watch out for Schachmann. just shoved down an ice pack

If Formolo is still in at the end, he can climb.
I'll take him as a dark horse, but they better keep riding.

not to be outdone, WvA also shoved down an ice pack earlier

time to grab your gelatto and top off your Brunello, it's about to be on like DOnkey Kong

It's really hard to judge who's weak/strong. They're all playing the game well.

Bookwalter is with Stybar! Good on him. GO BB!

It's up to Max.

this might be tight. WvA could easily lose 10 seconds on that uphill

edit: third time the charm!

Looked like if Formolo had worked more to bring him back instead of trying to make Max work, they might have caught him. Formolo had some left it appeared.

Lots of shattered guys rolling in.

Well deserved by WvA. He strong-manned that one.

When he came back with a Cx win in February, was excited he might be fully recovered.

And Remco cemented today as well.

Great restart to the season!

Picks of the litter!
---------------------------------------------------------------

O'Grady is retired, I think :p

urgggg forgot to post here but I posted in twitter :(

Van Aert is a proven RACER during summer time - he did it last year during the tdf

btw: Ann is UNTOUCHABLE - She is amazing as well!

btw2: MVPD looks "solid" on the bike - looks like he needs to lose a few lbs and Sagan just not the same anymore

---

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 only had time to watch the last 15k so I did not see how the race developed.
But holy cow the time gaps are huge!
I mean big names are like 10-15 minutes down.

Also Brent Bookwalter!, coming in with Stybar and GvA, and top 10, who saw that coming?

So apparently, Alaphilippe fell and MvdP had a puncture; this was with more than 60 kms to go. Perhaps decided it was gonna cost too much to get on terms with everyone else and just rode easy?

Around 40 kms to go, on the longest gravel sector, it really blew apart, with six riders in the front group. That fell apart with about 18 kms to go

From the 15 seconds of camera footage on MdVP, he looked cracked to me, and I think he was falling off one of the front-ish groups. Maybe the God of Winter has kryptonite in the heat?

I heard the announcer say LFF had had a couple of mishaps, but never saw him. I'm curious how Stybar missed the front group. He clearly had tons of firepower left once that group was away.

VAN DERT. What a win, what a race. Gotta think that makes him a fav for next week—he’s got form, climbing well, has a big sprint and doesn’t seem to be bothered by heat.

That race was as good as it gets. 5 star epic.

He's got no lack of confidence either. During the post-race interview he was asked about how he handled the final selection of 6 guys (which included 3 Monument winners in Bettiol, Fuglsang, and GvA). I'm paraphrasing, but he said something like, "I didn't think any of them were really threats, but I decided to drop them anyway."

Believe he was talking in context of final climb into Sienna, and commented that it’s always better to go on attack at that race regardless.

But yeah, that was some real firepower in front group and he dismantled it with relative ease. Appears as though he’s arrived as a classics man... at 25 yo.

And how about young Jedi at Burgos, in complete control?

He showed just a little bit of weakness. Sosa opened a few seconds gap on him, and it didn't look like that was just graciousness on the part of Evenepoel.

That's what I get for typing on a phone and having autocorrect on. That post was an abomination besides calling Van Aert. Mega ride. I can't wait to see his power.

All of my top 3 in the top 5 in the end, I should've continued the game and scored some points :p

Awesome race to start the season! The last 20-25k I thought Wout was doing way too much work compared to the others, almost looked like he was doing 50% of the work on his own. He knew some of them could out punch him on the final climb and let his big engine speak, great race!

Too bad they didn't show van Vleuten pulling away from the peleton and riding up to the chase group, all of a sudden she just was there and then dropped them as well. Garcia's descending/cornering was appauling though, Typical du-/triathlete.

Annamiek is going to need to not win a few races for this to remain believable.

I was hoping a bit that they would come back together before the final climb, and then just have a free for all up it between her, van der Breggen, Vos,.. One of those typical Marianne Vos punches that would make most pro men cry.

Yeah, but Sosa was so far our of contention it didn’t matter. Perhaps going on attack was a big ambitious and left himself vulnerable. But that’s pretty minor to beat a quality field of climbers, and without a TT to do it.

For MSR I’m picking whoever you do.

Let’s just hope there aren’t a bunch of CV positives after this weekend...