- Feb 20, 2010
- 33,066
- 15,280
- 28,180
This is still a million miles off using the full potential of Bavaria (would love to see a real medium mountain stage in the eastern part and a proper full size MTF in the south, or a puncheur type stage around somewhere like Garmisch, Füssen or Deggendorf.
However, this is a massive, massive, MASSIVE improvement over recent editions of the race, which could legitimately be known as "the most disappointing race parcours of the year" most years. You see, while The Official Worst Race In The World® may hold sway over that title, there aren't many options there to make it a good race. The Bayern Rundfahrt could be so great, and never, ever is.
This could be a good race though. According to Quäl dich!, Winklmoos-Alm is 4,7km and has a vertical gain of 440m, which I make 9,4%. That's a Peña Cabarga type climb, albeit a bit shorter. The finish is at a ski station, most known for cross country I think? Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle's from there. The gaps that open up from that will not be enough to be totally decisive, but they balance out the ITT, which at mid length will keep this competitive. Here's the profile:
I think this could be a good profile for action. The long steep stretches at the bottom will hopefully mean that the bunch gets shredded early on in the climb, but the steepest stretch - 18-19% - is around a kilometre from the end, which means there's ample time for gaps to be created at that kind of gradient.
The third stage looks to end on a couple of laps of a small hill. I don't think there's likely to be much in the way of gaps here, however the stage is long enough that fatigue could play into things. I think nobody who is realistically anticipated to compete for the win with both a 25km TT and Winklmoosalm in the race is likely to lose more than a couple of seconds in Neusäß though.
It has turned into a classic sort of design of a 5-day race: a couple of sprints, a stage for the puncheur, a stage for the climber and a stage for the time triallist. While we could tighten up the design of the stages depending on hosts, and could toughen up a couple of the stages (maybe make one of the sprint stages a true tough rouleur's kind of stage), this is the first step to making the race a true all rounder's race and making it something worthy of its name.
However, this is a massive, massive, MASSIVE improvement over recent editions of the race, which could legitimately be known as "the most disappointing race parcours of the year" most years. You see, while The Official Worst Race In The World® may hold sway over that title, there aren't many options there to make it a good race. The Bayern Rundfahrt could be so great, and never, ever is.
This could be a good race though. According to Quäl dich!, Winklmoos-Alm is 4,7km and has a vertical gain of 440m, which I make 9,4%. That's a Peña Cabarga type climb, albeit a bit shorter. The finish is at a ski station, most known for cross country I think? Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle's from there. The gaps that open up from that will not be enough to be totally decisive, but they balance out the ITT, which at mid length will keep this competitive. Here's the profile:
I think this could be a good profile for action. The long steep stretches at the bottom will hopefully mean that the bunch gets shredded early on in the climb, but the steepest stretch - 18-19% - is around a kilometre from the end, which means there's ample time for gaps to be created at that kind of gradient.
The third stage looks to end on a couple of laps of a small hill. I don't think there's likely to be much in the way of gaps here, however the stage is long enough that fatigue could play into things. I think nobody who is realistically anticipated to compete for the win with both a 25km TT and Winklmoosalm in the race is likely to lose more than a couple of seconds in Neusäß though.
It has turned into a classic sort of design of a 5-day race: a couple of sprints, a stage for the puncheur, a stage for the climber and a stage for the time triallist. While we could tighten up the design of the stages depending on hosts, and could toughen up a couple of the stages (maybe make one of the sprint stages a true tough rouleur's kind of stage), this is the first step to making the race a true all rounder's race and making it something worthy of its name.
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