Race Diary:

Being on the west coast of the US, I’m watching this online hours after the fact without spoilers. Coverage starts with 107 km left for the lead group. 6-man break made up of Astana’s Laurens de Vreese, Lampre’s Jan Polanc, LottoNL’s Timo Roosen, Cult Energy’s Linus Gerdemann, MTN’s Johan van Zyl, and Roompot’s Mike Terpstra is 7:07 ahead of the peloton.

92 k – Breakaway going up the Cauberg, the peloton has been speeding up, taking about a minute out of the lead group in the last 15 k thanks to Movistar + BMC’s Marcus Burghardt.

87 k – Lieuwe Westra abandons and Astana comes to the front just to have Vincenzo Nibali have a problem with his bike, gap between the break and peloton down to 5:30.

77 k – Orica puts someone in front for pacemaking, gap at 4:30.

64 k – Teams are trying to move up to the front, the increased speed has dropped the gap down to 2:50.

55 k – Teams racing to get in good position for the hills and smaller roads coming up, 1:44 to the breakaway.

52 k – Random car on the course going towards peloton, no crashes caused though, gap down to 50 seconds. Group gets to the Gulpenerberg and slows because of the incline, forcing the back of the peloton to get crowded, IAM’s Vincente Reynes and Giant’s Roy Curvers get into a shouting match.

50 k – Climb too much for some riders, peloton starts to shrink.

49 k – Half of the lead group also falls off, down to de Vreese, Polanc, and Gerdemann. Gap back up to 1:03.

41 k – Terpstra and Roosen get swept up by the main group. Gap at :40.

39 k – The break comes into the peloton’s view on the Eyserbosweg, only 15 seconds back.

37 k – The attacks start, IAM’s David Tanner and Orica’s Simon Clarke catch the breakaway as Gerdemann falls off.

34 k – Gerdemann, EQS’s Tony Martin, BMC’s Damiano Caruso, Astana’s Diego Rosa and Nibali, LottoNL’s Wilco Kelderman, and Garmindale’s Alex Howes are back of the lead group 15 seconds back. Peloton is 10 seconds behind the chasers.

31 k – Kelderman misses a corner during commercial, goes into a field and is chasing in no man’s land. de Vreese and Polanc falls off the lead group. Chase group is 15 seconds behind the break and 30 seconds ahead of the peloton.

28 k – Caruso and Rosa crash on a curve, peloton catch them as the chase group catches Tanner and Clarke. Nibali tries to attack, but Martin pulls him back.

26 k – Movistar lead the peloton to pull back Kelderman and Polanc, 47 seconds back. Tanner takes a flyer, but doesn’t get a very big gap.

21 k – 2nd to last climb of the Cauberg, Nibali is pulling the breakaway, Howes can’t keep up. 20 seconds to the peloton.

18 k – Going through the finish line for the last time before the actual finish, there’s a 15 second gap between the 2 groups.

17 k – BMC and Movistar makes up most of the front of the main group.

16 k – Gap of 8 seconds, Nibali attacks, followed by Clarke and Martin.

15 k – Attack by Clarke, Nibali and Martin don’t counter.

12 k – Lone breakaway rider Clarke leads by 15 seconds.

9 k – Clarke is 8 seconds ahead.

8 k – The group absorbs Clarke on the Bemelerberg.

7 k – BMC’s Greg van Avermaet and Astana’s Jakob Fuglsang get away from the peloton over the top of the climb.

5 k – TInkoff-Saxo is leading the peloton, Fuglsang and van Avermaet have 5 seconds on them.

4 k – Wanty-Groupe Gobert’s Mirko Selvaggi and BMC’s Ben Hermans get up to the 2 leaders, then all 4 get caught. Orica comes to the front.

3 k – Orica leads onto the Cauberg. Hermans, Lotto Soudal’s Tim Wellens, and CCC’s Maciej Paterski attack. Hermans and Paterski get a good-sized gap.

2 k -Hermans and Paterski get caught as BMC’s Philippe Gilbert and Orica’s Michael Matthews race past them. Gilbert and Matthews get a big gap as EQS’s Michal Kwiatkowski, Movistar’s Alejandro Valverde, Wanty-Groupe Gobert’s Enrico Gasparotto, and Katusha’s Giampaolo Caruso tries to bridge.

1 k – Valverde reaches Gilbert and Matthews with a gap over Kwiatkowski, Caruso, and Gasparotto. Caruso drags the latter 3 up to the former 3. After a Kwiatkowski bluff attack, the group is going slow enough to let 12 more riders come back. One of those riders is Fuglsang, who surges, but is closely checked by Hermans and van Avermaet. Sky’s Lars Petter Nordhaug speeds up and gets passed by van Avermaet as he starts his sprint. Kwiatkowski starts to pass him as Matthews gets out from behind the Pole. Kwiatkowski gets his first win in the rainbow jersey. Valverde rides on Kwiatkowski’s slipstream for 2nd as Matthews holds on enough for 3rd.

Winners and Losers:

Winner: Etixx-Quickstep – As great as winner Michal Kwiatkowski was today, 22 year old Julian Alaphilippe brought him into the right position after the regrouping on the flat after the Cauberg, then got 7th in the sprint. Tony Martin played a big part too, having a strong ride in the the breakaway to keep the pressure off his team back in the peloton.

Loser: The Dutch – It was a hard day for riders from the home country, their highest placing was Maurits Lammertink at 21. Tom Dumoulin and Bauke Mollema, riders expected to break the top-10, got 26th and 55th respectively. Outside contenders didn’t have any better luck. Wilco Kelderman was looking good getting into a move off the front, then misjudged a turn and rode into a field in route to finishing 62nd. National champion Sebastian Langeveld was hidden the entire race and couldn’t break the top-100.

Winner: Wanty-Groupe Gobert – it’s not often you see 3 riders from the same wild card team finish within 30 seconds of the winner in a classic. Enrico Gasparotto finished 8th with the same time as Kwiatkowski to continue his streak of starting his season in the Netherlands result-wise. Since he won the Amstel Gold Race in 2012, he has gotten top-10 every year despite only having 4 top-10’s in the first 3 and a half months of each season combined. Bjorn Leukemans and Mirko Selvaggi finished 18 and 26 seconds back respectively.

Loser: BMC – Even though the team had 3 finishers in the top-18, they still underachieved. When Greg van Avermaet made a gap with Jakob Fuglsang with 7 k to go, he refused to work when after they got brought back, BMC were at the driving the peloton instead of potentially saving their legs for the finale. When Ben Hermans attacked with Maciej Paterski on the final ascent of the Cauberg, instead of staying on a wheel as the other teams tried to chase them down, Philippe Gibert made an attack that he couldn’t make stick, so his legs were shot when the group came back together. Their last hope was for GVA to win in a group sprint, but he started early and got chased down by 4 people before crossing the line.

Winner: The Recon Ride predictions

In their pre-race podcast, my “colleagues” (albeit superior) from r/peloton, Velohuman and Cyclocosm, both picked Kwiatkowski and Valverde to finish 1st and 2nd.

Loser: Random driver

The person that almost drove straight into the peloton in a car on a closed course. I don’t think I need an explanation.

Links:

Preview

Results

Full broadcast video

Strava Flyby