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Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha Discussion
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| Kentaurus |
Posted on 12-01-2020 05:43
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The ProTour continues with Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha known more recently as the Taylor Phinney classic. The three time reigning champion will be looking to defend his crown again against an increasingly strong field.
Four stages of generally flat terrain with an opening prologue just 5 km in length. Stage two offers a chance for the sprinters, maybe the off chance for a late attack to stick. Stage three is the deciding stage, a very long 60 km time-trial where the winner will be all but crowned. Stage four should be for the sprinters again but some lumpy terrain, especially early may put some in trouble.
With the GC likely going to a time-trial specialist we will start there in our rider preview, two sprint stages will give an elite sprint field some opportunity and a prologue might open up a stage win to a few more riders.
| | | | | | | | | Rider | TT | PR | Rider | TT | PR | | |  Phinney | 83 | 83 |  Sergent | 80 | 80 | | |  Fiedler | 83 | 82 |  Lammertink | 80 | 79 | | |  Zmorka | 82 | 82 |  Yatsevich | 80 | 80 | | |  Keizer | 81 | 81 | Howson | 80 | 80 | | |  Vlatos | 81 | 81 |  Sütterlin | 80 | 80 | | |  Kittel | 81 | 81 |  Van Winden | 80 | 80 | | |  Paillot | 80 | 80 | Brändle | 79 | 79 | | | | Würtz | 80 | 77 | Gonzalez Salas | 80 | 80 | | | | | | | | | | |
The depth of time-trialists in this field is incredible, and Phinney will have his toughest test yet defending his run in this race. Sadly World Champion  Coppel isn't here but that doesn't change how difficult the challenge will be. Fiedler could be argued to be a better fit to this route and possibly the overall favorite. The race will likely come down to who simply has the best legs on the 3rd day, maybe the best plan for that long time-trial as well.
The sprint field is equally enticing as elite sprinters line up to take their chance at the two stages available to them.
| | | | | | | | | Rider | SP | AC | FL | Rider | SP | AC | FL | | Coquard | 84 | 83 | 73 | Nelson | 81 | 81 | 72 | | Ewan | 83 | 81 | 75 |  Kemboi | 79 | 80 | 78 |  Kristoff | 83 | 79 | 75 | Van Poppel | 81 | 78 | 72 |  Kennaugh | 82 | 81 | 77 | Stauff | 80 | 81 | 74 |  Howard | 82 | 79 | 76 | Goss | 81 | 77 | 73 | | Guerao | 83 | 76 | 74 |  Guardini | 80 | 82 | 72 | | Vesely | 81 | 80 | 73 | Samolenkov | 80 | 79 | 74 | | Manninen | 80 | 80 | 74 | Nizzolo | 80 | 79 | 73 |
Coquard might be the top favorite but there are a good number of riders who will be able to challenge him for the stage wins. Stage four may even lean slightly towards Ewan who is a generally better climber and might handle the early ups and downs in a better fashion. Certainly Vesely will be looking to impress in his home race.
Outside of those two disciplines we have to look at the prologue stage and a chance for a breakaway or late attack winner on the flat stages.
| | | | | | | | | Rider | PR | Rider | FL | FG | | | | | Leung | 82 |  Stoltz | 80 | 85 | | | | | Dennis | 81 | Wisniowski | 80 | 74 | | | | | Andersen | 81 | Ji | 80 | 69 | | | | | Kemboi | 81 |  Yzeiraj | 76 | 85 | | | | | Stoltz | 80 |  Summerhill | 78 | 81 | | | |
Leung falls just short of being and elite time-trialist, but certainly will have a chance on the prologue, the others pose a threat as well to the first stage. Stoltz is one of the more intriguing riders, capable of doing well on the prologue, it is the flat stages where his elite ability on the flat roads and fighting spirit could make him a danger to the sprinters teams.
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| SotD |
Posted on 12-01-2020 08:25
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Coquard should be the obvious favorite for the sprints and Vlatos should be around 5th GC, so we can expect nothing...
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| tastasol |
Posted on 12-01-2020 09:25
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A huge race for us. First race for Phinney and plenty of TT power. Anything other than a podium would be disappointing. Also very excited to see what Wurtz is capable of.
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 12-01-2020 12:40
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The Rocket-Ricki-Kek trio is back in action! Supported by an entire team of time trialists who are perfect flat pullers and early lead-out men. So we'll do nothing at all and sprint to a low Top10 once probably.
Seeing the PRL stat of the main sprinters would have been nice as we could get a lead change for Stage 2. And not quite as stacked a sprint field as i expected. And then the Stage 4 KoM battle could be interesting, total random shoot there to spice things up.
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| Kentaurus |
Posted on 12-01-2020 13:08
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TheManxMissile wrote:
Seeing the PRL stat of the main sprinters would have been nice as we could get a lead change for Stage 2. And not quite as stacked a sprint field as i expected. And then the Stage 4 KoM battle could be interesting, total random shoot there to spice things up.
The only sprinters with a PRL worth noting was Coquard who does sport a 79 there, and Salem Kemboi who was also listed in the PRL section.
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| knockout |
Posted on 12-01-2020 13:53
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Dont particularly care for this race but Stoltz is obviously an interesting wildcard and maybe even Dzama could surprise a bit.
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| cio93 |
Posted on 12-01-2020 15:50
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Looking at the race history, Sütterlin was 9th, 6th and 5th here since this turned into a time trial race, but with recent experiences, I'm not too confident he'll survive stage 4 well enough to repeat a Top 10 again this time. I sure hope the race proves me wrong!
Additionally, I have a lingering feeling that the long TT has just enough elevation gain in it to slightly favor riders more adept to climbing as well, based somewhat on my PCM18 experiences.
Fortunately, we have brought several riders who should not have significant issues to make the front group on stage 4 and like the stage 3 profile too.
In order of TT stat, we have Bevin at 76, Cavagna at 75, Hadi/Weinstein/Ganna at 74 and Stüssi at 73 who all have no excuses to get dropped on any uphill section.
I hope they can populate the Top 50 in either case and get us some nice depth points from this.
For the sprint stages, we come here entirely without expectations, but obviously that list earlier contains three climbers in Bevin, Hadi and Stüssi and a puncheur in Cavagna who I would like to see go for the KoM on the final day if they do not care to preserve their GC position.
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 12-01-2020 18:11
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Need Dennis and Howard to deliver some points here. The recent news, that Bobridge won't be a factor for me this year (didn't really know about PCM18 before), gives our other designated leaders the pressure to score. Howard did well so far this year and Dennis saved Bobridge's first race from being a disaster. While Dennis surely will struggle against the much better TT guys, he may at least be a threat for the prologue (well, given a good daily form, of course).
Just don't give me another disaster so soon after Pais Vasco, which definitely darkened my hopes for a good season.
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| ember |
Posted on 12-01-2020 19:10
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No expectations here, as this one turned out to be one for those who need race days to develop. Hopefully we'll join the breakaway fun  |
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 12-01-2020 19:13
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Low expectations. We'll need to get lucky with the daily form of one of our decent TT riders.
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 07-12-2025 15:54
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| Kentaurus |
Posted on 12-01-2020 22:15
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cio93 wrote:
Additionally, I have a lingering feeling that the long TT has just enough elevation gain in it to slightly favor riders more adept to climbing as well, based somewhat on my PCM18 experiences.
When I do my favorites list I actually do make a formula for it and sort by that, in this case I did add just a slight bit of HL to the formula because I agree there might be just enough up/down to affect the TT.
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| cio93 |
Posted on 12-01-2020 22:56
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Kentaurus wrote:
cio93 wrote:
Additionally, I have a lingering feeling that the long TT has just enough elevation gain in it to slightly favor riders more adept to climbing as well, based somewhat on my PCM18 experiences.
When I do my favorites list I actually do make a formula for it and sort by that, in this case I did add just a slight bit of HL to the formula because I agree there might be just enough up/down to affect the TT.
I am yet to be fully convinced that it's HIL and not exclusively MO that matters in TTs of any kind, as it would be on the same profile being ridden as a road stage at constant ~70 effort.
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| Kentaurus |
Posted on 13-01-2020 02:59
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cio93 wrote:
Kentaurus wrote:
cio93 wrote:
Additionally, I have a lingering feeling that the long TT has just enough elevation gain in it to slightly favor riders more adept to climbing as well, based somewhat on my PCM18 experiences.
When I do my favorites list I actually do make a formula for it and sort by that, in this case I did add just a slight bit of HL to the formula because I agree there might be just enough up/down to affect the TT.
I am yet to be fully convinced that it's HIL and not exclusively MO that matters in TTs of any kind, as it would be on the same profile being ridden as a road stage at constant ~70 effort.
Actually you might be very right, since it is highly unlikely that a rider would be using enough effort in a 60km TT to ever hit red bar type effect (where HILL starts to gain value)
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| roturn |
Posted on 13-01-2020 06:25
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Paillot so far was not very good in TT races, so hopefully here he proves me better and continues with the form from Pais Vasco.
Other than that Vesely might be able to grab some results. |
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| SotD |
Posted on 13-01-2020 08:02
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Looking at the debate, I can conclude, that Vlatos will be useless here... Normally he is a favorite for top 5 GC, and the added HI training I gave him thus utter useless...
Phinney for an easy victory ahead of Keizer and Brändle then.
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| cio93 |
Posted on 13-01-2020 18:00
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SotD wrote:
Looking at the debate, I can conclude, that Vlatos will be useless here... Normally he is a favorite for top 5 GC, and the added HI training I gave him thus utter useless...
Phinney for an easy victory ahead of Keizer and Brändle then.
I hope just as much as you do that I'm wrong about that.
In either case, I don't think it'll be noticeable enough here to actually put someone like Brändle ahead of Fiedler or Zmorka.
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| SotD |
Posted on 14-01-2020 20:39
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Vlatos doing so crap he doesn’t even get a mention. Another race to forget probably!
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| tastasol |
Posted on 14-01-2020 20:49
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Had hoped to see Phinney winning in his debut, but a good performance from him anyway! Nice win for Dennis, congrats tsmoha
Kragh Andersen also missing out on the U26 jersey, and a rather poor prologue from a guy like Wisniowski, but at least a solid lead in the team GC. Hope we can keep that till the end, and hopefully also Phinney might be able to climb up in the GC.
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| Bikex |
Posted on 14-01-2020 21:04
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Finally a good result, great start from Leung and Brändle. I hope Brändle can confirm his form in the other TT and repeat his GC 4th from last season. |
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| knockout |
Posted on 14-01-2020 21:12
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The next time that i'm in need of a good random generator, I will buy PCM18 and race a prologue.
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