General News Thread

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Re:

Mayomaniac said:
Lol, I just realized that the map showes a different route than the profile on stage 7:
Stage-1457004333.png

On the Map you'd have no Arlbergpass, but you'd have the Hahntennjoch in the middle of the stage.
HahntennW.gif

That's such an amateur mistake, how can somethin like this happen on the TdS website?
Then lets just hope that the profile is wrong and not the map ;) :D
 
Oct 23, 2011
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Bad route in Switzerland. Though there's nothing new there. The mountain stages are boring and they'll probably be poorly raced because everybody is scared because of the Rettenbachferner. It's difficult to judge it adequately with these profiles, but the hilly stages look pretty useless too - like they usually are in the TdS for some reason. Is it a descent finish or a decent hilly stage too much to ask?
 
Having a bucketload of high mountain stages in a stage race like the Tour de Suisse is fine. It's a hugely mountainous country and it's a historic race so you want it to be hard to win. There are two fundamental problems here, however.

1) the Tour de Suisse is not a week-race à la Tirreno or Paris-Nice, where the climbs should be more along the lines of muritos and medium-mountain terrain; look at a relief map of Switzerland and recognize this race takes place in June - they can produce some proper mountain stages to rival any Grand Tour. The problem is not that they have three consecutive high mountain stages; the 2009 Dauphiné did that with Ventoux, then Vars & Izoard, then the Saint-François-Lonchamp MTF. The problem is that the three consecutive high mountain stages they have produced are terrible.
2) if you ARE going to go the "petit-Grand-Tour" route of parcours design with full on high mountain stages, then you've got to balance the parcours. The TT should be long enough that the climbers have to attack for their wins, otherwise they've no need to wait until 1500m to go and it all gets very tame. A normal TdS TT is around 30-35km, but with well designed mountain stages a one week stage race can justify near 50k ITTs - take the 2010 Dauphiné for example. The 17km ITT here is a pathetic distance, to match the very poorly designed mountain stages. They've overstepped the mark on TTs in these one-week races, for example the 2009 Tour de Suisse and the 2012 Dauphiné, but those weren't so much that the TTs were necessarily too long, but that the TTs were too long for balance with the mountain stages they'd included. This is redressing the balance too far the other way.

I love the Rettenbachferner, but this is NOT the way to introduce it, plus it will kill the stages before that finish. Then the Rettenbachferner will be a survival climb, we get too short an ITT. The biggest hope is that some strong climbers have a deficit and need to go from afar in the Davos stage on Flüelapass, but with the TT being so short they probably won't lose the jersey to a stronger TTer the next day, or won't need much time so won't need to take risks.
 
Re:

GP Blanco said:
ASO and German Cycling Federation will revive the Deutschland Tour in 2018. They plan to make it a race for the classics specialists.

As a side issue, this probably explains why Bora-Argon18 were guaranteed a Tour wildcard. And also probably explains why they've been further emphasising their German identity. Right at the moment it seems that being German is almost as good as being French from the ASO's point of view.

http://cyclingtips.com/2016/03/aso-to-revive-deutschland-tour-as-part-of-major-agreement-to-develop-cycling-in-germany/
 
Jun 30, 2014
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The first 12 teams for the Tour of Utah have been announced.
WorldTour Teams:
BMC Racing Team (USA)
Cannondale Pro Cycling Team (USA)
IAM Cycling (Switzerland)
Trek-Segafredo (USA)

Professional Continental Teams:
Team Novo Nordisk (USA)
UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling (USA)

Continental Teams:
Axeon Hagens Berman (USA)
Holowesko-Citadel p/b Hincapie Sportswear (USA)
Team Jamis (USA)
Jelly Belly p/b Maxxis (USA)
Lupus Racing Team (USA)
Rally Cycling (USA)
Source: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tour-of-utah-announces-first-12-teams-for-2016/
Looks nice, but there's one big problem, the Tour of Utah takes place at the same time as the Olympic RR durning the first Week of August!
IMO that's a big mistake, with the USA Pro Challenge being cancelled they could haave postponed the race. It's a pity, it's by far the best of the US stage races and it would deserve more attention.
 
Jul 14, 2009
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I sure hope the circuit race at the Tour Of Murrieta doesn't get snowed out.
If anybody did the Rouge Roubaix please post a link or photo.. It's a bucket list thing
 
Jun 30, 2014
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This year the European Championships will actually be very interesting, the RR will take place between Monaco and Nice. The final circuit is 12.5 km long and will take the riders over the Col d’Eze, in the men's elite race they'll climb the Col d’Eze four times.
Aru, Nibali and Contador have already confirmed that they'll ride the EC RR, it could be one hell of a race and another occasion for the guys that are expected to do well in Rio.
THE PROGRAMME

Wednesday 14 September
ITT Junior Women (11 km) / ITT Junior Men (20 km) + ITT U23 men (32 km)

Thursday 15 September
ITT Elite and Espoir Women (20 km) / ITT Elite Men (37 km)

Friday 16 September
Road Race Junior women (51 km) / Road race Espoir men (138 km)

Saturday 17 September
Road Race Elite + Espoir women (113 km) / Road Race Junior men (113 km)

Sunday 18 September
Road Race Elite men (215 km)

Source:
http://www.cyclingquotes.com/news/stars_to_attend_tough_european_championships/#7eyfXS2j6xk2tKP6.97
 
Giro del Trentino 2016 (profiles on March 29th):

1. Martedì 19 Aprile - Riva del Garda-Torbole (cronosquadre) 12,1 Km
2. Mercoledì 20 Aprile - Arco-Anras (Austria) 220,0 Km
3. Giovedì 21 Aprile - Sillian (Austria)-Mezzolombardo 204,6 Km
4. Venerdì 22 Aprile - Malè-Cles 160,9 KM

Edit: The Austrian stage is uphill finish, Mezzolombardo is after Fai della Paganella and Cles will be after Forcella di Brez.
 
Eshnar said:
The Trentino stages are on the website
https://girodeltrentinomelinda.com/en/
It will have live broadcast this year :)
Quite a good route, although I'm a bit sad that the Pustertal stage will be a one climb mtf.
However I have to say that I'm impressed they put the stages in the completely right order. Firstly an ITT so we already have some time gaps. Secondly a short uphill finish where time gaps are almost guaranteed because its the only mtf of the race. Thirdly a hard mountain stage with a downhill finish. And finally another downhill finish but with the final climb being 35 kilometers away from the finish and after the descent the last 17 kilometers are a bit up and down. I'm really looking forward to it. :)