News Digest 07.04.12

Energiewacht Tour Stages 4a and 4b - Tour of the Basque Country Stage 6

Energiewacht Tour 2012 Stages 4a and 4b

Stage 4a - click to enlarge
(image credit: Energiwacht Tour)

Stage 4a (Saturday 7th) both starts and ends at Winsum, a town sometimes termed the treasure of the north according to the Tour website - with two traditional Dutch mills and what is reputed to be The Netherlands' oldest pub (Der Gouden Karper) set among quintessentially Dutch countryside.

The parcours leaves Winsom to the north, travelling up to Baflo and then taking a long, fast loop west and south-west to Mensingeweer. Next, it heads east along a road called the Wildeveldseweg (which must sound fantastic in a Dutch accent). Just visible to the south-west from this point is Ezinge, the oldest continually-inhabited village in the country.

The terp at Ezinge, the Netherland's oldest village
(image credit: Ruben Binnendijk CC BY-SA 3.0)

Long before the ancient tribes who would become the Dutch worked out how to drain the boggy landscape, they would create artificial islands upon which to live (now known as terps and, since drainage, resembling low hills) - the example at Ezinge is still evident and is now occupied by the village's 13th Century church. During the early 20th Century, worked who dug peat for fuel began finding strange objects that were obviously of great age in the area, soon attracting the attention of archaeologists who found many more - including Roman artifacts and part of a sword almost identical to another dicovered at the Sutton Hoo ship burial in Great Britain. By dating the objects, they determined that people have lived in Ezinge since at least 600BCE, making it among the oldest continually-inhabited villages anywhere in Europe. The riders will complete five laps of the route, which should allow Ezinge to be seen even if there is early morning mist, bringing them up to a total of 76.6km.

Stage 4b, the team time trial, takes place on Saturday afternoon and covers 26.5km, beginning at Veendam some way off to the south-east from 4a. After beginning in the centre of the town on JG Pinksterstraat (53° 6'19.91"N 6°52'27.74"E), the teams pass through the streets and cross the canal, then the N33 motorway as they head into the flat fields. A route made up of fast straights punctuated with 25 bends and corners will make for a fast stage, but one in which a slower rider could very easily be dropped off the back of the squad and never find her way back. When they arrive at Oude Pekela, they follow Feiko Clockstraat into town, then turn left to arrive at the finish on Raadhuislaan (53° 6'17.39"N 7° 0'24.65"E).

Stage 4b - click to enlarge
(image credit: Energiwacht Tour)

Marianne Vos has pointed out that Stage 4b is likely to prove the pivotal point in the campaign of any rider - including herself - who hopes to win this race, because a race leader's General Classification advantage can very rapidly be wiped out by a slow team. For fans and rivals, this is our first opportunity to see how well the Rabobank Women's team, which was formed with the express intention of supporting Vos, performs under team time trial race conditions; making this stage one of the most important races so far this season.


Cyclopunk's prediction: GreenEDGE take the stage, but with an insufficient advantage to knock Marianne off the top spot in the GC

Weather: The riders face a chilly start to the day - it's currently only 4C at Baflo, and with a northerly wind of 25kph it feels more like -2C, possibly -4C in exposed places. At present, it's raining lightly - it should dry up later, but further showers are likely. Veendam looks set to be similar, though afternoon temperatures of 7C will at least feel above freezing though not by much, perhaps 3C.

As ever, the best way to get information during the race is by following the official Twitter @ewacttour, hashtag #EWT12 and @richiesteege. Local TV RTL7 is broadcasting a short highlights show daily: Stage 4a will be shown at 14:45 BST (+1 hour for local time/CEST), Stage 4b will be shown along with Stage 5 tomorrow at the same time.

Stage 1 (video) / 2 / 3 / 4a / 4b / 5 / Guide / Video Vault

Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco

Stage 6 - click to enlarge
(image credit: Diario Vasco) 

Far away to the south, the Tour of the Basque Country enters its sixth and final stage (final stage? Seriously? How did that happened already?!). It's an 18.9km individual time trial and the only stage in this race without mountains, though there are two small hills to take the edge off top speeds.

By the looks of things, it's going to be a a very interesting stage, too: a look at the General Classification reveals numerous riders who could win overall simply by winning today - the top 17 riders are all within a minute of one another. Climbers Joaquin Rodriguez (currently 1st in GC, Katusha) and Samuel Sanchez (currently 2nd, Euskaltel-Euskadi) have got some serious work to do today, not just if either one of them would like to win this year but simply in order to finish in the top 10.

So you're racing Tony Martin in an
individual time trial? Good luck with
that one, chaps.
(image credit: Petit Brun CC BY-SA 2.0)

Will they do it? Hard to say. The riders currently in the top positions are, unsurprisingly, almost all climbers; but there are some good all-rounders seeded among them - Michele Scarponi (5th, Lampre-ISD), Ryder Hesjedal (8th, Garmin-Barracuda), Chris Horner (10th, RadioShack-Nissan). Most dangerous of all, however, is Tony Martin of Omega Pharma-QuickStep. 56" is a big gap to make up, but Martin is the man who took the World Time Trial Championship from Fabian Cancellara. If anyone can do it, Martin's your man.

Weather: More rain. Worse still, it'll come as scattered showers, so some riders may have enjoy a dry course while others have to tackle it wet - which can make all the difference and lose the race. Currently, the temperature in Onati is a chilly 6C, which probably feels more like 0C with the 17kph westerly wind. It should warm up to around 12C this afternoon and, since the wind will change to south-west (coming over land rather than sea) it'll feel like 12C too.


Euskal Irrati Telebista provide a free and legal stream of the race each day from 14:15 (BST - add 1h for CEST).


Tour of the Basque Country: 1 (video) / 2 (video) / 3 (video) / 4 (video) / 5 / 6

Tour de France: Stage 2 Preview

Yesterday's Stage 1 was a total crash-fest with rider after rider going down, which means the team masseurs will have been working hard all evening soothing aching muscles in preparation for the rigours of today's team time trial which, being almost entirely flat over its 23km course and not especially technical, is likely to encourage pedal-to-the-metal extreme high speed.

No signs of the climbs which will, ultimately, decide the 2011 Tour in today's team time trial stage.

The race remains in the Vendee region with the start and finish in Les Essarts, a town noted for its 11th Century castle (there's some disagreement on the age - Vendee tourist info says 11th C., the Tour de France website says 12th C.) and St. Peter's Church which has every appearance of a cathedral picked up in a city and then set down again in this town of a little over 5000 people and which the Tour website insists is built on the site of a 12th C. Roman church, despite the fact that the Western Roman Empire had come to an end some seven centuries prior to the 12th C. That aside, Les Essarts is one of those quintessentially French towns, popular with British visitors seeking an authentic French experience, and residents have always provided a very warm and enthusiastic welcome for the Tour's numerous visits so they'll be really pushing the boat out in celebration today when their town serves as both start and finish.

The 11th C. Old Chateau in Les Essarts.

From Les Essarts, the road is almost poker-straight to Boulogne, an attractive small town 8.5km from the starting line which, though claiming to have a "modest" economy on its website, has won a number of awards for its public flower beds. All French towns consider it a very great honour to be visited by le Tour, so a town known for its flowers in one of the most cycling-obsessed parts of the country is likely to be colourful to say the very least. Next comes a road that, but for one sweeping bend, is perfectly straight and made for helicopter footage as the teams build up to full speed, then a sharp left-hander taking them through the tiny Ste. Melanie des Gats as they turn back towards Les Essarts. Travelling along the D98 road, they'll pass patchwork fields and a small wooded section before coming to La Merlatière, a quiet country town with around 800 residents. The road then remains straight, passing La Maison Neuve des landes, site of a new village which when complete will feature 650 homes,  until one final sweeping bend heads back into Les Essarts with several corners requiring concentration as the riders make their way at high speed through town to the finish line.

Team time trials have a habit of changing General Classification standings dramatically, because it's all about the team rather than the individual. In this instance, the time awarded to each team will be that recorded as the fifth rider crosses the line and so they must work together, swapping places and slipstreaming according to each rider's strength and specialities, in order to maintain maximum efficiency. Enormous amounts of time are spent and data examined in pursuit of this goal, but cycling is not an exact science - it only takes one rider to be having a slightly off day and the very best laid plans can begin to crumble, causing riders and team bosses to have to think fast and on the fly if the team is to perform as well as possible.

With well-rehearsed tactics and highly specialised bikes, team time trials encourage high speeds.

Team Sky have stated that doing well in the time trial is one of their main objectives in this Tour, and with Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas - both excellent time trialists - on the squad they can be expected to record an impressive time. HTC-Highroad, Garmin and RadioShack will also likely put on an impressive display as each team has some riders who excel int his sort of competition: TeJay van Garderen, David Millar and Dimitry Muravyev are all names that spring to mind. LeopardTrek are a team dominated by the big name mountain specialists Andy and Frank Schleck but it would be a serious mistake to underestimate them today because they have a fearsome weapon in the shape of Fabian Cancellara, considered by many to be the finest time trialist in the world today and who is more than capable of getting his team across the line with an impressive time.

When it gets down to it, we think today is going to be all about Sky and LeopardTrek, but while we're hoping for the British team to win we really wouldn't want to put a bet on it.

Local weather looks set to be very warm by the time the racing starts with maximum temperatures up to around 26 degrees celsius. Wind speed should vary with gusts between 19 and 30kmph - the parcours is described as largely sheltered, but crosswinds may cause problems in some sections.

Devil Watch: that wooded bit just before La Merlatière may prove a likely spot - in general, the Devil prefers a climb near the finish but with the total lack of hills today he could opt for tree cover instead. Look out for his trademark trident symbols painted on the road, an indicator that he's haunting the roadside somewhere nearby.