Wednesday 10th April 2013
a weekly double-shot of road racing
issue four
rapha.cc
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S AT U R D AY
S UN D AY — Paris– Rouba ix
MONDAY
TUESDAY
W EDN ESDAY —B r a b a n t se P i j l
TH U R SDAY
F R I DAY
SATU R DAY
SU N D AY —A m s t e l G o l d R a c e —Tr o -B ro Lé o n
paris –roubaix review
bigringriding award
quote
Fabulous Cancellara
ZDEN K ŠTYBAR WILL BE FURIOUS AFTER AN IDIOT WITH A CAMERA ROBBED HIM OF A POSSIBLE PODIUM PLACE AT ROUBAIX. GREAT RACE BY THE EXCROSS WORLD CHAMPION.
Watching Roubaix live from my sofa. Kind of strange, but enjoying it. Newly retired @ghincapie, who famously never won Paris-Roubaix, sits out his first race since 1996.
Sep Vanmarcke BLANCO PRO CYCLING TEAM
2
Fabian Cancellara RADIOSHACK LEOPARD TREK
1
Niki Terpstra OMEGA PHARMA-QUICK STEP
3
Fabian Cancellara’s legendary status is now bulletproof. Three Roubaix wins is just one away from the record and Sunday’s victory marked his second Flanders-Roubaix double. Apparently he’s going to have a rest now, hardly surprising considering the gargantuan efforts he’s put in over the last few weeks. Escorting Sep Vanmarcke into the Roubaix velodrome, neither showed signs of tiredness or nerves. Indeed, they seemed like a couple of training buddies who, finding themselves on an old, pockmarked track, decided to play cat-and-mouse for fun. It just so happened to be the finale to the biggest one-day race in the world. It’s hard to find a Roubaix finish like it, be it a small group rolling into Roubaix to fight it out, or one man soloing, alone and filthy, into the velodrome. Earlier in the week, Cancellara, a man famed for his bike handling, had fallen off during a sector recce with team-mates. Yet spare a thought for those who crashed not on a recce but on the big day itself: Yoann Offredo’s spectacular chute was the end of his race; and Stijn Vandenbergh, in trying to keep up with Cancellara, struck a spectator while riding in the gutter on the chaotic Carrefour de l’Arbre. The real racing took place out on those cobbled battlefields. After Cancellara set a wicked tempo on the Auchylez-Orchies sector, it was the following five-star section, at Mons-enPévèle, that proved decisive. This one went to the wire, old Spartacus and Vanmarcke, vying for glory on that old pockmarked track.
from the team car
Nicolas Portal on Pais Vasco Following a tough week at the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, the Tour of the Basque Country, Team Sky Sports Director Nicolas Portal reflects on modest successes for a team depleted by injuries. Is the Vuelta al Pais Vasco simply preparation for bigger races? We try to ride all WorldTour races to the highest level. Normally, we’d have eight riders but Josh Edmondson has been sick and Ian Boswell has a knee problem. We’ve been racing with six riders on a six-stage race, in the Basque country with high-percentage gradients. Even so, it was a good performance in tough conditions? We lost in the end but it was still a good result [Richie Porte finished second, Sergio Henao third]. Movistar made the race harder for us and Quintana [the eventual winners] rode a very good TT. And are some riders on the WorldTour stage for the first time? Yes, Joe Dombrowski and Jonathan Tiernan-Locke. Both are riding well at the moment, learning all the time about positioning. They were always up there on the front, controlling the race, among just four riders protecting Richie and Sergio. Injuries aside, how are younger guys like Boswell and Joe Dombrowski coming along? They’re getting stronger and gaining confidence with every race. They’re fast learners, intelligent and open to ideas. It’s important that we don’t push them too much. What’s been the most testing stage at Pais Vasco? Stage four. Xabi Zandio, our experienced domestique, punctured after four kilometres. Henao got caught 200m from the bunch taking off his overshoes – by then the break had gone. The conditions were bad but I told the guys not to think about the gap. It was very intense but fortunately we stayed as a unit. I guess it can be a tough day in the team car, too? I can feel the riders’ pain. I don’t think of myself as director, I feel like rider number nine. I have the air conditioning in the car, of course, so it’s a little different. But I’ll take the big decisions and try to keep things calm, keep the conversation going.
#prostyle