cycling4freaks.com

Morning Vlaanderen

Not much to say, did a long breakfast to join the race at 10 instead of 9. Did some helper switching on the Smartphone before. Plan, keep Fahrenheit, Celsius, Heuser, Prachar and Fall fit. Fall no clue why, but who knows, if he is beeing pulled back in front, he might be a candidate to escape somewhere. With free in the group tactic was just to keep Fahrenheit in the top group. Always had many riders in front, 4 men when free was there with 5 and most just having 2. Free riding from the front, not reacting, which made the race really hard really early. Think km 233 already was the sieb that just Reinmann, Fahrenheit and Ortega survived, so still 40km to go for free. Behind the top group the remaining classic group didn't work together. Probably all in there would have put some pressure on free to increasing Fahrenheits chances. But many classics with good sprint, others without. Celsius was ready to join, but he is not the guy who needs to start. Finally no pressure at all. So free could finally sieb Fahrenheit with Reinmann and win solo. Fahrenheit solo to place 2 (First Monument podium that is no win for A&D). In the classics group that was reunited with some pave flat sprinters, Celsius could make a successfull attack and get the 4th place.

Bear wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 03, 2023 9:06 pm

Congrats FL. Well done again. No mistakes and onn point in the important moments.

5th for Mikael is not bad against the better sprinters. But I am not happy with my performance. Most of the race was ok. Kwaremont with Mads who was not the fittest at this time was not good. Actually a full sieb with Mikael would have been the best to reduce the group. Also, the idea to attack with Lukas seemed to be smart in first place but actually was the opposite. I hoped to have some of the better sprinters in my wheel as Lukas was the best flat skilled rider except the FLs. With 3 riders going fit into the sprint it might be better than a 5th in the end. Winning seemed highly unlikely though.

Next year, next try. Now full preperation for Roubaix. Hopefully I will be back home in time.

Thanks. And to be honest: It was also a good amount of luck in the end and the instance that teams like Motor Trachenberge rode for their chances as well. But pssst!!!

I either thought you would make the race crazy hard and reduce the amount of helpers for the teams with strong sprinters to a minimum or try something yourself earlier, like Chemnitz did. Give that attack some followers and some cooperation and it may change the outcome of the race. But that's the beauty of RVV, that it's not simply for pure pavé specialists and not for pure classic riders either. Riders like Piano and Moser have their shot as well. Of course if you don't have flukes like the free team line up in your group . I even thought about going for Juantorena at the Kwarement or the Paterberg for a second, just to make the others work and have two irons in the fire. But just for a second.

No action at all here...

Donks is back, after missing the greatest race of them all, Amstel, with all riders at 100 form, we had a half-comeback on Wednesday, winning on the Mur de Huy, but on mobile, some half offline races until today, tomorrow for LBL we are finally back. Might be a bit off again next week though...

Team for LBL

1 C. Drinkwater: Won it last year, gets number 1, not necessarily the leader position.
2 A. Carpinteiro: There to help. Or attack
3 L. Ceroni: Help
4 B. Gurruwiwi: Help
5 R. Huizinga: 70-75, holds up better than Charles, so wants to be leader
6 G. Lekubarri: 75-76 with 55 sprint. Logical leader
7 G. Payot: The climber wants to win here, but it's not for climbers at all anymore. Siebing maybe?
8 P. Rossi: 74-79, the forgotten classic, not much sprint, 49, until Gotxon exploded our logical leader here
9 L. Trutat: 72-76, another classic

So... Lekubarri-Rossi-Trutat-Huizinga-Drinkwater, 5 classics or former classics, Payot and the 60-80es (mostly not 60 though...) not a bad team, the absolute killer rider is missing a bit, 76-76 or more sprint.
Vanuytsel is rather upset at being left out, wanted to ride his 100st race here, but due to his not convincing training lately we brought Ceroni and Gurruwiwi instead.

Hope for a big group! 22 teams!

Looks like Team FL will start in the afternoon for La Doyenne. The line up almost makes up itself:

Clément Clévenot will ride for his team mates as they did for him at La Flèche Wallonne.

The classics trio with Julio Juantorena, PrzPszcz and Ventura will have long discussion who may be the leader of the race.

Fiorino Forte, Gunther Grün, Gilberto Godoy, Janis Jansons and Terry Tiktak will do their best to bring them in good positions or put pressure on other teams.