My first block entry, so I thought I would introduce myself.
I was born the 1st of June 1985 in Manosque, a hilly region just south of the French alps, some 150 km east of where we rode todays stage.

I started riding for Cofidis as a stagiaire back in 2006 and stayed with the team to 2011. After a few years on different teams I came to Marseille in 2014. To be honest by best result dates back to my Cofidis years winning Tour de Wallonie and a stage in Tirreno–Adriatico.

The distance between the start and finish towns are just some 20 km, but the route heads into the hills west of the Rhône, making for a route that may be a bit too harsh upon the true sprinters. We have very little wind but the sky is clouded.

This was a profile that would suit me well if I could get away in a break, but that was not to be, after some attempts I had to let it go. Instead I saw teammate Quentin Pacher accelerate away from the bunch on his own.




Soon after other riders started to attack from the peloton, which have now settled down. Getting into the more undulated part of the route and now in pouring rain, I also got away and joined the front group, all in all six riders.




A good situation for us at front, with two riders in the breakaway and a distance of 5’39.
Further back not so great as teammate Asbjørn Kragh Andersen went down in a crach.




Being 2nd in the KoM, this would be a good option for me to get some points, but I misjudge the timing of my KoM attack and did not get anything, a huge disappointment.

In the meantime the tour radio announced that race favorite Peter Velits (BMC) crashed out of the race.

I did a last desperate attack for the stage win, before I got swallowed by the chasing sprinter trains.




Everything fell apart for us, did not even get a rider in top 30, and our best for the ITT Yoann Paillot lost time.

The stage was won by Anthony Roux, his first win since a stage in Circuit de la Sarthe April last season. His best result was a grand tour stage in Vuelta a España 2009, from a five-man breakaway.



The doctors had a look at Asbjørn, he is fine.
Regards Julien

I am not in this race, my first race will be Tour du Haut Var-Matin 20/2, but I did a telephone interview with pre-stage leader Marcel Kittel from Etixx

Martin Laas:“We saw a breakaway with 6 riders today, can you comment on that�

Marcel Kittel : “A breakaway getting almost anything above one minute is dangerous, when we a on a short stage on just 72 km, they got 2’30� with just 30 km to the line, and with Arthur Vichot just 20� down, a serious situation�




Martin Laas: “I noticed you were sitting right up in the front most of the stage, can you explain that?�

Marcel Kittel : “Well, I guess that was a bit of frustration on my part, I was expecting my team to be able to control this stage, seeing the distance grow with very few from my team up front, I did some pacing myself�



Martin Laas: “The break was caught your team and Movistar have the strongest trains, but the situation did not reflect that�

Marcel Kittel: No, you might say that, under the kite it was looking like Trek–Segafredo might be in the best position.




Martin Laas: Then how do you see the last km?

Marcel Kittel: Well as my team clearly was not strong enough to position me in front, I had taken the wheel of Giacomo Nizzolo, in theory a fine choice. Turned out to be the wrong one today and as you already indicated I may have been too much in the wind today, but cycling is not as easy as that, someone may always have the better legs on the day.�

Martin Laas: “Yes true – and thanks for your time.�

The stage was won by Anthony Roux (FDJ) with back to back stages win.

The final stage is a 10.1 km time trail from Alès to the small village Saint-Raby situated on the opposite side of Gard river at the foot of Cévennes mountains.
Per-stage expectations was that race leader Anthony Roux, being amongst the stage favorites would do quite well and probably end up as overall race winner.

The first to set a pretty good early time was with start as 16th Romain Sicard 16’51�
Our first was Quentin Pacher with 17’07. A little later Sicard was beaten by Romain Bardet starting as 42th doing new best 16’44

After that two of our riders, first Rémy Di Grégorio with 17’36� a very bad time, and then Mikel Aristi Gardoki with 17’07�,

Then we get two new best times, first Herrada (Movistar) with 16’27 and just 6 riders later Robert Gesink (LottoNL) with impressive 16’19, a time that may be amongst the best today.

After that we get our best shot in the TT, Yoann Paillot with 16:43 a fine time to secure at least a top 20.

Then we see some of the pre-stage favorites:
Stefan Küng (BMC) with 16’49� could have expected much for from him.
Then Vasil Kiryienka (Sky) sets new best 16’12�, that will turn out to be the winning time, he is only 26� down in CG – might also win the race.
This will be his first stage win since the opening stage of Tour de Pologne last year.



After that another two stage favorites first Malori (Movistar) with 16’33� and then Thomas (Sky) with 16’20� a great time.

Then it was me, (Asbjørn Kragh) 16’53 a mediocre time, just is I would expect.

Another stage favorite Taylor Phinney make a 16’24�, good but not a top 5 time

Our highest placed in GC Leonardo Duque gets a 16’57 actually a good time from him, but his GC is spoiled.

With now just 5 riders left to go, it is Fabio Felline and he is having a very good ride, much better than expected he loses only 8 sec to Kiryienka, 16’20 now they are sharing the GC lead, it will be down to 1/10 seconds.

Finally we have race leader Anthony Roux, it is his race to lose, he has 26 seconds before the race.

His pedal strokes seems a little strange, is it a mechanical ? or bad legs ?, well we don't know and he is moving in on Marcel Kittel but not that fast. 16’45� not enough, not even a top ten, he will be 3rd overall.




Fabio Felline (Trek-Segafredo) won Étoile de Bessèges, the 25 years old Italian’s first win since GP de Fourmies last year.

sutty68 wrote:
I hate time trials too

Tamijo wrote:


Difficult and we haven’t got one decent tempo rider in the squad, will look for one in the transfers.

Ollie23 wrote:


So even Daniel Ricardo Diaz is not a good option for time trials? Being the best in the team sounds good but if the rest of the team is terrible then that's not much of an accomplishment

Tamijo wrote:


Ricardo Diaz got a TT at the same level as Yoann Paillot (the leader in this race)

Ollie23 wrote:


Looking to sign a gode GC rider this summer then? Or just someone who's good on time trials?

This is a preview of the teams next race, I am not on this one, so may have better time to report most of it myself:

8/2 - 13/2 2016 Tour of Qatar

Location: The race is in Qatar mostly in the coastal regions, an entirely flat 6 stage race. Presumably decided in the 11 km ITT.

Competition:
ITT:
Cancellara (Trek) Cummings (Dimension Data) Vorobyev (Katusha)
Dennis (BMC) De Gendt (Lotto) Terpstra (Etixx)
There are many other good ITT riders in this race

Sprint:
Greipel (Lotto) Cavendish (Dimension Data) Kristoff (Katusha)
Sagan (Tinkoff) Bonifazio (Trek) Belletti (Southeast)

Expectations:
This will not be easy with hard competition, hope to make some top 5-10 in sprints.

Our Squad:
Leader(s): Delio Fernández Cruz
Sprinter(s): Benjamin Giraud
Other riders: Yannick Martinez, Evaldas Siskevicius, Ronald Yeung, Romain Combaud, Thierry Hupond