Preparing For Paris - Roubaix

It is quite a long time since I've spoken about Classics but Paris - Roubaix is a very special race.
I love to hear every year the same refrain about the new powerful and innovative suspensions that  bikes constructor have prepared for the race.
It makes me laugh so much.
Specialized Roubaix bikes have amused me enough. This year I want to talk about the new Pinarello Dogma FS. "The carbon frame features electronic front and rear suspension system. A battery pack is located in the seat tube of the bike and powers the two suspension units, enabling them to adapt to the road surfaces as they change."
We have now read the presentation of this new fantastic technology and we are nodding at this great idea.
Now, I invite you to watch the picture above.
What the hell are we talking about?
Do you believe that a battery pack under your ass can make you feel more comfortable while riding a humpback cobblestones sector? Please, be serious.
That's the reason why I love Paris - Roubaix, you can't bluff.
In recent year I decided to boycott brands that create silly bikes ahead of Paris - Roubaix.
These brands desecrate this incredible race just to have a bit more of visibility.
The preparation of Paris - Roubaix is something spiritual.
During the recognition you just try to be part of the sector, to become a cobble, to adjust the pressure of your tires so as not to hurt the cobbles too much.
This is the only preparation you need and your bike should be as basic as possible, because in order to merge yourself with the simplicity of a stone, you have to be simple as well.
See you on Sunday.

2019 UCI Cyclocross World Championships

For a moment I thought about calling this Impression Coppi & Bartali.
I don't think the comparison is too much.
They are the most interesting rivalry in cycling at the moment and the upcoming World Championships will be their true final battle.
They are moving to road cycling and, even if I hope they will battle in the same way on the road, we all know it won't be the same.
They both lost the cyclocross World Cup so they have just one last goal.
I hope and I'm pretty sure it will be an epic final battle in the cold north of Denmark.
It doesn't matter what will happen on Sunday, these two guys will be remembered together.
You won't pronounce Van Der Poel without recalling Van Aert and vice versa, this means being part of cycling history.

Cycling Impressions Interviews: Elena Pirrone

We had the pleasure to interview a World and European Champion: Elena Pirrone.
The talented girl from Bolzano, Italy, is currently riding for Astana Womens Team in the UCI Women's World Tour.
Here is what she told us at the start of 2019 cycling season.

Hi Elena and thank you, I'am excited and a bit nervous. I've never interviewed a World Champion before! I'll try to do my best.
Where does your love for cycling come from?
Hi! It is a pleasure for me too. My passion for cycling comes from my parents.
They are both former riders. When I was younger I loved following my dad at his races to cheer him.

This is nice! When did you jump on a bike for the first time and who put you on it?
To be honest, I can't remember how old I was, probably I was 3 but I'am not sure.
What I remember is that I had a red tricycle which I really loved and with which I always went around.

Let's move to your first races. Did you start with road cycling or cyclocross and which is your favorite?
I don't like cyclocross. When I was sixteen I did a couple of races just for fun but I prefer road cycling.
Cyclocross is too muddy and cold for me! I like watching it on TV.

Ahaha, I see your point. You have already won a World title and a European title, which is something fantastic, but what is your favorite race?
I love hard races in general.
I like Strade Bianche and the Ronde Van Vlaanderen but, unfortunately, I haven't had the occasion to race them yet.

Last question and thank you again for your time Elena. What do you want to say to boys and girls that would like to try to be pro riders?
All I can say is to always follow your dreams and never give up, because if you really want something it will come true.

Thank you very much Elena and good luck! Cycling Impressions will always be a fan of you!
Thank you!

The Hat of the Impressionist

Cycling Impressionists, here is the symbol of our brotherhood!
You can order the Hat writing an e-mail to cycligimpressions@gmail.com
(Fast delivery and shipping worldwide)
See ya on the roads of a great new year of cycling (impressions)!

Merry Christmas!!!

Rider of the Year 2018

Congrats Peter! You have been elected Cycling Impression's rider of the year!
Someone says that winning a Paris - Roubaix is worth a Word title, but in this case it seems more than just a hyperbole.
Despite Valverde's great victory in Innsbruck, Sagan impressed everybody with his solo attack 50 kilometers away from Roubaix and gained the last encomium of the year.
I think this happened also due to the fact that Paris - Roubaix is the last legendary race. It brings us back to the legendary old cycling, made of gravel roads, punctures and hazard.
Nevertheless, Sagan would be remembered as the last winner of THE Paris - Roubaix because I don't know if we will call the race with its legendary name in the future.
I am talking about the shameful request, made by the Amis de Paris Roubaix, to fill the gaps between the cobbles of the Arenberg Forest with mortar.
They say that, otherwise, the sector is too hard to clean.
I hope they are kidding! We are talking about one of the last legendary cycling places in a cycling world that is moving to new nice places like Oman or Dubai but where history still has to be written.
My final question is: these people, asking to add mortar between the cobbles in the Arenberg Forest, are Friends of Paris Roubaix or Friends of the Sofa?

Answer The Survey And Find Out Who Will Be The Rider Of The Year

Who is the Rider of the Year?

Nibali

Valverde

Sagan

Froome

Thomas

S. Yates

Dumoulin

Terpstra

Pinot

Viviani

 

pollcode.com free polls

Winter Cycling Season

We can talk about having a nice ride during winter season, putting on our most expensive and fashioned outfit and go, but the essence of winter is Cyclocross.
I really appreciate Van Der Poel and Van Aert that still fight during winter, choosing to postpone their road careers to honor a discipline that is not so famous around the world nowadays.
They decided to build solid basis on their natural field instead of following the popular way of road cycling.
They are sons of a full season cycling, the pure one, made with strength, balance and bike handling.
The choice to wait is a form of respect to the old concept of cycling. That will help them deeply understand everything they will do among the pro.
It will help them dealing with difficult situation, because it is when you have eaten and breath mud during the winter that you are ready to welcome the summer.
This will make the difference.

Innsbruck 2018 Men Elite Road Race

El Imbatido
I think it is hard to spend few words on what Velverde did in Innsbruck, it has been something cathartic.
He sprinted from the worst position, bringing on his shoulders the responsibility of the strongest, and in the end he won. Pure emotion.

Here you can find my grades to the teams and their tactics from 1 (very bad) to 10 (very good):

SPAIN: 10
Finally they raced as a true team moving together in the same direction.
They ended up with an historical victory with their most representative rider.

Denmark: 9.5
They were not the favorite, they used the perfect strategies with their riders.
They attacked since the beginning and almost won the race with Valgren's perfect attack.

France: 8.5
They controlled the race and prepared brought their two best riders in the best position on the final climb. There could have just been a bit more communication in the team about Alaphilippe feelings.

Canada: 8
They took a great bronze medal with a fantastic race of their captain Woods.

Holland: 6.5
This is the best season of Dumoulin but unfortunately he missed all its goals. Nevertheless, we can't blame him.
He saved the performance of its team that could have started attacking earlier in the race.

Belgium: 5
I expected more from the nation of cycling by definition. Wellens disappeared and Van Avermaet saved the race with an attack made more with pride than with legs.

Italy: 4
They raced in a decent way, trying to move the race and being reactive on the attacks during the first part of the race.
They committed a terrible suicide when they decide to push before the final climb, helping France and Spain and demolishing their entire team but Moscon.

Great Britain: 3.5
They controlled the race all day and disappeared in the final.

Colombia: 3
I'm still wondering if they were in the Peloton.

Innsbruck Preview

The circuit of the 2018 Cycling World Championships is one of the most interesting among the recent editions.
It seems to be a circuit for climbers and we could have a GC contender wearing the rainbow jersey since Cadel Evans.
Nevertheless,  with the approach of the race, the reaction of the riders is hard to believe.
Italy, with its captain Nibali, was in the short list of the possible winners but after the Tour the France crash of its captain and the horrible year of its lieutenant Aru, It has been relegated to a secondary role.
Great Britain, presenting the winner of the two grand tours so far, was in the short list as well. Nevertheless, Team Sky announced that their two champions are too tired to race the World Championships. Are you kidding me?!
The team still have two great contenders with the Yates brothers but I found hard to believe that the two strongest riders won't compete for the rainbow Jersey.
Colombia seems to be the favorite, with so many great climbers they are definitely the strongest team in Austria.
The problem will be to ride as a team; the rivalry among the Colombian champions is really hard and La Vuelta 2018 is enhancing it.
France and Holland are just below Colombia, in my opinion, they are two solid teams with a lot of tradition and can count on strong climbers.
They have less strong climbers than Columbia but their teams seem to be more organized.
Talking about Belgium, I don't think this will be the year of Belgium or of the Classics kids because the circuit looks really strong but the fact that Italy will race without a captain will not make the race as hard as planned.
In conclusion, I really wonder if this will finally be the deserved World Championships of Valverde. Spain has always had the problem of never being a team but, without Rodriguez, this time, Don Aleandro could have the chance of his life.
The team of Cycling Impressions will be in Austria providing you a lot of great contents, stay tuned!!

Paris - Roubaix 2018

How hard is it to be Sagan?
"You are a champion","you are the strongest one","you have to win", "Of course you have won, you were the strongest".
These are the main sentences we hear about Sagan. In addition to this, you have to deal with the fact that what you do will never be enough.
In Sagan's position, once you have won a race, you have just done your job.
In my opinion ,every Sagan's success is fully deserved and is praiseworthy like every other cycling victory.
We often forget that cycling is a sport for losers.
When 200 riders start a race with just one winner, it is easy to understand that 199 will loose and just one will win.
This consideration seems obvious but I invite my 25 readers to think about this sentence and repeat it as a sort of Mantra.
Sagan is accused to be more talkative than active but this is just his way to deal with the enormous pressure that he endures every race.
Imagine being in Sagan's position without laughing about it; it would be a nightmare.
It is already hard to be a cyclist, it is impossible to be a rider that must win every race he starts.
On Sunday, Sagan rode a fantastic race and deserved this incredible victory.
Celebrating his success, he said an incredible truth: you can attack and ride the perfect race but you have to be lucky.
Paris-Roubaix is such an extreme race that sometimes is the best way to normalize situations pumped too much up.
Sagan used the Paris-Roubaix to do this and he did it in the best way.
He didn't tried to arrive alone in the velodrome, starting a battle with his breakaway mate in the last kilometers, he just wanted to win.
Paris-Roubaix is a race that brings everybody back on earth, you can't theorize or preach too much, you have just to ride the most concrete thing on earth: the cobbles.
The riders know this but for people who never tried the cobbles is easy to forget.

***

I would like to express my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Michael Goolaerts.

Quick-Step Floors' Domination

Quick-Step Floors is dominating the 2018 seasons but who is really happy with this?
I think that the only people happy with Quick-Step Floors' domination are Lefevere and his staff.
In particular, in Belgium, this is a huge problem to deal with.
Their most representative team is dominating but the Belgian riders in the team are not winning any significant race, with the little exception of Lampaert's Dwars Door Vlaanderen.
Is this enough for a nation in which cycling is like a religion? I don't think so.
Also Gilbert said, with a bit of regret, that when you ride for Quick-Step Floors you can never consider yourself as The captain and you have to accept it.
My question is: if you are a champion, can you accept to have, potentially forever, a secondary role?
What would do Terpstra as the only captain of a team? He would be controlled as all the others I think.
Terpstra is a solid cobbles rider and deserved his victory but would have been the same if Van Avermaet or Sagan would have attacked?
Quick-Step Floors' strategies are the best in the world and we are witnessing an incredible phenomenon in cycling, that we have never faced before.
For the first time in cycling history, the team is the hero to admire more than its riders.
We will remember Quick-Step Floors more than its riders I think.
This phenomenon is more common in other sports such as Football or Basketball but I've never seen this happening in cycling.
Enjoy Quick-Step Floors' last miracle.

Answer The Survey And Find Out Who Will Be The Rider Of The Month

Who is the Rider of the Month?

McCarthy

Najar

Sagan

Geniez

Degenkolb

Mareczko

Wellens

Impey

Greipel

Skujiņš

 

pollcode.com free polls

Il Lombardia

What a race! Nibali won again Il Lombardia and brought Bahrain Merida its first Monument.
The race was incredibly hard and nothing more that the words of Pinot can summarize how it went: "I think Nibali is the most complete rider of the Peloton".
Despite all the critics received during the season, the Squalo came out with an incredible victory.
In the interview after the race he has already set his new objective: Innsbruck world championships.
Seeing how these last Italian classics or para-classics went, with the victory of Uran Uran, Nibali, Visconti, Geniez and with first class riders as Pinot, Quintana and Alaphilippe fighting in the up front, next year's World Champs are going to be memorable.
Nevertheless we have a season to watch and comment in which we will still enjoy Sagan wearing its natural outfit.
Stay tuned.

Bergen 2017, History Has Been Made

Love him or hate him, Peter Sagan is in the history of cycling.
For the first time a rider has been able to win 3 world championships in a row.
The third victory has been the hardest of the three for Sagan's admission too.
The circuit was really difficult to interpret and you could play your cards just one time.
Sagan is also doing something incredible, that never happened before in the history of cycling, he is identifying himself with the rainbow jersey.
You don't even know which is the team jersey of Sagan, when you see a rainbow jersey you just think is Sagan's jersey.
What will happen next year when the rainbow jersey will change owner? Will we get used to the new rainbow jersey?
We have time to think about this, but let's enjoy another year of Sagan in his most suitable jersey before.

Is Still Worth Watching The Tour De France?

The answer is No.
The Tour de France is generally quite a boring race in itself, It is full of flat stages and the climbs are always the same five every year.
What makes the Tour de France a great race is that the most iconic champions are at the start of this Grand Tour and animate it with their talent and their class.
When Valverde is out due to a bad crash and the World Champion is out due to a more than questionable decision of an unprepared jury, why should We still watch this piddling race?

P.S. If organizers are happy just with French victories, they should just decide to turn the Tour de France into the new French national championship.

Rider of the Giro 100

Congratulations Tom, you are the Rider of the Giro 100!!!
Dumoulin has been elected rider of the Giro with a plebiscite. 80% of the Impressionists voted him Rider of the Giro 100.
I've to say that It is hard to think to someone else as rider of the Giro 100. This one has definitely been the Giro of Dumoulin, a legendary one.
He has been stronger than all his opponents, he has been attacked many times, even by nature. He fought alone during three hard weeks and, in the end, succeeded.
The Giro 100 has been a memorable one and Tom Dumoulin has secured his place in history.

Global Bike To Work Day 2017

Bike to work, bike to the future.

Amstel Gold Race 2017 - School Of Cycling, School Of Life

The final kilometre of the Amstel Gold Race 2017 has been something amazing, something more than just cycling.
The two characters of this amazing show have been Kwiatkowski and Gilbert, the riders that showed the best shape in 2017 classics campaign.
They arrived in the Ardennes with prestigious and spectacular victories conquered this year in the previous classics. Today, they found themselves in this emotional final kilometre where just one of them, in the end, would have won.
The final has been absolutely unpredictable: Kwiatkowski, apparently stronger than Gilbert in a sprint, showed Gilbert respect, refusing to take the lead in the final kilometre.
This has been a mistake, the last kilometre became a psychological and tactical battle, but more that a matter of strategy, the final duel turned out to be a mental toughness question.
Kwiatkowski used the same strategy that in March had given him his great Milano - Sanremo victory but, this time, he wasn't fighting with Sagan and Alaphilippe, two young and bumptious riders.
His opponent, today, was a clever "old" champion, Philippe Gilbert, one of the most experienced riders in the Peloton.
Kwiatkowski has been beaten by an opponent better than him at his own game.
The attack of Kwiatkowski was provoked by the patient and the courage of Gilbert, waiting 'til the end, confident that his young antagonist would not have resisted longer without attacking.
The last kilometre of the Amstel Gold Race 2017 should be projected in any kind of school, because it is a life lesson.
Has Kwiatkowski learned the lesson? We will discover it soon.

Ronde Van Vlaanderen 2017

I want to start the article on such an epic race with two quotes:

The first is of the World Champion, Peter Sagan, that,  when asked if the trio would have caught Gilbert, replied: "I think so. Given how I was riding and I had strong companions, so yes, I think I could have got back up to him, but destiny didn't want it".


The second is of the Winner of the race, Philippe Gilbert: “It all started on the Muur. I was riding on Tom Boonen’s wheel and it went on from there,” Gilbert said. “We had three riders in the group and we decided to push on.”

These two quotes explain better than 100 words how epic has been the 101° ronde.
The genius of Tom Boonen invented an incredible race and the class of Gilbert drew it.
In the final, when a super strong trio made by Sagan, Van Avermaet and Naesen could have ruined such a wonderful masterpiece, destiny decided that it was time to pay back the Belgian champion for the amazing start of the season and for his bravery.
This has been the 101° Ronde Van Vlaanderen and we will talk about and remember this race for a long long time.