If you hadn’t already congratulated yourself for surviving the Cycling Winter, take a moment now for a hearty clap on the back. Well done! You made it to Cobbles Season!
I posted last week about courses as a way to spend less time going forward on courses, not because they aren’t super interesting but because there isn’t much that is new this time around. That leaves riders, teams and weather as the biggest variables in determining how this season will go. Right now the news on all fronts is good, or at least “good” insofar as maybe the people who have jobs to do over the next few weeks won’t appreciate the Brussels forecast of non-stop rain as much as those of us watching at home. How much that ends up mattering is tbd and not much of a discussion just yet. But I’m eyeing it for sure.
Anyway, let’s get to the Cobbles Teams Power Poll, where I rank all 25 teams currently planning to start the Ronde van Vlaanderen. That should catch everyone of relevance — the teams in, say, De Panne might not be quite the same but the RvV and Paris-Roubaix wild cards should be there.
So what exactly is this exercise? I always struggle a little bit to define it, because “strength” and “success” can be somewhat nebulous concepts when measured across three weeks’ worth of one-day races with varying natures and combatants. So I think I will do this as an overall ranking of strength — potential winners plus depth of support — but also try to define expectations separately. So far the startlist for De Ronde isn’t set, but the one for E3, three days from now, is probably 95% of what we will see in the big races, so I will start there, and to the extent I can guess at changes for Paris-Roubaix (which often brings in different riders), I’ll do so. Oh, and I am starting this before the Classic Brugge-De Panne but I might not finish it until after, so make of that what you will.
[And for the second and last time this year, let me just mention that I once wrote a book about the Cobbles, which you can buy out of boredom, morbid curiosity, tax strategies, or what have you.]
Photo by JASPER JACOBS/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images
25. Team Flanders-Baloise
Recent Record: Robbe Ghys was 15th in Gent-Wevelgem last year. Jordi Warlop was 16th in Dwars in ‘21.
Key Riders: Lindsay De Vlyder, Gilles De Wilde, Alex Colman?
What Success Looks…
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