Welcome back to the Lanction Rouge Cycling Podcast with Benji Nice and to the recap of Volta's Acclistra Catalonia Stage 3, 2021, as well as 3 Ducks, a little bit of coxida, a 1-day race that's called, oh no, it's not called 3 Ducks anymore, Benji, they listen to my complaints, so it's just a 1-day World Tour Race in the North, West of Belgium.

We'll do that second. Before we get to the Catalonia recap, I want to mention our show partner, LeCole, we've got some big things planned for you in conjunction with LeCole for the Spring Classics.

I just had a meeting with them before watching Catalonia arranging some people that have actually won Flanders and Rebae Benji to come on and give their hot takes.

So I guess we'll see how hot the takes can be when that comes around. Stay tuned for that and those announcements in the next few weeks.

Catalonia Stage 3, from Canada, Olympic to Catalonia to Volta 2000, it's like pretty much a crescendo in stage profile form, going from sea level up to 2000 meters, gradually, final climb to 22.5K, but the first 10K falls flat, getting gradually steeper than 11.5K is 7.5%.

Who do we pick for the stage when yesterday Benji, both of us?

We did Adam Yates. You went ahead and chose the more obvious rider that could really do well here knowing that his team is as strongest and that he's a great rider in one week races and this is a one week race.

So it applies to that. I went for a bit of an orthodox approach by choosing the rider with the same last name as the final climb, because that is definitely how you decide who will win the stage.

And until I've altered was my pick. I can tell you already that didn't exactly go as planned, but yeah, I guess you'll find out who took a victory after we do our recap, like always.

So break went as we thought it would. It got about 10 minutes before those live coverage. It has our own archons of Van der Enzburg, Colin Joyce on Rally, Alexander Camp.

The strongest rider in there for the final climb was clearly time and aronsman on DSM. He was very, very strong and breakways in the world to last year, the young lad.

And I believe fan of the channel, maybe the podcast. So they got like 10 minutes and it was DeCernic, Jumbo, Visma and Inos pacing, Lucro, Robert Helsing, Peter Serri, if you still in the race, I think for DeCernic Quickstep.

And we'll talk about whether that was a good idea later. Not too much happened. They just kept the breaking check, eight minutes, six minutes, four minutes.

Live coverage started. It was about five and a half minutes with 55 case to go. Then they got to about 25 case to go four minute gap. And then they just started chewing into it.

DeCernic brought it on the four minutes. Then Inos, I'm not sure. Yeah, Lucro was pacing before then. But it was Rowan Dennis Benji.

When did you think, do you think Dennis is more useful on that false class section on a 4% on like a 6%, like where, where's the ideal spot for Dennis?

I think that is in beat because I think that it's on the still of your loss here is absolute dominance in climbs with a steady gradient.

I think that the best gradients are the pretty lower ones between like 3 to 6%, 7% perhaps max, I think that is a good gradient for Dennis to just rock steady on to grind his way to the top and just keep mowing that same wattage towards the top of the climb.

And I think he can apply this to a section at the start of this falter 2000 climb. The rest of it is not necessarily the perfect Dennis territory.

I also think that Dennis is not a pure climber. So I don't think people should expect because he was on the still of your loss here, one of the better climbers that he's going to do that on every mountain stage.

So it's risky for any else to focus on that performance and say, oh, he's going to stay there until how the climb and be able to achieve something by then.

So I think that it's ideal to put Dennis in one of your first riders of the train to set a steady tempo.

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