#wieb

[marcelskittels]

LORENA WIEBES 🇳🇱 Paris 2024 Olympics - Cycling: Women's Road Race 📸 by Koen van Weel

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You got this 👊

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Marlen Reusser, Mischa Bredewold, Lotte Kopecky, Demi Vollering & Lorena Wiebes Team SD Worx-Protime / Training Camp 📸 by Dario Belingheri/Getty Images

[womensworldtour]

Tour de France Femmes begins Monday!

After the long pause from the 2024 Paris Olympics (which has been pretty great, tbh) we finally begin the Tour de France Femmes on Monday, August 12!

We're looking at eight stages, with the riders rolling out from Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where they will spend most of three days on 2.5 stages around Rotterdam. We say 2.5 stages, because Tuesday features two different stages, a short sprint stage and then an evening time trial. We don't know how we feel about these types of stages, but at least it will showcase different riders' talents.

Stage 4 on Wednesday will see the riders cross into Belgium and travel parts of the routes for Amstel Gold Race and Liege-Bastogne-Liege, including the famous hills like the Cauberg and the Cote de la Roche-aux-Faucons. And then finally, on Thursday, the Tour de France actually reaches France, and we will see increasingly mountainous stages that should determine the general classification, including finales on Le Grand-Bornand and the infamous Alp d'Huez.

As for GC, the odds-on favorite has to be defending TdFF champ Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime), who as we have said this year, is the best climber and stage-racer in the world right now. Cycling News has a great run-down for the other challengers, however, which we recommend.

It will be interesting to see how other strong teams like Canyon-SRAM and Lidl-Trek can put SD Worx under pressure. We've seen that in the Tour de Suisse and it can be done, but frankly, Vollering is so dominant right now that she might still win even if she's isolated on half the stages. She is just that good. Keep an eye on riders like Neve Bradbury (Canyon-SRAM) or Evita Muzic (FDJ-Suez) as possible spoilers, and definitely contenders for the podium.

We honestly don't know how the fight for the points jersey will go, and we're excited to see how that plays out across the stages. Defending green jersey wearer Marianne Vos (Visma Lease-a-Bike) will want to repeat, but she'll have some serious competition from Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime), who is still the fastest pure sprinter in the world and has shown she can get over the hills remarkably well. We'd love to see Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) back to winning ways after being off the bike due to injury.

We are less optimistic about the competition for the polka-dot jersey, and think it will likely be swept up by the GC winner. But that isn't always the case, like in the Giro this year, and we'd love to see some breakaway action and a non-GC rider try to hold onto that jersey.

We also expect several teams to hunt stages and keep several of the stages entertaining. EF-Oatly-Cannondale has been on a rampage this year, scooping up stages in the Vuelta Feminina and the Giro d'Italia Women, and they have the firepower to do it again with Alison Jackson, Kim Cadzow, Clara Emond, or Kristen Faulkner. Another team to watch is AG Insurance-Soudal, which has options in Tour Down Under champ Sarah Gigante, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, and Giro mountains classification winner Justine Ghekiere.

And finally, we expect to be surprised! We'd love to see a new talent announce herself on the biggest stage of the season, that's part of what we love about bike racing. This year's course is less likely to be an SD Worx show like last year (5 out of 8 stages), particularly with Lotte Kopecky not on the start list, so we are looking forward to some surprise moves and performances that will keep the racing interesting all the way to the top of Alp d'Huez!

[miafi]

iamspecialized We Are Specialized... Meet the Class of 2024 #iamspecialized || January 16 2024

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📸 rikfoto_

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I feel okay 👍

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Rat Queens #3

[balu8]

Rat Queens #5

by Kurtis J. Wiebe; Ed Brisson

Image

[marcelskittels]

TEAM SD WORX - PROTIME Demi Vollering, Mischa Bredewold, Niamh Fisher-Black, Barbara Guarischi, Christine Majerus, Blanka Vas & Lorena Wiebes

Le Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2024 📸 by Eloise Maivan (tornanti_cc)

[leveloneandup]

strava Tobin Heath caught up with one of the best sprinters riding in Le Tour de France Femmes . Keep an eye out for Lorena Wiebes in today’s stage as she and her team Team SD Worx - Protime set their sights on a stage win and the very first yellow jersey of the tour. 💛

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[tadejpogacar]

🎥 & 📸 via teamnlinsta

[womensworldtour]

Tour de France Femmes - Stage 2

Another sprint stage, a short one this time in the morning of day 2 before this evening's ITT. Only 68km from Dortrecht to Rotterdam, pancake flat, no mountains points—please forgive us if we think these sorts of stages are boring.

If you like windmills or Dutch road infrastructure, there's a lot to see in flat Dutch stages. If you don't care about traffic calming or pedestrian islands or raised crosswalks or trams or continuous sidewalks, then there really wasn't much to watch in this stage until the end.

For the better part of an hour and a half, the most interesting thing to happen were a few minor crashes in the bunch with touches of wheels, or Tashkent riders getting dropped off the back, and no one wants to see that. If you only caught the last 10km (or even 3km, to be honest) we wouldn't blame you.

Fast forward to the end, then, which certainly was exciting, a full bunch sprint after winding through narrow roads and roundabouts on the entrance to Rotterdam. The irony of the Netherlands is that the very bike paths and road furniture that make the country great for average people to bike make it a challenging place to race for the pro peloton. Most of the sprint teams got their riders through a series of turns and across several bridges safely, but crash near the front on one of the biggest bridges took Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) out of contention and split the group in half.

Team SD Worx-Protime led in the approach with Blanka Vas and Team dsm-firmenich-postNL did the same with Pfeiffer Georgi, and when the sprinters lit their candles, Charlotte Kool came up on the right-hand side, slipped past Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease-a-Bike) and slingshotted around Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) to take her second Tour de France Femmes stage in a row!

Kool and Wiebes were a couple bike lengths ahead of Vos, who was in turn a couple bike lengths ahead of Lotta Henttala (EF-Oatly-Cannondale) and Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek). These are the best sprinters in the world right now, and seeing them go head-to-head almost makes the back-to-back sprint stages worth it.

More racing later today in what they are calling Stage 3.

[agena87]

Walo Landgraab-Münch - Inquisitive

Wiebe Landgraab-Münch - charmer

Wilhelmina Landgraab-Münch - clingy

Willi Landgraab-Münch - clingy

I know I said I would make them YA, but I HAD to see them as toddlers beforehand. And well, I don't know how they'll look as they age up, but toddler!Willi looks A LOT like Willa, I wonder if we'll have a Wolfgang-döppelganger...