Race thread: 🇫🇷 Tro Bro Léon 2026, May 10
Here it is, the .Pro race across the farm tracks of Brittany.
If I trust the weather forecast, this year will be muddy as well.
The course if made of a big loop, starting inland, then closer to the shores at it comes back towards the final circuit in Lannilis. The race is 200 km long, including 34 km of unpaved road.
Due to crashes and punctures, the race can be pretty random. It often smiles upon a sprinter-classicman who survived inside a tiny group of less than 5 or 10 riders. But last year, Tronchon (🇫🇷 Decathlon) managed to win despite a series of various setbacks (punctures, taking the wrong way...)
He'll be back this year under the GFDJ jersey, even though his start of season hasn't been great so far. Cosnefroy (🇫🇷 UAE) will be another favourite, together with a few British riders, Venturini (🇫🇷 Unibet) and the usual Uno-X outsiders.
https://www.trobroleon.com/en/Open linkView original on sh.itjust.works
There was very little mud despite yesterday's and last night's rain; perhaps the strong wind dried everything? Also the tracks looked like they all recently had been fixed. So the number of crashed was limited. Yet one resourceful artist from UAE managed to perform a nose-dive while on an asphalted area and in a climb.
Visma and Decathlon looked dominant, always present in numbers in front groups. Kern was also there, following, but unfortunately they disappeared near the very end. Then there was Uno-X (active in chases), Q36.5 (active in breaks), and FDJ (active in nonsense).
Tronchon (🇫🇷 FDJ) still hasn't found his legs; he was therefore obliged to pull the chase for Madouas🇫🇷 and Molard🇫🇷, who both failed in the end, finishing out of top-15... Before that, when the peloton was still a peloton, there was a moment of sheer stupidity, when Russo starting pulling like a madman, broke the peloton without any teammate behind or near him, and then blew himself up, leaving a messy situation for his team.
Decathlon had always had Lapeira🇫🇷, Gautherat🇫🇷 and Isidore🇫🇷 in very good positions, but in the end they are all disappointed as none of them got a podium.
We had a surprise winner today! Fiorelli (🇮🇹 Visma), formerly Bardiani for many years, managed to run out on the first group just a mile or so from the line. No one expected him to win, his best result so far was a stage win on Sibiu (a Romanian 2.1 ...). It rewards Visma's good performance, otherwise they may have been disappointed as Zingle🇫🇷 and Hagenes🇳🇴 didn't do well in the sprint of the group behind Fiorelli🇮🇹.
A semi-surprise was the second place today, as A. Renard (🇫🇷 Cofidis) managed to sneak and win the sprint of that group. We'd sometimes seen one Cofidis pull a group, but they weren't numerous like several other teams.
Venturini (🇫🇷 Unibet) finished last or almost last of that group's sprint. A pity for a sprinter, but he must have been really cooked after suffering a couple of incidents.
What else?
The race proved hard for Conti teams and riders.