The best rider so far this season?


A run of the mill moment for Dumoulin

He might be one of the smallest riders in the bunch and he might ride a compact chainset but Samuel Dumoulin collected his sixth win of the season so far yesterday in the Circuit de la Sarthe. He’s now equal with AndrĂ© Greipel on six wins but for me, Dumoulin edges the German because Dumoulin’s got involved in breakaways and his efforts are harder, there’s no Cofidis lead out train.

Now clearly even Dumoulin would trade his wins for a classic and this isn’t to say he’s a better rider than Cancellara (three wins) or Oscar Freire (four wins) but six wins by mid-April is good going. He’s not the rider you’d automatically pick when wondering who’d won the most races this year so I thought it was worth mentioning.

You can see the full rankings at the excellent Cycling Quotient website.

  • As mentioned above, Dumoulin uses a 50T outer chainring. A rider who can sprint well after a rolling stage, he claims the compact chainset saves his legs but the 11T sprocket on the back is plenty for the sprint. Who’d argue with that?

(Photo: L’Equipe)