The cobbles are back in the middle of the season. And it`s quite a unique classic as all cobbles are on the 2nd half, while the first half is completely flat. The seperation between both is a longer climb, which makes this race special as not many cobbled classics have such a long climb.
Favourites are Burghardt Bewley Cancellara Vanspeybrouck Blythe Boonen Summerhill
4 breakaway riders, that attacked immediately after the start: Hugentobler Navardauskas Vlatos Silva
With ~110km to go the peloton is having a nice speed reducing the gap after it reached a maximum of 7min.
Responsible for this are Lotto (Burghardt), Pendletons (Gusev), Becherovka (Bewley), Red Bull (Cancellara).
In especially Pendletons is really surprising as Silva is in the breakaway and Gusev can`t be considered the biggest favourite anyway as top 10 contender though.
Also surprising that Pokerstars is not doing anything as Tom Boonen is a big favourite due to his strong sprint.
How much impact does the climb have in the end?
95min and 6min gap. It`s not that steep but the weaker puncheurs might still miss some energy in the end.
It is also a great opportunity for midstage attacks.
Only two riders are trying though, but they can be considered decent cobblers and puncheurs: Kozontchuk Boom
The gap to the breakaway is about 5min at the moment and both have attacked too far from each other to cooperate.
The first cobbled section is reached and it`s one of the longest. This is to the favour of the recent attackers and while both are solo, they have almost reached them.
While the Russian was able to make contact at the end of the paves, Boom needed 3-4km on the asphalt but also made it to them.
So we have a group of six now having a 4min gap to the peloton with 66km to go.
At that time on the next paves, it`s Simply Red Bull accelerating once more. With four riders they are in full control now. The first 48 riders, all weak cobblers, are losing contact now. Cancellara knows that the pace needs to be high as he is not as strong in a sprint finish as some of his opponents.
Just a bit later more riders including some half decent cobblers like Ferreira, Kump, Giling, Allonca etc. lose contact leaving a peloton of 69 riders.
The first attack with 30km to go though comes from two other riders. The strongest cobbler on paper Burghardt followed by Gusev, who seems to have a good day and now it`s clear why his team was working hard in the beginning.
They chose a section without cobbles though and it`s one of the longer. Behind Simply Red Bull got support by Becherovka and so the gap is not really getting very big.
The helpers though were not able to reel them in again. So on the next cobbles the leaders were taking over. In especially Bewley did a lot himself and still not getting the gap smaller.
This acceleration by him though forced a huge selection and might already be race deciding?
The names in the first group behind Burghardt/Gusev are: Bewley Cancellara Boonen Kluge Vanspeybrouck Stallaert Rowe Sieberg Pozzato Ballan
Then a bit behind we have: Summerhill Sibilla Blythe Zepuntke Nolf Fenn Nooytens
in the front rows but all others just behind them.
The group of 10 was caught a bit afterwards again as there was no real communication between them.
But it has forced Pokerstars to do something. Just like Bpost they have shown their strength there and so it`s Kluge keeping the pace high to get Burghardt/Gusev as also the former breakaway of course.
Only 36s are left for the first and still 18km to go.
With 15km everything came together again.
Still 51 riders in the peloton.
5 shorter cobbled sections left though for the pure cobblers.
Gusev and Burghardt with the next attack right after. This time they are followed by some of the best: Cancellara Boonen Vanspeybrouck Bewley
Also Blythe, Summerhill and Albert following now.
But in front two riders have accelerated and nobody was able to follow. Initiator of this move was Cancellara and only Bewley followed.
The peloton is led by those teams, who missed the attacks. First is Rothaus with Nooytens and Ballan working for Vanmarcke and Pozzato working for himself or Zepuntke. Also Aker is there from time to time working for Sibilla.
3 more riders joined the 2nd group: Fenn and De Vocht both took profit from Nooytens, who did too much effort. Instead of helping his leader, he was creating a gap pulling those two with him. Obviously the Belgium is the strongest of his team today and this makes two Pokerstars and Good Energy riders now.
But the strongest there seems to be surprisingly Albert, who got the okay from his leader Vanspeybrouck to attack. Not much left of the gap to the leading duo. Behind him Summerhill comes next also trying to jump to them.
But with 2,5 - 3km to go the last cobbles are reached and the gaps are small.
Cancellara/Bewley still in the lead with the peloton coming behind them with only a 14s gap. 33 riders left in there and it might end in a sprint finish.
But those cobbles obviously helped the front duo as the gap got a bit bigger again. 16s now to a trio of Boonen Summerhill Albert
Another 12s to the next group of 29 riders including all other favourites.
With 1km left Bewley goes past Cancellara, who can`t answer the Kiwi`s acceleration.
From behind he has to fear Tom Boonen actually, who is coming closer.
So we have Bewley-Cance-Boonen-Summerhill-Albert in the lead at the moment.
Behind them we have an interesting sprint as well with the actuall order of:
Blythe-Vanspeybrouck-Breschel-Nooytens-Vanmarcke-Burghardt-De Vocht-Sibilla-Rowe-Fenn.
So for the first time you see the wild card team AmexPC with Breschel and Rothaus with their leader Vanmarcke, who was so far hidden behind a strong Nooytens.
But back to the front. Bewley goes around the last corner having a gap to Cancellara. The same gap to Boonen then.
And the Becherovka rider is even getting a bigger gap to take this great win for him.
Cancellara as 2nd though with a nice result himself. Against the stronger sprinter Bewley he had no chance at all.
But he did beat Tom Boonen at least, who comes in 3rd also ahead of the next group.
Summerhill and in especially Albert are also able to stay ahead of the group even though it was just by a tiny bit.
This is a nice result for both of them I guess.
Blythe wins the sprint of the next group against Breschel, who can celebrate a nice 7th for his team.
Then Nooytens ahead of his teammate Vanmarcke making it a nice team result for the team and a very strong result for himself.
Vanspeybrouck as 10th comes in next as 2nd Bpost rider, who get a bit more out of this race as in many other classics this season.
Rowe as 11th ahead of Burghardt, who tried but failed in the end and Sibilla as 13th.
Volkswagen with Zepuntke as 17th ahead of his team mate Sieberg and Gusev as 19th not with their best day. Last at least tried.
