Ultimate Etapes, Ride Europe’s Greatest Cycling Stages by Peter Cossins
Imagine you could ride anywhere in Europe, where would you go? It’s a nice thought experiment, perhaps begin by picking a preferred region and then think of some special roads and extrapolate this into the best part of a day’s ride. That’s the genesis of this book, a collection of 25 rides that are illustrated by lavish photos, route maps and plenty of detail on each of the proposed courses.
Less is more. Yesterday ASO, RCS and Flanders Classics announced in concert that they would shrink the team size for their events down by one. The grand tours go from nine riders per team to eight and the major classics from eight to seven riders. The race owners say it is to improve safety and enhance the sporting spectacle.
There’s a lot to be said for one week stage races. The good ones are concentrated versions of a grand tour with a varied mix of terrain and stage types. The brevity of the contest means every mountain stage counts and there’s rarely time to recover from mistakes. This year’s Paris-Nice was a textbook example and the final stage saved the best for last.
Wanty-Groupe Gobert have announced they’ve signed Lieuwe Westra for 2017. Can this get them a wildcard place in the Tour de France?
The Tour de France is far away but the invitations are issued early in the new season so they’re based on what we know today rather than results gained in the spring. Here’s a look at the contenders hoping for the golden ticket.
With the 2016 season over time to reflect on the racing and pick a handful of highlights. Paris-Roubaix comes first. It can be an easy pick because of extremism and eccentricy, it stands out because it’s so unlike anything else but this year’s race was gripping from start to finish and it was all live on TV too.
The Criterium International’s been scrapped. It began in 1932 and has ended up homeless so owners ASO have pulled the plug.
The Italian cycling federation held a tribunal to assess the claims of “pay to race” amid claims riders were hired not for their talent but their ability to bring a sponsor or cash. “Big deal” you might think, “this is the sort of thing that’s always happened“. Yes and no.
The case is in the hands of the UCI now and the fate of professional cycling in Italy hangs in the balance. It probably won’t blow up but the case and the issues highlighted by it matter.
What was longest event at the Olympics this year? The answer is the men’s road race, six hours and ten minutes and by some margin. That’s roughly double the duration of the 50km walk and three times longer than the marathon, the 10km open water swim and the triathlon. Games like tennis or cricket can last for days but they stop for lunch. Cycling’s unique selling point isn’t distance but this is big part of its identity, race names like Paris-Nice evoke distances normally done by plane, train or automobile and even the combination of all three.
Only now some races are being shortened to make them snappier for TV. Are we in danger of losing something?
The 2017 calendar is out and the UCI has added more races to the World Tour with 10 events making up a total of 28 extra racing days on the prime calendar. In the coming days we’ll learn more about the qualitative aspect of the calendar with talk of the new events being treated as second grade additions but for now let’s look at the new calendar on a quantitative basis, how its numbers stack up.
The 2017 Tour de France route was unveiled last month. Usually this blog does a snap analysis of the route but having been away last month it’s still worth reviewing the route and sharing some thoughts. Next year’s route looks unusual with so few summit finishes. If Tour bosses Christian Prudhomme and Thierry Gouvenou were rock stars this would be their experimental album.