Spring classics 2025

[Robyklebt]

Prediction from the inscribed teams in the afternoon so far:
Tukh with a strong team, Mendiburu starts as favorite (Ganambarr already is more relaxed). Question a bit who has form where, who will be the protected riders. He might lack some mountain in the team. 1 vs 1 vs Ganambarr the favorite, but since there will be troublemakers to hopefully help the Donkey...

Donkey: Nr 2 on paper, but Ganambarr both pavé and mountain seems limit. Sprint top, Team lacks flat though, but 85-85-84 for the presumed 3 main helpers is not that bad either. Now Ganambarr feels worse again, pressure mounting.

Hansa: What does he want here? AFternoon, must have a nasty plan!!! Wahli seems to weak in mountain, no other obvious guy who can compete=escape!

FL: No pavé, worst pavé team of his career? Or for a very long time. A troublemaker in escape. But behind Stenberg shouldn't be dismissed completely, with his sprint and mountain, he can hope to somehow sneak into the first group and compete for the win. Team is the worst FL-pavé team, but has mass between 70-75 pavé, good support for a long time, some flat, some mountain for chases.

O Imperdor: Simao Lopes is a mini Mendiburu, but yes, the pavé is missing, 74.7. 2 good 87 flat helpers to bring him back, but the rest of the team has under 70 pavé. And under 80 flat. Difficult. Lopes with better support could hope to be there, like this might be difficult, just not enough pavé? Winning from the escape too, lack of pavé and sprint, except the 2 helpers...

Gipfelstürmer: Second best pavé team behind Tukh, 6 riders over 75, Tukh has 6 over 77. Donks 5 over 75, of which one, Winzenried, has no flat.. Boem Winkel lack mountain, Boersma is a Fortuny with more sprint but less flat and pavé. Flat he might not need, pavé not sure, but normally I'd say he'll be there in the end. Battistella a bit too young still maybe, 77 pavé is limit, 64 mountain is good, he could be there too, lacks sprint though. Or his sprint is Fortuny-level. Would have said escape, but might stay back to keep his leader(s) fit. Or go for a midrace attack. Or the early one anyway, good experience 24 after all.

The race as it looks now says: Tukh controls, Donkey joins too since possibly all 4 others teams will want to attack. We'll need some more teams though.

[flockmastoR]

flocke will join the afternoon. Mainly because we need to talk to FL about the Radio Liechtenstein causa. Some riders will join the discussion

[team fl]

Whats even more scandalous than the Radio L saga is the fact that I forgot to mention Fraegg for RVV as team to watch and nobody else noticed resp. reacted! With Baisseijtow and Oellibrandt he has a deadly one two punch. His problem is that both riders don't have more than 55 sprint. So if anybody with more sprint can keep up or manages to get back, he's in trouble...

[Robyklebt]

Donkey rather unhappy.

Ok, he didn't really care about the race for long periods of time, never liked Flanders at c4f, maybe should skip it actually... but ok I'm here, blah, whatever.
End of course motivation a bit back... the sprint was absolutely stupid. Donkey needs to make a train, easy. Yes, everybody will hang there, so be it, everybody had somebody else in the wheel, nobody on my wheel will go at 200. max 150. In the meantime I could still think about switching to a competing train at some point...
Most-Boersma-Bless, those the guys I was following, in the end Bless. Most made little sense, realized that when I saw his 43 for the first train man. Boersma was sensible. Bless not. Own train the best. Idiot.
But ok, doesn't matter too much. Other mistake maybe Tukh-Donks-AAD too nice to each other for a long time...but similar goals, well, the same. Win, and was compatible there. Made the race boring. Nobody trying a midrace attack was even worse.

Oh well, survived this, lost the race by doing a stupid sprint. No guarantee I would have won it otherwise, but would have given myself the best chance possible, like this was almost sabotage...

[Tukhtahuaev]

Horrible race. Not much happening, way too big group reaching the finish, not really fun and a bad result. Probably not ridden ideally, too.
RVV just doesn't seem to work out for me since the Pankratov days. Hopefully next week I can finally get a better result