With the 2021 season done, here’s the pro cycling calendar for 2022, free to download for your diary or phone. It’s packed with racing and probably a lot more user-friendly than the revamped UCI website so if you plan on visiting a race or just need plot TV time for the sofa, here it is…
You can view the calendar on the page here or at inrng.com/calendar but you can also download it for your phone, desktop organiser etc. As usual if you do this the best way is to subscribe so that all updates are quietly pushed out automatically to your diary. Here is the iCal link to copy-paste into your device:
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/0ifbjtio49ljt75aimlbbhplhk%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics
Google/Android users can click on Google Calendar link on the calendar frame above and for more tech support, see inrng.com/calendar.
What’s new?
The Tour de France Femmes is the big novelty but there’s also the new Battle of the North, setting up a summer of Women’s stage races. Otherwise story is more one of the usual calendar returning in the wake of the pandemic and as it’s not an Olympic year there’s a more usual pattern too.
There’s no Tour Down Under and some events are on the calendar for 2022 hoping to stage post-pandemic comeback but we’ll see, it’s one thing to register a race with the UCI, another to actually run it on the ground. With ongoing travel restrictions so early season events like the Tour de Langkawi, Tropicale Amissa Bongo and Vuelta San Juan probably have an invisible asterisk next to them as much due to the travel as anything else.
RCS have made some changes to their events, with Tirreno-Adriatico moving to a Monday-Sunday format (head-to-head with Paris-Nice) which should help avoid the feel of the race fizzling-out midweek and we’ll see if the course is redesigned for a box-office summit finish on the final weekend; it’s then chased by Milano-Torino as a Wednesday tune-up before Milan-Sanremo.
Inrng – thanks for another great year and for bringing us a new one to look forward to.
A quick announcement – I was in a bike accident a couple weeks ago, suffered a concussion and minor cheek fracture (a car was charged). I was wearing a helmet and am on the mend, but man this is not an easy one to fully recover from. Please everyone stay safe while doing what we love doing.
Thanks and hope you all stay safe.
Wishing you a speedy recovery and echo your thanks to INRNG
Heal up well. Don’t rush things but you might find you beat the prognosis of the doctor for recovery time as you’re probably healthier than average with better circulation etc so hopefully back out on the bike again soon.
yes, thank you guys.
Honestly, my doctor is shocked at my progress – and to your point Inrng, I definitely think a lot has to do with being an active (but slowing) cyclist and from wearing a helmet.
However, I’m in no rush to hop on a bike, hopefully some point in the next few months but I’m just happy to be making progress.
There is an awful lot of truth in the old wisdom among horse riders: after a fall you must get back in the saddle as soon as possible. No matter whether it is confidence in yourself or trust in others that you’ve lost in the accident.
That said, once you’ve hopped on your bike you must give it time. I ended up with no injury other than a concussion (and a permanent, as it turned out memory blackout) when I was sent flying by an e-MTB rider, but it took me almost a year until I stopped tensing up and being very very careful every time I had to deal with the presence of another cyclist.
On the other hand: when a roe deer swiped my front wheel and an orthopedic surgeon fixed my elbow with a titanium plate and screws, I was back on the road six weeks later, that is to say the same day I was given the go-ahead by the doc, and I was immediately as happy as Larry and never had a least sense of losing my nerve.
Take your time. As we get older it seems to hurt / break more and take longer to feel good.
2 and half years from a kangaroo strike i’m still struggling with my wrist and hand.
Still i should think myself lucky as in the past year i know 3 riders who got a ride in a helicopter to the capital city hospital. Variously caused by a kangaroo, dog and another rider getting tangled up. The average riding age around here is increasing and falls are taking a much greater toll then they used to.
Hits with cars seem to be down though. Perhaps because everyone has rechargeable front lights even for day time riding.
“Hits with cars seem to be down though. Perhaps because everyone has rechargeable front lights even for day time riding.”
Is there any data to back up these ideas? I don’t have any issues with blinky lights except for the possibility of “blame the victim” ideas, same as the idea that someone being run down while not wearing a helmet somehow asked for it or deserves to be injured.
IMHO I deserve NOT to be hit in the first place, crash-hat, blinky light or not unless I did something stupid to put myself in harms way.
I know some motorists might say that’s just riding on a road with cars as the CHP guy said after my wife was hit, but I believe the roads are for everyone, not just motorists and you shouldn’t have to ride around looking like a traffic cone to avoid being run down.
OUCH! I hate crashing, even more when it’s not my fault! Hope you’re back on the bike soon and happy to hear the injuries weren’t worse, with or without crash-hat.
Idiots in cars can kill or maim way too easily and the authorities almost never take enough action to prevent crashes or punish those who cause them.
Having been rear-ended by an artic almost a year ago, and having pretty bad concussion (I’d be dead without my helmet) but almost miraculously suffering no other injuries apart from a very sore neck and shoulders and lots of lost skin – big hugs and sympathies from me.
My advice would be to do stuff when you feel ready. Don’t feel pressured to start too quickly, but don’t hesitate either. Due to concussion after-effects I started very gently on the turbo after almost 2 months (you can’t fall off!), first ride about a month later. Small steps. I’m now riding normally, but it’s taken a full 10 months for all of the after-effects to wear off. Go gently out there.
Oh, and find a good osteopath.
For non-native speakers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articulated_vehicle – which made me agree 100% with that “almost miraculously”!
And I concur: small steps – short, gentle, icecream rides (as often as you can) first, trying harder efforts first on your trainer, out when you are comfortable with them and back inside if doing them outside gives negative feedback.
The main thing is to remember that you will get back to where you were before the accident!
Thanks for all the comments everyone – yes, I’m not going to rush getting back on the bike – there’s no rush at my age lol. My kids take over my life anyways, so I’m not in a hurry. I hope to get my bike back in order over the winter and to be ready by the spring.
Now, on that topic, I’m blown away by bike prices right now – they’re so expensive! The Ridley Noah Fenix which I was riding cost me approx. $1,800 in 2019 and now comparable bikes are in the $2,500-3,000 range (note, all prices Canadian Dollars). The reasons are obvious – supply chain, global inflation, demand for bikes, etc. but, this is a bigger part of my delay to get back on the bike than the actual accident! I’m going to wait out the prices and hope they gradually come back to earth as the supply chain delays clear over the winter.
Since you mentioned RIDLEY, what do you think the additional markup needed to pay pro teams millions to ride bikes with the big brand-name on the downtube is? I used to joke with industry friends that it was $100’s on each one but these day’s I wonder if it’s even more?
While the consumer-direct bikes are cheaper (or should be) due to dealer markup being eliminate,d I wonder if the price of bikes without the marketing expense of pro team sponsorship reflects the lower spend on marketing mojo?
Lol – yeah, the mark-up is not insignificant for sure, but it really depends how big the company is. Eg. Specialized has a lot of sales to smooth that cost over, but then they support many teams.
I wish I had the brain power today to go into the financials for a few of the big ones and give you a number!
I wonder how deep you have to be at the Big-S to know the FOB cost Kim Il Sinyard pays for each top-of-the-line SWORKS Tarmac with a MSRP of more than $16K?
Then how many of those they provide to how many teams along with how much $$ as the bike supplier? Makes me think more of the consumer’s $ is going to pay for marketing/promo rather than the actual bicycle.
Hit by a car?! Oh, the cheek of it!
Hope that’s not too soon. Get well soon.
Statistically speaking you’re less likely to get hit by a second car, as the numbers who are hit twice are very low.
Very useful, big thanks
Already time for 2022, and the caldron of fresh faces & rosters in the peloton?
IR is such a great publication, the only thing it could do to improve would be to bug Mr. Lefevere’s phone!
I see that Roubaix and Amstel have been flipped – so April now Flanders, Amstel, Roubaix, then Liege on successive weekends.
Sorry If I’ve been asleep and missed this, but it’s a huge change – to tradition and rider approach. It gives the specialists for the cobbles and the climbs more time to regroup and recover over a fortnight for their chosen pair. (Or is it just Roubaix/ASO snaffling the prime Easter weekend slot, perhaps in perpetuity?)
There was a story on this a few weeks ago, ASO requested to swap the dates for 2022 as April 10 is the presidential election in France.