Italian road race could be chaos, Tour de France not suited to inventive riding
Matteo Trentin following his fifth Paris-Roubaix (Image credit: Josh Evans / Immediate Media)
Right now you find me on the sofa, chilling after the Tour de Suisse and with the Italian national championships just a few days away. From this point on the season really ramps up once more, with nationals quickly followed by the Tour de France and, all being well, I should be on the start line in Dusseldorf.
As for Suisse, it wasn't too bad, although of course it could have been better. After I raced the Tour of California I stuck in another altitude camp but it meant that I arrived at Suisse perhaps a little jetlagged. I quickly found my feet, though, and picked up four top tens during a tough week of racing. I have to be happy with that, I guess. I'm not the only one of the road and everyone wants to win.
It could lead to chaos. That means riders will look to us, Bahrain and UAE to control the race. There are also a few good riders who maybe don't have huge support, like Caruso from BMC, Feline from Trek, who is racing in his hometown, and Moscon from Sky, who was good in Route du Sud. It's going to be unpredictable but we'll give it our best shot and try and play our cards in the finale.
I've skipped a couple of nationals in the past but it's been when I've not had the condition to honour the race. When you make a rule like this for everyone to show up, then it's fine, as long as they're healthy enough to race. It's our race and the jersey, if you win, is special. You get to wear it all year and wherever you go people cheer for you. It's a jersey that many great riders have pulled on in their career and I know that I'm always proud to wear the national colours at Worlds.
It doesn't really look like a race that is suited to riding with an inventive style. When it's a sprint stage in the Tour, 99 per cent of the time it ends in a bunch sprint, and there's little chance of that changing. Maybe one sprinter wins the first four sprints, and then every other team looks to him to control the next day, and then a break can survive, but it's going to be difficult.
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Join Matteo Trentin as he blogs for Cyclingnews throughout the 2017 season. The popular Italian, at QuickStep Floors, is targeting the Spring Classics before returning to the Tour de France in July.
