Welcome to the tour of Pendle, the overlap with Plouay means this feild is small, yet with 4 English teams there is plenty of home support and before the race it is hard to pick a strongest squad. With so few teams I can go through them one by one
Lego have brought Claeys, who is possibly favourite for this race, he should have decent support in Rabon as well
Froome, Martin and Roche will share leadership for 100% Me and they will be hard to beat, especially with the home support they will no doubt draw
Pendleton's name mathcing the name of this race is not entirely a coincidence, so expect a strong showing by them, with Gilbert probably someone to watch out for
Proni leads Vespa's charge today, although he may well struggle to get a top result
Wiggle have sent their big guns to Plouay, however between Caruso, Cataldo and British Diggle I would be surprised if they didn't get a man on the podium
Cillit Bang will be working for the sprint finish, with both Kip and Manan backing themselves to get over the hills. I suspect they may struggle though
Off we go
A break forms of 1 rider from each team: Cleaver, Stauff, Kip, Tanguy, Kennaugh and Cimolai
Not happy with Democracy Wiggle send Martynenko to join this group
Kennaugh is not pleased and immediately stops working. Pendelton's are now controlling this for Gilbert
The gap is never allowed above 4 minutes, and with 100km to go in starts to get closed up
70km to go and Proni goes on the attack
He's pulled back just 5km later, the break have just a 2 minute lead
The chase looses organisation slightly after that and with 26km to race the gap is still 1'57"
18km to go and Pendleton's have done all they can to keep this gap to 2 mintues, Gilbert decides he has to do this one himself. Froome is on his wheel immediately
Claeys follows them, before Cataldo, Rabon and Appleby attack
Cataldo pushes on, so Claeys and Gilbert try to follow
Up front Tanguy and Cleaver have goen solo, they are pushing hard for victory with 15km to ride
Cataldo, pulls Claeys and Gilbert up to most of the break, 1'16" behind the leaders with 13km to go
Cleaver is pushing on alone now
Rabon and Caruso join the chase group who seem to be lacking the impetus to chase hard
Gilbert leads under 10km to go with the gap now at 1'30". Cleaver could hang on here
It's a long climb to the finish from here though and Gilbert is going hard
Caruso tries to go after him
He gets no where, Gilbert has exploded. Froome and Cataldo give it a shot
Gilbert goes past Tanguy, 46" seconds is the gap for Cleaver
Froome gets a gap with Cataldo and Claeys
They leave him behind and catch Tanguy, Cataldo is happy to work with his team mate, yet Claeys pushes on
5km to go Gilbert has Cleaver in his sights, the home croud are urging the young Englishman on
a kilometre later and it's all over
Claeys has gone into a solo 3rd position, behind him a group of 7 has formed: Tanguy, Cataldo, Froome, Caruso, Rabon, Martynenko and Kennaugh
Gilbert decides to sit in and wait for the sprint, could be a bad move however as Claeys is coming up on them
2km to go and Gilbert sprints into the lead
Claeys is coming for them, and Gilbert hasn't blown Cleaver away
He pulls away now though and takes victory, Pendleton's fans will be pleased
Cleaver just holds onto second in front of Claeys, an impressive ride by the 100% Me cyclist
Rabon wins the sprint ahead of the Wiggle duo of Martynenko and Caruso, before Kennaugh comes in 7th
Froome gets 8th ahead of two more Wiggle riders Cataldo and Tanguy
However it's Pendleton's who pick up victory in their number one goal for the season, Gilbert coming up with the goods when it mattered
Results:
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Philippe Gilbert
Pendleton's Twicer
5h08'46
2
Richard Cleaver
100% Me
+ 13
3
Dimitri Claeys
Team LEGO
s.t.
4
Frantisek Rabon
Team LEGO
+ 1'07
5
Oleksandr Martynenko
Wiggle - San Pellegrino
s.t.
6
Damiano Caruso
Wiggle - San Pellegrino
s.t.
7
Tim Kennaugh
Pendleton's Twicer
s.t.
8
Chris Froome
100% Me
s.t.
9
Dario Cataldo
Wiggle - San Pellegrino
s.t.
10
Richard Tanguy
Wiggle - San Pellegrino
s.t.
11
Andreas Stauff
Team LEGO
+ 1'52
12
Ismaël Kip
Cillit Bang - IT-Factory powered by The Moon X
+ 2'07
13
Davide Cimolai
Vespa-Caffrey's
s.t.
14
Dale Appleby
100% Me
s.t.
15
Erik Hoffmann
Cillit Bang - IT-Factory powered by The Moon X
+ 2'53
16
Tom Diggle
Wiggle - San Pellegrino
s.t.
17
Paolo Bettini
Vespa-Caffrey's
s.t.
18
Luca Ascani
Vespa-Caffrey's
s.t.
19
Evert Verbist
Vespa-Caffrey's
s.t.
20
Daniel Martin
100% Me
s.t.
21
Wes Sulzberger
100% Me
s.t.
22
Peter Pancake
Cillit Bang - IT-Factory powered by The Moon X
s.t.
23
Alessandro Proni
Vespa-Caffrey's
s.t.
24
Alberigo Passalacqua
Vespa-Caffrey's
s.t.
25
Paolo Scarponi
Wiggle - San Pellegrino
s.t.
26
Nicolas Roche
100% Me
s.t.
27
Anuar Manan
Cillit Bang - IT-Factory powered by The Moon X
s.t.
28
Piet Rooijakkers
Team LEGO
s.t.
29
Mattia Gavazzi
Vespa-Caffrey's
s.t.
30
Maciej Ulanowski
Cillit Bang - IT-Factory powered by The Moon X
s.t.
31
Jörg Jaksche
Team LEGO
s.t.
32
Lars Tommersen
Cillit Bang - IT-Factory powered by The Moon X
s.t.
33
Thurakit Boonratanathanakorn
THE CONTROLTEAM
s.t.
34
Daniel Lloyd
100% Me
s.t.
35
Sebastian Batchelor
THE CONTROLTEAM
s.t.
36
Iman Suparman
Cillit Bang - IT-Factory powered by The Moon X
s.t.
37
Jonathan Tiernan-Locke
Wiggle - San Pellegrino
s.t.
38
Jaume Rovira
Pendleton's Twicer
+ 6'25
39
Geoffroy Lequatre
Team LEGO
+ 6'54
40
Eduard Vorganov
Pendleton's Twicer
+ 9'41
41
Mark McNally
Pendleton's Twicer
s.t.
42
Amaël Moinard
Pendleton's Twicer
s.t.
43
Frederik Willems
Pendleton's Twicer
s.t.
44
Adrien Niyonshuti
THE CONTROLTEAM
s.t.
45
JÃri Hochmann
Team LEGO
+ 13'43
46
Saydou Sow
THE CONTROLTEAM
s.t.
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