2014 Tour of Luxembourg, Stage One

So me mum took a little tour through Europe last month and as luck would have it she happened to be in Luxembourg at the start of Stage One of that country's Tour. The Tour of Luxembourg is a smaller race (though with a 2HC UCI ranking); it is a smaller country after all, but will usually attract some of the sports top guns, a mixture of World Tour, ProContinental (PCT) and Continental (CT) level teams. For instance, this years race included Tinkoff-Saxo and Lotto-Belisol, as well as Rusvelo, Cofidis, MTN-Qhubeka, and Team Stolting, among others. Andre Greipel, Matti Breschel, Danny van Poppel and Greg Henderson mixed it up with Jempy Drucker, Alex Kirsch, Daniel Teklehaimanot, et al over five days of racing.

Greipel won that first stage race of 172.6 km between Luxembourg and Hesperange, and then went on to win the finishing stage as well - 168.4 km between Mersch and Luxembourg. Matti Breschel (Tinkoff-Saxo) would win the overall, as well as both the second and third stages. That left only the prologue, which was won by Danny van Poppel. While those big guns won each stage, riders from the PCT and CT level teams regularly filled out the top five and made the most of their opportunity. 

Anyway mum, unless she has secretly studied up on the pro peloton, would not be able to pick Gorilla Greipel out of even a smallish crowd, none-the-less did her best to snap a few shots of the bunch as they waited around, and then took off at the start of the race. I don't notice Greipel, Breschel, or any of the other "big names", and honestly, i can't place names to any of the riders pictured either. If you can, fill me in with a comment.