Here we go!

The Team Time Trial is a rare beast in recent years. But it is one of the more predictable forms of bike racing, given the depth of science and training for the top teams. One of the top performance engineers and aerodynamic specialists for Skineos, for example, is Dan Bigham who proved his credentials last week by setting a new 1 hour record (see here: Briton Dan Bigham sets new UCI Hour Record | Cyclingnews).

Meanwhile, back in the Netherlands, as you can see above, the Procyclingstats website forecast the top 3 teams correctly but (in the words of Eric Morecombe) not necessarily in the right order. The stage result (1st Jumbo-Visma; 2nd Skineos; 3rd Quick-Step) however saw very small margins with only 14 seconds spanning the first three teams.

GreenWightRed Team of the Day

Taking the early advantage in the mini-league are Callan’s posiblemente el último with another striking selection of 3 riders from each from the Jumbos (1st), Quick-Step (3rd) and UAE (5th). The points tally on the TTT is modest, but is enough to feature in the top 0.7% of all fantasy teams – a great start for the British Virgin Islands, apparently.

When in Utrecht…

… with 2000 years of history, and an array of galleries and museums, the obvious tourist destination is the Utrecht Centraal bicycle parking station, the biggest in the world with room for 12,500 bikes. Look on and marvel.

It wasn’t open in time for the last great influx of bicycles when Utrecht hosted the Grand Départ of the 2015 Tour de France, which was an individual time trial won by Rohan Dennis. He now rides for Jumbo-Visma, so with other TT beasts Primož Roglič and Edoardo Affini on board they might be expected to do well in the Team Time Trial on stage 1.