It's on Saturday............easily forgotten amidst the footie, racing etc and everything else that's going on as Saturday unfolds

ES look to have pretty good coverage with over 3 hours scheduled..............

Cav to win !

If Sky pull back the breaks then surely its got to be Cavendish with a historic consecutive race win for GB riders.

If the teams leave the all the chasing to Sky, as favourites, then Cancellara from a break. (Or, maybe EBH, sent up to mark a ragged break?)

Milan-San Remo is probably my favourite day race because you don't even know what type of rider is going to win. Having said that Sky and cav look in great shape at the moment so Cavendish to win. Or Boonen or Cancellara, maybe someone else.

Great win for GreenEdge. Gerrans is now top of the UCI rankings after following on from his TDU win and nearly pipping Valverde for a stage in P-N. I was surprised Nibali and Sagan still had the legs to be there the finish so soon after T-A.

It is a shame the race did not really kick off until the Poggio. The coverage kind of lost its way in the middle. Overdoing Team Sky leaving and returning to Cavendish, and then the unfortunate Quintero crash. I hope he makes a full recovery.

I wish in those circumstances the helicopter cameras stuck to a much wider angle. I really do not have a morbid interest in seeing severe injuries.

I had money on boonen and freire, thought i was quids in, especially after cav was dropped.

Good win for Gerrans, was on the cards as soon as the big 3 went clear. Not sure what else Cancellara could of done, but he did work his socks off for the other two in the end.

Approaching the Poggio, Cancellara asked Bennati to raise the pace. The rider went to the front puffing for a short while before falling back. At that point I think RSNT had lost the race. In Strade Bianche, Bennati's break stretched the field and no one could get onto Cancellara's wheel when he finally attacked on a short climb.

Strade Bianchi is more like the Tour of Flanders than MSR... much more attritional, with the hills and the gravel surfaces. You can't really split the field in MSR no matter how strong your team is.

Cancellara's only chance was to get a gap on the descent. He almost managed it, but there was nothing else IMO that he could have done.

Credit to Gerrans for picking the right wheel and not letting it go.

I guess if Gerrans was a really good sprinter, Cancellara would of just sat up on the run in and asked him to work.

Watching the race (which I hadn't before) I was thinking how on earth Cav won this a few years ago? Those last two climbs are pretty high speed affairs, and only a few k on the flat to the finish.

They're high speed, yeah, but that doesn't necessarily equate to difficulty. Watch the first few bends of the Poggio again... they're freewheeling uphill!

Cav won in 2009 because Quick Step set a steady pace until the top and then Hincapie did an amazing effort to bring Cav back towards the front.

I think today is the Queen stage in Catalonia..........

Coverage hasn't been terrific though, joining the race for the last hour only

No TV coverage at all today because of snow.

oh dear.............what to do this afternoon.........watch the horse racing I suppose

Have the cancelled the stage ?

No, but they changed the route... taken out the mountain top finish, which will please Albasini.

ok, cheers...........I've not really got into this race so far with the late starts and now today's no TV.............the race is going to be over before it's got going............

Yeah the coverage has been pretty shoddy. Seemed like yesterday's stage they had one camera-bike to film the whole race.

Looks like today turned out to be a bit of a farce - Brajkovic "won" from a group that was over 8 minutes ahead, but now they're saying the result doesn't count because too many riders abandoned. Talk about making the rules up as you go along... only in cycling...

Wiggins pulled out yesterday too, dont blame him really. Julian Dean fell & broke his leg on the snow shortened stage.

Uran won todays stage fwiw.

As it happened it was an interesting and good stage today with two long climbs near the finish, a group of 'favourites' getting away and gradually being pegged back right on the line

unfortunately I dozed off for an hour and missed most of it............

E3 was a fantastic race, another win by Boonen.

For anyone that missed it check this out

http://www.sporza.be/cm/sporza/video...nnen/1.1253345

Live coverage of the Gran Crtierium has just started on ES2........40K to go and the peloton is split

I think it's a 2 day race ?..........I dion't even know where it is ?.......France ?

Looks to be a bit of a bonus for ES viewers as it wasn't on the schedule printed in the RT and I don't think it's been on in previous seasons

oh, apparently this is the last day, they had a time trial yesterday

Boonen won again today (the G-W). Next week we get a proper classic, Tour of Flanders, instead of the semi ones this weekend. Boonen for 3 in a row, or Cancellara 's luck to change?

Good prediction! Gerrans is number 1 rider so far this year, and Greenedge 2nd in the team rankings -
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/gerr...dtour-rankings
Who is your bet for Flanders on Sunday?

canc has flanders in the bag

I was talking about the TDU, I didn't expect them to win MSR and Catalunya too!

Flanders is going to be interesting. Cancellara has the strength, but no team, Boonen has the form and a strong team. Could be like last year when everyone was more concentrated on not letting Cancellara win rather than winning themselves, letting an outsider nip away at the end.

Apparently the route is different this year with more hills in the finalé, so that suits Cancellara's style.

Gilbert, Hushovd and Flecha have all been rubbish this year. Sep Vanmarcke looks good, but lacks experience in the sharp end of big races. Pozzato started to show his face in G-W after a crappy 2011.

Outside shot: Matti Breschel. Been consistent in all the semi-classics so far this year, top 10 in both Flanders and Roubaix in 2009, but had troubles with injury since then. New team this year, injury-free... could benefit if Boonen and Cancellara play too much poker.