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Friday, March 15, 2013

Weekend Preview: Nogent-sur-Oise and San Giuseppe

After last weekend's flurry of racing, this weekend will be lighter. While the Istrian Spring Trophy is ongoing and finishes up on Sunday, two more big races will be taking place this weekend.

GP de la Ville de Nogent-sur-Oise

165.7 kms     North-Central France    Website     

At least this race has a website, no? Albeit a rather unhelpful one. No profiles and course maps are downloadable POWERPOINTS! Ugh. Well this race is rather self-explanatory. A couple of loops around Nogent-sur-Oise followed by a sprint finish. Or perhaps a solo winner. Just another northern French race.

Some past winners include:
  • 2012: Igor Boev
  • 2011: Alexey Tsatevich
  • 2009: Evaldas Siskevicius
The startlist is pretty beefy given there is nothing big going on for Belgian teams this weekend. With the course being sprinter friendly, there are favorites in Patrick Clausen (CULT Energy), Steve Schets (Doltcini Flanders and 3rd last year) & teammate Kevin Suarez and Mauro Richeze (Nippo). This also signifies the first race for world junior time trial champion Oskar Svendsen (Joker-Merida). Other strongmen on the start list are Kattekoers winner Jèrôme Baugnies (ToWin-Josan), former Junior World TT champ Mads Würtz Schmidt (CULT Energy), the balding Clement Lhotellerie (Colba Superano Ham) and former winner Vytautas Kaupas (Differdange).


53rd GP San Giuseppe



167 km     Montecassiano, Marche, Italy    Website     Profile    Course

Montecassiano is one spectacular view and makes for one spectacular race in the GP San Giuseppe. The town is in the middle of nowhere, about 25 km from the Adriatic, and is listed as one of Italy's most beautiful villages. The race is named after the city's patron saint, Saint Joseph (Giuseppe in Italian), and is run near the (first class) feast day celebrating him, March 19th. Making sense?




Lots of Mullet in that video. In any case, this race deserves more attention for its awesome parcours and the amount of talent it attracts every year. The course takes in Montecassiano and its surrounding villages, running an opening 15 kilometer loop followed with eight-19 kilometer laps, each of which gains about 250 meters vertically. The last kilometer has a climb back up to Montecassiano after a descent from Croce Vissani, which is ~900 meters long at 7% before leveling off in the last 100 meters to the finishing line. This race is usually good for a breakaway finish followed by a large chasing pack.

Former winners of this race include Enrico Battaglin (x2), Martin Pedersen and Aleksandr Kuschynski.

The race can be seen LIVE via ciclonet.it at 12.00 local for the start and the last hour will begin around 16.40 local. 

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