Eneco Tour stage 4

On paper a sprint stage, but a stage which will be susceptible to the now familiar crashes and late attacks.

With a strong chance of rain all day this kind of twisty circuit is built for attacks and crash disrupted sprint trains. Therefore there is not a lot to be gained by backing anybody at a short price.

Richeze is now Lampre's designated sprinter after Modolo had to abandon and kept himself in good position two stages ago. Richeze has good speed and is more than capable of a podium here so I've taken him each way at 125/1.

I'm also going to take a small stake on Roy Jans of Wanty at 200s, Jans again is a decent sprinter whose kept good position throughout the race.

Richeze 0.25pts ew 125/1 PP

Jans 0.15pts ew 200/1 PP

I might return with H2H's if something catches the eye.

Eneco Tour stage 3

A 9.6km power TT and it's a battle of rider's who usually come second to big Tony!

Shorter TT's are much more likely to throw up surprises so I always like to take a punt on an outsider. For this stage I have gone for Ian Stannard, the out and back nature of this course kind of reminded me of the Tour of Britain TT from last year when Stannard was second behind a motivated Wiggins and ahead of Dowsett. I'm aware Stannard has had almost no racing since his injury but he looked strong trying to break up the field in RideLondon so I've taken a small stake on him for a top 3.

Looking at weather forecasts its looks like wind will be pretty consistent and that if anything the early starters have more chance of having a dry run, but again that's a bit of a lottery.

I'm really tempted by Rohan Dennis for this course, he has been so consistent all year but yet to win, we know he's in decent shape as the Commonwealths were only a couple of weeks ago and they were a big target of his. Depending on how you look at it Rohan's early start time could be a positive or a negative but I think I want to take the best TT rider of the early starters and who has a really good chance of winning anyway.

0.3pt Dennis win 16/1 Bet365

1pt Dennis Top 3 7/2 Bet365

0.2pt Top 3 Stannard 66/1 Bet365

H2H's

Terpstra v boonen 1.5pts 2.1 Pinnacle - Don't get this at all.

Dillier v van Keirsbulck 1.5pts 2.1 Pinnacle - Diller's been posting great numbers apparently, don't think he's good enough to podium v this field but hopefully can better GVK.

Boom v cancellara 0.75pts 2.4 Pinnacle - Think this will be tight, but Boom should be super motivated.

Wellens v stybar 1.5pts 2.3 Pinnacle - I think Wellens has a better TT than Stybar.

Mouris v gretsch 1pt 1.75 Pinnacle - Mouris is keen to go well here, Gretsch hasn't done a good short TT in a while.

Sergent v hepburn 1.5pt 1.75 Pinnacle - Sergent is a lot more consistent than heppy.

Mollema v vanmarcke 2pts 2.1 Pinnacle - Mollema is a better TT rider by quite a long way in my book

Acca

Quinziato, Cummings, Mollema, Dillier, Mouris 15/1 Bet365 0.5pts

**RESULTS**

TomDum beats Cancellara to the win, a mixed bag for the bets, but Mollema's abysmal showing torpedoes the acca and causes effectively a 12 unit swing against. About -1pt today.

Eneco Tour stage 2

Another twisty traffic furniture finale is waiting for the sprinters at the end of the second stage of this year's Eneco Tour. Throw in rain and another headwind into the finishing few kilometres and it could well be another messy affair.

The early books from B365 and PP have installed Guardini as favourite at an eye wateringly short 3/1. This is a huge over reaction, yes he has form but he is not faster than Greipel or Bouhanni and is just as likely to be caught up in crashes as anyone else.

Lotto got it all kinds of wrong in stage 1 but I'm expecting them to bounce back here and I'm backing Andre Greipel at a generous 4/1 for the fastest rider in the race, who won this stage last year and has probably the strongest leadout in Sieberg and Debusschere.

1.5pts Greipel at 4/1 various.

Eneco Tour stage 1

A flat stage to start with a hefty crosswind likely.

With a crosswind basically all day it's hard to imagine some of the teams won't try and break the field up a bit and eliminate some guys from GC from the get go.

Teams which are good in echelons and have the team for it here are; OPQS, Belkin, Lotto, BMC.

This could well be a really hard day of constant need to be positioned near the front to avoid the risk of being caught out by an echelon attack and wet conditions.

This means I want to avoid riders coming back from long lay off's (Bouhanni), who are suspect in the wet (Greipel) and back form or an outsider from an echelon team, but keeping stage winner bets small.

0.75pts on Guardini win at 10/1 various

0.3pts ew on Breschel 100/1 various.

H2H's

Guardini v modolo 2.13 Pinnacle 1.5pts, Guardini is coming off a double stage win and Modolo doesn't have a lot of form.

Breschel v porsev 1.75 Pinnacle 1pt, not sure Porsev will be sprinting for Katusha with Tsatevich here.

**Results**

Hugely messy sprint with crashes but my man Guardini keeps himself out of mischief and sprints for the win. A 10/1 winner and the H2H v the crashed modolo obviously wins too. The other H2H is a loss as it seems Porsev is Katusha's man this week.

Eneco Tour GC

The Eneco Tour this year looks to be a cracker with a great field and an exciting course.

First up is 2 sprint stages in a row. If the wind gets up these could also influence GC.

Then we have a 9.6km TT which will give good TT riders an advantage but I don't expect the TT to ruin any riders GC hopes too much.

Next another sprint stage and then the friday, saturday, sunday of three hilly stages with aspects of the Ardennes classics in all three.

I'll look at the stages in more detail when they come up but for GC riders we need someone who packs a punch on multiple short climbs and who can TT reasonably. But I'm placing more of an emphasis on the climbing over TT as for someone like Dumoulin to win this I would say the TT would need to be double the length but he may surprise.

Riders who I like for this; Stybar, Dillier, Terpstra, Boom, Mollema, Vanmarcke, J Vanendert, GVA, Cancellara, Thomas, Dumoulin, Navardauskas, Breschel

Boylesports have come out with a 4 place GC market for this so I'm looking towards some of the longer odds to start with;

J Vanendert 80/1 0.5pts ew Boyles - Vanendert was solid in San Sebastian and I think the course suits

Breschel 250/1 0.3pts ew Boyles - Breschel retired from Denmark early, I'm taking a punt and saying this is to focus on Eneco rather than illness as he was already out of the Denmark GC, a big price.

Vanmarcke 125/1 0.3pts ew Boyles - Vanmarcke has been great this year and I would kick myself if he placed. I'm taking four places as I think it will be really tight but if you want 3 places 200s are around.

I'm not particularly keen on any of the GC H2H's at the moment but I might return to the GC for another pick once other books price up.

RideLondon Classic

Seeming as this new "classic" passes by the end of my road I thought it would be rude not to write a preview. They have fiddled with the route this year and now the race comes in at 193km instead of 220km from last year, the climbs are relatively similar though and it should put a bit of tiredness into sprinters legs.

This is an unofficial profile "RideLondon-Surrey Classic Profile 2014" by Clive Jones which you can find more of on the 2014 wiki for this race here.

The two previous iterations of this race have ended in bunch sprints and this is the most likely scenario again even with apocalyptic weather. I'd be surprised if we get a winner from one of the smaller GB teams as there is a bit of a gulf in speed so for me these are the contenders;

Ben Swift - just endured a crash fest in Poland and in four sprint stages did not get in the top 150...
Mark Renshaw - Solid form from the TDF and commonwealths
Caleb Ewan - this guy has so much talent. gutsy ride in the commonwealths and Team Aus probably would have backed him over Renshaw had that race come to a sprint.
Elia Viviani - Just come off the TDF where he was working for Sagan but in theory one of the fastest here.
Sam Bennett - out performed expectations in debut season at NetApp and has been pretty consistent.
Michael Van Staeyen - Topsport rider who doesn't have the same top end speed as the above but is a threat.
Jonas Ahlstrand - Argos rider whose obviously irritated by lack of opportunities and is joining the Bouhanni project at Cofidis next year, hard to see how he wins this though.
Kristian Sbaragli - Major outsider but this is often a bit of a weird sprint, plus he rides for the team which carries the name of one of my blog charities.


For me its going to be Bennett or Viviani.

I'm backing Bennett at 16s 0.75pts ew at 16/1, Sbaragli 0.2pts ew at 200/1 both with Betvictor.

A break of sprinters got away and stayed away, Bennett was in in but popped and came 6th sadly. All bets down

Tour of Poland stage 7 TT

So it's time for the decisive TT in the Tour of Poland as Majka looks to keep his lead from the twin Movistar threat of Izaguiire and Intxausti.

The TT is 25km and pretty flat. As you can see from the map this is one for the specialists and not particularly technical.

Contenders; De Gendt, Meyer, Cataldo, Siutsou, Norman Hansen, P Velits, Jungels, Vandewalle, Vorobyev, Bobridge, Amador, I Izaguiire, Malori, Ludviggson, Le Bon, and I will include Majka just because he is riding on another level at the moment.

My prediction is Vandewalle, Malori, Siutsou.

Malori hasn't raced much for ages and Vandewalle is in form.

1pt Vandewalle ew at 12/1 PP

0.5pts Suitsou top 3 20/1 B365


H2H

Cattaneo v monfort 1.943 1pt Pinnacle - Cattaneo beat Monfort in both Giro TT's and was recently 10th in both Tour de Suisse TT's. Monfort is consistent, but consistent in 20-30th.

Poels v nerz 1.8 1pt Pinnacle - Poels has been training specifically for this TT, I don't rate Nerz' TT too highly.

Gesink v riblon 1.8 0.75pt Pinnacle

I also want to do some accumulator's as they are fun;

Cataldo, Formolo, Poels, Cattaneo, Bouet to win their H2H's 20/1 with Pinnacle. 0.3pts

Flens, Ludviggson, Cataldo, Poels, Formolo, Majka, Izaguirre, Bouet, Warbasse 0.1pt 250/1 Pinnacle


Result - Vandewalle Wins the TT, all other bets lose.