Preview: Tour de l’Ardeche
by Monty. on Sep 7, 2010 12:41 PM EDT
in Women's Cycling
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Print7th - 11th September
After a week in the Netherlands, where even the speed bumps get categorised and given QOM points, we now head to the south of France, the Rhône-Alpes and the Ardeche for some proper climbing. This year is the 8th edition of the Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l’Ardèche, a race of 6 stages and 530km over 5 days including no less than fourteen categorised climbs, and lots of other hills where they don’t bother to categorise them but go over the top anyway. And if that doesn’t persuade you then how about this, for sale at the start and end of every stage, along with key-rings, tee-shirts and pens:
First of all thanks to Gwena for finding that great bit of video above; I don’t like to play up stereotypes, butyou half expect to see a man with string of onions round his neck and wearing a beret and a stripey jumper chasing the peloton. She links to a rather more sensible bit of video too on her blog if you follow that link, plus to a blog that I can’t quite make sense of beyond the fact that whoever writes it has drawn some sweet cat caricatures and isn’t one to mess around with spiders and glasses.
Now to the race. It’s hilly. Stage one on Tuesday (today, whoops) is the easy day with 112km and just one small categorised climb very early in the day. The road from Le Pouzin to Beauchastel could be more of a warm-up for the rest of the week, since there looks to be plenty of road for the peloton to chase down a break.
Wednesday is a bit tougher because there are two stages. First of all a morning time trial around the town hall at Vals les Bains which looks flat until you realise that the light orange stripes are between 5% and 7%, while the darker ones are between 7% and 10%. Only 3.5km, so this might actually be the best chance that the sprinters have all week. Then in the afternoon comes the seriously bizarre stage 3; possibly the most mixed up stage I can remember seeing. The profile shows a small hill at 21km, but rather than sticking a GPM line at the top there is an intermediate sprint at the far side. Then there is a very small GPM climb at 27km which seems to resemble a Belgian climb, being just 40m higher than the preceding flat, but including a bit of 7-10% on the way. Usually this would probably be left to the break to take the points, but here’s the catch. Just 3km further up the road at the 30km point and outside the Bar Chez Paulette is the Prix Claveyrolat put up by the bar owner William Claveyrolat in memory of his brother Thierry, a bonus sprint offering to the first three across the line 500€, 300€ et 200€. (compare that with the hair curlers, coffee maker and underwear that I seem to remember Lizzie Armitstead winning last year for her 3rd place). From there the stage starts to look more normal with a big climb followed by a quick downhill run-in to the finish in Le Teil (and this isn’t the only cycling coming to Vals les Bains this week – the Tour de l’Avenir visits on Thursday and Friday, and there is also a short 12.5km randonnée on Wednesday afternoon for local cycling schools, setting off half an hour after stage 3 leaves. Take Teddy for a Tour.).
Stage 4 is the queen stage, 117km from Saint Sauveur de Montagut to Cruas, and the second stage we’ve seen this year that begins with a 30km climb. All those little orange stripes give warning of what the road is like.
Stage 5 on Friday does not include such high climbs, but it’s still got a lot of up and down, is the longest stage of the week at 120km, and ends with an almost 30km long uphill drag. Not many orange stripes, but 30km is still a long way, and the routebook marks out seven points in the final 20km as being dangerously narrow.
The race finnishes on Saturday with a stage running from Saint Just d’Ardèche to Saint Martin d’Ardèche, two places less than 5km apart as the crow flies, but this race being for cyclists and not crows the organisers have managed to stretch that distance out to almost 90km by including a couple of little trips out of town to climb the local hills, and then returning to cross the finish line no less than four times in total.
As you see, barring that prize on stage 3 this ain’t much of a race for sprinters. Intermediate sprints there are aplenty, but most of them come at the bottom of a descent when the sprinters will no doubt still be wheezing their way over the top. The other thing to note about this race is the brilliant, harlequin-style, leaders’ jersies. I’ll try to find a picture of that later, but as I see that stage 1 results are already out……
Profiles (and Teddy Bear) via www.tcfia.com
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Those stage 1 results
(if not yet in full) courtesy of Courses Feminines Associees. Two riders broke away together, Vicki Whitelaw and Sharon Laws. Sharon won the sprint and is in the yellow harlequin jersey. Lizzie Armitstead is best young rider (someone sit on Pigeons before she does something very silly), Amanda Spratt has the combativity jersey, Lotto lead the team competition and Luxembourg champion Christine Majerus has the combined jersey (I couldn’t find the classifications on the website). Claude Lecourt, the cheery fellow from the Tour of Limousin organisation seems to be helping out the organisation here too.
I am so sorry for jumping the gun, Monty!
I don’t know if i could be happier with the stage 1 results – Sharon Laws is my total heroine, and Vicki Whitelaw such a star forkeeping us up to date on everything. And Lizzie Armitstead too – glad to see she’s over her anaemia
by Sarah Connolly on Sep 7, 2010 12:55 PM EDT up reply actions
I posted a stage 1 article-tte
about 30 seconds before you posted this – and then feel a fool & wish I could delete it!
(although it was down to over-enthusiasm, rather than anything else!)
by Sarah Connolly on Sep 7, 2010 1:13 PM EDT up reply actions
You can hide it
which is pretty much the same. I always forget how long it takes to upload pictures
Deleted!
Now, if only I could delete this thread-lette!
by Sarah Connolly on Sep 7, 2010 1:38 PM EDT up reply actions
A couple of reports
have spoken of storm warnings in this area. I’ll try to find something a bit less vague
Gwena has a nice couple of lines
talking about very bad weather today: mais les cyclistines ne sont pas des “poules mouillées” “Women riders aren’t wet chickens” whatever that means
And this report looks very scary
l’Ardèche est désormais placée en vigilance rouge en raison de très fortes pluies orageuses attendues dans la soirée Red alert in the Ardeche – very heavy rainstorms expected this evening
Those jersies
Here’s Kristin Armstrong in the leader’s jersey and Lizzie in the young rider one, then Diana Ziliute in the stage winner one and Nicole Cooke in I know not what, and finally here are all the bare jersies from last year (scroll down a bit), and here is an album of photos from the 2008 edition of the race by petitesreines
oh, it's the harlequin race
thrilled for Sharon
"I was just trying to keep warm" - Ian Stannard on finishing third in KBK
If people don't know why they should like Sharon and Vicki
Sharon has one of the best stories in the peloton, and Vicki (and Dave) one of the best blogs
Start list?
here you are Lotto bring one of their super silly strong climbing teams:
1 Armistead Lizzie GBR19881218
2 Ryan Carla AUS19850921
3 Laws Sharon GBR19740707
4 Decroix Lieselot BEL19870512
5 Hausler Claudia GER19851117
6 Schwager Patricia SUI19831206
the only non-climber is supposedly Lizzie and she was third here last year. Lotto look good too:
73 Delfosse Catherine BEL19810611
74 Moolman Ashleigh RSA19851209
75 Schoonbaert Kim BEL19860302
76 Van Doorslaer An BEL19890115
77 Verbeke Grace BEL19841112
78 Whitelaw Vicki AUS19770102
What I wonder
is whether the Cervélo tactics will take into account riders who aren’t firmed up for the new Garvélo – I can see a scenario where the team rides for different riders, in a “hey, look, Garvélo, this is an amazing rider too!” type way. Or am I being too idealistic? Their climbing team is so amn strong, they’d be able to.
Plus, so glad to see Miffy Galloway riding after her crash in Holland Ladies Tour.
Plus Rapha Condor! Yay Rapha!
by Sarah Connolly on Sep 7, 2010 3:35 PM EDT up reply actions
Not a good day for Miffy
7 minutes down. Which is good in a way because she gets a nice long rest between the TT and tomorrow’s road stage. And comfortably inside the cut since a Czech girl came in 33 minutes behind and she still gets to start tomorrow.
Looking at today's results
Lotto’s team is totally different. Grace is the only Belgian there, and Tiff Cromwell and Lizanne Naude are riding too.
Gwena has the full results
Top five
1 3 LAWS Sharon CTT GBR 2 48 54
2 78 WHITELAW Vicki LOTTO AUS 2 48 54
3 1 ARMITSTEAD Lizzie CTT GBR Esp @ 1 41
4 77 VERBEKE Grace LOTTO BEL @ 1 41
5 13 SEREIKAITE Vilija LITUANIE LTU Esp @ 1 41
6 19 HENRION Ludivine Belgique BEL 2@ 1 41
Almost everyone else was in the pack that came in 1:41 down source
That's a top 6, isn't it
I knew I fiddled it to get Ludi Henrion in
Sooooo, this means ...
that Pigeons doesn’t like Henrion in 6th!!! I wonder if she wanted her to finish higher, or lower.
;)
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Noooo! I love Ludi!
I just can’t count!
by Sarah Connolly on Sep 7, 2010 3:51 PM EDT up reply actions
(Plus to be fair
Monty did SAY it was Top Five! I was too trusting!)
by Sarah Connolly on Sep 7, 2010 4:10 PM EDT up reply actions
I was going to do a top 10
then I cut it back to a top 5, then I added Ludi on the bottom. Terribly indecisive.
Vicki and Sharon are friends aren't they?
(what with Sharon being an honorary Aussie) – so I bet they had a fun 2-woman break!
by Sarah Connolly on Sep 7, 2010 4:25 PM EDT up reply actions
Cycling News have a report
and a gallery up. I don’t know how Carla Ryan will take being called a Kiwi.
I'm running away for a week, away from the internet
Can you do me a massive favour and fangirl like a loon on my behalf, whenever some rider I like does well?
(OK, OK, that’s half the peloton, but you know, espcially Sharon!)
Apparently the weather there was appalling last night
there’s talk of up to 300mm of rain falling in some local areas, at Vallon-Pont-d’Arc the river Ardeche was 6 metres above its usual height at 6:00 this morning, although it fell back again quickly. Over 1000 campers were evacuated and another 700 moved to the highest spot in their campsites. (source)
Thanks to Ash Moolman
Vicki Whitelaw (Lotto) takes the lead in Tour Ardèche Féminin after a great TT ride this morning. Ruth Corset (AIS) wins the TT #WhoopWhoop
Now will Sharon take it back again this afternoon.
A few more details from day 2
despite the awful weather, today’s start was only slightly delayed. Vicki Whitelaw described the course:
[J]ust done recon of very scary TT course. Roads are narrow and have rivers running across them on dangerous decent.
Ruth Corset won the short TT in front of Christel Ferrier Bruneau. Vicki went a bit faster so got to wear the leader’s jersey (disappointingly normal looking according to the photos I posted above. Yah, boo. The harlequin ones were the best leaders’ jersies around, even if we did make fun of them a bit).
Claudia Hausler went off solo for a while and won the Thierry Claveyrolat prize, then Cervelo teammate Lizzie Armitstead won the stage (if you look at those stage 1 photos she won yesterday’s bunch sprint pretty convincingly too). Thanks to @FemmeVelo and Courses Feminines Associees.
It looks very very close
Top 10
1 31 CORSET Ruth AUSTRALIE AUS 05 32.91
2 7 FERRIER BRUNEAU Christel France FRA 05 40.06
3 1 ARMITSTEAD Lizzie CTT GBR Esp 05 40.60
4 78 WHITELAW Vicki LOTTO AUS 05 44.20
5 3 LAWS Sharon CTT GBR 05 45.02
6 74 MOOLMAN Ashleigh LOTTO RSA 05 45.78
7 77 VERBEKE Grace LOTTO BEL 05 46.06
8 86 BRULEE Latoya MIXT MALDERE BEL Esp 05 46.22
9 13 SEREIKAITE Vilija LITUANIE LTU Esp 05 46.52
10 65 CREUX Sophie ESGL93 FRA 05 46.73
That’s just 0.8 seconds between Sharon Laws and Vicki Whitelaw for the lead.
Stage 3 split things up a lot more:
1 1 ARMITSTEAD Lizzie CTT GBR Esp 2 16 18
2 77 VERBEKE Grace LOTTO BEL 2 16 22
3 27 WAERSTED Fröydis NORVEGE NOR Esp 2 16 22
4 74 MOOLMAN Ashleigh LOTTO RSA 2 16 22
5 78 WHITELAW Vicki LOTTO AUS 2 16 22
6 31 CORSET Ruth AUSTRALIE AUS 2 16 22
7 19 HENRION Ludivine Belgique BEL 2 16 22
8 25 NOESTVOLD Lise NORVEGE NOR Esp 2 16 22
9 3 LAWS Sharon CTT GBR 2 16 22
10 93 FISCHER Anna RAPHA GER 2 16 22
Lizzie must have put in quite a kick to get a 4 second lead over everyone else there. Looking at the full results for that stage, there was a group of 16 that got away, four of them lost let a gap open on the line and lost a further 5 seconds, Shara Gillow came in alone 48s down (was she with them but crashed somewhere?) then the main field was three minutes behind.
That makes the current GC (a top 16, just to be awkward:
1 78 WHITELAW Vicki LOTTO AUS 5 11 00
2 3 LAWS Sharon CTT GBR 5 11 01 0 01
3 31 CORSET Ruth AUSTRALIE AUS 5 12 29 1 29
4 1 ARMITSTEAD Lizzie CTT GBR Esp 5 12 33 1 33
5 74 MOOLMAN Ashleigh LOTTO RSA 5 12 42 1 42
6 77 VERBEKE Grace LOTTO BEL 5 12 43 1 43
7 82 GRAUS Andréa CHIRIO AUT 5 12 48 1 48
8 25 NOESTVOLD Lise NORVEGE NOR Esp 5 12 48 1 48
9 76 CROMWELL Tiffany LOTTO AUS Esp 5 12 51 1 51
10 5 HÄUSLER Claudia CTT GER 5 12 52 1 52
11 93 FISCHER Anna RAPHA GER 5 12 53 1 53
12 19 HENRION Ludivine Belgique BEL 5 12 54 1 54
13 80 KIRCH Rosane CHIRIO BRA 5 13 01 2 01
14 27 WAERSTED Fröydis NORVEGE NOR Esp 5 13 08 2 08
15 83 RIABCHENKO Tatiana CHIRIO UKR Esp 5 13 17 2 17
16 2 RYAN Carla CTT AUS 5 13 24 2 24
(First three columns after the name show overall time in hrs, mins and secs. Last two show gap to race leader in mins and secs.) That’s two Chirio riders (we’ve not mentioned them much this year, but Rosanne Kirch is always a name to watch for), two Hitec UCK, even if they’re in the Norwegian national squad this week, plus Anna Fischer from Rapha whose last tweet read:
Endless rain is back – time to leave the country again…. Heading to sunny France 2day ;)
Stage 4 Results are starting to come through
Ruth Corset gets a mention, so clearly she tried to make an attack early on. That can’t have stuck since at the end there was a group of five who came in together for the stage win. They finished:
1. Lizzie Armitstead (Cervelo)
2. Christel Ferrier Bruneau (France)
3. Grace Verbeke (Lotto)
4. Vicki Whitelaw (Lotto)
5. Sharon Laws (Cervelo)
(thanks to Courses Feminines Associees – follow that link for a nice picture of Lizzie in her harlequin stage winner’s jersey, the only one that survived from a cull of last year’s harlequins).
It looks like Vicki is still in the lead since there aren’t any time bonuses on offer in this race, and if she managed to survive today then she’s got a pretty good chance of hanging on until the end of the week.
Today’s stage was a bit late starting since the route clashed in places with that of the Tour de l’Avenir.
Petites Reines have conducted a few video interviews at the start/finish, which are at present on the front page of their website, but if you come to this report a bit late, see their You Tube account. Right now they are all in French. The race organisers are also putting up videos, and have one with Lizzie conducted in French and English.
ah well done
I was failing to find anything much beyond Lizzie having won
"I was just trying to keep warm" - Ian Stannard on finishing third in KBK
The stage results have just been posted
It looks like the group that got away had seven in it:
1 1 ARMITSTEAD Lizzie CTT GBR Esp 4 01 1
2 7 FERRIER BRUNEAU Christel France FRA 4 01 1
3 77 VERBEKE Grace LOTTO BEL 4 01 1
4 31 CORSET Ruth AUSTRALIE AUS 4 01 1
5 78 WHITELAW Vicki LOTTO AUS 4 01 1
6 3 LAWS Sharon CTT GBR 4 01 4 0 3
7 2 RYAN Carla CTT AUS 4 01 9 0 8
8 19 HENRION Ludivine Belgique BEL 4 03 30 2 29
9 43 HOHL Jennifer SUISSE SUI Esp 4 03 30 2 29
10 61 MAJERUS Christine ESGL93 LUX Esp 4 03 30 2 29
(Once again the first three columns after the name show overall time in hrs, mins and secs. Last two show gap to race leader in mins and secs.) Sharon let a gap open on the line and lost three seconds – it’s all rather nicer formatted if you download the proper pdf.
Tiny tip: you can use <pre></pre> to use a fixed-width font:
h mm ss +m ss
1 1 ARMITSTEAD Lizzie CTT GBR Esp 4 01 1
2 7 FERRIER BRUNEAU Christel France FRA 4 01 1
3 77 VERBEKE Grace LOTTO BEL 4 01 1
4 31 CORSET Ruth AUSTRALIE AUS 4 01 1
5 78 WHITELAW Vicki LOTTO AUS 4 01 1
6 3 LAWS Sharon CTT GBR 4 01 4 0 3
7 2 RYAN Carla CTT AUS 4 01 9 0 8
8 19 HENRION Ludivine Belgique BEL 4 03 30 2 29
9 43 HOHL Jennifer SUISSE SUI Esp 4 03 30 2 29
10 61 MAJERUS Christine ESGL93 LUX Esp 4 03 30 2 29
"you folks are a little loopy" - P. Stetina
I was trying to remember what tag would do that
Thanks, it makes a huge difference
Problem is
if the text isn’t lined up already, you need to do that in a text editor using a fixed-width font (Notepad on Win / TextEdit on OS X) or else use the preview button endlessly.
"you folks are a little loopy" - P. Stetina
Here goes
Current top 10
h m s +m +s 1 78 WHITELAW Vicki LOTTO AUS 9 12 01 2 3 LAWS Sharon CTT GBR 9 12 05 0 04 3 31 CORSET Ruth AUSTRALIE AUS 9 13 30 1 29 4 1 ARMITSTEAD Lizzie CTT GBR Esp 9 13 34 1 33 5 77 VERBEKE Grace LOTTO BEL 9 13 44 1 43 6 2 RYAN Carla CTT AUS 9 14 33 2 32 7 25 NOESTVOLD Lise NORVEGE NOR Esp 9 16 18 4 17 8 76 CROMWELL Tiffany LOTTO AUS Esp 9 16 21 4 20 9 19 HENRION Ludivine Belgique BEL 9 16 24 4 23 10 7 FERRIER BRUNEAU Christel France FRA 9 16 36 4 35
Gwena has pdfs of all the other classifications
Lizzie makes it a hat trick, apparently
but I haven’t seen anything more…
"I was just trying to keep warm" - Ian Stannard on finishing third in KBK
Gwena's usually the first to get all the other jersey stuff up
here she’s got links to the various pdfs, otherwise try the race website a bit later in the evening.
Petitesreines have got a couple of finish line videos up from stage 4 and stage 5
The organisers are putting up some finish line interviews too. Here’s a direct link to that one with Lizzie Armitstead and here’s one with Ruth Corset, plus here’ s one all in French with Vilija Sereikaite. I like them very much, but what you probably won’t get if you don’t understand French is that although the interviewer speaks English very well, he’s not used to interpreting on the spot and when he gets round to translating the questions and answers he’s forgotten the first half of the interview. Been there many times myself.
Vicki Whitelaw has a nice description of how the day developed, and by the looks of the photos over at CN she was towing quite an elite group around.
Final day's results just coming through
and as CFA put it so sweetly, “une Cervelo peut en cacher une autre,” behind every Cervelo rider there’s another Cervelo rider. Stage win went not to Lizzie but to Carla Ryan, so lessening the number of Cervelos who haven’t won anything this year by a further one. Second, yet again, in the sprint was Christel Ferrier Bruneau.
Vicki wins the overall, Lizzie the points and young rider jersies, Ruth Corset is best climber, Sharon Laws best of everything-when-you-add-it-all-together. Béâtrice Thomas was given the combativity award for the day, and I guess that if Carla, Lizzie and Sharon were there for the final sprint then Cervelo were the fastest team.
Cervelo have an interesting post up
here. Carla made an 80km long solo escape which was in part meant to get Sharon ahead of Vicki, but didn’t quite work out that way. And Carla will apparently be riding somewhere else next year: “And I am really glad that I finally won my first European race in my last race with this team”
Oh, Carla!
I really hope it’s because she’s signed some amazing contract somewhere (say, for example, if Fly V Aus have a secret plan for a UCI women’s team and are signing all my favourite Australians…) rather than she’s scuppered…
by Sarah Connolly on Sep 15, 2010 3:46 PM EDT up reply actions
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