what, no love for KBK?
 

so far it's been a hell of a lot more entertaining than yesterday.

I'm streaming some French broadcast and trying to match it up with the cyclingnews ticker. Not the best way to watch a race, but better than nothing.

Yes, but more confusing. It hurts my American Bike Racing brain. Also, I'm watching the RTBF satellite feed, with the announcing in a language I don't understand (French), and there's a black bar that says "Cette emission n'est pas sous-titree" blocking half the banners at the bottom of the screen, so I can only tell half of the riders in the break unless I want to use the rider numbers and start list on Cyclingnews.com (which is not completely accurate, as it seems Chavanel is in this race). Which I do.

It's all worth it. This is some real racing!

Normally we'd have a Gent-Gent and KBK thread rolled into one.
This year seems to be a plethora of copycats and omissions.

they even had an overweight eddy look alike riding alongside.

Three QSIs, and three RABs in the final selection of 13...

Nuyens, Flecha, Boonen... this is so much better than stage racing.

Wow, maybe Flecha is finally making the right move? 2k left...

Nope, he's blown.

pity. would have loved to see flecha pull it off.

too bad that pathetic "french man" was there to drag him back from boonen.

I was definitely rooting for the Flecha break. That would have made for a much more notable finish. But the finish was good none the less!

A good race to be sure, I too was hoping for Flecha in the end there, or at least his forcing the other teams to do enough work that Nuyens could shoot away for the win. But alas Boonen in a sprint is a tough force to beat.

Rabobank did a nice race, but I guess the true surprise was Cervelo again, althought Haussler missed the last move.

Quick-Step/Domo/Mapei
Lefevre's boys have been and still are, kings of the cobbled classics.

Jeremy Hunt is going alright at the moment by the looks of it.

Nice shot of Mike Friedman making the rounds: here

He posted this later on after the race...
http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/7...toothpaste.jpg

Boonen is impressive. To have such a sprint but be able to make the selections he does is something else. Has there ever been another rider who is effectively an "all-rounder" with such a wicked sprint?

I hope he has a great season. It's a shame he's compared to this mark cavendish *&^%

Chavanel and Flecha, men of the race. Chavanel was simply amazing and if he can hold that form for Flanders/Roubaix he could make it very easy for Boonen. Tommeke owes him a lot already and should have rewarded him at Gent Gent if it weren't for Langeveld's bizarre "i'm moving left" manoeuvre which was really a childish 'I just got caught now I'm going to ruin your day' bodycheck of Pozzato.

Jalabert comes to mind

Jalabert, Kelly, Van Looy, Van Steenbergen, Vanderaerden, Moser, Saronni, Argentin, Maertens, De Vlaeminck, Raas, Bugno, Museeuw, Valverde ...........

you must have been watching a different race.

...

I'm watching it now, didn't get to watch it live

???

I was saying Classic1's list is endless.