Quickstep was half a step ahead of themselves and instructed Terpstra to stop taking turns on the front, hoping that the peloton would catch everyone and setting up a sprint for Gaviria. There was signs that this might happen as the peloton was getting closer to the rather disorganized front group(s). This prompted Sagan to sit up and let the gap open, throwing away his own chances in the process

that 12-person group was never meant to last when you have the following:

Degenkolb: no one wants to drag him to the line, even when sharing the pace (e.g. 2015 Roubaix)
Matthews: had excuse not to do work when he has a teammate
EBH: had excuse not to do work when he has a teammate

Meanwhile, you have people who wouldn't want to be with sprinters even if they do the work (e.g. GvA and Terpstra). Add up all that, and the 12-person group was never going to gain time on the peloton if the former were to stay together. Quickstep was foolish in thinking that the dwindling gap was due to a lack of firepower when it was cohesion that was lacking. They gambled by folding a good hand (telling Terpstra to stop pulling), believe they had something better in store.

I would be frustrated with terpstra as well, he freewheeled in 3rd, lets the gap open for no reason then expects other to close it down, Sagan should have just closed it but was annoyed and wanted others to close it, nobody coooerated and GVA gets an easy win. Not sure what QS tactics are lately, but Boonen was right, sagan has to act right away.

Well after his last couple of 2nds-3rd I'be been hearing a lot of comment-section chatter saying that Sagan needs to learn that sometimes you have to be willing to lose in order to win. (I love comment-section Cat 4s man-splainin' bike racing to the 2-time World Champ). I guess they should be happy now that he was willing to lose.

To be fair Boonen is not quite a cat 4 and he was right, people would rather force Sagan to lose than win. This is what happened to cancellara and boonen on occasion. Nobody is going to work with a two time world champ. In thr last 15k gaps are very hard to close and you cant afford to look around.

Oh, no, I totally get it. Though Boonen is a little whiny there. Complaining that you would have made the break except that one guy opened a gap is kind of a Cat 4 deal.

The question I have, Sagan's only play was to shut down the gap though right. So is he just tired of everyone pointing the finger at him all the time? Did he simply not want to close the gap no matter what...i know he tried in vein once but never really got close and the other 2 guys pretty easily got on his wheel.

I guess I was just shocked that the key 5 man break goes with what 15k, and then kinda more or less a pissing match over making the move to close to gap was the reason why the 2 got away from the Sagan group. Just seems like if you close that gap, you have 5 guys to go at 13k and then you can "sit in" for majority of the finish until you want to make your final move.

Did he really not want to close the gap because he just felt used too much?

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

a lot of race winning moves are product of this sort of situation than one'd imagine. Fortuitous, perhaps, but fortune favors the brave (who are already up front). Re-watch the 2009 UCI world road race championship in Mendrisio. The group of three that got away on the second try. Cancellara closed the gap initially to the three out front, but no one would rotate through. So the gap grew again after Cancellara sat up.

  
"Oh, no, I totally get it. Though Boonen is a little whiny there. Complaining that you would have made the break except that one guy opened a gap is kind of a Cat 4 deal.[/quote]


Though it would be cool to be hanging out post race leaning on the bike saying, "Yeah, that friggin' Sagan dude, you know the guy with all the hair, he let a gap open so I had to go around him and close it. Burnt a few matches there, so, yeah..."

It was funny to see QS start freaking out after they realized they were going to stay away and the whole terpstra move backfired, three riders in the initial move......none on the podium. In the end Flanders should be very good, though i think with the ease that Sagan closed GVA's attack today we will see a similar race to last year. Roubaix should be exceptional with some clear frustrations between teams and QS still looking for a big win this season. I think GVA might run out of steam by the time Roubaix rolls around but time will tell. Right now he is grinding people down to nothing and making smart moves.

I missed it live while it happened too, and on the replay i got the same sense, he wasn't going to budge.
about 11:45min into this:
http://www.steephill.tv/...4wHTbLjk&yr=2017

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http://www.PatGriskusTri.com USAT Certified Race Director
2024 Races: USAT State of CT Age Group Championship/State of CT HS Champs/ CT Club Championship - Sat June 15th (Oly/Du/Sprint) Hopkins Vineyard Tri at Lake Waramaug Saturday July 13th http://www.HopkinsVineyardTri.com

I saw it live and he literally sat up and waved his arm at Terpstra (or in his direction) in a "wtf dude" kind of expression when he let the group split. It was quite odd when not 2 minutes later Sagan jumped them around the median and then Terpstra put in a monster dig to close a much more costly gap that got all 3 of them nowhere just more tired. Live and learn. GvA was lucky to be on the front at that time and benefited neatly from the discord. I think Sagan may have already been a bit pissed when he had to go around several people to get to Greg during the initial attack. That one's on him, though - it was clear GvA was going to attack and he was not on his wheel when it happened. I think he may have just made it to the front after being held up in the Tony Martin crash though. Either way - some of this was his own doing.

I saw a video in Slovak where (I'm assuming) his masseur or his brother said "no dobre" ~ "all right" after the race while Sagan was drinking water. He got super pissed an let loose a string of expletives along the lines of "all right? I'm racing with fucktard fucking fuck" and slammed his bottle to the ground. I hope this makes him hungry, and smarter. I'd hate to see him try to brute force his way to the front in Flanders and then blow up in the last 2K because of it.

I was just shocked and disappointed because it was like "guys you are in the winning move"....and then the pissing match w 15k to go and then suddenly not in the winning move. Just seemed like a really wasted opportunity. Does Sagan just tire of being looked at to do the work? Or did he simply want to prove a point, which if he did, cool but you lost too.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

It was funny to see QS start freaking out after they realized they were going to stay away and the whole terpstra move backfired, three riders in the initial move.....


I must say - QS makes some of the strangest team moves in situations like this.

They had numbers - in the front in a chasing group and in what was left of the main peleton, to really turn this in their favour but, they came up empty handed. They do this regularly.

When When Terpstra sat up, that was still with 15K or so to go - still a reasonable distance to the line. That was also the point where the main peleton with QS's Gavaria in it, was closest to the two groups out front. So there may have been a call over the radio - "Let's set this up for a field sprint for Gavaria". After-all Gent Wevelgen is often referred to as the Sprinters Cobbled Classic. They had, had a couple of podiums recently with Gilbert - one of their key All-Rounders - let's set this up for one of our sprinters. I'm sure Terpstra was not to pleased about this, if indeed this is what happened.

Obviously the whole plan back-fired on them.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Right? It's the perennial "we have too many options so we try to juggle and lose them all" problem with QS. I guess it's not fair to call it perennial when they used to put 3 guys on the podium in Musseuw's time but still.

Sagan needs to get himself onto Greg's wheel in a small group like this so if people want to play tactics they'll just drop themselves from contention. I wonder how the dynamics may have changed just from a positioning difference like that. Perhaps both GvA and Sagan would have gotten annoyed if they had 2-3 passengers hoping to nip a podium spot without work.

Should be exciting next weekend!

Sagan as well as fabian back in the day have a point on QS... Every single year is the same "we have too many options" which usually means that they will have a guy on the front doing NOTHING and usually finishing out the top 3.

Nikki won one but that was on Sky, and Giant because they had multiple guys and nobody wanted to cover the attack. Sometimes it seems they want to win doing the less amount of work and that usually it is not how classics work.

For Flanders and PRBX it is ahrd to see anybody other than Sagan or GVA winning.

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

Take away: Sagan is so good that entire loaded Classics team screws their own pooch. Again.

Sagan loses, QS loses, BMC with one very good, committed guy to ride for wins.

EXACTLY!

I actually think this was a smart move by Sagan. You gotta prove to the other teams that u "don't care" if u lose but u are not going to drag anybody to the finish line. Now he can play: I have win enough how about u? card. I bet more riders will feel compel to help now.

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

I think we've known for a while that QS can lose a race on it's own, thankyouverymuch. :)

The tactics that worked so well in the era where Boonen was dominant don't work so well when you don't have the trump card to play.

exactly. I think Sagan has realized that he can win every race he enters. he is always in the hunt. look at MSR; he took off on a flyer and almost won the dang thing.

on the cobbles he seems to think that he will work with anyone but not be played. and why should he? he's got more wins coming. if you want to dump your shot, ok, he'll take a third and win next week. he really makes these guys look like chumps.

The tactics that worked so well in the era where Boonen was dominant don't work so well when you don't have the trump card to play.


I seem to recall that when Boonen was at his best, QS was ALL-IN for Tom.

In recent years, the approach for QS seems to be load the team up with as many options as possible - and then we what happened yesterday, or I think it was last year or the year before where Ian Stannard from Sky, solo, was able to out-whit 3 QS riders for a win in another Spring Classic!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Sagan's sit-up made perfect sense; if he closes the gap, Terpstra continues to not pull, nobody in the group will work, and everybody loses anyways. The sprinting peleton almost caught Sagan/Terpstra (SKA ended up in 16th), and even though GVA and Keukeleire worked in perfect tandem until 2km, they only finished 6' ahead.

yep, sometimes they are "too smart" for their own good hahaha.

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

The "How The Race Was Won" episode from that race was a classic.

I was expressly thinking of the two Flanders that Devolder won because he could attack and know that Boonen behind was the ultimate trump card - though I realize that they may not have pulled this tactic in every race. Lately it seems their intent is to just shut stuff down by sitting on wheels and hope that Gaviria can win the bunch sprint.

What they really need to do is put men in every group (preferably the front ones) and commit to the one group where they have the numbers.

GVA and Keuleleire were putzing the final 1km leading into the last 200m and lost about 20 seconds. I actually timed it, and they slowed to 24mph for a km or so. Actually just went to see if the Strava file was uploaded. 28.8 mph for the 4 miles leading into 1200m to go, then 24mph for 1 km, before sprinting. So 17 seconds lost there. The two up front knew what they could get away with; the peloton was never going to catch a committed break.

If instead you had the peloton snipping at their heels, they'd have had a larger time margin

What they need to do is to stick someone who can sprint in small group breakaways and have Terpstra do solo efforts only. Terpstra, though having a decent sprint (he rides the Madison), isn't as explosive as some. Having him bridge and sit up is idiotic. Where was Stybar? That would have been placed a rider who could contend in a sprint (and Stybar has beaten Sagan in the Czech-Slovak national championship from a 2-up sprint)

This also reminds me of the 2014 RvV, which was Cancellara's last Monument win. Stijn VDB refused to work with GVA for more than 15 km, even on the downhills. Dude ended up fourth in the end. Who knows, may be the two of them could have stayed away from Cancellara had VDB contributed.

Quickstep's we ride only for the win spiel is a load of BS as they pull that s*** when they don't have someone who could win in the second group.