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

[team fl]

Well, it looks like almost all RVV editions were "giant killers". But in general I think, some players forget how the C4F physics work compared to the race on the other screen (the LARP version of C4F it seems). I saw comments in the race chats like "RVV is not a pavé race in C4F", etc. RVV is not a pavé race anyway. It's a race with short sharp climbs with some pavé. And it's very long, which is a difficulty in itself in the LARP version. And, and that's the most important difference, RVV has very difficult narrow climbs! Wrong position? You're gone. Not on the wheel of the attacker? You're gone.

So, what makes RVV so selective are things that are not implemented in C4F (like the impact of a long race to leaders, road structure like width, curvyness, positioning, etc.). And: If you lose energy in C4F in such a race, it's gone most likely. One km tempo? Energy's gone. One attack and you're caught? race is probably over. So, players have to manage their riders' energy very well. Which leaves most of the decisive action to the very last part of the race. Which means there will still be lots of riders left with little energy difference. Big D. wrote it too: There have not been "early" late attacks (or midrace attacks how he called it) in any edition.

Anyway, Sten Stenberg is very happy how it went. Although its a Paris Roubaix tradition to receive a cobble stone, it seems he stole one from the Oude Kwaremont. I guess the team has to be careful the next days as he's know for throwing stones around...

Finally, we need an updated winners list!

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad:
10h: Tadej Pituch (r TAKA)
14h: Wakara Ganambarr (Big Donkey)
18h: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy (Lenny SnakeCycling)
21h: Zineddine Belaid (RV Allagen)

Kuurne Brussels Kuurne:
11h: Bartholomäus Most (Alive And Dead)
15h: Clacedonio Cantagalli (Team FL)
19h: Andres Carrasco (Radunion)
22h: Olga Kalinnikova (Nash Team)

Strade Bianche
10h Rafael Trujillo (Marlhou)
14h Kenzo Tenma (stevens)
19h Clayton Cleverly (bergwerk)
22h Bronislav Karbauskis (Medical Service)

Milano - Torino
10h(1) Yuta Okkotsu (Pokemonogatari)
10h(2) Enno Oper (Falcor CC)
15h Owen Onley (bergwerk)
19h Mekhti Abdulatipov (Team Dagestan)
22h Baptiste Firiam (Alive And Dead)

Milano - Sanremo
09h Roy Louis (Bugatti)
14h Egon Esswein (Bahrain-Merida)
18h Issa Sangaré (Jokers)
21h Alex Alailefaleula (Team FL)

Brugge - De Panne
08h Hannes Rauch (Narrenparty)
14h Onno Bisdorff (Medical Service)
18h RobertBartleh Cummings (Felsenland)
21h Vincenzo Italiano (Carrera Blue Jeans)

Mr. Saxo Beat Harelbeke
09h Robert Takacs (Schartner Bombe)
15h Wakara Ganambarr (Big Donkey)
19h Enrique Ugarte (Los Teros)
22h Firmin VanKerrebroeck (Fraegg)

Gent-Wevelgem
11h Doku Dudayev (Team Dagestan)
14h Ruedi Jungo (Medical Service)
18h Habib Diallo (Elaska)
21h Alaa Bellaarouch (RV Allagen)

Dwars door Vlaanderen
09h Jamey Stegmaier (Schnuggeritos)
14h John Hopfield (Alive And Dead)
18h Gino Degreef (Romoc Riders)
20h Taylor Hawkins (Felsenland)
22h Bob Iliev (Vikings Berlin)

Ronde van Vlaanderen
11h Jozef Cibulka (Pokemonogatari)
15h Sten Stenberg (Team FL)
19h Steve Upside (SV Furpach)
22h Fernao Cayetano (Harryaner)

[Gipfelstuermer]

There have not been "early" late attacks (or midrace attacks how he called it) in any edition.

Yes, it's also about HOW you ride in C4F.

In our edition, the first ascent of the Kwaremont was just ultra slow. Only a handful of riders were dropped. One big sieb missed, so it becomes more likely that a larger group goes to the final. Ride harder in peloton and you get a smaller group in the end.

That didn't happen in the afternoon edition. So it was a relatively large group in the end. Sprint was chaotic then. At first sight, Batistella-Boersma train looked great but with the French Champion in the wheel and, effectively, Stenberg also in the wheel whilst having a nobody in his wheel, it didn't look that great anymore. That's why Batistella had to take chances and slow down. Btw, it is wrong to call that trick sprint. If there is only one train, waiting is not a trick. A trick would be to sprint only with the lead-out and stop following with the leader. Anyway, Bastistella waited for too long and Boersma also waited for too long. Disappointing because sprint situation looked good initially. Conversely, being on the podium here with this year's team wasn't expected. After all, RVV remains the monument where we perform best. In the last six years: 2 wins, 5 podiums and always finished Top 4. Unfortunately can't match that performance in other monuments.

Now, back to game physics. The argument could be, that game physics don't encourage the harder riding I demanded above. On the one hand, that is true, because tempo and attacks cost a lot of energy. On the other hand, let's say you have a decent team and not the best sprinter, you are well advised to make the race hard, and in these kinds of races that can be a successful strategy (at least better than ending up in a sprint if you dont have the best sprinter). But, of course I take the opportunity to comment on how to improve things. Based on real life. Remember, the UCI lowered the number of riders per race, partially due to the growing endurance of riders and the resulting dominance of (some) 9-rider-teams. So, if we'd give our riders more endurance (i.e. lower energy cost for tempo and attacks), we can balance it by reducing the number of riders per team (less helping possible). That's killing two birds with one stone. We could follow the real number of riders per team and we'd encourage more action. Of course we'd need to make sure that it's only a marginal impact. It can't be too extreme. One logic would be: If we'd always have 1 rider less (11% less based on 9 riders/team), then tempo and attacks should also cost 11% less energy. Having said that, there are still many many other development priorities... probably it's more important to fix bugs and improve some basic functionalities (just my opinion). Boring and not very encouraging for developers but better to have the fundamentals right before changing game physics.

[team fl]

Just to make that clear: it was not a critique of the game physics, it was a more a critique of the players not adapting to the game physics or expecting something else (resp. are complaining about it not being like the LARP edition) . I still think the current game physics offer good opportunities to have a fun RVV. And, I totally agree with you: First fix the things that need to be fixed. Major changes of the game physics should also involve broad discussions with the community in my view.

And yes, in the afternoon edition, the first Oude Kwaremont passage was just very slow indeed. And, if you have a very strong team but your leader lacks sprint (the opposite of my team this year, hihi), I would also try to make the race as hard as possible, siebing early, isolating leaders or important helpers, etc. Forcing an open finish, even risking a chaotic race. In some way, Pokemonogatari did that in the morning (but also was a bit lucky in the end).

Another thing i saw was: Almost in every edition, the chasers in the peloton let the group go pretty far, so early action could be dangerous for catching the group later on, if cooperation stops, or you need to ride early with your important helpers. Alkworld once said: The difference between bad and good teams is: A bad team knows one way how to win, a good team knows many ways. It think it's the same here. Some players think too much in one dimension regarding these races. And no, I am not saying that I don't. For me it was as one dimensional as it can get: Try and escape, hope for a slow race/chase, cooperation when siebed and get lucky in the sprint .

[Robyklebt]

Tukh didn't ride bad IMO. If anything I made a costly mistake for him. After one sieb, he had 3 in front, rest 2 or even 0, FL for example, he kept riding. In the back Lanfredini rode for 2-3 km, then seeing that really there were leaders there announced that he was out, Hansa went in. Stupid, Do the first km to catch those ahead of Lanfredini. Then go out sectrick. If others don't feel the need to ride for their leaders... let Fortuny-Ganambarr have a bigger advantage. Checked, Lanfredini rode up, then 1 more km, that is still ok, slow thinker, by not riding in front they "waited" for me, so can give them that km. Then go out sectrick the next one, don't give them a warning. Would have dropped a further 15" back to an Obst lead group, 24" back all together, considering it took them 10km to gain back 9" (got back just before the Kruisberg logic, Voloshyn riding alone loses lots of energy) there is a small chance to keep away Stenberg, Bless, Most until the Kwaremont? Of course tempo in the back then faster, more mass. And on the Kruisberg maybe the classics come back anyway, but not Bless at least.

Otherwise don't see what Tukh did wrong, his self-accusation is BS!
-not waiting for Ishiwata with Ganambarr in his wheel... It's 5"... And I should show goodwill by riding with Ganambarr. From his side. From mine I can't use energy before the Paterberg. Need to survive that. And ok, riding there cost Mendiburu energy, but going with Ishiwata probably changes very little, the classics still come back on the Paterberg. Nothing wrong with Tukh's race IMO. Right wheel in the sprint and he still can win it, but ok, riding there cost him energy.
-Not making the race harder. When he did, I "destroyed" it (a bit). Earlier, yes, problem is with Alive And Donkey he had found 2 friendly collaborators. Both can be weakened by a sieb, but then he rides alone. Some people will come back, will AAD rejoin once they have a few riders more again? In the heat of the moment Big Donks maybe not, thinking about it yes.
-Sprint: Yes, that wasn't ideal either, like the Donks, where was he hanging? If on Ganambarr ok, not wrong...but can he get the wheel?

So no, Tukh did what he had to do I think.

AAD: Why not ride with Banane after the Paterberg? Why let Hansa and the Donkey back? Ok, no Downhill, go in, beg Stenberg for that downhill km... For me was good, Ganambarr back.

Ganambarr: Ok, I never fully committed on him, looking at Malot should have. But there was always a risk of being siebed on the Oude Kwaremont or/and the Paterberg. Malot stayed on. 1 less mountain, 0.7 less pavé, 2 more flat. Ok, maybe the flat helped him too, otherwise better help. I kept the Fortuny option, I put him on help 1 km then back away. Self fulfilling prophecy a bit. I think he might drop, so don't weaken the helper, then he's dropped...looking at Malot all for Ganambarr maybe good. Then in with Mendiburu? But regardless of that, he was very very limit for this. Dropped numerous times. Often not fighting, in the end with fighting. We love Wakara, 2 great wins, but some more training would have helped here. He came back after the Paterberg, brought back, really had a chance to win it, bad bad sprint, see above.

Trick sprint: I'll decide what I regard as a trick sprint, thank you very much. And that for me was one. Small group, ok ok, 19 riders isn't small. In reality a guy leading out his leader wouldn't go all out at 500, then when he sees that people are following him stop the sprint.. Go slower? Yes, possibly, 500 an attack kind of action, sees he's followed, go slower, normal, can happen. But also risks that the followers counter-attack immediately. So basically stop sprinting? No. Never. We have only those 2 settings, sprint or not sprint, so for me taking out the sprint of your train simply is not realistic. Never ever in a mass sprint, in a 2-3-5 man sprint, ok, why not. Anything bigger it's taking advantage of an irrealistic feature, technical feature. So I'll hand out -1 and accuse you of doing trick sprints.

Technical stuff: What Tukh was saying a bit is that the Paterberg somehow "destroys" the pavé guys. True in a way. Make it harder pavé? Make it softer mountain. Problem is that in reality that stupid hill is short, very short, but tough, possible to make differences there. Not sure what should, could be changed there. 7** ... what's better? Last year though our afternoon ended up with a 5 man group in the end, (From the peloton) so not sure what went differently this time exactly. EAsier race earlier maybe one thing? Worse classics? Or stealth changes in the calculation (again?) somehow? No idea. Let's assume it was the way we raced.

Edit:
Ah, also, the endless approach to the hilly section is incredibly boring. Never liked Flanders at c4f much anyway. It is very predictable. Ok, this time I wasn't even trying to predict, anything, so no idea, but it's a rather "easy" race to read at c4f I think. Yesterday mostly just boring, also the Donkey was tired. Up at 7.30 on Saturday, not sleeping THAT much, maybe from 2am. 1 hour wonderful sleep at 17:00-18:00, never slept as well in my life. Then Saturday night horse races in Dubai, prepare horse races in Japan, sleep at 7, get up at 10, , watch horse races on TV, go for a walk, start the race at 22h... tired. Not motivated either, during that never ending approach that went far down. At MSR the approach is a feature, it's the race. Here it's just boring ass shit. Really wouldn't have minded a big race ending bug that much.

Edit II
Don't think we let the group go far away, I think it was under control the whole time. At some point going faster became necessary... but none of the 3 tempo guys really had interest in weakening their helpers early, so wanted more helpers for the helpers, was up to others to try something. No idea about other races...

[Tukhtahuaev]

Technical stuff: What Tukh was saying a bit is that the Paterberg somehow "destroys" the pavé guys. True in a way. Make it harder pavé? Make it softer mountain. Problem is that in reality that stupid hill is short, very short, but tough, possible to make differences there. Not sure what should, could be changed there. 7** ... what's better? Last year though our afternoon ended up with a 5 man group in the end, (From the peloton) so not sure what went differently this time exactly. EAsier race earlier maybe one thing? Worse classics? Or stealth changes in the calculation (again?) somehow? No idea. Let's assume it was the way we raced.

Really difficult to say what the right solution is. It's just completely different to the real race where a rider that is dropped on the Kwaremont a few km before doesn't magically close an almost 10s gap again. I had a tiny hope to keep ahead of the classics still, which would have created a perfect situation for a small group to go through, but in the end not enough and then the win was pretty much gone. Maybe I should have tried an attack just before Banane and Fortuny went into tempo, but mostly likely everyone hangs or I get caught again

[team fl]

Now that RVV is over, it's time for the pure pavé specialists (or not?). First on Wednesday as entree, we get the Schelderpijs. Although it's flat and there is pavé, it's more a sprinters' race than a race for pavé specialists. But there is hope! In the past, there have been enough editions in which pavé specialists attacked succesfully and left the sprinters looking for placements. I guess that's the fun about Schelde: You can have sprinters winning it, a reduced sprint with those 80 flat, 80 sprint sprinters, or a pavé specialist winning it with an attack.

But the real deal follows on Sunday: The hell of the north, Paris - Roubaix. Around almost 260 m full of pavé with some of the hardest pavé sections you can imagine, over 30 in total. As with RVV, we will get four editions at 10h, 14h, 18h and 21h. Now you might ask: Who are the riders and teams to wach for Paris - Roubaix? Will there be some RVV winners going for the double? Here are the (very subjective) answers:

The best (active) pavé rider around is Ondrej Kucka, a former r Quick rider currantly riding for r TAKA. With his 86.6 pavé skill and 64 sprint, he's only matched by Satwisksairaj Rankireddy from Lenny SnakeCycling with 85.9 pavé and 65 sprint. While Kucka should have top form for PR, it's questionable if Rankireddy hasn't chosen RVV as his April highlight. Anyway, both riders have an impressive support cast, some of them might having a shot on their own, like r TAKA's Tadej Pituch for example. With "only" 80 pavé but 73 sprint, he could profit from Kucka's help and lead out. An even better sprinter with a slightly wors sprint skill is Lenny's Jeppe Bruun (79.7 pavé with 79 sprint). Maybe Rankireddy rides for him? You see, both teams are stacked. And both teams look for redemption after unlucky RVV results.

There are other teams with a mighty pavé armada as well, like Tukhtahuaev or Bearclaw Cycling, also looking for redemption after RVV. While the first also has some sprint prowess with Txomin Mendiburu checking in at 64, Bearclaw is known for resisting the urge to get his pavé exhibits over 55 sprint. Still, with Forrest Riesco and his mates, he presents an impending danger to all of these pavé-sprint teams, but requires to get rid of them somehow. Something he didn't manage at RVV for exmple.

Another rider with a great pavé and sprint combo has Darius Schiffbauer from Rsc Spree (84.4 pavé, 70 sprint), but without the big support on cobblestone other than Egon Schiffbauer (81.5 pavé, 83 flat). Same for Wakara Ganambarr, who knows custodio Fortuny at his side but maybe lacks the final pavé punch and number of helpers lik Bruun or Pituch. Harryaner has Jan Mlakar with 82 pavé and 69 sprint, but also not the best overall squad for PR, despite two helpers that should be able to hang on for a long time. Romoc Riders' Leon Blond with 68 sprint has certainly more help at his side. Despite none of them having more than 82.2 pavé, the question is if anybody can get rid of the 33yo dutch.

A duo that looks nice too is the french Alkworld combo of Geroges Passerieu and Gustave Garrigou, who might have some brasilian help at their side. I am sure, both frenchmen would love to win this race on their home soil. Lots of other teams have a nice pavé duo as well, with more or less support, like Pokemonogatari, Team Viromet, etc. Gipfelstuemer even with a trio, but neither outstanding in pavé nor sprint. But we've seen what their capable of at RVV. Same for Romoc Riders around Leon Blond with 68 sprint.

And then, there are the solo artist like Petrus Oellibrandt (Fraegg), Carlos Alcantara (SV Furpach, 35 yo!), Hannes Glaser (Chemitz Pro Cycling Team), Burkheart Ellis (Bugatti) or Werner Hofbauer (High Flyer). The best pavé rider on paper (87.7 pavé!), Pavol Polievka is currently employed at Chartreuse Monks, how has one race in his statistics for March. Will he participate. But even then, Pavol has no support at all. Although there are still good pavé riders on the transfermarket to be bought. Maybe a surprise appearance? Who knows.

Of course, surprises are always possible with over 66 riders with 80 or more pavé currently having at least 1 point. And I am sure I forgot somebody. Anyway, have a fun time on these cobbles

[Robyklebt]

Scheldeprijs!!

Toulet! After Anton Hasler in 06, our second win here!

Race went perfectly, no attacks until a solo rider that was never a danger, thought I start at 6', which was early, others started earlier, Donkey joined a bit, but did less than Taka (with IMO topfavorite Kucka) and Imperdor (sprinter under 60 pavé, very optimistic) Second last Broekstraat, Kucka siebs, Chassot dropped, Bucquoy stays, but fights quite a bit. Toulet stays, Roy and Glück the helpers too. I chase in the back wait for the Imperdor group, where he wasn't riding strangely enough. Others though. Not waiting better, STringfellow won 2" on Taka the next km, then waited, there we lost time...

IMO mistake by Taka then to do an attack, group with sprinters comes back. Mistake by Donkey too, not the best sprinter in the peloton anymore. Was contemplating going in to cover around then, decided to just have Glück (helper all day) follow) IF Taka was just going to sieb again, then riding with Taka in the first peloton good, but if he attacks with Kucka anyway, no point, I simply can't hold him with only Fortuny-Ganambarr relatively fit, 89 vs 84+80...
Then Kucka goes as expected, 3". Block by Fortuny quite good, better than expected. Very unsieby though, Isidro 92 sprinter from Imperdor still there 58.5 pavé, thought even Fortuny would sieb him. Not ideal, but on the other hand ideal, because now Imperdor with his 87 has reason to ride. The second one in front with Wafi/Glück/Uchiha from the earlier attack. All in, Fortuny, Roy, Imperdor. And rather pointlessly riders from Azzurro (he might be new, but looked a bit like a comebacker) and Schappy, they had nothing to gain from tempo. Ok, places, but if you end up 12th and 17th, and more couldn't really be expected, should you really ride? For these 5 places you gain? Caught in 2 km that Kucka. Without Imperdor I doubt he's caught, unless Azzurro and Schappy come in then too, but no 87. So yes, I think Taka shouldn't have tried that Wafittack.

Sprint: And that's the reason I write this post, thought woudl be short, but got caught up in the whole race now. The Donkey can still sprint! Yes, the RVV sprint is still bothering me. Did the train in Omloop, surprising everybody, this time everybody expects it, everybody follows, Ganambarr probably a bit unfitter than others.. completely forgot that everybody behind me would have another 60+ sprinter in his wheel, stupid, stupid.
So this time: Ganambarr-Bucquoy-Toulet. Chassot on Isidro. Worked perfectly. Was thinking about Ganambarr-Bucquoy only, since was afraid Isidro would be on my number 1, Toulet, but he wasn't. Could wait till 250 to go with Bucquoy, which dropped Isidro who was behind his helper. 100 for Toulet, easy win. Donkey can sprint! Donkey avoided the temptation to try other things. Going with Chassot from far, 9th in line, only a 61 on his wheel, go with him, then don't follow with Bucquoy, but let Chassot have the chance to win it. Or wait more with Bucquoy, wait till 200, wait till 50 with Toulet. Donkey managed to resist all these temptations, after all Toulet was the leader, he had number 1, I was here to ride for him, Bucquoy and especially Chassot were not really expected to be there (Second sieb from Kucka probably drops Bucquoy too, then Fortuny-Ganambarr-Toulet can be beatable for Pituch)

Anyway, Donks can sprint!!!! He still knows how. Yes, with Isidro not following my leader, with everything falling in place perfectly for me somehow was easy, but didn't fuck it up.

Kebede and Winzenried have already said that they want to win this next year!