Hopeful Friday 4/9/2010

by schmalz

Hell yeah

This Saturday, the city parks breathe a sigh of relief as the racing action heads north to the "Enfer du Nerd" also known as the Tour of the Battenkill. If you haven’t registered yet, it’s too late, and that race spot for sale on the internet is probably as reliable as an airport pick up from Courtney Love. If you are headed north, Godspeed, and if you see me at the side of the road with my bike in tiny colorful pieces, feel free to toss me a gel.

Sunday has a Central Park Spring Series Race and a  Bethel race for those who desire more punishment, or avoided it entirely at Battenkill. Sunday also has the Kissena Women’s Track Clinic.

And since there’s so few races here to comment upon, I will offer my preview for this other race happening in France.

Sometimes predicting Roubaix is pretty easy, you just look at who had a good day at Flanders and toss those names into a hat and pull one out at random; because making anything but a sweeping guess at who might win Roubaix is a folly similar to financing a musical based on the life of Corey Haim, written, directed and starring Corey Feldman (you know Corey is contemplating it). Last week’s race at Flanders saw four riders showing great form: Tom Boonen, Philippe Gilbert, Matti Breschel and Fabian Cancellara (Fabian’s name comes to us from the NYVC department of the obvious). If we go with the conventional wisdom, it seems likely that the Roubaix winer will come from one of these four riders.

After his dominating performance at Flanders, Fabian will have a tougher time at Roubaix , where he will be stalked like Sandra Bullock at a Hollywood Starbucks. I can’t imagine Boonen seeing any other view at Roubaix other than one obstructed by Fabian’s backside. This will give Matti Breschel the opportunity to display the great form he had at Flanders before being waylaid by a mechanical and the subsequent ill-fated switch to a toddler’s frame. Fabian may also be feeling generous (or guilty), and could be willing to help his teammate out.

Gilbert (as he always does) showed a lot of moxie at Flanders, but he won’t be riding at Roubaix because he’s preparing for the Ardennes classics. Juan Antonio Flecha had a lot of team support at Flanders, but wasn’t able to put in a dashing Flecha-esque performance; which makes me think he may be feeling under the weather. I eagerly anticipate a Team Sky post-classics press release blaming bad buffet fish (why do they always have the fish?) for Flecha’s, um, distress.

We must also look at the outliers in the Roubaix scenario, David Millar showed some strength in the late stages of Flanders; Tyler Farrar just won the Scheldeprijs (and owes Tom Boonen a nice fruit basket for such a wonderful lead out); and personally, I will never discount Thor Hushovd, the man from SMASH, as he is mighty. Also, I am an American, and it is my duty to mention George Hincapie, who is the Chicago Cubs of pro bike racing (lovable and popular but not overly victorious). It would be a delight to see George win, but it’s about as likely as Gary Busey addressing the UN as the distinguished delegate from Mars.

So in summation, Cancellara and Breschel will work over Boonen until Breschel gets away and rides triumphantly into the Roubaix velodrome, leaving a small group behind that will sullenly sprint for second place. Of course, this is Roubaix and all of these predictions will be nullified if the racers encounter any of the following: rain, cobbles, mud, dogs, parked cars, inebriates, freight trains or steering tubes made of balsa wood.

87 Comments

more fun

reading baqwards, start with images of roubaix velodrome, finish with Dan roadside covered in gu…

schmalz

Hate to say it, but Hincapie’s arrows are much like the ones that Steve Martin wore on his head.

Senne Limit Screw

start the Women field (all six of them) behind the 4 field and give the women’s separate time slot to a Men’s Cat 4 B Race. Split the field of 135 in half with 62.5 riders in each field (we can count CJ as 1.5 people per the pictures). Everyone gets to race. It’s a win-win!

Adam Setscrew

Chris Leong(BH Louis Garneau) wins. Phil Penman(Teany) takes 3rd.

Beautiful day to race, great course(dirt sections were packed hard and for the most part very safe)

Worth getting away from CP/PP…

mehi

Been a fan of Horner’s since he had a long breakaway in the 96 Tour duPont. To be the first American to win the race AND your biggest race at 38 is pretty cool.

Amerigo Supple

Won his first CX race ever in the As (small race) last year. Funny he was racing Cat 4s and 3s last year.

The Cat 2 Field had some real talent.

Tom Dropout

Is a notorious doper. His accomplishments are BS. He is an old guard POS. Hope he retires soon, but HGH seems to have a way of helping guys get results well into their late 30’s.

Andy

Zmolik 3rd in P1 race. Sounds like Miguelangelo Blanco and another Luzzo’s rider were 2nd and 3rd in cat 3 black, a Sanchez might’ve won a 4 field.

alanatwood

Actually was 2nd in the Pro/1. After I took another look one of my cameras was just about dead even but the other one had Z by a nose over Will Dugan (3rd).

Alan

Valentin Ferrule

I’m getting the dopers confused with the sandbaggers. Impossible to keep track and then a doper changes his name to that of a sandbagger or was it the other way around?

Logan Grips

Leong tried to upgrade, but his upgrade was refused by the nut who is doing upgrades right now here in NY.

Domenico Rubber Hood

His teammate won, probably would have done better otherwise. Those Kansas guys have way to much practice riding dirt roads.

Valentin Ferrule

Yann Post , that was the worst thing ever on this website and there has been plenty bad.
You’re a dick and a mean vindictive schmuck with no respect or consideration for other people.

Quentin Rivnut

Why is it a spoiler? Because you’re waiting for the lame VS coverage that will begin promptly at 30 km to go?

Baptiste Fork

the course was in excellent shape. much better than the lunar like dust of two years ago. also, super organized, and great local hospitality. what a great race, even if my result was not

Matthias Plug

Yeah i find it ridiculous that you’re moaning about a spoiler. Seriously: results are on Velonews, Cyclingnews, Twitter, everywhere. And you expect nyvelocity to offer you some kind of vacuum in the space-time continuum? If you want to protect your goofy little ritual keep off the computer. It’s fully in your control.

Baptiste Threadlock

Just calling a spade a spade. Posting the name of the winner and nothing else isn’t taking part in a conversation. It’s simply an ass-headed attempt to force people to see what they’re avoiding. You’re right that internet silence will prevent this, but that don’t make this guy’s motivation any less shitty.

mikeweb

Very well put. If I was waiting to watch it @ 6:00 with commercials and otherwise shitty coverage included, I’d be avoiding this and other sites anyway. But just typing the winner’s name with no congratulations or any pretense of starting a discussion about it, is just juvenile.

Anyway, excellent win by FC -and what the hell was Boonen doing right before he took off? Patting Cancellara on the shoulder, practically (and actually) sitting up and otherwise acting like they were all in the first 50km instead of the last 50km? FC drifted to the back of the pack at that point, maybe sandbagging? or maybe to talk to the team car in privacy.

Jeremy Post

It’s a dick move to write the name of a winner on a cycling web site? Just trying to keep up here.

Bent Overmi

A big thanks Dieter for a great race up in Cambridge! Everything went off like clockwork this year, and the results were accurate and up so fast. Nice Job.

A special thanks for splitting up the fields into so many sub-categories.

I finally got to race against all my peers. It was really satisfying to take the win in the Cat 4, 40+ Sandbaggers Who Have Had the Points To Upgrade For 3+ Seasons, “Chartreuse” field.

Stop Whining

Indeed, it’s obvious he knew what he was doing.

He was sharing the winner of a kick ass race that you too could have been watching live, commercial-free, for free on the internet. But you whiners, while still being on the internet, apparently chose to hang around nyvelocity.com instead. You can catch the entire race commercial-free for free ALL DAY on replay instead of the 90 minute re-cap of the last 25 km on VS Network. Hate yourself for being such a dumbass, not the guy who brings it to your attention.

cycle jerk

please no spring series spoilers! i want to watch the finish video when they post it on cyclingreporter.com.

Kyllian Kevlar

Cycling Reporter is going to overtake NYVelocity as the premier site in the NYC area. It really has good content.

Noah Brakepad

Yeah it’s way better than NYvelocity except the wit, the fearless investigative reporting, the active community, the instant results, years of NYC history…

Kyllian Kevlar

well cycling reporter doesn’t have the stupid creed feed garbage where creed just makes a fool of himself.

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