14 laps of an 18.2km circuit for a total distance of nearly 255km, if your in any doubt, that is a long way, particularly on a hilly circuit and is the first key aspect of the route. There have been riders past and present who have incredible skills but who cannot handle a hard race over a distance not many races reach in one day.
The hills of the course are detailed above, the official website makes sure that it points out that these roads are "perfectly asphalted", either way 4300m of climbing over the entire route will sap the legs even if these hills are not hugely challenging in themselves.
Team dynamics play a huge role with "too many chiefs" syndrome prevalent in national teams comprised of riders who normally ride in different colours in the peloton for the rest of the year.
The amount of riders each country can bring to make up their team is determined by performance by riders of that nationality in the peloton. This can leave some contenders from countries where the depth of rider is not great tremendously isolated in a team of three or even just on their own against a team of nine Spaniards or Italians.
9 riders: Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands, Colombia, Australia, Belgium, Poland, Germany, Great Britain
6 riders: Morocco, Venezuela, USA, Iran, Ukraine, Russia, Slovenia, Denmark, Austria, Portugal
3 riders: Eritrea, Algeria, Brazil, Costa Rica, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Japan, Korea, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Romania, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, New Zealand, Belarus, Canada, Lithuania, Luxembourg, South Africa, Slovakia
1 rider: Ecuador, Sweden, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece
This race will have a hard pace as it is in a number of teams interest to eliminate sprinters like Degenkolb and Bouhanni, neither of which will be in the lead group come 2 laps to go in my opinion. Spain and Italy will drive the pace for Valverde and Nibali (or one of the other Italian riders, maybe Visconti).
This could well come down to whether the likes of Valverde can shake Gerrans, this course looks to me to be roughly the same sort of "hardness" of the ardennes races like Amstel Gold. Gerrans is hard enough for these kind of races but will he have the support necessary to cover all the attacks that will fly off in the finale? Unless Simon Clarke is on fire then the answer is no. In Gerrans three big one day triumphs this year for Orica he has had a super Pieter Weening to control fields with a strong pace shutting attacks down with ease, in this race Weening is riding for the Netherlands, it is a big loss for the Aussie who I think is a little reminiscent of Strax (10 kudos pts for the first person who gets that). Gerrans was super strong in Canada and is rightly one of the favourites for this race but in the betting markets 4/1 is too short for me to even be close to backing the Australian hope.
There is a name that as much as I'm not a huge fan you really cannot ignore, Valverde, one of the worlds strongest climbers and one day racers with a fast sprint, he may sit on wheels and struggle to see past his own ego but he is bloody consistent. In a home world championships with full support Valverde has to go well here. He could win solo or more likely from a small group of 6 or 7.
What of the phenomenon Peter Sagan? He's had a bit of a disappointing year with less wins than 2013 but he has peppered podiums and generally been marked out of chances to win races. Sagan has absolutely zero form coming into this race after purposely doing jackshit in the vuelta, is this the biggest bluff of form you'll ever see? The bookies don't want to take any chances installing him as 4th favourite, I don't blame them as I would not be surprised to see Sagan romp to a win, he is that classy.
The other bookies favourite is Cancellara, he has ignored the TT to focus on this race, and on form it's hard to see him dropped. As I said in my TTT preview Cancellara is really skinny to allow him to cope with the repeated climbs this race will throw at him, Trek suffered in the TTT but this conditioning could help Cancellara here. After a hard race Cancellara has a great sprint, look at Milan San Remo this year for evidence of that.
The scenario I cannot get away from is 8-10 riders cresting the top of the final climb on the last lap, the winner will come from this group with some major tactics going on. The descent will be rapid and I don't think there will be enough time to get back on for anyone dropped.
So after all that lets go over my picks.
Up first is Ireland's Dan Martin, a perennial contender who knows how to win big races, he's just come out of a strong Vuelta where he was only lacking on the really brutal mountain days and got his first GT top 10. Dan is a great one day racer with the all important decent sprint which gives two options to win and more likely ew placing. At 50/1 ish across the markets I really think that's good value. Sadly Boyles with their 5 places are a bit tighter than the rest at 33/1 and i'll leave it to you to decide if you want the extra places as 60s is available at Hills. For me I'm going to put whatever I'm allowed (not much) with Skybet at 66/1 for four places and the rest with Boyles at 5 places 33/1, I think the extra two places on the standard 3 places gives me a better chance here and if he wins I'll be happy with 33s.
Dan Martin a blended 1pt ew. 0.2pt ew Skybet 66/1 (4 places) and 0.8pt ew 33/1 Boyles (5 places).
Next up is Tim Wellens at 150/1. Wellens is a thoroughbred with a great career ahead of him. He sits within the superstar Belgian team who come in without any apparent strategy apart from dump a bunch of guys who all think they can win in the same team. It will be interesting how that works. I like Wellens and want to have him covered. 0.25pts ew with Boyles.
My next low stake pick is Bauke Mollema, a great one day racer who is incredibly consistent at not winning. But he does place a lot and therefore 100/1 to 5 places at Boyles is worth a go at. 0.35pts ew at Boyles. It's questionable again who the Dutch go with but its a long time for TomDum to be at his peak whereas I get the sense Mollema is on an upwards trajectory after two 10th places in Canada.
I have to have 1pt on Valverde to win at 10/1 with Boyles as I am picturing a finish a bit like San Sebastian and if I have to sit and watch him ride away from Mollema again (I was on Mollema in San Sebastian) would make me very angry indeed.
There are a lot of riders I haven't mentioned here like Kwiatkowski, GVA, Costa, Gallopin etc but you can't cover every base and I've backed on the strength of the scenario which I think is most likely and riders I know can handle the distance.
**UPDATE**
Now Boyles has upped the ante to 6 places e/w it seems foolish not to have a cover on Ben Swift at 100s. 0.5pts ew. Swift is probably the best climber of the "sprinters" and can pack a punch after a hard race and I think at 6 places that is a good bet.
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