Criterium season

With the Tour de France over now comes the criterium season. These are exhibition races put on by entrepreneurial race organisers who seek to capitalise on the high profile of the sport following July. Riders are invited to take part in these races and the stars of the Tour de France command big appearance fees, some can collect €50,000. Not bad for 90 minutes.

Aalst Criterium
Crit race + beer festival = Belgium

These are unofficial races but no rider is penalised for breaking the UCI’s rules. No teams take part, riders compete on an individual basis, making their own way to the race and there’s no team car carrying spares. Riders who won jerseys from the Tour de France will wear them in these races, for example if Cadel Evans lines up then he’ll wear the yellow jersey. Sometimes locals amateurs take part too, helping to swell the ranks on the cheap but also to provide some regional flavour.

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What next?

Tour of Poland
That empty feeling

Cycling cannot simply be one race in July. The Tour de France must be one episode in the middle of a saga.

So says Christian Prudhomme, organiser of the Tour de France. You’d half expect him to say this given ASO runs the Tour de France but it runs many other races from the Tour of Qatar in February to the Vuelta a Espana in September, where it recently bought a controlling stake in the organisation. Not to mention the likes of Paris-Nice, Paris-Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the Critérium du Dauphiné.

But Prudhomme is right. If the Tour de France is the biggest and, arguably, the best race of the year then there’s plenty more to look forward to this year. This Saturday sees the Classica San Sebastian, a great one day race in the Basque country, the heartland of Spanish cycling. Sunday sees the start of the Tour of Poland, not exactly a rival to the Tour de France but one with World Tour points at stake and some hilly finishes in the Tatra mountains later in the week. There are also the post-tour criteriums, a series of lucrative exhibition races about which I’ll write more soon.

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Tour de France prize list

Below is the final prize list from the 2011 Tour de France. BMC top the list with €493,990, largely thanks to the €450,000 first prize. The Swiss team banks a sum 47 times greater than Radioshack.

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Post-Tour blues

Tour de France crowds

If you’re missing the Tour de France already, imagine what it’s like for the riders. Maybe the last three weeks saw you adjust your routine around TV broadcasts, your reading habits changed and even colleagues at work might have talked cycling.

But for the last three weeks the riders in the bunch things were even more different. They awoke to find breakfast waiting for them. They emerged from their hotels to find people asking for autographs. They pedalled past an estimated 12 million people who waited to applaud them. They crossed the finish line to find journalists ready to interview them. They found team helpers on hand to feed them, provide fresh clothes and even give them a massage. It wasn’t easy but all they had to do was race.

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The Spin: Stage 22

Liege Prologue

The next stage is a short time trial, just 6km and through the Belgium city of Liège, the largest city in the French-speaking half of the country. Once a boom town for steel and coal, today industry lives on but the place is far less prosperous and, well let’s just say other places in Belgium have their charms.

The city is often associated with the hilly Liège-Bastogne-Liège race but the route is flat, by my count there is a vertical gain of 12 metres across the whole course. There are just two sharp corners so this is a high speed course to suit the specialists.

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The Spin: Stage 21

Stage 21

Ah Paris! After three weeks of racing around rural France today’s stage is an urban criterium. The start is in Créteil, a boring suburb of Paris full of ugly tower blocks and a contrast to the elegant finishing circuit in Paris that borrows some of the most upmarket roads in the world, in particular the Champs Elysées and Rue de Rivoli.

Before the stage the riders get a transfer by plane thanks to a new sponsorship deal with Qatar Airways and they will be ferried from Paris’s Orly airport to the start zone by a fleet of coaches laid on by the organisers.

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Europcar says thanks

Europcar L'Equipe

That’s an advert in today’s L’Equipe newspaper, snapped by a twitter user. The wording below Pierre Rolland and Thomas Voeckler translates as “3450km full of courage” but “le plein” is also the term for a full tank of fuel so it also means “3450km on a full tank of courage” , an appropriate message for a car hire company.

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The Spin: Stage 20

Stage 20

After three weeks of uphill sprints and summit finishes this the only individual time trial with the start and finish in Grenoble. A student town with some high tech industries in the valleys near by it is surrounded by high mountains. There’s even a cable car from the town centre to the Bastille fort that sits high on the Chartreuse cliffs above. But the place has its ugly sides too, it’s quite the idyllic tourist destination and more a useful crossroads on the edge of the Alps.

If the 2011 Tour de France has the least amount amount of solo time trials for many years, the course today is a decisive test to settle the result of the race. The course is demanding and suits all-round riders. There’s no serious climb but it features gradients and descents, curves and a variety of roads.

If it’s familiar it’s because it was used in the Critérium du Dauphiné stage race in June. Also organised by ASO the Dauphiné was a dress rehearsal and also a clever move from the race organisers to attract some bigger name riders. Tony Martin won.

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Is Pierre Rolland the next big thing?

Pierre Rolland Alpe d'Huez

Aged 24, Pierre Rolland won the Tour de France stage on Alpe d’Huez today and took the White Jersey. Is he the next big thing in French cycling? No, Pierre Rolland was the next big thing three years ago.

It happened in 2008 when he was a second year pro on the Crédit Agricole team and took the mountains jersey in the Dauphiné stage race in June, aged just 21. Don’t take my word for it, back then cyclingnews.com asked aloud: is Pierre Rolland France’s next big thing?

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