75th Tour de Romandie (2.UWT) // 27th of April - 2nd of May 2021

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Battle of the babes

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Date: 2021-04-27 Category: Men Elite Class: 2.UWT UCI Tour: UCI Worldtour

https://www.tourderomandie.ch/ https://twitter.com/TourDeRomandie https://www.instagram.com/tourderomandie/ https://www.facebook.com/tourderomandie/

Startlist PCS Top GC riders PCS Top Competitors PCS Debutants PCS

A prologue and a 16k ITT to wrap things up. In between there might be some bumps.

No Roglic, no Pogacar, but a shitload of huge under 23 (mostly GC) talents at the start. Champoussin, Vansevenant, Van Wilder, Arensman, Brenner, Kooij, Tiberi, Skjelmose Jensen, Van Gils, Leemreize, Stewart, Romo, Bissegger, Hänninen...

Other notable contenders: Thomas, Kelderman, Sagan, Kuss, Porte, MAL, Woods, Gaviria, Küng, Kämna, Hirschi, Kruijswijk, Gilbert, Costa...

PROFILES
(click to enlarge)

 

[tobydawq]

You know it's logic who makes the thread when the presence of riders like Tiberi, Van Gils and Romo is more noteworthy than that of Thomas, Sagan and Porte...

Also, this is López' first appearance this year. Interesting to see where he stands.

 

[BlueRoads]

Indeed I'm more interested in Romo, Brenner, Leemreize, Vansevenant and Arensman than in Sagan and Porte. The youngsters are all on my cq team. Thomas is, too, though, so Logic could have highlighted him a bit more.

Kämna

Küng for the overall?

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I don't know why, but Tiberi didn't start today's stage of Tour of the Alps, so that could potentially put his level of performance/participation in doubt.

 

[Velolover2]

With two TTs, I'm curious to see how Dennis will perform. Probably a helper for the two veterans but you never know after his Stelvio performance. Is he still a GT rider project?

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

With two TTs, I'm curious to see how Dennis will perform. Probably a helper for the two veterans but you never know after his Stelvio performance. Is he still a GT rider project?

It's only 20k ITT in total, so i wouldn't think too much of it.

 

[RedheadDane]

Küng's gonna win one of the road stages. What makes me so certain? Let me explain:

2015 - he won a stage.
2017 - he won a stage.
2019 - he won a stage.
2021 - well... see the pattern?

 

[johnymax]

Uderwhelming startlist in terms of GC imo. It's true, there are some interesting young riders, but still...
Personally, I'm the most interested in how Superman Lopez will perform in his Movistar debut.

 

[Pinot's goat]

I can see an Ineos 1-2 here.

 

[WKA311]

Yeah, it smells like a Thomas-Porte 1-2.

Let's see how Lopez comes into the season. Movistar need him to be good as fast as possible.

Could be a good race for Van Wilder and Arensmann to test themselves as GC riders with the ITT mileage here.

 

[Strawberry_Jams]

Would be nice to see Thomas win, he hasn't won since the tour in 18. He has a great chance, but bad luck and his teammate seem to be his major rivals, especially with the tt's.
Notice we have a MTF over 2000 metres ...hope the weather is good.

 

[yaco]

It's lazy course course design to have 2 ITT's in a six stage race - It's set up for an Ineos rider.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Climbs

Stage 1
La Rasse (first 2.7k only)

Produit (4x)

Chamoson (4x)

Stage 2
Prêles

Chaumont (middle section between the junctions at 5.2k and 1.7k only)

Les Bugnenets

Mont-Crosin

Boinod (first 5.5k only)

Les Pontins

La Vue-des-Alpes (final 8k only)

Stage 3
Surpierre

Châbles (3x)

Les Granges (3x)

Stage 4
Chamoson (first 2.2k only)

Anzère

Lens

Suen

Thyon 2000

Stage 5
Chemin de Lorette (cobbled)

 

[Velolover2]

I love La FlammeRouge for their route maker but they need to fix their method of calculating climbs. It's always messed up.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

I love La FlammeRouge for their route maker but they need to fix their method of calculating climbs. It's always messed up.

It's because Google elevation data isn't that good. In this case, the start of the climb is on a bridge that's, say, 20 meters above a gorge, but Google will give the elevation of the gorge instead of the elevation of the road. You can of course put in manual edits, but with the amount of routes the guys at LFR have to put in, in addition to running everything else related to the site, I can't blame them for not doing so.

 

[Mayomaniac]

It's lazy course course design to have 2 ITT's in a six stage race - It's set up for an Ineos rider.

They often have a Prologue and an ITT in the same stage race of Swiss soil, it's a bit of a tradition.
The Prologue is short with an uphill finish (1km at 6.5%) and the final ITT features 800m at 13.3% on cobbles and another hill before the final uphill drag, those aren't TT's for the specialists.
Better profiles:
https://www.la-flamme-rouge.eu/maps/viewtrack/424871
https://www.la-flamme-rouge.eu/maps/viewtrack/424914

 

[KZD]

I can't really understand why this race always has two time trials. For such a short stage race is overkill.

 

[Velolover2]

It's because Google elevation data isn't that good. In this case, the start of the climb is on a bridge that's, say, 20 meters above a gorge, but Google will give the elevation of the gorge instead of the elevation of the road. You can of course put in manual edits, but with the amount of routes the guys at LFR have to put in, in addition to running everything else related to the site, I can't blame them for not doing so.

As far as I know, the people at Cronoescalada are using a more advanced GPX system for a realistic elevation profile.

Specialized mappers like Climbybike or Climbfinder combining their integrated climb encyclopedia with a route editor tool for users would definitely be the death blow to LFR.

 

[roundabout]

I can't really understand why this race always has two time trials. For such a short stage race is overkill.

Romandie is tiny. Maybe a quarter of CH in terms of area. So an additional day of racing as prologue is not an issue for me.

 

[search]

in general it looks like a great course to me, guaranteeing action every day. A hill in the prologue, cobbles in the ITT, steep little climbs, a world championships recon... unfortunately the MTF is too hard for it to have any significant GC influence, though.

 

[roundabout]

in general it looks like a great course to me, guaranteeing action every day. A hill in the prologue, cobbles in the ITT, steep little climbs, a world championships recon... unfortunately the MTF is too hard for it to have any significant GC influence, though.

What recon do you mean?

 

[search]

What recon do you mean?

well, no idea if it will ever happen, but that is the Martigny circuit they do on stage 1, isn't it?

 

[Devil's Elbow]

well, no idea if it will ever happen, but that is the Martigny circuit they do on stage 1, isn't it?

It isn't, the Martigny circuit that was going to be used last year was much harder and used Petite-Forclaz.

 

[search]

ah, thanks, I only remembered the headline from last year that they wanted to attract riders doing the Worlds, and assumed it would be the full circuit they do again. Didn't check in detail yet

 

[Berflamand]

Vansevenant won't start the Tour de Romandie.

He will start Liège-Bastogne-Liège and will get some rest afterwards.

He's also on the DQS reserve list for the Giro but they hope they don't have to actually select him. He's back up for Cattaneo who is feeling slightly ill at the moment.