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Published on Tuesday, 10 April 2018 16:53

De Brabantse Pijl 2018

Leuven to Schoten

Wed 11th April, 201.9kms

After an amazing Paris-Roubaix last Sunday, we move on to the final race of the 'Flanders Classics' on Wednesday with the Brabantse Pijl or 'the Brabantse arrow'. This is a race for the puncheurs, with plenty of little hills, some cobbles, but almost always ends in a reduced sprint finish of some sort. 

What can you say about Peter Sagan? Well, I don't think even many of his fans or team-mates expected him to just ride off the front as nonchalantly as he did with 54kms to go. We were once again watching a rider riding away from everyone else in a stage of the race where you don't really expect race winning moves to go, and all the others just watching each other rather than doing something about it. This was Peter Sagan we're talking about. This is the triple World Champion. And they just let him ease off the front by just raising his speed a few kms an hour, and he was gone. 

But what a move eh.. no one expected it, and I don't think many expected it to last. A little like Stybar's stupid and pointless attack with 73kms to go, he'll be brought back soon enough. The remains of the break won't be much help to him, they're cooked after being out front for 200kms.. But Dillier held on and not only did he hold on, he took a lot of strong turns at the front too, to help them extend their lead to almost a minute and a half.

Behind, they tried to work together, but it was a phoney air of cooperation. QSF had three men at one point, but couldn't work together to try to make inroads. Gilbert fell tamely away, as did Stybar, Terpstra the only one who stepped up to the plate and did something. But he left it all too late and his reluctance to take big pulls meant that he was a long way back when he soloed away to take 3rd place. We had Vanmarcke in the front group, but unlike Terpstra, Sep did nothing once again and finished last of his group. Very disappointing again. I'm done with Sep, never backing him again. 

Degenkolb was a strange one, he was working too much all day in a very weird sort of way, taking turns at the front unnecessarily, sticking his nose in the wind. He was probably working for Stuyven, but Stuyven was dead in the last 20kms, he was lucky to hang on to an equally shattered Van Avermaet. You could actually see how tired Stuyven was with the change in the gap clock every time he went to the front to take a pull - the gap increased 3-4 seconds every time he was there. But Degenkolb still managed 17th place, not a bad result at all and he wasn't that far back.

So no luck again for us, all five of my riders finished in the top 20, but no places. Teunissen was going great, got a bit excited and went on the attack, but if he'd saved his energy and managed to go with Sagan instead later on he might have had a good result. Haussler rode very well too, and Stybar was just brainless to do what he did. Maybe he just wasn't on a good day really and decided to clip off to sacrifice himself for Terpstra later on.

One Matchbet won, one was void and two lost, not a great return. Well done if you kept the faith in Sagan, you got a pretty decent price, he went off around 5/1 on Betfair. And if you picked Silvan Dillier, then chapeau to you, Bryan Smith the Eurosport commentator posted a pic of his £2 e/w bet on him at 750/1, that's a huge price, biggest I saw was 600/1. £377 return for £4 invested.. not bad eh. 

Last year saw Sonny Colbrelli land a nice touch in this race for us at 14/1, winning from a group of eight that had eased away on the final hill. The group contained 2016's winner Petr Vakoc, Tiesj Benoot, Tim Wellens, Chris-Juul Jensen and man-of-the-moment Silvan Dillier. Colbrelli was just too good in the sprint though, winning by over a bike-length, despite almost being boxed in against the railings with just 100m to go. 

Petr Vakoc had won in fine style in 2016 but was no match for Colbrelli's sprint this time around. 2015 saw Ben Hermans pull off a surprise win when he soloed away from his late break-away companion David Tanner and just held off the chasing pack. In 2014 Philippe Gilbert landed his second victory, with Michael Matthews finishing 2nd again. Gilbert used all his experience of the course to out-fox Matthews on the final bend. Matthews went up the inside, got trapped a little behind Arashiro, whereas Gilbert went around the outside and got an early jump on Matthews. 

Gilbert has a pretty good record in the race to say the least. He isn't here this year and didn't take part in 2016, but in the eight years before that he had finished 1st, 2nd, 12th, 1st, 5th, 9th, 2nd and 3rd, an incredible series of results in one race. It's a really tough course, one for the real battlers and puncheurs.. Looking at the last few years result there were riders scattered all over the road with many of the field DNF'ing. It was even worse in 2012 when Voeckler won, with only 44 finishing out of 180 starters. 

Part of the reason for the high numbers of DNF'ers in 2012 was the terrible weather, with rain and hail hammering the peloton all day. This shouldn't be the case this year though as a really nice day is forecast, with temperature reaching 19º, with no rain and almost no wind.

Another reason for often high number of DNF'ers in this race, besides the tough course, is because of the nature and timing of the race - it essentially is a training ride to prepare for the Ardennes Classics for most of the peloton, which kick off on Sunday with the Amstel Gold race. 

The Route

The race starts in its traditional start town of Leuven and it is more or less the same route as last year's race, but 5kms longer at 202kms. It heads in a predominantly south-westerly direction, passing by the finishing circuit loop after only about 10kms, but then continues south-west, but after 38kms, turns sharply northwards to take in the little loop near Alsemberg.  This loop contains the climb of the Rue de Hal, the Alsemberg and the Bruineput.

They then turn back the way they came and take in the the climbs of the Karbosstraat, Rue de Nivelles, Chaussee de Bruxelles and Rue Francois Dubois, a very familiar set of hills to regular starters in this race. They pass through the finish line after 138kms and head off on three laps of the finishing circuit of 23.4kms. And although there will be the traditional long break out front for most of the day, it's when they hit this finishing loop that things usually start to kick off. 

The finishing circuit has no fewer than five climbs over its 23.4kms, two of which are cobbled, meaning that they have to tackle 15 climbs over the closing 70km!  The main challenges on the finishing circuit are the cobbled climbs of the Ijskelderlaan which comes 4.2kms from the finish line and the Schavei which is just 1.2km from the finish, with the road climbing all the way to the final bend.

Once they hit the top the riders make a left-hand turn onto a slightly uphill finishing straight with just 200m to go to the line. You need to be in the first 5 or 6 taking the final bend as it is a very short run-in. The last 5kms are quite tricky with lots of bends and twists, including some hairpin bends on a descent, so you can see why the race is often blown to pieces.  

Contenders and Favourites

This is a 1. HC category race, which means that the World Tour teams don't need to take part, so we don't have all the best teams here. But we still do have a good lineup of riders here with a lot of familiar faces from the last few years taking part again.

Sonny Colbrelli is back to try to defend his title and has to be considered a big favourite for this again this year. There's no 14/1 available on him this year though, he's just 7/1 to repeat. He has Grega Bole here with him again, who was a big help to him in winning this last year, Ramunas Navardauskas, Erico Gasparotto and Borut Bozic, not a bad support squad. Bahrain are saying that Colbrelli and Gasparotto are joint team leaders, Colbrelli for the sprint and Gasparotto for his attacking abilities, but I think it will be all for Sonny boy. 

He's been in good form this year too as we know, with some great results such as his win in the Hatta Dam stage of Dubai, 3rd in KBK and 9th in MSR. He skipped Paris-Roubaix and his team think he will be fresh and ready to go for this, and I do too.. Enrico Gasparotto has finished 14th here last year and 2nd the year before (and finished 7th and 4th way back in 2008/07), so he clearly likes the course, and he's a double winner of Amstel Gold too don't forget.. But will he be supporting, or attacking?!

Teisj Benoot and Tim Wellens finished 3rd and 4th last year, good results in one sense, but disappointing that they had two such strong riders in the final selection but they were unable to take the win. It was Benoot's first time doing DBP and that was an excellent result for him, will he be able to improve on that? Well, like last year he has skipped Paris-Roubaix and instead has headed to Sierra Nevada to do some more altitude training as he wants results in the upcoming Ardennnes races. It can sometimes take a bit of time to adjust after altitude training like we saw with Sagan at the start of the season, so it's possible that this will be a good training race for Benoot ahead of the bigger targets of LBL and Amstel Gold, he's a bit short to take that risk at just 7/2. 

Tim Wellens may not have raced a whole lot this year (600kms less than Benoot), but he has been in great form. Winner in style of the Ruta Del Sol, including destroying a field that included Mikel Landa and Woet Poels on the uphill cobbled finish on stage 4. He followed that with a powerful ride in Paris-Nice, finishing 5th overall, and finishing 2nd, 4th, 5th, 5th and 8th on different stages. He has looked powerful on the climbs and always has an attacking attitude so has to be considered a contender here, but again is a bit short at 9/2.  The 13/2 now with Bet365 is much better.. 

BMC have a good team here as well, and in fact they have the bookies 7/2 favourite Dylan Teuns in their lineup.. And I'm not really sure why he's such a short price. His results here read 40, 28, 33 and he has yet to win a race this season. Ok, he finished 2nd in the stage 7 won by Yates in Paris Nice, but other than that, the closest he has come is a 4th place in a stage of the Pais Vasco. Yes, he's good at punchy finishes, yes, he's been riding well the last few seasons and won five times last season, but he doesn't win enough or has been riding at the top of his game to me enough this season to justify those odds. 

What about the Wolfpack? Well they stuttered a bit in PR, 'only' managing 3rd place with Terpstra, but they've a few chances here too in the shape of their new sprinting sensation Fabio Jakobsen and their tank Bob Jungels. Fabio Jacobsen won the farcical Scheldeprijs a week ago, but the manner in which he won the sprint suggested that he might have given the likes of Groenewegen and Démare a run for their money.

This is an entirely different proposition of course, and it's a pretty weak looking QSF team by their standards. He did win a hilly finish in the Tour de L'Avenir last year, ahead of his now team-mate Hodeg and Sky's new recruit Halvorsen. He had 17 top 6 finishes last season in the lower division races, including eight wins, it would truly be a fairytale start to his career if he was to take his third spring Classic of the season tomorrow. 

Bob Jungels is also one to consider, as he is just so strong.. but his form just hasn't been great for me so far this year, 3rd place in the Drome Classic is all he has been able to chalk down as a respectable result this season. And as strong as he is, I am worried he will get left behind on the last circuit. 

What about Bryan Coquard? I almost landed a nice touch with him a few years ago when I had Vakoc, the winner, at 33/1 and Coquard e/w at 50/1, he finished just one place outside the money in 4th. He has six top 3 finishes this season, including a win in the first stage of the Tour of Oman, beating Cavendish, but he really should have been winning some of those other sprints against lower-level sprinters. He just missed the move last year and finished 13th, 12" back, I think it might be something similar this year again from Le Coq. 

Daryl Impey has been talking up his chances in the upcoming races, he and the team are confident of some good showings. He started the season really well, but since then has gone off the boil a little. His best result since winning the SA road race champs in early Feb was a 2nd place behind Valverde in the 2nd stage of Catalunya, he hasn't really even been close other than that. The last three times he has done this race though he's averaged 50th place and he DNF'ed the time before that. Yes, he's riding well and is confident, I don't quite share his confidence though. 

And there's not a lot of the others you can make a very stong case for.. Edvald Boasson Hagen seemed to be going very well in Flanders and Paris-Roubaix for quite a bit of them, but then disappeared out of them, finishing 34th in Roubaix and 19th in Flanders. He did finish an impressive 4th in DDV, but was no match for Lampaert when he went or even to Teunissen and SVM in the sprint. I'm not sure he'll be winning this sprint or getting away on this hill either. 

Bert-Jan Lindeman was 5th here last year but has been in pretty poor form so far this year, Warren Barguil will try to get away on the hills but will be pulled back and Chris Juul-Jensen will be there or thereabouts, but won't be able to go solo, or win a sprint against most of these guys. Enrico Battaglin might be able to hang in there on the final hill and sprint to victory, but he couldn't last year, he finished 41" down in 51st. At a bigger price, Pieter Weening at 80/1 could go ok. 

So there we go, not a lot to get excited about really, a pretty sub-standard field and a narrow range of potential winners. I can see why Teuns is one of the favourites, simply because there are few top quality riders here, but I can't back him at that price. Colbrelli though looks a lot more attractive at 7/1 with Corals, I think that he will be there or thereabouts again this year and if it comes to a reduced sprint, he should take it.

Tim Wellens should go very well too I think and might be a 'bet to nothing' at 9/2 e/w, he could solo away or with a small group. No prices as of 5.30pm from Bet365, which is strange, seeing as Skybet and Corals have prices since yesterday, but I'm quoting the prices I have at the moment below, Bet365 might come out with some more attractive odds later on and I'll take another look. Not a lot appeals at all though, maybe something will stand out on a few matchbets, but I wouldn't hold my breath. 

I've added Larry Warbasse this morning at 400/1 for a bit of fun, he says he's looking forward to this race for a long time and AquaBlue will be smarting after getting officially rejected by the Vuelta Organisers. I'm looking forward to see how he and Eddie Dunbar go in this actually, Eddie could have a bit of fun today and could surprise a few. 

One other thing I spotted this morning, I hadn't realised that BJ Lindeman crashed hard during Catalunya, had a lot of cuts and bruising around his right knee.. but he says that he is much better, and is really looking forward to this. In fact, he says that he has trained specifically for this and is hopeful to be competing for the win like last year.. as he's 150/1 he's worth a tiny bet I think, just in case.. 

Recommendation:

1.5pts e/w on Sonny Colbrelli at 7/1 with Corals

1pt e/w on Tim Wellens at 9/2 with Corals (take the much better 13/2 with Bet365)

0.2pts e/w on Larry Warbasse at 400/1 with Bet365

0.1pts e/w on Eddie Dunbar at 300/1

0.1pts e/w on Bert-Jan Lindeman at 150/1

Matchbets

Vanendert to beat Verona - 3pts at 5/6

Colbrelli to beat Coquard and Wellens to beat Gasparotto - 2ps at 11/10

Add Impey to beat Hivert to make it a treble - 1pt at 7/4

Add Jungels to beat Herrada to make it a 4-fold - 1pt at 3/1

All with 365