'm optimistic that I might possibly maybe do it tomorrow. On the one hand, I scored some points, on the other hand, anyone who didn't score points on my team fell off.
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