Tactics meeting
A short, flat prologue. One for the specialists. Gusev did a fine prologue in Romandie where he got 2nd, so more of the same here, please!
Taylor Phinney was one of the early starters, and got us off to a good start. Provisional best time!
Didn't last long though. Alejandro Valverde is preparing for the Tour de France, and looks to be on the right track. 5 seconds faster than Phinney.
T-Mobile ride good time trials nowadays. Thomas Lövkvist shot through the course in 9 seconds less than Valverde. We had a new leader!
Time gaps were small in this short trial. Lars Boom bested Lövkvist by 2 seconds, to be the new provisional leader. Boom is having a good season.
Brajkovic reassured us that he probably is the right man for captaincy in this race. He came in only 4 seconds behind Boom, in 4th place so far.
Rabobank must have had a good breakfast, as Evans made it two orange riders on top. 2 seconds better than teammate Boom, and the lead!
And then Gusev. We had hopes of a stage win, but unfortunately he was 2 tiny seconds too slow. He even slotted in behind Boom and Quemeneur, who were tied on the same time, so 4th place for our Russian.
Bennati was indeed beaten, but not by a Frenchman. T-Mobile's Chris Sutton took the win, a good one for him after being 2nd in the last stage of the Giro d'Italia.
Saxobank's Denis Menchov has just come off an injury that has kept him out since Paris-Nice, and the team must be desperate to get him ready for the Tour team, as he's clearly not ready for a race yet. He struggled in last on the stage, 6 minutes behind the peloton.
Just saying that it's one of my favourites stories too, and hope you can continue for as ong as you can, keep the updates up And the good results as awell
After some UCI trouble with registering race results, the May update is finally here. The month of May saw the first Grand Tour take place, as well as the Volta a Catalunya and the end of the Tour de Romandie. The classics riders took the back seat as the all-rounders and climbers got most of the attention.
Notable results
Eschborn - Frankfurt City Loop:
Philippe Gilbert (Silence - Lotto)
Tour de Romandie:
Michele Scarponi (Quick-Step)
4 Jours de Dunkerque:
Sandy Casar (Cofidis)
Giro d'Italia:
Ivan Basso (Liquigas)
Dutch Food Valley Classic:
Normunds Lasis (Cycling Club Bourgas)
Volta Ciclista a Catalunya:
Michele Scarponi (Quick-Step)
Bayern - Rundfahrt:
Rein Taaramäe (Joker Bianchi)
Tour de Belgique:
Gianni Meersman (Française des Jeux)
The bulk of the Discovery points this month was collected in the Giro, where Klöden & Armstrong finished 6th and 7th respectively. Gusev, the team in Catalunya and Martinez brought us 3 more wins, one in each discipline of road cycling, which takes our season total up to 10 (not counting Martinez' recent win in Schwarzwald). Levi is still our most-winning rider with 5 wins now, if you count the Catalunya TTT.
Alejandro Valverde is once again ranked as the top rider, as he was the two previous months. Scarponi's two ProTour stage race wins help him leap up into 4th. We return to the top five of the team rankings at the expense of Katusha. Liquigas are only 6th despite their amazing month, which yielded a Giro win with 8 stage wins, and two stage wins in Catalunya. The Continental Tour has the same three teams on top, while Lasis knocks Voeckler off the individual 1st place after picking up as much as 6 wins in May.
@RHW: Glad you like it! )
@beagle: It wasn't any major wins. Dutch Food Valley Classic, Tour de Rijke, two stage in 4 Jours de Dunkerque, 1 stage in Bayern - Rundfahrt and 1 stage in Circuit de Lorraine. He's probably peaking bigtime, but still impressive.
We jump straight into the action on the last climb. Luis Leon Sanchez was definitely not afraid of the mountain, and attacked from the bottom of it. A move to set up Valverde? Or for himself?
He climbed with great enthusiasm, and had given himself a lead of 40 seconds over the pack with 13km to go.
When Scarponi was spent, Gesink took off on his own! Scarponi hadn't done a particularly good job: Sanchez had increased to 50 seconds.
When he saw Gesink ride away, Brajkovic started ticking the pedals over a little faster, and moved clear from the group in a solo chase.
6km below the top of the climb, Gesink caught Sanchez. The two was now leading by no less than 1'10 over...
...these five. Brajkovic had been joined by Wiggins (Garmin), Lövkvist (T-Mobile), race leader Evans (Rabobank) and Valverde (Caisse).
With only 2.5km left, Brajkovic started falling back from the five-man chasegroup! Come on, Jani!
Gesink proved to be the strongest of the two leaders, and got clear of Sanchez towards the end. He was always increasing his lead over Evans' yellow jersey group: 1'20 now!
Showing some good spirit, Brajkovic recovered a bit and got back up to Wiggins, Evans & co. He even moved to the front of the group together with Valverde. Only Lövkvist had managed to get a small gap up ahead.
There was nothing to be done about Robert Gesink. The young Dutchman conquered the mountain, and with it the yellow jersey! LL Sanchez came in 33 seconds behind, more than a minute before teammate Valverde.
Brajkovic lost out a bit to Lövkvist and Valverde in the closing metres, but finished with Evans&Wiggins plus two riders who had managed to claw back onto the tail of this group. A good effort from Jani Brajkovic! He looks good for a top ten and maybe higher, depending on how well he keeps his form.
The French TT champion Perrig Quemeneur rode well in what is probably his last time trial in this jersey (providing he doesn't win it again). Early best time for the man who also won a stage of the Criterium International.
Lars Boom is really riding hard at the moment. The runner-up from the prologue showed that he could handle longer sustained efforts as well, by posting the new best time, 23 seconds ahead of Quemeneur.
The flying Dutchman once again dashed our hopes of a Gusev stage win. Vladimir was 25 seconds slower, and was therefore also behind Quemeneur. A slight disappointment.
Brajkovic couldn't beat Boom either, but he was a lot closer. He still lacked 6 seconds, so 2nd place for Brajkovic so far. A good ride nevertheless.
Rabobank were once again lethal! Prologue winner Cadel Evans followed up that performance with an even better on here. Almost a minute faster than Boom, and we had a Rabo 1-2 for the time being.
The best rider in the World at the moment is not the best time trialist. Valverde stopped the clock in a provisional 11th place, and I'm getting more and more convinced that Caisse are really riding for...
...Luis Leon Sanchez, who had a much better day than Valverde. He came in 4th, 1'21 down on Evans. That time had him lurking 2 seconds behind Evans overall.
Good ride by Brajkovic, nice podium. Now he must get podium on the overall!!
And if Valverde does get back on this I'm... i'll want tests on him every single hour!! It's not that much, but he has clearly shown he isn't in his best form, else he would have won the mountain stage and one of the sprint stages
Very interesting break today. Alexandre Vinokourov (9th overall) had managed to get into it. He was 4 minutes down in the GC, so no immediate threat to Evans.
Vinokourov rid himself of the rest of his breakaway companions, and mopped up enough points to take the King of the Mountains jersey from Gesink. Vino started the long climb towards the end with an advantage of 2 minutes in front of the main group.
Brajkovic felt quite good today, and kept near the front of the favourites group. Scarponi was doing the pacemaking for Gesink, so the Dutchman clearly wanted his yellow jersey back.
Vinokourov crested the second-to-last categorized mountain out on the course before the group, but his lead had come down.
The Kazakh was caught by the Brajkovic-led group between the two tops towards the end of the stage, with 21km remaining.
With no-one left out front, Brajkovic gave it a go 4km from the last mountain top! It was a daring initiative from our leader!
Brajkovic got a gap, and crossed over in 1st place! Only the descent and the final drag up to the line left now.
It was a good effort by Jani, but Sanchez and Gesink caught him 7km from the finish. Those two were 2nd & 3rd overall.
Evans with the yellow jersey hadn't been able to follow Sanchez & Gesink! The would probably signal the end of his stint in yellow, as he was 40 seconds in arrears!
On the final kick up, Sanchez & Gesink distanced Brajkovic. Jani's attack had taken the sting out of him.
In a very slow sprint between two tired riders, Gesink prevailed. Stage win number two for the Dutch climber, but it's Sanchez who gets the jersey.
Brajkovic resisted the chase from other riders coming from behind, and grabbed a nice 3rd place on the stage. A really good performance, considering he always struggles with consecutive climbs. He is now just 4 seconds down on Evans (3rd overall), who finished 5th today. Great chances for a podium place, if Brajkovic can keep this up!
Very good ride by Brajkovic, getting more than a minute on Evans and the others! Indeed, if he can ride like this in the next days, a podium position should be very reachable
Tactics meeting
The Col du Glandon is on the profile today, but it's the first climb, so it will probably not see much action. The second half of the stage is very hilly, but unlike yesterday, there is no hilltop finish. Brajkovic's performance was encouraging, maybe he can distance Evans again and climb onto the podium?
Italian champion Visconti and our Russian champion Gusev were the breakaway today. Maybe this could be a day for a successful escape?
Or maybe not. Visconti was the last to be caught, and that happened near the top of today's steepest climb, 55km from the finishing line.
Visconti tagged onto the back of the favourites' group, which had diminished significantly after that climb. 16 men were left in front, and Brajkovic was our only rider there. Not much help for him today.
The best climber of the race once again went hunting for that yellow jersey. Gesink attacked on the last climb!
But guess what! Brajkovic felt good enough to chase after Gesink! This was a good move.
Good move indeed. Brajkovic and Gesink crossed the last hilltop together in the lead! Only the downhill into Gap left now, and the group behind was absolutely shattered.
Luis Leon Sanchez was the 3rd rider on the road, and was desperate to defend his jersey! But he only had a 14 second lead in the GC, and was 50 seconds behind now, so Gesink was the virtual race leader!
Crash! Gesink went down! What a disaster for the young Dutchman! He really knows how to crash at the wrong moments.
Meanwhile, Brajkovic had a golden opportunity to get a stage win! He was now all alone out front, with nobody looking likely to catch him.
Janez Brajkovic! Great win by our Slovenian, although it was made a lot easier by Gesink's crash. Anyway, it doesn't matter, as bike handling is a big part of being a professional cyclist. Brajkovic is now 2nd overall!
Sanchez finished 2nd, just ahead of Cadel Evans. Gesink, luckily, was okay, and came in with the big group at 1'54. LLS is really lucky to keep his yellow jersey, as Gesink was about to take it from him.
It's not that much, but he has clearly shown he isn't in his best form, else he would have won the mountain stage and one of the sprint stages 
