A look back. In previous years five races have been picked as highlights but that was just too hard, there were more than five stages of the Tour de France that stood out, just picking between them was much. Some highlights in rapidfire…
Paris-Nice gets a quick mention for the tweaked time trial rules. To repeat a point made before this wasn’t revolutionary but it was fun enough for a mid-week afternoon in March. The stage result was decided by the time of the first rider from each team and riders dropped by their team got the time they crossed the line with and it was interesting to see UAE go down to one rider, Pogačar obviously while Jumbo-Visma rode collectively. The rest of the race was fun as a Pogačar-Vingegaard rematch but the Slovenian was clearly superior in the moment, even grinning to the TV camera at one point as he sat on his rival’s wheel on the Loge des Gardes summit finish. As the days went on Pogačar just kept extending his lead
- With hindsight, you might remember Danish fans getting stressed at Vingegaard’s performance in March but a month later he cruised through the Basque Country taking three stages and the GC in the Itzulia race
How to pick a highlight among the spring classics? The Ronde and Roubaix were both great editions and both deserve a mention. Pre-race picks Pogačar – him again – and Mathieu van der Poel took solo wins after seeing off their rivals and in each case Wout van Aert was left chasing after mishaps. Van Aert still won the E3 ahead of the aforementioned champs and was strong enough to gift Gent-Wevelgem to team mate Christophe Laporte and the “still hasn’t won Roubaix or the Ronde” sets up a nice narrative going into 2024. Even if a handful of riders and teams shared the spoils it was often thrilling to watch rather than feeling like a monopoly. Many will probably pick the Ronde over Roubaix but here the finishing circuit with its laps is beginning to feel a bit boring but it did mean the long dual climb of the Kwaremont and Paterberg supplies as much climbing as you can get in this area, a launchpad for Tadej Pogačar.
Among the smaller stage races on the calendar the Tour of the Alps was lively, never a dull stage and despite variable weather, visually appealing too.
The Giro d’Italia wasn’t a thriller and if the course and startlist were contributors, so were outside elements like grim weather for days on end and pesky Covid. But there were some good days. The stage to Fossombrone was one of them, in part because it came after the Grand Sasso stage that saw little happen, a headwind was partly to blame but it was surprising that there was little competition to get in the breakaway which stayed clear. The following day overcompensated, non-stop action where the breakaway took ages to form and when a move did go, for a long time it struggled to take 20 seconds as the bunch chased hard. Despite the efforts Ben Healy went clear in the finale to take the stage win and really make a name for himself after an excellent debut to the season. Behind we saw a battle on the Cappucini climb with Primož Roglič on the attack and Evenepoel distanced but with hindsight he was probably coming down with Covid; Tao Geoghegan Hart looked very sharp too but his Giro would be over soon. There were other good days and the penultimate stage on Monte Lussari proved a thriller as Roglič overhauled Geraint Thomas on the steep mountain path to the delight of Slovenian fans who’d made the short journey. Mark Cavendish’s win on the final day was impressive too.
- With hindsight the boring parts seem to have faded. The nadir was the chaotic rider protest which came after days of cold weather, for good reason some worried about a sketchy descent… but the compromise was to skip the first climb of the day instead for fear of bad weather but conditions there weren’t so bad and still tackle the “dangerous” descent which turned out to be ok too. Cavendish’s win and the manner of it mattered, he got new confidence for the Tour and it showed with the help of a leadout what was still possible so we’ll see what 2024 brings.
The Critérium du Dauphiné used to be a staple supplier of annual highlights but less so recent editions. 2024’s stages wouldn’t make a five-of-the-best list but it was still instructive with Jonas Vingegaard becoming increasingly untouchable. The highlight though was the return of the Bastille finish above Grenoble, a steep climb and best of all, included after the Chartreuse trilogy. Ideally the day would have seen a duel on the slopes rather than Giulio Ciccone taking a solo win and for a moment Jonas Vingegaard was closing in but it was just good to see the climb back.
- With hindsight it was good to see an old climb back and with a big crowd, as the Puy-de-Dôme summit finish in the Tour didn’t evoke history or a party
June also saw the release of the Netflix series “Tour de France: Unchained” and in the moment it was a big talking point for the sport although I didn’t find it great art. It did get big audiences and the first effect of this was the reported audience demographics for the Tour de France in France, while the TV audience grew slightly, the component mix of this saw an influx of younger viewers and this is welcome. Since then Netflix has published audience data for the first time and the Tour series was the 984th most watched program. This was behind the copycat Formula 1, tennis and golf versions but crucially the data covers January to June only so in less than a month Tour de France: Unchained put on a substantial audience.
- With hindsight the series just felt overtaken by the Tour de France itself
The Tour de France was so good, where to begin? In the Basque country obviously where the big crowds bought a festive atmosphere that lasted throughout the race, at times being too delerious. So many stages were great, in fact only Stage 4 to the Nogaro circuit was dull, one of those days where nobody wanted to go in the breakaway but a grand tour is meant to have siesta days and if we had one it was amid sleepy sunflower country. Vingegaard and Pogačar traded blows and while they seemed inseparable, the Dane was always in the lead and Pogačar trying to find a way through. The duel ended in the Alps, the Combloux time trial and then the Col de la Loze finished off Pogačar but the action didn’t finish, Felix Gall’s stage win earns him a place in the revelations of 2023 alongside Ben Healy, Max Poole and and Josh Tarling. Two “transition” stages at the end were excellent, Kasper Asgreen’s unexpected win in Bourg-en-Bresse and then Matej Mohorič the next day in Poligny where he finished off a day’s sport with an eloquent post-race interview that spoke for many riders and touched plenty of fans alike. Every year French newspaper Le Monde does a “siesta guide” but it’s practically redundant given the course changes and aggressive peloton. Yes there’s a lot more to the season than the Tour but having so many of the best riders together and in peak form, all with saturation media coverage in many languages, it’s a feast.
- Looking back the summary seems to be Vingegaard beating Pogačar but there were so many days of great sport, it’d be good to rewatch them again and again in the coming days… if GCN+ hadn’t just refunded me
The transition to the Tour de France Femmes worked smoothly and the week’s racing was entertaining, it wasn’t an SD Worx monopoly show. The Tourmalet stage was great, including the visuals amid the clouds.
Skipping back, overlapping races on the calendar can sound problematic but Tirreno-Adriatico was partly created to give more riders a week’s racing ahead of the classics, for those not riding Paris-Nice. And if the Tour of the Basque Country clashes with Paris-Roubaix they’re for very different riders, there’s little opportunity cost. But the Giro Donne in July means the race often gets overlooked because all the world’s cycling media is drawn to the Tour de France, but it did have some great racing. Annemiek van Vleuten won three stages and was second and third on two more days, one of which saw Antonia Niedermaier win. The German rider is the latest skimo athlete to cross to cycling and trumping the likes of Toni Palzer, she’s won already too. The race should get some better coverage and organisation now it’s being run by RCS but we’ll see if a date change happens. It wasn’t Van Vleuten’s last win but it did see her career end in style.
Talking of calendar changes, the Glasgow Worlds were interesting for four reasons. First was the change in date, a summer event rather than a late season one and this altered things with Pogačar and others among the challengers. Second, the concept of nearly all disciplines together, a cycling olympiad. It sort of worked but does feel like something that’s manageable once every four years. Third was the urban street format with all those corners and ramps, to take ten seconds in the road race was to be well clear. Finally was the quality of the road races, in part because of the point made in the previous sentence. A rider might take only a few seconds’ lead or look to be almost dangling off the front but they were away, we saw this on the opening day with French junior Julie Bego’s win and it stayed until Mathieu van der Poel’s masterpiece over a week later, aided by Scottish hospitality. Cycling is so often a rural sport but taking the sport into the city brings new racing. The Zurich course for 2024 sounds promising, no way as intense but challenging all the same.
- Could the lasting element to all this be course design? It could be the worlds, it could the Ronde, or can you feed a peloton into a city circuit during a grand tour and not just stick to grand boulevards and alleys?
Is the Vuelta a España better with hindsight? Sepp Kuss took the lead thanks to a big breakaway (Lenny Martinez was in the lead for a day, then Kuss took over). There was some tension on the Angliru about whether Sep Kuss could win and social media raged over Jumbo-Visma’s riding. But now everything is done and dusted maybe the outcome looks even better? Kuss’s achievements can be seen in a wider lense, no secret he’d done the Giro and Tour but to win a grand tour with this was special. His ride in the time trial was strong too. And the upshot was that Roglič ended up moving teams which promises to make the 2024 Tour de France more spicy. Plus with hindsight Jumbo-Visma management couldn’t radio-control everything at the best of times but they were also presumably massive distracted by their sponsorship issues and merger planning. Remco Evenepoel adds a touch of mystique, the unexplained collapse one day but untouchable on other days, it’s probably giving him more space now ahead of the Tour de France and the latest objective is a top-5 in his first go at the Tour de France.
A few more fun things. First a wider observation: one reason it’s hard to pick is that we’re seeing better racing, moves go from afar. Strade Bianche didn’t get mentioned yet because it wasn’t a thriller but it was a performance to see Tom Pidcock go solo with 50km to go. If you want an emblematic example of this audacity, Remco Evenepoel attacked on La Redoute to win Liège when nobody had tried this far out for ages, he went earlier than he did last year. Some just don’t like to sit still – think Mathieu van der Poel who could but doesn’t rely on his sprint – and fuelling plays a part among other things. At this rate maybe someone will attack before the Poggio or ahead of the Mur de Huy in 2024?
Arnaud De Lie just feels fun to watch, you can often sense he is going to win an uphill finish and then see it happening before you. Guillaume Martin won a serious literary prize the other day and it’s great the peloton has characters like this. One departing character is Thibaut Pinot and he got a great send off but it was exceptional, the careers of Peter Sagan, Rohan Dennis, Greg Van Avermaet or Nacer Bouhanni ended in near obscurity (not them, just the manner of their stage exit). Reading L’Equipe right now is confusing as you see Ineos, Bahrain, Samsic and Arkéa logos… on football shirts but the cycling coverage is excellent, in July it’s superb. I enjoy podcasts and Radio Cycling has been a good edition, it’s got audio news but it’s often not reporting what’s happened but what is happening or even what might happen.
Enough for now, a long post but typed at speed and if you have any additions and suggestions please share…
Thanks for the review of 2023 – we say goodbye to some old faces, and hello to some new.
We started the year in the aftermath of the Jerome Pineau/B&B Hotels/Cavendish debacle and had the Visma/QS-Soudal on/off merger debacle, then to end it all off, the Cian Uijtdebroeks Bora/Visma “who’s he riding for” PR debacle. Lots of WTF is going on moments!
As for racing WTF moments, I’d say Pogacar losing a minute then winning the next day, despite Visma going all in on the Tourmalet. Then Vingegaard’s TT demolition of everyone later at the Tour.
Pogacar’s Spring dominance (apart from MSR) was outstanding and we’ll never know what might have happened at LBL (and maybe the Tour) due to a pothole and a broken wrist.
Roglic getting a push from a former ski buddy to win the Giro was a Giro highlight.
Otherwise, MvdP wins despite a broken shoe and De Lie wins with only one leg. Roll on 2024!
Derek Gee was my highlight of the year. Didn’t win a stage of the Giro. But made the race. Breakout performance and really interesting to see what he focuses on in the coming years and how IPT build around him.
He’ll be a rider to watch next year. It’s one thing to be strong like that in the Giro, another to convert it into wins but if you can do the first, the second can follow.
Gee is a keen birdwatcher, something I think I heard first on the Bidon podcast during the Giro. That’s good for Italian speakers. For French speakers the Eurosport “Bistro Vélo” podcast is good, they interview a rider each week to introduce new names and it’s a good source of info, which rider travels to race with a giant teddy bear, which rider empties the family fridge of yoghurt etc, that sort of amusing thing along the way.
Will be interesting to see if Gee takes the next expected step. Healy too. I expected a big year from Powless in 2023 but it never really materialized. Remco had a great year, but compared to what we might have expected he came up a little short. Part of the fun of sport is all the hopes and conjecture that are tested when the action finally happens.
+1 to the Radio Cycling podcast. Along with The Cycling Podcast and this site, it’s another source of quality info for those of us in the States. And while I’ll mourn the loss of GCN+ at least those races will be available on Max (although for significantly higher $$).
Although this is not a cyclocross site and the race was officially in 2022, if you ever get a chance the 2022 Superprestige Diegem cyclocross race is well worth an hour of your time. Van der Poel, Pidcock, Van Aert and the rest of the cyclocross peloton slugging it out at night (!) on a muddy city circuit. More twists, turn, and surprises in the racing than, well, a muddy technical cyclocross circuit. At least it would make an hour on the trainer just fly by.
+1
Great cross race
Great as always!
My suggestion for a post: it would be great if you can share a list of top of your cycling sources: podcasts, blogs worth to listen/read.
Re your comment on Paris roubaix and the vuelta pais vasco, obviously no one told Sean Kelly this.
Obviously he knew about it…but it’s rare to the point of him being the exception that makes the rule, not just his range but also riding for a Basque team KAS at the time that meant an added incentive to make the journey each way.
One risk in trying to streamline the calendar is to treat many races as just races rather than giving 60kg and 80kg riders variety.
Thank you for bringing the memories back. I’m very glad to see the Matej Mohorič interview get a mention. It was my favorite off-the-bike moment of the year. I’m grateful to have such a compelling contrast between the two best stage racers–the cold and clinical Vingegaard and the playful and joyful Pogačar–but getting to see the raw emotion, brutality, and beauty of the sport during Mohorič’s interview gave cycling fans like me a much stronger sense of empathy for the riders.
I liked the multi-format Worlds a lot more than it seems you did, Mr Ring! It was especially great to see the huge appreciation (and, simply, crowds) in the velodrome for the para-cycling. I’m sure it’s a logistical and organisational nightmare but it really did make this year’s Worlds extra special.
Track para-cycling were the absoluet winners of this super-worlds.
I think the Worlds were a success, and the 4 year pre Olympics is a good idea…..
For many on here, if you’re only a road racing fan, then it is a chance to broaden your cycling horizons. Similar to the F1 only motorsport fans – multi discipline sports all deserve a spot in the limelight, not just the biggest discipline.
And having the Downhill live on BBC1 on a Saturday afternoon is as good as it gets.
Inrng – haha did you call the Formula 1 series a copycat of the cycling Netflix series…
They are all similar shows, even if obviously F1 came first.
haha, yes, they are practically identical – just swap out quick snipets of climbing a mountain with g-forces/crashes, smacking a ball… would love to see a jumbled version with all three meshed together.
CA, I would love to see that too, complete with manufactured drama produced by creative editing. Maybe Vingegaard sulking about the LIV tour instead of Wout…
Any chance all that social media attention at the Vuelta had an influence on tactics at Jumbo?
They say no… but social media and media questions alike did probably help them come to a decision quicker rather than the “let the road decide” idea.
They were getting absolutely crushed and knew that their popularity as a team was about to take a huge hit, so it seems likely that it had some influence, but of course they wouldn’t admit it. I feel bad for Roglic, because he came out not looking great but was really a victim of an odd set of circumstances.
Healy was a highlight but the single best moment, I thought, was Thomas pulling for Cavendish the day after he lost his lead in the Giro. I don’t particularly like Cavendish, but it was Thomas’ gesture that was amazing.
Thank you again for another year of the best cycling coverage on the internet. Looking forward to 2024
I’ll miss Greg. Maybe continued on a little long but hey….
Waiting for Pidcock to fully commit and reach full potential. Might have to wait a while….
So want to see J.A back to full form. A really fun rider to watch….
From the 2019 Ronde preview:
“It’s 2043 and Greg Van Avermaet is in his late 50s with a dense thatch of grey hair. He walks into a bar in West Flanders and an elderly patron sat at the bar spins around, spots him and says “Jonge, you’re the guy who won Paris-Roubaix, wore the yellow jersey, won the Olympics, the Omloop, the E3 and stage races like Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour of Belgium”. “Ja” says Van Avermaet, smiling with his chest swelling ever so slightly with pride. The elderly drinker turns to the barman, shakes his head and mutters “but he never won De Ronde” before returning to his pintje.”
The best one-week race this year, and by far, Volta a Catalunya (a very serious contender last year, too).
Evenepoel and Roglic both in full form clashing with their quite much opposite racing style. Grabbing every single occasion to test each other, and grabbing stage victories along the way, not only the most obvious ones on uphill finishes (where one day they were trumped by Ciccone in a direct match, far from obviously in this case!), but also the first stage (Roglic with his trademark final sprint on any bump close to the line) and the last one (Remco, marked by Roglic, going a bit futher from the line in the Barcelona cicrcuit). Lo Port was also a monstre performance in athletical terms.
Add to it all a quality top ten and Groves confirming good things about his sprint…
Good pick and it was entertaining in itself but also heightened with an eye on the Giro, Round 1 of Roglič vs Evenepoel. Ciccone’s ride impressed for being with them and then able to win the sprint.
The Poggio was surely a highlight this year. Watt fest. And the absolute best concentrated in a few seconds where each and every not matter how small decision counts a lot. Of course, I’m also dreaming about somobody making Cipressa great again soon… if it happened to the Redoute, why not?
It’s surely always a highlight? For the Poggio and Cipressa it might depend on which way the wind is blowing but a Cipressa move for Pogačar could pay off, as in he could do but others will struggle, the steep section early on as a launch pad and then which team decide to chase. But obviously much easier said than done, to go into the red and then ride the Cipressa solo at the speed needed is asking a lot, especially if he has bigger goals later in the season. But as we saw in Flanders he needs to exploit his advantage of climbing better for a longer duration than the others.
It could be the only option for Remco, too.
I’m surprised he never even tried it, although young age and calendar disruption due to external factors came heavily into play until now. Maybe it’s also about it not being the very best race to combine form-wise with the later Spring côte classics, but it’s no insuperable clash, either.
His impressive aerodynamics should help a lot, both through the whole race and in the finale, plus the Poggio descent isn’t even as technical as most tend to think, or not necessarily so. He’s the sort of rider who can just stay away alone from virtually any chasing group. Of course, his main problem would be breaking away from the rest without being hugely explosive (all relative, I mean, but he tends to have people dropped from his very wheel rather out of extreme pacing rather than jumping ). In that sense, a crazy Cipressa might be an interesting option.
The funny thing is that if he and Pogi went together on the Cipressa, both would probably work hard, which would mean that reeling in such a move would be a serious feat for pretty much anyone. Winter-time day-dreaming…
It often is, at least in recent years, but this time you had there together some if not every absolute top performer on a 5-minute effort in present-day cycling… and probably even all-time (!) or close to (at least in Ganna’s case, he’s got some figures to support such a claim…). It’s not just having there a handful of impressive names, it’s also that they’re especially good at this.
Thanks for another year of great insight. The heels in my INRNG sock might’ve worn thin, your commentary remains as well woven and entertaining as ever. Pogaçar in de Ronde was the highlight for me, to see the plan laid out first time over the Kwaremont/Patterberg then executed in the final… wow, what a ride, what a rider, what a thrill. All the best for Christmas and the New Year
Nice review of IMHO an OK cycling season rather than a great one.
RAI Sport here had Part 1 of their review show this past week – sadly it seemed the lazy bastards could only bother to come up with the last few minutes of each race/stage they featured rather than edit-in the winning move(s).
Happy Holidays to all!!!!
Monuments and the Worlds were absolute top-quality, as a complete set probably the best in decades, but GTs went from null in May, to dimidiated in July and finally fully farcical in Spain. Il Giro inesistente, il Tour dimezzato e i baroni rampanti alla Vuelta.
No argument with that!
I’d give the lowlight of the year to the control room for missing footage of the winning move on the Poggio in MSR. After almost 300 km of mostly uneventful racing, as always, 99% of the real racing was compressed in the last 10 km. Whoever is making the calls in that control room can go and do other things all day long and few people would notice. But to completely miss the winning move on the Poggio is beyond belief!!
You’re right, and sadly enough it’s a general trend. The example above is striking for the eloquently-explained reasons which you list, but too often TV production fell into grotesque in very recent seasons, even in the (commercially) biggest races, i.e., Giro and Tour. A sum of intertwined problems (societies which – excellently – produced some races being called onto new and very different terrains, generational shift, less TV production for minor races in several countries, which implies less options to make experience for cameras, drivers, control room etc.)
That said, the above example is also interesting because we got a beautiful shot of that moment thanks to a roadside video taken by some spectator, something which is more and more common, and quite good. I always disliked that mass of hands and arms raised to get some confused footage on their phone (some serious accidents took place, even), instead of, say, enjoying the moment or applauding – yet, something good came from it all, at the end of the day 😛
Maybe you shpuld get a room with the motos are too close, how dare they influnce a race” folks.
The “Why didn’t catch the moto cam the move, how dare they were a corner ahead” is the other side of the same coin.
This is not a track race in one spot, all I’m saying.