jt1109 wrote:
Just want to reiterate, and I checked with Fab on this and have played through the race twice myself: the playthrough here was just a complete outlier (one of the postives of PCM24 the races change shape depending on what happens) and not something that usually happens having everyone so close together overall. I.E the playthrough i've just ran has 3 min between the top 19. Here we got 3 mins between the top 44. so it does seem that the teams in front after stage 1 lead to a very quiet stage 2 and stage 4 compared to other variations on this route.
Will be looking at some tweaks for next year but maybe not as drastic as first thought.
I think this is very good to hear. We don't want to play a game that "is figured out". Seeing that this race can have very different results based on how teams race the race based on the results from stage 1 is great imo
Bad news for you though - Per and Girmay would almost always do very well Ovsya was the outlier here imho, with Pedersen being the opposite. Spengler would also struggle more if S2 was ridden harder. Lapeira and Stewart on the other hand could do better with a more selective S2, so to some extent you were even lucky to not get even better PCT performances
All in all, the most surprising results for me were the Nommela and Eekhoff getting a Top 10 (and Pedersen being really passive). I don't know what the intention of the race designers was; for me it's a pretty well-balanced result, that could surely be tweaked in the favour of cobblers or puncheurs if they wished to do so. But like Benelux, it comes down to luck and race situations whether you succeed or not (in particular when you don't have a top dog).
But like Benelux, it comes down to luck and race situations whether you succeed or not (in particular when you don't have a top dog).
Well, not sure having a top dog has much to do with it.
Encouraging to hear this was something of an outlier though. I'll be hoping it's not a trend for the year like SKA failing in prologues.
Edited by baseballlover312 on 04-11-2026 13:32
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Ovsya was the outlier here imho, with Pedersen being the opposite. Spengler would also struggle more if S2 was ridden harder. Lapeira and Stewart on the other hand could do better with a more selective S2, so to some extent you were even lucky to not get even better PCT performances 
