General News Thread

[Berniece]

Profiles for Catalunya have been released. It's going to be a proper hard race. First 3 days start off alright, but stage 4-6 can be brutal for some.

 

[Pozzovivo]

Given Vingegaard's withdrawal from UAE Tour, I think Remco should pull out of Catalunya so that the fans will not have any duel to look forward to this year before the TDF.

Let's just hope that something prevents Remco and Pogacar from battling in LBL.

 

[Cycling111]

According to this Portuguese journalist, Figuiera Classic will be probably cancelled this year.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2019447859242803355

View: https://x.com/EchelonsHub/status/2019447859242803355

Vuelta Andalucia could be suspended for the same reason.

 

[Samamba]

Can someone explain the Ruta del Sol parcours? What is this abomination?

Stage profile Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista Del Sol 2026

Overview of the stage profiles per stage, showing the number of climbs, intermediate sprints, vertical meters and KOM sprints.

www.procyclingstats.com

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Can someone explain the Ruta del Sol parcours? What is this abomination?

Stage profile Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista Del Sol 2026

Overview of the stage profiles per stage, showing the number of climbs, intermediate sprints, vertical meters and KOM sprints.

www.procyclingstats.com

If the race actually gets cancelled because of recent weather, then it would quite frankly be a case of bad karma. You could pick 800 kilometres of Andalusian roads at random and probably wind up with a better route than this.

 

[Red Rick]

Not a single location near a decent climb wanted to put up money to host race?

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Not a single location near a decent climb wanted to put up money to host race?

Otura is not that far from Monachil and Torrox is close enough that you could have kept the stage start there, followed the actual route up the big climb, gone directly towards Otura rather than detouring like they are in the actual stage, climbed Monachil, descended the main road, climbed Hazallanas and then descended Monachil without making the stage too long. You would have had 15k of valley at the end but even then that would have been a pretty good stage.

Pizarra has a 950 metre at 11.5% murito right on the edge of town which could easily have been used in the final 5k. And the final stage could also have been a lot harder had they bothered to use any of the better climbs a little further south and east of Lucera before Primera Cruz.

Sure, the stage hosts are not the easiest to work with, but even taking that into account this is a woeful effort.

 

[Red Rick]

Otura is not that far from Monachil and Torrox is close enough that you could have kept the stage start there, climbed Monachil, descended the main road, climbed Hazallanas and then descended Monachil without making the stage too long. You would have had 15k of valley at the end but even then that would have been a pretty good stage.

Pizarra has a 950 metre at 11.5% murito right on the edge of town which could easily have been used in the final 5k. And the final stage could also have been a lot harder had they bothered to use any of the better climbs a little further south and east of Lucera before Primera Cruz.

Sure, the stage hosts are not the easiest to work with, but even taking that into account this is a woeful effort.

Ah okay.

I was just in complete disbelief at whatever the *** my eyes witnessed.

 

[Samamba]

If the race actually gets cancelled because of recent weather, then it would quite frankly be a case of bad karma. You could pick 800 kilometres of Andalusian roads at random and probably wind up with a better route than this.

There's better weather expected by the time Algarve and Ruta del Sol start. Of course it depends on what the damage is right now, but I think they'll be fine. Portugese races probably the ones really in doubt and Figueira organisation has said it's still planned to go through even tho it's looking bad over there. They also expect better weather in the second part of next week, but given the damage there and the fact that better weather still means a pretty high chance at a lot of rain the days before the race, I have my doubts about that one.

 

[KoopaCycling]

Not sure where to post this, but one of the evolutions as a cycling fan is how it gotten different to search for stuff online.
There was a time google just worked, and you got the relevant info fairly quick. For instance, starttimes, schedule, ... . Now i rely on ai bots to find certain relevant info, as google barely does it's intended function. Problem is ai, gets things wrong and is in certain ways limited. so every now and then i find i still need to verify with search sites (which takes a while to find a decent site with the info). I personally find it sad evolution.

 

[AmRacer]

Not sure where to post this, but one of the evolutions as a cycling fan is how it gotten different to search for stuff online.
There was a time google just worked, and you got the relevant info fairly quick. For instance, starttimes, schedule, ... . Now i rely on ai bots to find certain relevant info, as google barely does it's intended function. Problem is ai, gets things wrong and is in certain ways limited. so every now and then i find i still need to verify with search sites (which takes a while to find a decent site with the info). I personally find it sad evolution.

With Chrome browser, you get your search results with google AI and links to the sources.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Not sure where to post this, but one of the evolutions as a cycling fan is how it gotten different to search for stuff online.
There was a time google just worked, and you got the relevant info fairly quick. For instance, starttimes, schedule, ... . Now i rely on ai bots to find certain relevant info, as google barely does it's intended function. Problem is ai, gets things wrong and is in certain ways limited. so every now and then i find i still need to verify with search sites (which takes a while to find a decent site with the info). I personally find it sad evolution.

I would tend to take it as a compliment to myself: my questions are at a depth to which non-specialist sources do not dive.

I believe (apologies if I have picked up the wrong end of a stick) that you are Flemish: you probably have linguistic access to better sources than us poor Anglophones.

Don't doubt the expertise in this forum, and don't be reluctant to share the fruits of your delving below the obvious.