2016 Strade Bianche, March 5th, 176 km, 1.HC

[Eshnar]

Re: Re:

Why are you guys so obsessed with making the race longer? I know its the general consensus among nearly everyone in here (especially in the race design thread and if you are opposing such things, you are in for a bad time...), but it has probably been the best one day race the last 3 year, managing that with under 200 km. I don't really see the need to make it longer. However, as you point out, the race was a little bit too neutralised after Monte S. Maria, but at least we got one of the best finals I can remember in some time.

In 2014 and 2015 the race was exactly 200 kms long. Only this year was shorter.

Oh, I thought it was just under 200 kms, not that it makes any difference really. But sure if it goes WT, the length will probably be reverted to 200 or above, but I think this race is a good example that a classic can be extremely hard AND super entertaining not going Flanders/Roubaix-mode if the route is hard enough

Well we're not saying it has to be 250+ long. Imo the best would be around 220 kms. Nothing crazy.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

Why are you guys so obsessed with making the race longer? I know its the general consensus among nearly everyone in here (especially in the race design thread and if you are opposing such things, you are in for a bad time...), but it has probably been the best one day race the last 3 year, managing that with under 200 km. I don't really see the need to make it longer. However, as you point out, the race was a little bit too neutralised after Monte S. Maria, but at least we got one of the best finals I can remember in some time.

A longer race is obviously harder to control. Right now the strade bianche is still a Europe Tour race, but if it gets a WT race the teams will probably be stronger and the danger that the race gets completely controlled gets higher. Therefore a slightly longer route would be good if this becomes a WT race.

 

[TMP402]

Up until 1989 most semi-classics easily exceeded the 200km mark. For example, the Omloop then Het Volk had a length of 244km !! The same could be said about the Walloon Arrow, about the Tre Valli Varesine, about the E3 GP. Paris-Brussels was the longest single-day race of all, it exceeded the 300km mark.

Hein Verbruggen was the undertaker of the cycling classics. In order to highlight his newly created World Cup he imposed a shortened distance to every non-World Cup event. From 1990 on none of them could exceed 210km, except Paris-Brussels because of the natural distance that separates the two cities but it still was shortened to 240k at first and then to 215k and was discarded as a Brussels Cycling Classics.

Longer distances, restoring the traditional lengths of these races is just making them justice. Whatever the entertainment on TV might be.

Bring back Bordeaux–Paris. Just make it 1.1 and give special allowance for teams to submit any number of riders up to 8, so if there are only a couple of riders per team crazy enough to attempt it, they can do so without inconveniencing their team too much. Guys like Benoot would understand the appeal.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re:

good but make it 220 km long and rain mandatory.

That's a rule that'll be kinda hard to uphold.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re: Re:

good but make it 220 km long and rain mandatory.

That's a rule that'll be kinda hard to uphold.

Just bring a rain dancer and fix the problem.