Junior and U23 thread (Spoilers)

[DeadCalm]

Stg 1 of Boucles de L'Oise saw Aussie wonder kid Lachlan Stewart get his first road win in Europe.
He rides for Decathlon kiddies team and smashed a load of Aussie track records before coming to Europe, definatley one to follow, and he is only 16.

Decathlon taking over from Team GRENKE - Auto Eder as the dominant junior team this year.

 

[DeadCalm]

Benjamin Noval only 5th in Laudio Saria, a Spanish National race, was a little surprising until I realised it was an U23 event.

 

[DeadCalm]

Decathlon's Aubin Sparfel with an impressive uphill sprint to take S4 of l'Avenir. Looking forward to seeing what he can do in the WT when he turns pro next year.

Driesen regains yellow.

 

[DeadCalm]

Stg 1 of Boucles de L'Oise saw Aussie wonder kid Lachlan Stewart get his first road win in Europe.
He rides for Decathlon kiddies team and smashed a load of Aussie track records before coming to Europe, definatley one to follow, and he is only 16.

Ended up 4th overall. He effectively lost it on the TT where he came in 45 seconds down on De Smet who is also one to keep an eye on. De Smet is having some excellent results and is still a first year junior.

 

[DeadCalm]

Dexter Townsend has just won the Vuelta Junior a la Ribera del Duero. I know nothing about him apart from the fact that he's 18, British and has had some decent results. They are decent enough that, were I a talent scout for an U23 development squad, I'd be taking a closer look.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Ended up 4th overall. He effectively lost it on the TT where he came in 45 seconds down on De Smet who is also one to keep an eye on. De Smet is having some excellent results and is still a first year junior.

The race also featured some kid nearly getting mowed down by a car going round a roundabout 🤬

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?...JVVoDk8HSUiG5Js9Qt3ul&id=100000468650411&_rdr

 

[DeadCalm]

The race also featured some kid nearly getting mowed down by a car going round a roundabout 🤬

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?...JVVoDk8HSUiG5Js9Qt3ul&id=100000468650411&_rdr

That's terrible.

 

[Archie from BR]

The race also featured some kid nearly getting mowed down by a car going round a roundabout 🤬

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?...JVVoDk8HSUiG5Js9Qt3ul&id=100000468650411&_rdr

I think I read something similar happed on stg 1 of TOB Womens race.
Maeve Plouffe had a mechanical and was 2 mins of the back of the peloton whan some bright spark opend the road and she was surrouded by live traffic.
You have probably already disscused it and I just missed the chat

 

[No Ta Doctor]

I think I read something similar happed on stg 1 of TOB Womens race.
Maeve Plouffe had a mechanical and was 2 mins of the back of the peloton whan some bright spark opend the road and she was surrouded by live traffic.
You have probably already disscused it and I just missed the chat

Think it was on the Fin Tarling thread. The question we had then was: how often is this actually happening, without getting reported?
It seems like we wefre right that it's happening all the bloody time in smaller races

 

[Archie from BR]

Think it was on the Fin Tarling thread. The question we had then was: how often is this actually happening, without getting reported?
It seems like we wefre right that it's happening all the bloody time in smaller races

That's why I missed it on here then, couldn't bring myself to read that thread, I have lost to many cycling mates over the years and I don't like reading that sort of thing.

 

[Archie from BR]

Anyway stage 5 of l'Avenir was not disrupted by a storm and as expected Lorenzo Finn smashed the MTT to win by 34 secs. This gives him the yellow by 58 secs over Diesel.
Stage 6 sees the young men tackle the Queen stage which finishes on Col de L'Iseran. so it's 149 km with 4973 m of vertical

 

[Blazing Saddles]

Anyway stage 5 of l'Avenir was not disrupted by a storm and as expected Lorenzo Finn smashed the MTT to win by 34 secs. This gives him the yellow by 58 secs over Diesel.
Stage 6 sees the young men tackle the Queen stage which finishes on Col de L'Iseran. so it's 149 km with 4973 m of vertical

Yesterday’s abandoned Vuelta climb seemed endless. That was a lot less than half the Col de L’Iseran. It’s categorised as 47km at 4.5%.(PCS has it as 35kms)
That’s one hell of a long grind.
Add to that Saises and the Cormet and that’s half the entire stage is uphill.

 

[DeadCalm]

Anyway stage 5 of l'Avenir was not disrupted by a storm and as expected Lorenzo Finn smashed the MTT to win by 34 secs. This gives him the yellow by 58 secs over Diesel.
Stage 6 sees the young men tackle the Queen stage which finishes on Col de L'Iseran. so it's 149 km with 4973 m of vertical

Finn is overwhelming favourite to win.

However, I can't help but think back to the magnificent Joe Blackmore ambush of Pablo Torres on stage 5 of the 2024 l'Avenir where Torres was also overwhelming favourite. Early in the race, Blackmore (who was about a minute down on Torres) bridged to the break containing his teammate Louis Dutton. By the time Torres realised (no race radios) they were already several minutes ahead. Dutton buried himself on the front of the break. Torres' team weren't reducing the gap and Torres panicked and set off alone to chase. He ended up losing 5 minutes to Blackmore giving Blackmore a 3.55 minute lead on GC. Next day (the final day) Torres attacked from the bottom of the Colle delle Finestre with Blackmore gamely trying to limit his losses. It came right down to the wire. For a long time it looked as though Torres was going to take the win but Blackmore held on to take the GC by a mere 12 seconds.

Incidentally, Finn's team does not look ideally set up to support him in the mountains. Blanc has retired and, of the remaining four, only Noah Lindholm Møller Andersen has any climbing pedigree and he's not long back from injury.

 

[DeadCalm]

Ha. Finn's "team" possibly stronger than I anticipated. Italy now helping Bora on the front of the peloton.

 

[DeadCalm]

Finn out of virtual yellow. This is starting to get interesting.