British Team for the World Champs announced

[Recursived]

Elite Men - Road Race: Cavendish, Cummings, Dowsett, Froome, Rowe, Stannard, Swift, Tiernan-Locke, and Wiggins
Elite Women - Road Race: Armitstead, Colclough, Cooke, Harris, Laws, and Pooley

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/gbcyclingteam/article/gbr20120914-gb-cyclingteam-news-British-Cycling-confirms-team-for-UCI-Road-World-Championships-0

[citoyen]

Should be good. I can't see another Brit win, though JTL is getting lots of backing...

‏@friebos: Wonder how Chavanel feels about bookies rating him 5 times less likely to win rainbow jersey than a bloke who's never raced in World Tour...

[Nuncio]

Should be good. I can't see another Brit win

[Diliberate misinterpretation] Win for Elinor Barker in the Junior Women's TT. [/deliberate misinterpretation].  You have to look quite hard for the news though.

[jogler]

Froome has withdrawn from the TT

[Nuncio]

But a "HUTCHINSON Michael" is riding for IRL.

[Ray 6701]

Live coverage of the mens ITT is about to start on cyclingnews:

http://live.cyclingnews.com/

Will be rooting for Dr Hutch even if he is Irish 

[citoyen]

Should be good. I can't see another Brit win

[Diliberate misinterpretation] Win for Elinor Barker in the Junior Women's TT. [/deliberate misinterpretation].  You have to look quite hard for the news though.

Fair point. Cracking ride by Elinor Barker.

d.

[andrew_s]

Will be rooting for Dr Hutch even if he is Irish 

46th at 5m23s

(click to show/hide)

Tony Martin, Phinney@5s, Kiryienka@1m45s

[Karla]

Live coverage of the mens ITT is about to start on cyclingnews:

http://live.cyclingnews.com/

Will be rooting for Dr Hutch even if he is Irish 

Shame he only managed 46.

Alex Dowsett came 8th.  That should make up for the Doc beating him by 8 seconds in the Nat. 25!

[clarion]

Bad day for Hutch?  Or very high standard on the day?

[spesh]

Bad day for Hutch?  Or very high standard on the day?

I'd say the latter, plus a tough parcours - World Championship TT courses aren't necessarily going to be like the stereotypical British TT course. With all respect to Hutch, he's a big fish in the UK's domestic TT pond, but a look at Stuart Dangerfield's results at the Worlds shows that domestic TT success was no guarantee of doing well when going up against the pros(see below).

1998: Chris Boardman 11th @ +1'.50", Stuart Dangerfield 28th @ +3'44"

1999: Chris Boardman 3rd @ +0'58.66", Chris Newton 44th @ +5'30.94"

2000: Chris Boardman 4rd @ +1'16.33", Stuart Dangerfield 25th @ +4'30.14"

2001: David Millar 2nd @ +0'6.30", Stuart Dangerfield 43rd @ +5'21.58"

2002: David Millar 6th @ +0'35.32", Stuart Dangerfield 26th @ +2'17.89"

2003: David Millar was the only British entrant for the men's TT, which he won - DQ'd after admitting to doping

2005 : Bradley Wiggins 7th @ +1'31.60"

2006: David Millar 15th @ +3'21.99"

2007: Bradley Wiggins 10th @ +2'10.8", David Millar 18th @ +2'40.1"

2008: David Millar 9th @+1'25.26", Stephen Cummings 25th @ +2'.54.97"

2009: Christopher Froome 17th @ +04'34.55", Bradley Wiggins 20th @ +04'50.39"

2010: David Millar 2nd @ +1'02.75"

2011: Bradley Wiggins 2nd @ +1'15.83", David Millar 7th @ +2'45.62"

2012: Alex Dowsett 8th @ +2'26.06", Michael Hutchinson (Ireland) 46th @ +5'22.86"

Obviously, cherry-picking results with time gaps back to the winner doesn't give anywhere near the full picture (who was riding, weather, parcours etc), but a stroll through the links shows just how good Michael Rogers, Fabian Cancellara and Tony Martin have been in recent years.

[mattc]

I've got vague recollections that he's come 4th in 2 Commonwealth Games. Seems to be about his natural level.
[I've no doubt this will be picked apart corrected in milliseconds!]

[spesh]

I've got vague recollections that he's come 4th in 2 Commonwealth Games. Seems to be about his natural level.
[I've no doubt this will be picked apart corrected in milliseconds!]

You're correct, he got 4th at the last two Commonwealth Games, though given that the Septics and the continental European riders aren't there, it's hard to judge from those two events. He was 2'14.24" behind David Millar in Delhi, and 1'19.42" on Alex Dowsett, on a course that was akin to a typical British dual-carriageway.

At the 2006 CG men's TT in Melbourne, Hutch finished 1'28.07" behind Nathan O'Neill (Australia). He was around 40 seconds up on the best-placed English rider, which was Dangerfield.

It's worth reading Hutch's Twitter feed; going by his comments, it sounds like it was a pretty tough course.

Don't know which concerns me more: that Contador thinks first climb on Worlds TT is trivial, or that he thinks the last one is quite hard.

[Ivo]

It was a winding and lumpy course. There are easier, more time-trial specific roads in the area but they were left aside. Even the main road between Margraten and Cadier&Keer which featured last times course was replaced by narrow and winding lanes running in the same direction. Indeed a very demanding course. Lot's of lumpy sections not classified as hills. And the Cauberg at the end, this hill caused both the Rabobank and the BMC teams to explode during the TTT.

[jogler]

Lizzie Armistead is not riding in Saturday's road race.

[mattc]

Do NOT tell Lizzie Armitstead that!

[giropaul]

Bad day for Hutch?  Or very high standard on the day?

I'd say a high standard on the day, but also that rolling up and down a dual carriageway (with a helpful profile as per the Welsh course Hutch broke Competition Record on) is very specific, and doesn't translate well into riding what I would call "proper" courses that are found everywhere else in the world.

There's a good case to be made for sending roadmen/women to ride UCI timetrials. Apart from Boardman (who was a good road rider with excellent palmares of course) UK time triallists have never done well in continental timetrials for many years.

PS wouldn't it be interesting to see what Tony Martin etc could do on a float day on the (enter your course code here)!

[spesh]

It would be interesting to see what a continental pro would have to say about mixing it with the traffic on a dual-carriageway course.

[Ivo]

Just compare the stretch around the crash of Pinotti with a typical British timetrial course.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/ji9WaG_BKH8&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/ji9WaG_BKH8&rel=1</a>

[spesh]

Marginal gains, Dutch-style: http://inrng.com/2012/09/the-matrix/

With race radios banned for the worlds, the Dutch will use telecoms and roadside matrix display boards to give unique tactical advice to their riders.

[spesh]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/uci-road-world-championships-2012/junior-women-road-race/results

(click to show/hide)

Lucy Garner (Great Britain) became the first female junior to claim back-to-back world road race championships since her fellow countrywoman Nicole Cooke, producing a powerful sprint to retain her rainbow jersey in Valkenburg.

 

[Ivo]

Marginal gains, Dutch-style: http://inrng.com/2012/09/the-matrix/

With race radios banned for the worlds, the Dutch will use telecoms and roadside matrix display boards to give unique tactical advice to their riders.

Today I've spotted a Swiss assistant using classic Formula 1 style tables to inform the junior ladies. No code used by them, not even Swytzerdütsch.

[spesh]

Some sprint, no-one else was even close.

https://twitter.com/SimonBrotherton/status/249149407860252672/photo/1

[Jaded]

Huge crash in womens road race.