Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Thursday, August 8, 2024
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2024 Tour de France | 2024 Giro d'Italia
If I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize. - Richard P. Feynman
Les Woodland's book Cycling Heroes: The Golden Years is available in the print, Kindle eBook & audiobook versions. To get your copy, just click on the Amazon link on the right.
Current racing:
- August 5 - 9: Vuelta a Burgos
Upcoming racing:
- August 10: Clasica San Sebastian
- August 11: La Polynormande
- August 12 - 18: Tour of Poland
- August 13 - 16: Tour du Limousin
- August 14 - 18: PostNord Denmark Rundt
- August 17 - Sept 8: Vuelta a España
Latest completed racing:
- August 4 - 7: Arctic Race of Norway
- July 27 - August 4: Olympic cycling
- July 22 - 26: Tour de Wallonie
- July 23: Vuelta a Castilla y Leon
- June 29 - July 21: Tour de France
- June 9 - 26: Many National Championships
- June 15 - 18: La Route d'Occitanie Cancelled because security forces busy with Olympics
- June 9 - 16: Tour de Suisse
- June 12 - 16: Baloise Belgium Tour
We posted the report from stage winner and new GC leader Sepp Kuss' Team Visma | Lease a Bike with the results.
Here's the report from Team Groupama-FDJ:
Stage 3 of the Tour de Burgos was supposed to partly establish the general classification on Wednesday, heading towards the usual climb of the Lagunas de Neila. Unfortunately, Rémy Rochas was unable to join the fight on the front, the day after his nice fourth place on stage 2. The Groupama-FDJ cycling team is now no longer concerned by the overall, while a time trial and a sprint remain on the menu of the Spanish race.
Only one hundred and thirty-eight kilometres made up the “queen” stage of the Vuelta a Burgos on Wednesday, but two hard climbs awaited the riders in the final: the Alto de Rozavientos, first, then the climb of the Lagunas de Neila. Four riders wanted to anticipate the expected battle between the favourites, namely Jetse Bol (Burgos-BH), Nicolas Vinokourov (Astana Qazaqstan), Alex Diaz (Caja Rural-Alea) and Germán Darío Gómez (Polti Kometa), who went early on. “It was a pretty straightforward day,” said Thierry Bricaud. “The breakaway formed from the start like the other days, the bunch set a good pace and it almost came down to the final climb.”
Sepp Kuss wins Vuelta a Burgos stage three.
The tempo still got faster in the most difficult slopes of the Alto de Rozavientos, and the bunch was reduced to around forty men twenty kilometres from the line, while heading towards the foot of the final difficulty. Some riders managed to bridge across in the downhill, but as soon as the road got steeper again, about five kilometers from the line, the pack got smaller.
Then, it completely exploded two kilometers further on, when the slopes exceeded 10%. That’s about where Rémy Rochas was dropped. “The guys worked well on the penultimate climb to position Rémy, but unfortunately, he wasn’t feeling the best today”, explained Thierry. “I don’t know if it’s because of the heat, but he didn’t have the legs today, and the result is a consequence. He was feeling good yesterday, he wasn’t today, and you pay for it straight away on such a finish.” Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) eventually dominated the battle between the favourites and took the lead in the general classification, which is no longer an objective for the Groupama-FDJ cycling team.
“Tomorrow is a time trial, and the guys will do it properly, because it is part of the preparation for what comes next,” concluded Thierry. “Then, on the last stage, we will try to get a good result with Matt in a finish that could suit him.”
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We posted the race organizer's report with the results.
Here's the report from Kevin Vermaerke's Team dsm-firmenich PostNL:
Kevin Vermaerke has rounded out a strong showing for Team dsm-firmenich PostNL at the Arctic Race of Norway with sixth place on the final stage, securing his third place overall and taking the white jersey for the Best Young Rider classification in the process.
The final GC podium, from left: Clément Champoussin (2nd), Magnus Cort (1st), & Kevin Vermaerke (3rd). Photo: ARN/Aurélien Vialatte
A strong break of six riders punctuated the stage and put up a very strong fight as the wind made for a fast and frantic stage towards its closing stages. The leaders still held a sizeable gap over the peloton as they arrived onto the finishing circuit ahead of a tough, short but steep uphill finish. Team dsm-firmenich PostNL weighed in on the chase behind and with four kilometres to go the gap was down to around 40 seconds. It wasn’t until the final few hundred metres that the final catch was made, as Vermaerke emerged amongst the leaders on the final slopes of the climb, taking a respectable sixth on the line. In doing so, he secured his third place on GC and moved up one spot in the Best Young Rider’s classification to win the white jersey.
Vermaerke said after the stage: “I think it was probably the hardest day of the race today with the wind. We thought it might be crosswinds but in the end it was mainly tailwind. There was a really strong break up the road which we were happy to let take the seconds, but they made it a little nervous in the last 40 kilometres when they still had three minutes. We put Gijs and Mees in the chase and the rest of the guys rallied around me and kept me in a good position. Coming into the final, the gap to the break came down and Tobi really stayed with me and put me in the top five wheels at the bottom of the last climb. From there it was a full gas sprint in the last kilometres. I didn’t quite have the result I’d hoped for today in me but we have to be happy with the podium on GC. We didn’t win a stage but we really made the most of our race.”
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Here’s the team’s update:
The most successful sprinter of the season, Tim Merlier will pin on a number for the first time since the Belgian Nationals, having completed an altitude training camp in Val di Fassa in the meantime with many of his teammates. The 31-year-old, who won a staggering twelve races in 2024 – including three Giro d’Italia stages – will lead Soudal Quick-Step at the Tour de Pologne (12-18 August), an event where last year he scored two victories.
Tim Merlier wins 2023 Tour of Poland stage one.
Multiple Czech ITT National Champion Josef Cerny, Paul Magnier – who has had an impressive first part of the season, showing his potential in numerous bunch sprints – Pepijn Reinderink, Martin Svrcek, Bert Van Lerberghe and Warre Vangheluwe will join Merlier for the World Tour race that promises to give the fast men three opportunities to shine, on the fourth, fifth and seventh stage.
The general classification, however, will be an affair between the climbers, who’ll have the uphill finishes of Karpacz, Duzniki-Zdroj and Bukovina Resort – together with the demanding stage 2 individual time trial – to make the difference and fight for the yellow jersey of this 81st Tour de Pologne.
“We have a strong squad for Poland. It’s obvious we won’t be going for the GC, but for stage wins instead, and we are confident in our chances of getting at least a victory with Tim. He comes here from a nice altitude camp, where he was present with many of his teammates, and all the boys are motivated to get the maximum out of this race”, said Soudal Quick-Step sports director Klaas Lodewyck ahead of the event where our team has won a total of 16 stages at the previous participations.
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The team sent me this news release:
British climbing talent Paul Double will make the step up to the WorldTour peloton in 2025 after signing a two-year contract with Team Jayco AlUla.
The 28-year-old has racked up a string of impressive results at ProTeam level over the last two seasons, including a general classification podium place at the Tour of Turkey, plus top-10 finishes overall at Il Giro d’Abruzzo and the Tour of Slovenia.
Double has spent most of his career racing in Italy, working his way up from Continental, to ProTeam and now he will finally get the opportunity to make his mark in the WorldTour peloton in 2025.
GreenEDGE Cycling management believe the Englishman from Winchester can become a key climbing domestique, as well as a rider capable of taking his own results when the opportunities present themselves, and are looking forwarding to seeing Double unleash more of his great potential.
Brent Copeland (General Manager):
“We have been following Double and his progress and he is a rider that we are adding to strengthen our climbing group for 2025. He is a talented climber and domestique, but he will also get his own opportunities to go for results with us, in smaller races and even one-day races that have hard finishes. He has experience and it will be great to see him step up into the WorldTour environment and see what else he can achieve.”
Paul Double:
“I am very excited to sign for Team Jayco AIUla for 2025 and 2026. It’s a proud moment for me personally to be joining such a well-established WorldTour team after the somewhat interesting path I have taken to reach this point. It was important to me not to step into ‘any’ WorldTour team but one that I felt would have a well-suited environment and vision for me as a rider – I firmly believe this is the case with Team Jayco AIUIa.
"I’m a climber and have been performing consistently well in stage races, as well as hilly one-day events, and I hope to continue in this vein and build further. I also look forward to experience races of the highest level surrounded by top, experienced riders in the squad, where I hope to display my qualities, aiding Team Jayco AIUIa to success, personally, and as a team. I know that I arrived in the sport later than most but I’m also seeing my trajectory as a rider positively increase at a rate I didn’t experience in my younger years. For that reason, I’m grateful to the team for the opportunity to see how far we can take things!”
Paul Double
New Contract: 2025 & 2026
Nationality: Great Britain
Age: 28
Key Results:
1st Tour of Bulgaria stage 2 (2023)
2nd Tour of Slovenia stage 4 (2024)
2nd Tour of Slovenia (2022)
3rd Presidential Tour of Turkey GC (2024)
3rd Presidential Tour of Turkey stage 6 (2024)
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