Friday Group Ride #61

Klöden leads Armstrong on the climb to Bagneres du Luchon

The professional racing season is underway in Europe. The pro peloton are all racing to the sun in France or from sea to sea in Italy, and there are finally more articles about actual racing than about the Contador case. At last, Paul Sherwen and Bob Roll are doing their best to enliven the first few hours of television coverage, when the peloton’s main business is riding through gray-ish tan villages, hucking empty water bottles at small pockets of people just out of the café for a few minutes.

And while certain bits of the story are running to script the racing has already offered up some surprises.

For me, the biggest has perhaps been the riding of Thomas de Gendt at Paris-Nice. The Vacansoleil rider came out of nowhere to win Stage 1, engineering his win from a three-man breakaway with Jeremy Roy and Jens Voigt. The Belgian then kept the jersey through the Stage 2 sprint, but lost it on Stage 3 by just two seconds. Not content with his performance up to that point, de Gendt found his way into another successful breakaway and pulled the golden fleece on again. Not a threat for the overall, de Gendt has still been able to light up the race with the sort of smart and swashbuckling riding every fan likes to see.

Of course, another big surprise was Andreas Klöden’s win on Stage 5, out sprinting Sammy Sanchez of all people. In doing so, he put enough time into de Gendt to take the leader’s jersey as well. Klöden won this race 11 years ago, but did ANYONE mention his name in any of their previews as a possible overall winner? Answer: no.

This is not to focus all our attention on the Paris-Nice. At Tirreno-Adriatico, the sprinters are all tuning up for Milan-San Remo. After the opening Team Time Trial (TTT), won, shockingly by Team Rabobank, Tyler Farrar took a win in Stage 2, and then JJ Haedo took Stage 3, just denying Farrar the double. Of course, the name missing here is Mark Cavendish, who has finished well down the order on both sprint stages.

This week’s Group Ride asks the question: What has been the biggest surprise of the week for you, and why?

1. Mark Cavendish’s failure to win yet at Tirreno-Adriatico.

2. Andreas Klöden’s win at Paris-Nice.

3. Thomas de Gendt (who?) in the yellow jersey at Paris-Nice.

4. Team Rabobank’s TTT win at Tirreno-Adriatico.

Image: John Pierce, Photosport International