Friday Group Ride #160
I don’t know whether my belief that only Peter Sagan can win this weekend’s Milan -San Remo comes from my unabashed admiration for his swashbuckling style, or from an accurate analysis of the race and the current form of the top favorites. The guys here at the office pointed out for me that completely writing off Mark Cavendish, Fabian Cancellara and Philippe Gilbert, not to mention Matt Goss, is the work of a fan boy, not a commentator.
So sue me.
Let me tell you what I think. Mark Cavendish is still the fastest man on two wheels, despite Sagan beating him to the line in Stage 3 at Tirreno-Adriatico just last week. But the Cipressa and the Poggio will put paid to Cavendish’s hopes of sprinting for this one. Sagan and his Liquigas cohort are too smart not to push the pace high enough to eliminate the Manxman early.
Fabian Cancellara is the fast man in the world on any stretch of flat road, and he’s got a good sprint on him. But he doesn’t have Sagan’s top end speed. If the two come to the line together, the Slovak wins every time.
Philippe Gilbert, current World Champion, shares Sagan’s love of punchy uphill racing, but like Cancellara, who both Sagan and Gilbert can drop on the Poggio, Gilbert won’t beat Sagan in a sprint. He’ll have to get away earlier…but won’t.
That leaves Matt Goss. Matt Goss is maybe the third fastest guy mentioned in this post. He’s a canny racer and a worthy contender, but he doesn’t have the team to manage the end of this race successfully.
Sagan will win this race because he can climb with anyone and sprint with the best, but also because he has a great team, who could, if Sagan falters or is over-marked, put Moreno Moser on the top step of the podium instead.
This week’s Group Ride dares you to disagree with me. If not Sagan, then who will win 2013 Milan – San Remo? Explain your reasoning. How will they win? Or why will Sagan lose?
Image: Fotoreporter Sirotti
Friday Group Ride #109
Today, at work, we talked about whether it was really still possible to go away on the Poggio, to wreck the day for the sprinters at Milan-San Remo. Oh, sure, any group sprint after 290km isn’t the cut and often dried affair it is during the first week of July in France.
But that’s neither here nor there. There is no answer. It’s the perfect discussion for a Friday afternoon at work.
This time of year is special. Milan-San Remo. Flanders. Roubaix. The Ardennes races. All year long we wish for these days to come, and then they’re upon us. They rush up like a German Shepherd off its lead, and then we’re away and down the road.
The Giro makes a pretty good consolation for the end of Classics season. And then you’re sliding into the Tour de France. What a total fucking carnival that is, eh? I mean, I’m not going to wax poetic about the Tour. Better men have done that job.
But oh, when the Tour ends, though there are still so many good races left, you start to feel a little desperate. The season is slipping away. Imagine how the riders feel? No. Imagine how the riders who haven’t won anything yet feel. You don’t want to show up at Lombardy worried about your contract.
This season has only just begun, but I can already feel some of that sadness that sets in the when the leaves fall and the wind first smells of wood smoke. It’s bullshit, but it’s there. Can you feel pre-sad?
This week’s Group Ride asks the stupid question: Which race, when it’s over, do you miss the most? I suppose it’s a bit like asking which race is your favorite, except it’s not. I love Flanders and Roubaix, but I feel sadder when Liege-Bastogne-Liege is done. Things change then.
Hell, sometimes when I’m sure I’ve outrun the German Shepherd I wish he’d come back. Cycling is funny that way.
Image: Photoreporter Sirotti
Milan-San Remo Group Ride Wrap
The first two hundred kilometers of the Milan – San Remo one day classic played out like a group ride with triathletes in it. The pace it’s a little too high. It’s a little more competitive than it needs to be. And all the dudes are tragically skinny.
Sure, the first two hundred k’s include a climb of the Passo del Turchino, but everyone’s fresh still at that point, and it’s too early to attack and expect to win. In this year’s versions, when the peloton hit Le Mánie at 204k things were still together, but the legs were beginning to go dead, what with the rain and the mud and another 94k to pedal.
By the time they hit the Cipressa and then the Poggio the form riders who were thinking about attacking were too frightened to risk too much. Guys were getting spit out the back like froth behind a motor boat. No one had fresh legs at that point, and Stefano Garzelli road on the front and off into the red, until a bunch sprint was all but guaranteed.
From there it really looked like Tom Boonen, the most named pre-race favorite, was in good position to take the win, but old man Oscar Freire beat him by two bike lengths to join Fausto Coppi and Roger de Vlaeminck as a three time winner of the longest one day bike race on the pro calendar.
No one on the RKP Group Ride picked Freire. We had lots of Boonens, some Petacchis, a Pozzato or two, a few picking Boasson-Hagen, a Chavanel, a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker. But no Freire. Yours truly probably came closest by picking “an experienced sprinter,” but that’s really more begging the question than picking the winner, isn’t it?
Your thoughts on the race? Do share.
