The six US riders who will line up for the UCI Road World Championships road race on Sunday, September 24, have realistic expectations for their potential results on the lumpy, Classics-like course in Bergen, Norway.
Over the past five years, the best USA Cycling elite men's result has been Alex Howes' 12th place in Richmond in 2015. Before that, Brent Bookwalter's 25th place in 2014 and Howes' 31st in 2013 were the most recent top results for Americans. Tyler Farrar's 10th place in 2011 is the best US result since Chris Horner pulled off an eighth-place finish in 2004. Last year on a windswept course in Doha, Qatar, Taylor Phinney managed 42nd place, while Robin Carpenter came in 53rd, the last finisher ahead of a long list of DNFs.
Given that history, expectations for the USA Cycling team in Bergen are not through the roof, but Bookwalter, 33, will once again guide a solid group that also includes his BMC teammates Joey Rosskopf and Tejay van Garderen, Cannondale-Drapac's Nate Brown and Alex Howes, and Trek-Segafredo's Kiel Reijnen.
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"I'm definitely proud to be selected again," said Bookwalter, who spoke to Cyclingnews by phone from Spain, where he is recovering from a crash in the Tour of Britain in which he collided with a car parked along the course. "I never take selection for Worlds for granted, especially these days with quite a few Americans in the WorldTour. We may not have the Peter Sagan superstar in the US right now, but we have a lot of good, talented, well-rounded guys."
This year's 267.5km route in Norway actually starts in Kollsnes for a short ride to the 19.1km Bergen circuit, which includes three punchy climbs on each of the 12 laps. Unlike Doha's relatively flat parcours, the Bergen course is a lot more like Richmond's challenging route. The three climbs come close together, with the 700-metre Løbergsveien reaching gradients of 5 percent. Just a few kilometres later the peloton will tackle another 1km climb at 4.8 per cent. A flat kilometre leads to the bottom of Salmon Hill, which averages 6.4 percent gradient for 1.5km. A technical descent into Bergen leaves another 8.1km to the line, the last 2.7 of which are flat.
"I haven't seen the course firsthand, but profile-wise there's a lot of accumulated climbing, and technical-wise it's similar to Richmond," Bookwalter said. "I think the last kilometre at Richmond, from what I understand, is more demanding than the one in Bergen, which will definitely play in. I anticipate more of a kind of Richmond outcome without Sagan going away, but with him, who knows. He's shown that anything is possible. But on paper it looks to be a reduced bunch sprint."
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