2012 Calendar

Here is the calendar of 2012 men’s pro races, beginning with the UCI World Tour races, the highest-ranked events and I’ve added the road events from the world championships and the Olympic games.

In addition you can download a full calendar of men’s and women’s pro races to import into your organiser, phone, computer and other devices : inrngRaceCalendar.ics. Save the ics / iCal / iCalendar file and you can import it into your electronic diary. One or two clicks and it’s on your iPhone / Outlook etc calendar.

For more on the ranking and classification of races, scroll down.

UCI World Tour, World Championships and Olympic Games

17-22 Jan	Tour Down Under	AUS
4-11 Mar	Paris – Nice	FRA
7-13 Mar	Tirreno-Adriatico	ITA
17 Mar	Milano-Sanremo	ITA
19-25 Mar	Volta Ciclista a Catalunya	ESP
23 Mar	E3 Prijs Vlaanderen – Harelbeke	BEL
25 Mar	Gent – Wevelgem	BEL
1 Apr	Ronde van Vlaanderen / Tour des Flandres	BEL
2-7 Apr	Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco	ESP
8 Apr	Paris – Roubaix	FRA
15 Apr	Amstel Gold Race	NED
18 Apr	La Flèche Wallonne	BEL
22 Apr	Liège – Bastogne – Liège	BEL
24-29 Apr	Tour de Romandie	SUI
5-27 May	Giro d’Italia	ITA
3-10 Jun	Critérium du Dauphiné	FRA
9-17 Jun	Tour de Suisse	SUI
30 Jun – 22 Jul	Tour de France	FRA
10-16 Jul	Tour de Pologne	POL
28 Jul – 1 Aug	Olympic Road Race & Time Trial	GBR
6-12 Aug	Eneco Tour	BEL / NED / LUX
14 Aug	Clasica Ciclista San Sebastian	ESP
18 Aug – 9 Sep	Vuelta a España	ESP
19 Aug	Vattenfall Cyclassics	GER
26 Aug	GP Ouest France – Plouay	FRA
7 Sep	Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec	CAN
9 Sep	Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal	CAN
16-23 Sep	World Championships	NED
29 Sep	Il Lombardia	ITA
10-14 Oct	Tour of Beijing	CHN
17-21 Oct	Tour of Hangzhou	CHN

 

As well as these races the UCI has additional calendars of races around the world, for example the UCI Europe Tour which includes prestigious races like the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad or the Strade Bianchi, regular fixtures like the Critérium International or Tour du Limousin as well as less celebrated races like the Turkey’s Tour of Marmara or the Five Rings of Moscow. The UCI America Tour has races like the upcoming Tour de San Luis and the Tour of California in May.

You’ll find the Europe Tour as well as the African, Asian, American, Oceania Tours and more at UCI.ch, just use the drop down menus.

Underpinning all races is a hierarchy of events, each with their own category. First come the World Tour races and the Olympic and World Championships then the so called hors catégorie races with their HC label. Then races are either Class 1 or Class 2.

These classifications are often abbreviated, you might see races labelled as “WT”, “HC” or “1.1 and “2.2″. A one day race is labelled as 1 and then followed by the appropriate suffix, eg WT for a one day World Tour race and HC for a one day HC race, for example Milan-Turin is labelled as 1.HC whilst a smaller race like the Giro del Veneto is 1.1. A stage race is labelled as 2 and the same prefixes are used so the Tour de France is 2.WT, the Tour of Britain is 2.1.

These classes affect the points awarded to riders. Confusingly there are different points awarded according to the calendar of races.

World Tour points scale
The World Tour is separate and riders on World Tour squads earn points on the following basis:

	Tour de France	Giro & Vuelta	Stage Races and One Day Monuments*	One Day Races**
1	200	170	100	80
2	150	130	80	60
3	120	100	70	50
4	110	90	60	40
5	100	80	50	30
6	90	70	40	22
7	80	60	30	14
8	70	52	20	10
9	60	44	10	6
10	50	38	4	2
11	40	32
12	30	26
13	24	22
14	20	18
15	16	14
16	12	10
17	10	8
18	8	6
19	6	4
20	4	2
Stage	wins
1	20	16	6
2	10	8	4
3	6	4	2
4	4	2	1
5	2	1	1

*	Tour Down Under, Paris-Nice, Tirreno Adriatico, Milan-Sanremo, Tour of Flanders, Tour of Basque Country, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Tour de Romandie, Tour of Catalonia, Dauphiné, Tour de Suisse, Tour of Poland, Eneco Tour, Il Lombardia, Tour of Beijing
**	Gent-Wevelgem, Amstel Gold Race, Flèche Wallonne, Classica San Sebastian, Vattenfall Cyclassics, GP Plouay, GP Québec, GP Montreal

 

Note points are not awarded for wearing a leaders jersey each day in a stage race. And eyebrows may rise when a win in the Tour Down Under or Tour of Beijing brings in as many points as a win in Paris-Roubaix or Liège-Bastogne-Liège but there’s no debate, it’s a fact of cycling life.

HC, 1, 2 points scale
For HC, Class 1 and Class 2 races outside of the World Tour, the following points scale applies.

	Olympics & Worlds	HC	Class 1	Class 2
1	200	100	80	40
2	170	70	56	30
3	140	40	32	16
4	130	30	24	12
5	120	25	20	10
6	110	15	16	8
7	100	10	12	6
8	90	10	8	3
9	80	9	7
10	70	8	6
11	60	7	5
12	50	6	3
13	40	5
14	30	4
15	20	3
16	15
17	10
18	8
19	5
20	3
Stage wins
1		20	16	8
2		14	11	5
3		8	6	2
4		7	5
5		6	4
6		5	2
7		4
8		2
Overall leader	per day	10	8	4

 

If you’ve made it this far then note there are other rankings, such as Cycling Quotient and the IG Pro Cycling Index. Both offer alternative – and in my view – more convincing means to rank riders.

In fact the UCI itself uses an additional internal scoring system to rank riders. Because the World Tour and regional tours have different points scales another secret system is used to score riders so that the teams can be assessed for the “sporting value” element of the World Tour selection criteria.

Finally the sport is not about leagues and rankings. The points system is a powerful driver of rider wages and race tactics and a subject that crops up regularly on the blog.

Despite all this the essence of sport is crossing the finish line first.