Just Dwars Door Vlaanderen, Volta Limburg, and a few Catalunya stages to go!

Sorry but I don't think I can report my race. Currently I lack time as well as motivation to do so.. Sorry

Alright, anyone have time to report a classic this week?

I'll take it, if you could do a preview Ollfardh that would be good.

Of course, could you pass on the startlist, Bikex?

To ride or not to ride, that is the question a lot of riders ask concerning Dwars Door Vlaanderen. It is a great race and and excellent test for the cobbles in the World Tour, but the placement on the calendar could have been better. Last year was a beauty, where Tom Boonen went up and over the leaders in the last few kilometres to win this race.

Boonen will try to defend his title, however, aside from Niki Terpstra his team looks rather weak. They will definitely not be able to control the race like last year. BMC and Belkin are sending really good teams, let by Van Avermaet and Vanmarcke to please the home crowd. Europcar is here with Khamse Khamphan and Chavanel, Garmin brings McDermott and Stybar. Then there's Peter Sagan, he has the potential to win all monuments, but lost in San Remo by a few milimetres last sunday. Lotto has Roelandts and Greipel if it comes down to a sprint and Giant will hope that Peter Pal does something. Finaly Verboven has shown in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad that Euskaltel can do cobbles this year.


A lot of strong World Tour teams here, but as we've seen in Nokere Koerse, never underestimate the breakaway. Still, teams like FDJ (Ladagnous/Offredo), IAM (Haussler) and Vacansoleil (Vandenbergh/Leukemans) have some good leaders as well. For teams like AG2R, Cofidis and Drapac, waiting is not an option.

I have high hopes for Verboven in this one. Really need someone to break our spell of disappointing results before the final stages of Catalunya...

After yesterday's Queen Stage the riders can take it easier today. A lumpy stage, with the Alt de Lilla as key event, should probably lead to a breakaway victory. Nevertheless, some GC riders may want to grab some time today, as this may very well be the best opportunity left for them.

7 riders are given the space today to form the breakaway. Arroyo (CJR, +9'08), Monfort (TFR, +6'46), Gautier (EUC, +22'04), Stetina (GRS, +8'33), Rebellin (CCC, +17'39), Vuillermoz (SOJ, +10'19), Atapuma (TCS, +6'46) are their names.


The break had a max lead of over 8 minutes. With 75km to go this is down to 5 minutes.
In the meanwhile the intermediate 'sprints' were 'won' by Atapuma and Monfort.

The pack has somewhat stopped caring about the break, which heads up the Alt de Lilla with a lead of about 2m30 to go. 17.5km left until the finish, of which 5 are climbing.

Quickly up the climb the break splits. Atapuma, Vuillermoz and Arroyo have a gap with 3.5km left to climb. The pack, lead by Astana, BMC and Movistar, is coming closer as well.


Attacks from the pack start with 3.5km of climbing left as well! Valverde initiates the attacks, Nibali tries to counter.


Rodriguez and König soon accelerate as well to close the gap. Both Valverde and Nibali may be over a minute behind in the GC, but they should not gain too much.

Behind, Pinot, Hesjedal, De Gendt, Kreuziger, Contador and Bardet set off as well.


Up front Atapuma has left his two companions behind, 1.5km below the summit. The other four seem out of contention for the victory as well.


Uran is very late with his attack, but he may be able to catch up.

More importantly Rodriguez has accelerated again, this time König can't follow!


Atapuma is first at the summit. He'll now have to hang on for the final 12km.


While König is swallowed by group-Pinot, Rodriguez catches Nibali.


In the descent Vuillermoz and Arroyo are caught by the 4 chasers, meaning Atapuma will now have to defend his lead against 6 chasers.

Rodriguez sets a high pace on the downhill, and being only 15 seconds behind in the GC he seems to have become the virtual GC leader. Uran meanwhile catches up with König's group.


Atapuma heads into the final 5km with a comfortable lead, and the stage win almost seems in the pocket.


Meanwhile the almost forgotten Valverde is working on a strong solo effort, ahead of Nibali/Rodriguez. In fact, his virtual lead puts him very close to König and Urán.


Credits where credits due, a great victory for Atapuma, undoubtedly the strongest of the 7 escapees today.


Behind Valverde the groups are closing in on each other, and the time gaps may become very small, thus advantageous for König.


Rebellin and Stetina complete today's podium, behind Atapuma. Monfort, Arroyo, Gautier and Vuillermoz come 4th to 7th.


Valverde comes over the line as 8th, and will make a jump in the GC.


Nibali and Rodriguez come over the line as 9th and 10th, but the bad news for them is they come over the line almost together with all chasers. However, the best news is for Valverde, whose gap apparently was big enough to jump past everyone! Not in the last place this is due to him getting the same time as Rebellin.


Many protests after the finish after the, in the eyes of some, ridiculous decision to give Valverde the same time as Rebellin, despite the enormous gap between them.

Stage Results

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	John Darwin Atapuma	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	5h02'49
2	Davide Rebellin	CCC Polsat - Polkowice	+ 43
3	Peter Stetina	Garmin - Sharp	s.t.
4	Maxime Monfort	Trek Factory Racing	s.t.
5	David Arroyo	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	s.t.
6	Cyril Gautier	Team Europcar	s.t.
7	Alexis Vuillermoz	Sojasun	s.t.
8	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	s.t.
9	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana Pro Team	+ 1'59
10	Joaquím Rodríguez	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	s.t.
11	Ryder Hesjedal	Team Giant - Shimano	s.t.
12	Thomas De Gendt	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step Cycling Team	s.t.
13	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	s.t.
14	Leopold König	BMC Racing Team	s.t.
15	Thibaut Pinot	Trek Factory Racing	s.t.

GC

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	+ 21h43'24
2	Leopold König	BMC Racing Team	+ 21h43'35
3	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	+ 21h43'37
4	Joaquím Rodríguez	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	+ 21h43'50
5	Thibaut Pinot	Trek Factory Racing	+ 21h44'25
6	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana Pro Team	+ 21h44'37
7	Thomas De Gendt	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step Cycling Team	+ 21h45'28
8	Roman Kreuziger	Katusha Team	s.t.
9	Alberto Contador	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	+ 21h46'18
10	Ryder Hesjedal	Team Giant - Shimano	+ 21h46'22
11	Beñat Intxausti	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 21h47'15
12	Romain Bardet	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 21h47'30
13	Peter Velits	Garmin - Sharp	+ 21h47'47
14	Adam Yates	Garmin - Sharp	+ 21h47'56
15	John Darwin Atapuma	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	+ 21h48'09

Points

Rank	Name	Team	Points
1	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	57
2	Joaquím Rodríguez	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	46
3	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	41
4	Leopold König	BMC Racing Team	36
5	Carlo Calzone	Movistar Team	32

KoM

Rank	Name	Team	Mountain
1	Egor Silin	Astana Pro Team	57
2	Peter Velits	Garmin - Sharp	52
3	Gianluca Brambilla	Trek Factory Racing	40
4	Sergey Firsanov	RusVelo	37
5	Joaquím Rodríguez	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	33

-25

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Thibaut Pinot	Trek Factory Racing	21h44'25 (1)
2	Romain Bardet	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 3'05 (2)
3	Adam Yates	Garmin - Sharp	+ 3'31 (3)
4	Sebastian Henao	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	+ 11'38 (4)
5	Jose Alarcon	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	+ 11'42 (5)

Teams

Rank	Team	Time
1	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	65h16'17 (1)
2	Garmin - Sharp	+ 8'44 (2)
3	Trek Factory Racing	+ 10'37 (3)
4	BMC Racing Team	+ 25'17 (4)
5	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 25'53 (5)

Intxausti

Moving up one spot in the GC is pretty worthless when the time he needs to gain to get a top 10 has increased...

That's my boy! Valverde with a brilliant showing Great solo of him!

Awesome to see König still on a podium GC place..

Sure Belkin, don't get in the break and then lose 10 minutes..

And a spanish rider getting suspicious gaps in a spanish race, well, UCI tried to do something about it, but apparently it's protected cultural heritage.

Typical getting second place this season <.<

It's just far after we were hit hard many times by it already

Well, they were never going to let a foreigner win were they?

Come on Leopold, fuck them up.

How did Burton finish almost last? Looks like he is taking the New Basso to a whole new level.

He wasted away in his hotel room in San Luis for months. Now he makes Froome look overweight.

He crashed in the final kms. Couldn't be bothered to mention it, as he's as invisible as Zubeldia, just on a different performance level.

Great win for Atapuma, sweetens the day that could have been terrible with that ridiculous gap decision. Purito, you've gotta attack and get a gap somewhere!

Over at the Euskaltel HQ you can currently see Basque's comepting on cobbles. Specifically the Ronde van Vlaanderen Espoirs as I'm not evil enough to force them to ride the full race.

Actually a rather nice race in spite - or because - of the rather short list of top cobblers in the series.

Stage 6 is flat, so either a break or sprinters. Either way, it probably won't be a day for the GC riders, who may now want to save all their powers for Montjuic.

The formation of the break is a difficulty, due to the large amount of riders attacking. Sprint 1 is for Salerno.

After a while we do have a break... of 1 rider. Mourey (EUC, +30'12) is our only escapee, who logically takes the KoM and second intermediate sprint.


After a long day Mourey still leads with 10km to go, and he even has 55 seconds left! This could become close. In the back Serov (RVL) has had to abandon.


Mourey seems to benefit from the atrocious weather. The pack is more careful in the corners, whereas Mourey, also cyclocrosser can take more risks. He has 40 seconds left with 5km to go.


Movistar and AG2R set up sprint trains, which decide to tactically disrupt each other.


A brave Mourey heads into the final km on his own, and his lead seems big enough for a victory!


The sprinters set off in the final km, with Calzone leading the pack. The pace is very high.


It's not enough to catch Mourey though, who delivers Europcar a stage win!


Markus, Calzone, Riquelme and Sinkeldam complete the top-5.


No major changes in the GC.

Stage Results

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Francis Mourey	Team Europcar	3h38'16
2	Barry Markus	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.
3	Carlo Calzone	Movistar Team	s.t.
4	Jorge Cristobal Riquelme	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	s.t.
5	Ramon Sinkeldam	CCC Polsat - Polkowice	s.t.
6	Sam Bennett	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	s.t.
7	Theo Bos	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	s.t.
8	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	s.t.
9	Gert Steegmans	Omega Pharma - Quick•Step Cycling Team	s.t.
10	Aidis Kruopis	Orica - GreenEdge	s.t.
11	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	s.t.
12	Kenny Dehaes	Lotto Belisol	s.t.
13	Luke Rowe	Sky Procycling	s.t.
14	Joaquím Rodríguez	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	s.t.
15	José Joaquín Rojas	Movistar Team	s.t.

GC

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	+ 25h21'40
2	Leopold König	BMC Racing Team	+ 25h21'51
3	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	+ 25h21'53
4	Joaquím Rodríguez	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	+ 25h22'06
5	Thibaut Pinot	Trek Factory Racing	+ 25h22'41
6	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana Pro Team	+ 25h22'53
7	Thomas De Gendt	Omega Pharma - Quick•Step Cycling Team	+ 25h23'44
8	Roman Kreuziger	Katusha Team	s.t.
9	Alberto Contador	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	+ 25h24'34
10	Ryder Hesjedal	Team Giant - Shimano	+ 25h24'38
11	Beñat Intxausti	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 25h25'31
12	Romain Bardet	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 25h25'46
13	Peter Velits	Garmin - Sharp	+ 25h26'03
14	Adam Yates	Garmin - Sharp	+ 25h26'12
15	John Darwin Atapuma	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	+ 25h26'25

Points

Rank	Name	Team	Points
1	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	62
2	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	49
3	Carlo Calzone	Movistar Team	48
4	Joaquím Rodríguez	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	48
5	Sam Bennett	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	38

KoM

Rank	Name	Team	Mountain
1	Egor Silin	Astana Pro Team	57
2	Peter Velits	Garmin - Sharp	52
3	Gianluca Brambilla	Trek Factory Racing	40
4	Sergey Firsanov	RusVelo	37
5	Joaquím Rodríguez	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	33

-25

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Thibaut Pinot	Trek Factory Racing	25h22'41 (1)
2	Romain Bardet	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 3'05 (2)
3	Adam Yates	Garmin - Sharp	+ 3'31 (3)
4	Sebastian Henao	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	+ 11'38 (4)
5	Jose Alarcon	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	+ 11'42 (5)

Teams

Rank	Team	Time
1	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	76h11'05 (1)
2	Garmin - Sharp	+ 8'44 (2)
3	Trek Factory Racing	+ 10'37 (3)
4	BMC Racing Team	+ 25'17 (4)
5	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 25'53 (5)