SVENNESS 3.1 starts us off at the 2014 Superprestige Gieten, where a trio of Dutch youngsters look to dethrone the old Belgian guard. Lars van der Haar, David van der Poel and his little brother Mathieu van der Poel are all over the front of this race. The brothers van der Poel are also all over the back of the race as they spend time in the pack with Sven Nys who uncharacteristically flubbed the start and is 30 seconds off the pace. We look at riding and turning in the sand, barrier work and race strategy.
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Footage is via Vier: vier.be/veldrijden
Music for this episode:
Birdsong~Cattle & Cane cattleandcane.bandcamp.com/track/birdsong
Like A Hot Knife~The Modern Era themodernera.bandcamp.com/track/like-a-hot-knife
Mood Bomb~Superfood soundcloud.com/superfood/mood-bomb
DBTS~LVL UP soundcloud.com/double-double-whammy/lvl-up-dbts
No Shows~Gerard Way soundcloud.com/gerardway/no-shows
Summer~The Union Pacific theunionpacific.bandcamp.com/track/summer-2
Thanks for watching.
EDIT: Also, just posted is a weekly segment I’m doing with Scott and David from the Cyclocross Network. If you listen to the podcast audio and watch the SVENNESS video, they sync perfectly. Start the podcast when the lion roars.
Great race – tremendous commentary, as always Bill !
Nice job as always Bill! Great ride back for the winner.
Bill,
how did Mathieu van der Poel get a front line starting position? I would think that the rookies have to start at the back and earn their way up to the front line. Asking for a friend.
Thanks
Lars
Not a rookie! Although only 19, he was eighth in UCI points last year, so he earned that spot. http://www.uci.ch/cyclo-cross/ranking/
Waited to watch until I could sit at my computer screen. Well worth it. So good. Cheers!
Pauwels had every lap too big a gear going up that (final) sand section. I know that the general rule in sand is not to pick too small a gear, but up that hill his gear was just not suited.
e.g. MvdP can turn a much bigger gear than him on the flat section after the top, but always had a smaller gear than Pauwels in that sand section.
LvdH was knackered trying to keep MvdP at bay, so no surprise that after Mathieu managed to come back, he went on to drop Lars on the remaining hard sections. Very good pick-up from Cxhairs that the sum of the tiny errors that LvdH made throughout the race probably were the difference in the end.
Still…impressive ride from both (of course especially Mathieu as a “rookie”).