Trek-Segafredo head to Saturday’s Strade Bianche searching for success in Siena throughout each males’s and girls’s groups, with Quinn Simmons heading up the lads’s squad for his second look on the race whereas 2017 winner Elisa Longo Borghini and world champion Elisa Balsamo lead the ladies’s staff.
Talking on Friday forward of the race, each Longo Borghini and Simmons commented on the excessive degree of the peloton, with the Italian noting that girls’s biking as a complete is getting stronger, one thing she’s observed to date in 2022.
“In the course of the first few races of the season, I’ve seen a a lot greater degree within the peloton, and higher organisation among the many groups than even a yr in the past,” Longo Borghini mentioned.
“It is solely been a number of months since 2021, however the development is obvious. The group is getting stronger, and all of the groups are getting extra aggressive. That is good for your entire motion.”
Simmons, in the meantime, famous that the race throughout the Tuscan sterrato is now as a lot for the climbers as it’s for extra powerfully constructed Classics riders like himself.
“I feel now as the extent will get greater every year, you for positive need to be climber to be there simply due to the velocity of fellows like Alaphilippe on the climbs. To have the ability to comply with there you continue to need to make it, however to be a Classics rider you continue to want the facility,” he mentioned.
Longo Borghini will co-lead one of many strongest squads within the ladies’s peloton on Saturday, even in Lizzie Deignan’s absence. Audrey Cordon-Ragot, Tayler Wiles, Lauretta Hanson and Shirin Van Anrooij be a part of her and Balsamo on the beginning line.
The Italian, who prevailed on a moist run-in to Siena 5 years in the past, mentioned that the ladies’s race might be extra balanced after Anna van der Breggen’s retirement, although the in-form double-winner Annemiek Van Vleuten is clearly the rider to look at.
“Van der Breggen’s absence will make the race extra balanced,” she mentioned. “We noticed that Annemiek Van Vleuten is already very sturdy, however I feel the race might be open to quite a lot of completely different choices. A number of groups will attempt to impose their very own manner of driving, with out essentially ready.
“Personally, I noticed Lotte Kopecky racing sturdy, in addition to Marta Cavalli and Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig. FDJ could possibly be the staff that animates the race greater than some other.”
She famous that she has taken a distinct strategy to the race for 2022, a extra relaxed lead-in to Saturday’s 136-kilometre battle throughout eight sterrato sectors and numerous climbs.
“In comparison with earlier years, my strategy to Strade Bianche has been softer, extra relaxed, and my degree is getting higher, but it surely’s not but tremendous,” she mentioned. “That does not imply I am any much less assured or have any much less motivation to carry out effectively. I am all the time excited to race Strade Bianche. I additionally need to level out that, as Trek-Segafredo, we’ll be at the beginning with a well-equipped staff. We’ve got a number of choices to play, in addition to myself.”
30-year-old Longo Borghini has simply signed a two-year deal to remain at Trek-Segafredo, and added that her years of expertise can solely assist in unpredictable races like Strade Bianche. She has been a part of the ladies’s peloton since 2011 and has raced six of the seven editions held to date, not as soon as ending decrease than fifth.
“Expertise in a race like this issues lots,” she mentioned. “And the identical goes for the pinnacle. You want to race with intelligence, with out spending an excessive amount of of your self early within the race. For as soon as, I will not be the primary to assault or react. If I feel again to final yr, I nonetheless have some regrets.
“Second place [last year] stung due to how the race unfolded. Alternatively, I additionally discovered learn how to play the sport higher. If I am in a lead group of two, I will not really feel an obligation to tug.”
‘Driving on the gravel is a pleasant, completely different expertise’
In current months, lots has been manufactured from gravel and its place in street races, with Matteo Trentin and Chris Froome main calls from the peloton that gravel roads shouldn’t have any place in stage races. Mauro Schmid, the winner of the 2020 Giro d’Italia stage throughout the sterrato, just lately informed Cyclingnews that they is perhaps proper, too.
Simmons, like Schmid, mentioned that he enjoys racing on the gravel, and famous that he thinks the roads do have a spot in street racing due to the added leisure worth the chaos and unpredictability can present. Final yr’s race noticed him in among the many lead group at 50 kilometres to go earlier than puncturing, then crashing, out of rivalry.
“Driving on the gravel is a pleasant, completely different expertise,” he mentioned. “You see some riders now complaining a bit about including gravel to races. Biking must have an entertaining race.
“For positive it isn’t a Monument as a result of it isn’t sufficiently old, but it surely’s one of many nicest races of the yr irrespective of who you ask. That is as a result of it has one thing completely different and since it is entertaining.
“You simply need to be taught to drift a bit and to not panic in case you begin to slide,” he mentioned as regards to driving on the white gravel roads, that are anticipated to be dry, compact, and quick on Saturday.
“The issue is in case you panic and contact the brakes if you begin to slide. On the street it can save you it a bit simply by slowing down. On the gravel it is best to go nowhere close to your brakes and simply maintain on and be relaxed. Attempt to keep floating on the highest and steer – not together with your bars a lot, however simply by dealing with the bike together with your weight.
Simmons, who in 2020 was suspended by Trek-Segafredo following feedback on social media thought-about by the staff to be “divisive, incendiary, and detrimental”, mentioned that he and his staff – Gianluca Brambilla, Edward Theuns, Dario Cataldo, Toms Skujinš, and Alexander Kamp – are aiming for victory on Saturday.
“For positive, we come right here to trip for the win. If it would not occur it is a disgrace, however there’s one purpose and I will preserve coming again to the race till it occurs,” he mentioned.
“I stay up for watching it yearly and it is really virtually a disgrace now that as a rider I do not get to look at it. I actually loved waking up within the morning with my espresso and get to look at it; it is all the time very nice.
“For me, the primary two hours, when it is nonetheless an enormous bunch and it is collectively and hectic, I do not actually just like the panic and the nerves. However as soon as it is a choose group and everybody’s a bit extra drained, then I actually take pleasure in it. However the level to get to the racing will not be so enjoyable.”
Strade Bianche. By all means. Strade Bianche! pic.twitter.com/assbZwDFwCMarch 3, 2022
