De Brabantse Pijl 2011

Gilbert is a baller.

Philippe Gilbert (Omega-Pharma Lotto) won Brabantse Pijl in a two-man sprint for the line against Bjorn Leukemans (Vacansoleil-DCM).

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/de-brabantse-pijl-la-fleche-brabanconne-1-hc/results.

The finale:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygKUnWG9Xp0[/youtube]

The 2010 finish was pretty damn cool as well. Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWzbd_tgaEs.

About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

15 Replies to “De Brabantse Pijl 2011”

  1. Could it be possible to make this place more Spoiler-free?

    Honestly love DC, but I’m staying away more since posts like this make watching a race I had recorded now much less interesting.

    Sucks really.

  2. D – It’s a fine line, really, isn’t it? On one hand we want to talk about current events. On the other, we don’t want to spoil things such as recent racing results.

    I’m not sure where to draw the line. Any ideas?

  3. I see no problem with posting results/video the day after the race. It’s all over the web at cycling new sites the second the race is over. What you going to do about the Le Tour? Wait until the end of July to discuss stages? I say keep on as is Big Jon.

  4. I would much rather come here for my race updates and have a little comment conversation with all of you, than to read about it on Velosnooze. Keep up the good work boys.

  5. I agree le Tour is impossible to embargo and shouldn’t be, but perhaps a policy of spoiler-free time might help for the rest of the UCI calendar.

    I think next day is workable. If I knew it was such, I would know how to behave.

  6. @D, not to be rude, but how do you get around the web for 24hours without coming across yesterday’s results?

  7. …i agree with evil bumpkin, f & michael…being as this race was in europe, with the time difference, the post was put up approximately 24 hours after the finish…that’s definitely not even close to a spoiler…

    …by the way – props to phillipe gilbert…as gianni suggests, guy is a baller…

  8. …ya know how on group rides there’s always be someone who ‘half wheels’, just always slightly (& annoyingly) ahead even as you’re talking ???…you up-tempo a fraction to ride side by side & they’ll sped up to remain a half wheel in front ???…

    …this looked to be a case of gilbert holding himself a half wheel back on leukemans to control the tempo & when leukemans went, most notably from the right side leading into a left hand bend before the finish straight, it was like ‘here, phillipe, take my wheel’

    …but then again, besides being a strong rider, phillipe gilbert is a savvy tactician…i’m bettin’ he knew what he was doing & not just relying on leg strength…

  9. in the post-race interviews, Gilbert and Leukemans discussed how they’d agreed 6km from the finish not to attack each other and decide it in a sprint. Gilbert said ‘I couldn’t lead, I knew that he would do something behind my back.’ And he knew he had the faster finish: just look at him pedal a big gear while Leukemans is just spinning.

    @D: I feel your pain of seeing a spoiler if you have a race recorded to watch. We had beautiful weather on Sunday so I went for a ride instead of watching Paris-Roubaix. I knew to avoid the cycling websites, but my mistake was having Belgian TV on…news of Vansummeren’s victory was everywhere.

  10. also, consider that Gilbert is peaking for Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race and Leukemans was three days removed from three heavy crashes in Paris-Roubaix. baller.

    speaking of ballers and P-R leftovers, Kurt-Asle Arvsen (Sky) crashed and damaged his saddle, which eventually came completely off…and he still rode 20km:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pudyCkMaQcg

  11. Um, the internets don’t say much about the Giro start list, but I did see a reference to Gilbert riding the TdF, which would make him unlikely for the Giro…?

  12. I could see Gilbert forming his plan well ahead of Pijl, but I thought Pijl had it when he took off. I love me a sprint!