RideLondon–Surrey Classic 2018 [FULL RACE]

July 29, 2018

RideLondon–Surrey Classic 2018 – London – London : 187 km

The London–Surrey Classic (also known as the RideLondon–Surrey Classic) is an annual 193 km (119.9 mi) men’s professional one-day road bicycle racing starting and finishing in London and routed via the picturesque Surrey Hills. The first race of its kind was the London–Surrey Cycle Classic, on 14 August 2011, a 1.2 classification 140 km preparatory event for the 2012 Summer Olympics, which was won by sprinter Mark Cavendish. The men’s and women’s Olympic road races were held on a longer variation of the same course the following year. On 4 August 2013, the race found a permanent home as part of the Prudential RideLondon weekend, a two-day cycling festival held in London, a legacy event of the Olympics.

Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe), who crashed mid-race crash, went on to win the sixth Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic in London on Sunday. The German sprinter out-paced Italians Elia Viviani (Quick-Step Floors) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek-Segafredo) in a bunch kick to the finish line on The Mall.

Ackermann crashed with 80km to go and borrowed a teammate’s bike to get himself back in contention with the main field for the final sprint. Viviani was the first to start his sprint, but Ackermann came around him for the win.

“My team did an amazing job today because I crashed in the middle of the race and they had to get me back to the peloton,” said Ackermann. “I had to reward them for that and thankfully I could do it,” Ackermann said. “I knew I was in good shape and told my team to get me in a good position. They were 100 per cent behind me and I’m so proud of what they did to give me a chance. I wasn’t watching Viviani, I just kept my eyes on the Finish Line and went for the win.”

How it unfolded

The peloton lined up for the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic’s 183km race under rain for a course that started at Horse Guards Parade, St James’s Park in central London and then took on the hills of Surrey before returning to London to finish out front of Buckingham Palace. There were four intermediate sprints in Hampton Court and Dorking, and five KOMs on Staple Lane, Leith Hill, Ranmore (twice) and Box Hill to contest.

A breakaway set off with Caleb Ewan (Mitchelton-Scott), Aaron Verwilst (Team Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Alexis Gougeard (AG2R), Valerio Agnoli and Manuele Boaro (Bahrain-Merida), Pawel Cieslik (CCC), however, Ewan later abandoned the race.

They pushed their lead out to nearly three minutes in the first 20km of the race and that swelled to over seven minutes as the main field seemed happy to let them go.

Verwilst picked up the first intermediate sprint in Hampton Court, while Boaro took full points at the next two sprints in Dorking, and secured the sprint classification title. In the KOMs, Gougeard took the award at the end of the stage after picking up full points over Staple Lane and Leith Hill. He was out-paced over the top of Ranmore Common, but collected enough points to hold the mountain points lead.

Bora-Hansgrohe, Quick-Step Floors and Dimension Data set the early pace for their sprinters in the field and brought the time gap back down to a more manageable four minutes.

Team Sky moved to the front with Ian Stannard to set tempo, and he got some help from Trek-Segafredo’s Ryan Mullen. But a chase group set off with Michael Matthews (Sunweb), Chris Juul-Jensen (Mitchelton-Scott), Peter Kennaugh (Bora), Owain Doull (Sky), Jay McCarthy (Bora) and Nathan Haas (Katusha). They made contact with the leaders at the bottom of Box Hill. Matthews led over the climb taking those top mountain points, while Kennaugh grabbed the last intermediate sprint, but those competitions were already sewn up earlier in the race.

Matthews and Kennaugh crashed and so the breakaway was reduced to six with Haas, McCarthy, Agnoli, Boaro, Juul-Jensen and Doull. Those remaining six riders held a slim lead of 58 seconds in the final 40km.

Their gap was drastically cut by the set up for the final sprint from Dimension Data for Mark Cavendish, Lotto Soudal for Andre Greipel and Quick-Step Floors for Elia Viviani. The gap was down to 10 seconds with 20km to go, and although there were last-minute attacks from the breakaway, the field completely pulled them back together, and it was Bora-Hansgrohe that led the peloton into a bunch sprint on The Mall.

Results :
1 Pascal Ackermann (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe 4:20:10
2 Elia Viviani (Ita) Quick-Step Floors
3 Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita) Trek-Segafredo
4 Ivan Garcia (Spa) Bahrain-Merida
5 Simone Consonni (Ita) UAE Team Emirates
6 Phil Bauhaus (Ger) Team Sunweb
7 Jean-Pierre Drucker (Lux) BMC Racing Team
8 André Greipel (Ger) Lotto Soudal
9 Jonas Koch (Ger) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
10 Rudy Barbier (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale
11 Luka Mezgec (Slo) Mitchelton-Scott
12 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Dimension Data
13 Hugo Houle (Can) Astana Pro Team
14 Christopher Lawless (GBr) Team Sky
15 Jonas Rickaert (Bel) Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise
16 Ramunas Navardauskas (Ltu) Bahrain-Merida
17 Maurits Lammertink (Ned) Katusha-Alpecin
18 Nico Denz (Ger) AG2R La Mondiale
19 Nathan Van Hooydonck (Bel) BMC Racing Team
20 Enrico Battaglin (Ita) LottoNL-Jumbo
21 Kenneth Van Rooy (Bel) Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise
22 Jurgen Roelandts (Bel) BMC Racing Team
23 Matteo Trentin (Ita) Mitchelton-Scott
24 Nathan Haas (Aus) Katusha-Alpecin
25 Diego Ulissi (Ita) UAE Team Emirates
26 Mirco Maestri (Ita) Bardiani CSF
27 Jan Tratnik (Slo) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
28 Jan Bakelants (Bel) AG2R La Mondiale
29 Rüdiger Selig (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe
30 José Gonçalves (Por) Katusha-Alpecin
31 Roy Curvers (Ned) Team Sunweb
32 Sven Erik Bystrøm (Nor) UAE Team Emirates
33 Milan Menten (Bel) Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise
34 Jos van Emden (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo
35 Amaro Antunes (Por) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
36 Maarten Wynants (Bel) LottoNL-Jumbo
37 Laurens De Vreese (Bel) Astana Pro Team
38 Reto Hollenstein (Swi) Katusha-Alpecin
39 Alex Edmondson (Aus) Mitchelton-Scott
40 Christoph Pfingsten (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe
41 Ryan Mullen (Irl) Trek-Segafredo
42 Tom Van Asbroeck (Bel) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale
43 Mike Teunissen (Ned) Team Sunweb
44 Sacha Modolo (Ita) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale
45 Simon Spilak (Slo) Katusha-Alpecin 0:00:12
46 Davide Villella (Ita) Astana Pro Team
47 Daan Olivier (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo
48 Michal Schlegel (Cze) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
49 Tao Geoghegan Hart (GBr) Team Sky
50 Jay Mc Carthy (Aus) Bora-Hansgrohe
51 Adam Hansen (Aus) Lotto Soudal 0:00:16
52 Miles Scotson (Aus) BMC Racing Team
53 Andreas Schillinger (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:00:19
54 Aaron Verwilst (Bel) Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise
55 Rui Costa (Por) UAE Team Emirates
56 Vegard Stake Laengen (Nor) UAE Team Emirates
57 Michael Mørkøv (Den) Quick-Step Floors
58 Lars Bak (Den) Lotto Soudal
59 Ian Stannard (GBr) Team Sky
60 Bjorg Lambrecht (Bel) Lotto Soudal
61 Nikolas Maes (Bel) Lotto Soudal
62 Benoit Cosnefroy (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:31
63 Oscar Gatto (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:00:33
64 Michael Matthews (Aus) Team Sunweb
65 Lukasz Wisniowski (Pol) Team Sky 0:00:40
66 Bert-Jan Lindeman (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo
67 Alberto Bettiol (Ita) BMC Racing Team 0:00:43
68 Alessandro De Marchi (Ita) BMC Racing Team 0:00:47
69 Jaco Venter (RSA) Dimension Data
70 Sebastian Langeveld (Ned) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale
71 Florian Senechal (Fra) Quick-Step Floors
72 Valerio Agnoli (Ita) Bahrain-Merida 0:00:55
73 Mitchell Docker (Aus) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale 0:00:57
74 Davide Martinelli (Ita) Quick-Step Floors 0:01:02
75 Stijn Vandenbergh (Bel) AG2R La Mondiale 0:01:08
76 Martijn Tusveld (Ned) Team Sunweb 0:01:17
77 Max Walscheid (Ger) Team Sunweb
78 Dries Devenyns (Bel) Quick-Step Floors 0:02:06
79 Owain Doull (GBr) Team Sky 0:02:57
80 Scott Davies (GBr) Dimension Data
81 Peter Kennaugh (GBr) Bora-Hansgrohe
82 Maxime Farazijn (Bel) Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise
83 Christopher Juul Jensen (Den) Mitchelton-Scott
84 Enrico Barbin (Ita) Bardiani CSF 0:07:41
85 Manuele Boaro (Ita) Bahrain-Merida 0:08:37
86 Matthias Brändle (Aut) Trek-Segafredo 0:11:33
87 Kristoffer Halvorsen (Nor) Team Sky
88 Pawel Cieslik (Pol) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
89 Fabio Sabatini (Ita) Quick-Step Floors
90 Fabio Jakobsen (Ned) Quick-Step Floors
91 Alexis Gougeard (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale
92 Svein Tuft (Can) Mitchelton-Scott
93 Lorenzo Rota (Ita) Bardiani CSF 0:11:56
94 Scott Thwaites (GBr) Dimension Data 0:14:29
95 Charles Planet (Fra) Team Novo Nordisk
96 Yevgeniy Gidich (Kaz) Astana Pro Team
97 Mathias Van Gompel (Bel) Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise
98 Johann Van Zyl (RSA) Dimension Data
99 Kim Magnusson (Swe) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale
100 Paolo Simion (Ita) Bardiani CSF
101 Mark Renshaw (Aus) Dimension Data
102 Andrea Peron (Ita) Team Novo Nordisk
103 Grega Bole (Slo) Bahrain-Merida
104 James Shaw (GBr) Lotto Soudal
105 Moreno Hofland (Ned) Lotto Soudal
106 Moreno Moser (Ita) Astana Pro Team
107 Laurent Didier (Lux) Trek-Segafredo
108 Rohan Dennis (Aus) BMC Racing Team
109 Michael Albasini (Swi) Mitchelton-Scott
110 Frantisek Sisr (Cze) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
111 Christophe Noppe (Bel) Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise
112 Filippo Ganna (Ita) UAE Team Emirates
113 Ben Swift (GBr) UAE Team Emirates
DNF Alex Dowsett (GBr) Katusha-Alpecin
DNF Jenthe Biermans (Bel) Katusha-Alpecin
DNF Aleksejs Saramotins (Lat) Bora-Hansgrohe
DNF Niccolo Bonifazio (Ita) Bahrain-Merida
DNF David Per (Slo) Bahrain-Merida
DNF Bram Tankink (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo
DNF Robert Wagner (Ger) LottoNL-Jumbo
DNF Gediminas Bagdonas (Ltu) AG2R La Mondiale
DNF Pawel Franczak (Pol) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
DNF Andrea Guardini (Ita) Bardiani CSF
DNF Alessandro Tonelli (Ita) Bardiani CSF
DNF Riccardo Minali (Ita) Astana Pro Team
DNF Matti Breschel (Den) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale
DNF Daniel McLay (GBr) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale
DNF Caleb Ewan (Aus) Mitchelton-Scott
DNF Bernhard Eisel (Aut) Dimension Data
DNF Fabio Calabria (Aus) Team Novo Nordisk
DNF Sam Brand (GBr) Team Novo Nordisk
DNF David Lozano (Spa) Team Novo Nordisk
DNF Umberto Poli (Ita) Team Novo Nordisk
DNF Christopher Williams (Aus) Team Novo Nordisk
DNF Lennard Hofstede (Ned) Team Sunweb
DNF Jonathan Dibben (GBr) Team Sky
DNF Fumiyuki Beppu (Jpn) Trek-Segafredo
DNF Alex Frame (NZl) Trek-Segafredo
DNF Boy van Poppel (Ned) Trek-Segafredo