Hello and welcome to England and the County of Cheshire for a Gravel and Cobbled classic in the interestingly named PTHC Cheshire Cycling Tour despite covering about 1% of this glorious County.
A full startlist here we have everything from top PT cobblers Gerts and Per both currently top 10 riders in the PT individual rankings after the cobbled season in mainland Europe. While the two top PCT cobblers in Daniel and Kasperkiewicz are also making the startlist in what look s a formidable race.
Regarding the course I would call this more a light version of Strade Bianche then a Ronde as well the early section include cobbles and the final circuits finishing climb is on a cobbled hill these are the english cobbles more famous from Lincoln GP and therefore not the brutal Flemish kind, as well as that we have several long gravel stretches on the course (all long sections in the race profile are gravel) and many brutally steep hills akin to a Tour De Yorkshire or Yorkshire Grand tour depart from Real Life with us just being about 50km away from where most of the tough stage 2 IRL happened.
To me that favour one man in particular Gerts would be my absolute favourite for this one with his great balanced profile ideal for such a race. two time previous winner Kasperkiewicz, Polanc and Debesay should also be at an advantage while the one dimensional cobblers like Zubov could be in for a rough ride early on in what looks a brutally hard middle section.
Maybe someone else can surprise, if so, you can try to guess who, while looking at the full startlist below. Good luck, everybody!
Spoiler
Anderberg Bolor-Erdene Kamp Klaris Laporte Potts Räim Swift Aquilani Bdadou Bonello Jele Martino Olei Sprenger Vliegen Bolivar Cannister Finkst Matsangos Meiler Per Resell Van Tricht Duric Fedorov Katrasnik Poljanec Redy Salby Selimovic Siric Becis Budenieks Dakteris Kochetkov Raugala Tarvis Tediashvili Vahtra Askey Costiou Daniel Dunne Juntunen Lapeira Louvel Mestric Ansons Eekhoff Kurianov Neilands Polanc Silva Van Niekerk De Kleijn Havik Hoole Robeet Tjotta Van der Hoorn Van Hooydonck Waerenskjold Balmer Giulietti Godon Hofer Karnulin Lander Malecki Teunissen Cahyadi Doull Firdaus Kusuma Pszczolarski Rubenis Van Vliet Bayer Debesay Degenkolb Kabas Laurance Lienhard De Buyst Helme Ho McLay Tesfom Teutenberg Uhlig Zubov Berckmoes Chatarunga Fagundez Marzuki Price-Pejtersen Van Aert Vanbilsen Zana Arias Villanueva Cadena Chumil Mendoza Murillo Peden Rojas Ruiz Barbier Milesi Mohammad Mostov Simmons Wolf Altur Ariesen Cole Gonzalez Kelly Moricz Scotson Stash Atkins Boros Frankovic Nommela Skala Stocek Toupalik Vacek Barthe Brockhoff Ferreira Garcia Cortina Lauk Nych Oldani Sweeny Frigo Gerts Kalf Meeus Vader Van den Berg Van Den Berg Van den Broek Ghani Menicucci Putti Rossi Schoonbroodt Skivild Tiberi Van Sintmaartensdijk Alben Benoot Cataford Hocevar Kooistra Van Dijke Van Dijke Yechezkel Kasperkiewicz Kumara La Grenade Malacarne Milan Naud Riesebeek Van Keirsbulck Belevics Breen Eriksson Kaczmarek Kaislavuo Kulppi Manakov Nielsen Bilyi Fratczak Golovash Kachur Manamalage Petrov Ponomar Sitchinava
I was actually a bit surprised that Daniel features so high in the list of favourites, but we'll happily take this opportunity for a top 10 (or maybe even more) in a PTHC classic. And if we only nearly get our usual cobbles depth it could be another really good race.
Seeing all the difficult hills, you could argue Gerts is the slight favourite, ahead of Per. At least difficult to see past any of those two. Seeing the startlist, I'm definitely hoping for a top 5 from Anderberg here, as his backup stats will hopefully give him an advantage, or at least cancelling out his disadvantage purely looking at hill stats.
Didn't realize we'd have no Wisniowski or Pedersen to deal with here Big opportunity for us obviously, although Gerts should be the favorite. At least want a podium though!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
