I think that's a bit mild. I would say Vanendert was disappointing, Gilbert was plain disastrous. This was his race, more so than the Amstel or La Fleche.
I was trying to be polite. But, that's because I like him....it was utter crap. Sadly enough, I found this year's classics lacking.
I have to admit, the new route for the Ronde really let me down. After that, Paris-Roubaix was kind of boring. I'm not too into the Ardennes classics, but the Fleche was good value. But yeah, all in all, the Spring Classics season wasn't great, with the exception of MSR, which was more exciting than usual.
The main conclusion for me is that the two outfits who looked most formidable on paper (BMC and Radioshack) have greatly disappointed in the Spring classics. What was the combined best result for those teams? Ballan's podium place in P-R? That might have been more impressive if he ever was in a position to win that race, which he wasn't.
There was a moment at RVV (maybe on the Paterberg?) where it looked like Pippo and Ballan were pulling away from Ballan. Unfortunately they couldn't make it stick and the rest is history. I wonder if they'd known what was going on, they would have put the hammer down a little harder and increased the gap. And BMC did a lot of hard work at LBL, all for naught (sort of like Garmin in the last 10k of a sprint stage the last few years). But yeah, that's cycling, innit? All that hard work, and unless a few breaks go your way, you end up with nothing.
Hell of a result for Talansky. Lost by .7 seconds, although to be fair, that was because Wiggo had a mechanical. Still, second place in one of the more important five day races is pretty good. Odd that he doesn't get the hype that Tejay and Phinney get. Seems he may be better.