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It’s only a 60km drive from Pfalzes to Cortina but the race takes the scenic route across several mountain passes. Look at all those climbs but don’t forget the descents too especially as the race tackles the Passo Giau and then a steep and technical road down to the finish in Cortina which includes a short uphill section too.

The overall classification in the race is beginning to settle and today should start to cement positions amongst the top-10. Those with ambitions might not want to wait until the climb of the Stelvio on Saturday.

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Look at the profile and you’ll see 173km with three bumps along the way including one to the finish and given the upcoming mountain stages it might be tempting to view today’s route as a mere transition stage.

But the diagram doesn’t do the the final of the race justice because this is a tricky finish with hairpins, cobbles and double-digit gradient ramps. It could be a very exciting finish.

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ASO have announced the four “wildcard” invitations for the 2012 Tour de France starting on 30 June in Liège, Belgium.

Dutch squad Argos-Shimano are picked alongside French teams Cofidis, Europcar and Saur-Sojasun to join the 18 World Tour teams in the race. The choice is logical.

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Tomorrow sees the greatest one day race of the year, the Tour of Flanders. Organisers say 600,000 to 800,000 people will line the roads, L’Equipe even says one million could turn out, making one tenth of the Belgian population.

This does not mean that the race will have you perched on the rivet of your armchair for hours as like many events, sometimes anticipation can exceed reality. But ahead of tomorrow’s race here are a few things to consider.

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During the classics season I’ll be doing some pieces for cyclingnews.com. I’m a regular reader of their site and did something similar last summer for the Tour de France. My first piece this year is about the classics and they way their format changes to suit the times.

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I’ve covered the subject of father and son riders before (here and here) but last weekend Italian newspaper La Gazzetta Dello Sport had a feature on Miguel Indurain and his son Miguel. The five times Tour de France winner is enjoying watching his son progress on the bike and after some promising results in the cadetes category he moves up to the juniors (U-18) with CC Villavés , the club that brought his father in to the sport, as well as Team Sky’s Xavier Zandio.

These pairings are common and there are more, listed below. But can a child inherit their father’s champion abilities or not?

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Twelve riders for 2012. Some are riders you will be familiar with, some you might have forgotten about and maybe you will read about some for the first time below.

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Last winter I picked seven young riders to watch in 2011. Forecasting is a mug’s game. Even the best computers and science struggles to get next weekend’s weather right so trying to judge who will win a bike race in six months’ time is more an exercise in projective storytelling than prediction.

Still, with the season over, time to revisit the picks of 2011 and see how they got on.

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