Lesser known races 2024 edition

[Squire]

At this point I'd prefer separate sub-forums for the men's peloton and the women's peloton. That the women are already there is just as relevant to this thread as whether or not MTB riders are there.

This, or that people agree to stop with the smartypants comments when it's obvious that a poster or a thread is discussing men's cycling. Adds nothing to the discussion and stopped being funny after the 150th time.

 

[staubsauger]

Grand Prix la Marseillaise seems to have a weak startlist this year.

Startlist for Grand Prix Cycliste la Marseillaise 2024

Competing teams and riders for Grand Prix Cycliste la Marseillaise 2024. Top competitors are , and .

www.procyclingstats.com

No Cosnefroy. Nor De Lie. Neither Gaudu, Martinez or Madouas.

Guess I'm gonna stay patient and wait for the Belgian opening weekend to traditionally start the cycling season with Omloop het Nieuwsblad & Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne!

 

[Netserk]

Except it's still road racing.
You want to separate road racing discussion into three different sub-forums; one for generic stuff, one for the men, and one for the women?
That's too much work.

Tour Down Under is also still road racing. That too doesn’t belong in this thread.

Sport competitions can be held with an open category or a protected category of participants. Likewise, I’d suggest a women’s peloton exclusive sub-forum.

 

[RedheadDane]

Tour Down Under is also still road racing. That too doesn’t belong in this thread.

Are you talking separate threads - as we already have - or separate sub-forum?

No need to discuss Women's Lesser Known races in this thread, but also no need to separate the entire Road Racing sub-forum into three different (sub-)sub-forums.
Are you scared you might accidentally click on a women-specific thread?

 

[Netserk]

Are you talking separate threads - as we already have - or separate sub-forum?

No need to discuss Women's Lesser Known races in this thread, but also no need to separate the entire Road Racing sub-forum into three different (sub-)sub-forums.
Are you scared you might accidentally click on a women-specific thread?

Read what I (and others) write if you want to have a (meaningful) conversation. I haven’t written one word about splitting this one up in three subs.

 

[RedheadDane]

Read what I (and others) write if you want to have a (meaningful) conversation. I haven’t written one word about splitting this one up in three subs.

You keep posting that you want seperate sub-forums - or should it be sub-fora? - for the men's and women's peloton, but we'd still need to generic sub-forum for the threads that are for both men and women. I know I get memed for being bad with numbers, but I can count to three...

I know you didn't talk about splitting this thread - why would we need to? There already is a Women's thread - but there's no need for separate sub-forums.

Why do you want separate sub-forums so badly? The system we have works perfectly fine.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Except it's still road racing.
You want to separate road racing discussion into three different sub-forums; one for generic stuff, one for the men, and one for the women?
That's too much work.

Too much work is a poor excuse. However, as long as men's racing is so dominant (in general interest) over women's racing, a separate forum might actually do more harm than good to the overall discussion of women's racing on this forum. Now everybody sees the occasional women's rider topic getting bumped, people wonder what happened and click on it to see what new info was added to the thread. Same for women's races. I would make an occasional post in a women's rider/races topic, but i'm not following it that closely. I can imagine i'm not the only one. When women get their dedicated subforum, a lot of those occasional posters (in women's threads) will disappear, because a lot of regular forum goers will not click the dedicated women's subforum, but go straight to the men's subforum (maybe even bookmark it and bypass any other option). Meaning a lot of discussion in the women's threads would cease, and even the regular posters in women's threads might bail since they'd soon realise they're talking to themselves. Imagine going to a party and there are 50 guys there and 7 women. No problem, everybody's having a great time. Until the host kills the music and asks the ladies to continue their party in a separate room. The ladies would just pack up and go home instead.

The moment there is even remotely as much interest for women's racing as there is for men's, is a perfect time to split them up, just to keep things clear and orderly. But imho, it's too soon for that.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Grand Prix la Marseillaise seems to have a weak startlist this year.

Startlist for Grand Prix Cycliste la Marseillaise 2024

Competing teams and riders for Grand Prix Cycliste la Marseillaise 2024. Top competitors are , and .

www.procyclingstats.com

No Cosnefroy. Nor De Lie. Neither Gaudu, Martinez or Madouas.

Guess I'm gonna stay patient and wait for the Belgian opening weekend to traditionally start the cycling season with Omloop het Nieuwsblad & Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne!

These early season french races are great fun. Especially in 2021, there was no Mallorca, no Valencia, no Tour down under or cadels race. No algarve, no Tour of Oman, no andalucìà. So we got really good start lists in Gp Marseilles, etoile besseges, tour le provence, tour du var, classic ardeche, classic drone. Great racing on classic roads. Shame to see that the start list is now less, but still should be good fun. There is also a new race this year, the classic Var, a 1-day race the day before the 2 stage tour du Var et alpes maritimmmes

 

[Netserk]

Too much work is a poor excuse. However, as long as men's racing is so dominant (in general interest) over women's racing, a separate forum might actually do more harm than good to the overall discussion of women's racing on this forum. Now everybody sees the occasional women's rider topic getting bumped, people wonder what happened and click on it to see what new info was added to the thread. Same for women's races. I would make an occasional post in a women's rider/races topic, but i'm not following it that closely. I can imagine i'm not the only one. When women get their dedicated subforum, a lot of those occasional posters (in women's threads) will disappear, because a lot of regular forum goers will not click the dedicated women's subforum, but go straight to the men's subforum (maybe even bookmark it and bypass any other option). Meaning a lot of discussion in the women's threads would cease, and even the regular posters in women's threads might bail since they'd soon realise they're talking to themselves. Imagine going to a party and there are 50 guys there and 7 women. No problem, everybody's having a great time. Until the host kills the music and asks the ladies to continue their party in a separate room. The ladies would just pack up and go home instead.

The moment there is even remotely as much interest for women's racing as there is for men's, is a perfect time to split them up, just to keep things clear and orderly. But imho, it's too soon for that.

A women's sub would still be one of the more active subs of this forum. Might as well fold MTB and CX into this sub too then.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Except that neither MTB nor CX are road racing, and women's road racing is -you guessed it- road racing.

And "still be one of the more active subs" isn't saying much considering most of the other subs are a wasteland. First of all, at this moment i don't see the issue with women's threads in this sub, since they are few and far between on the first page to begin with. And you can count on it that once they split RR up in men/women that the women sub will see less activity than the same topics in a shared forum would. It's not hurting the men's topics, but moving it would hurt the women's topics.

Once 1/5th of the topics on the first page are about women's racing, then by all means. But doing it now, would just kill off a lot of the discussion.

There is currently one dedicated women's topic on the first page, that's like 2.5% or something.

 

[RedheadDane]

A women's sub would still be one of the more active subs of this forum. Might as well fold MTB and CX into this sub too then.

You still haven't explained why you want separate subs so much that you keep bringing it up.

 

[armchairclimber]

Well this isn't the discussion I was expecting.
Maybe a sub-forum is required for the discussion of the forum structures.

 

[Cookster15]

Well this isn't the discussion I was expecting.
Maybe a sub-forum is required for the discussion of the forum structures.

Or maybe this one?

Forum Feedback

Suggestions for making the forums better? Hit us up and help make the community even better!

forum.cyclingnews.com

 

[Rob5091]

Tomorrow's (Wednesday) first of the series of Mallorca races, Trofeo Calvià starts at 12.00 CET and finishes about 16.00 CET (only 150 km).

According to
https://vueltamallorca.com/challenge-mallorca/en/official-presentation/

In this way, Eurosport and Teledeporte will offer fans around the world the live signal of the last hour and a half of each of the five events.

The broadcast time of the finals of each day will be from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day, except for the Palma Trophy, on Sunday the 28th, when the time will be from 12:45 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. in both cases.

If it's only live from 15.00 CET then Wednesday's race will be only the last hour unless it's riden at a slow pace.

 

[Potomac]

Tomorrow's (Wednesday) first of the series of Mallorca races, Trofeo Calvià starts at 12.00 CET and finishes about 16.00 CET (only 150 km).

According to
https://vueltamallorca.com/challenge-mallorca/en/official-presentation/

If it's only live from 15.00 CET then Wednesday's race will be only the last hour unless it's riden at a slow pace.

an hour is better than nothing

 

[Rob5091]

An hour is indeed better then nowt and now we have a starting list at
https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/trofeo-calvia/2024/startlist

UAE leave the teens behind and it's time for the over 20s.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Burgos and Corratec are riding the Tour of Sharjah. The fight for future GT/WT wild cards is really on now. There were actually 4 Pro Continental teams competing in the 2018 edition, but it looks like that is the only other time teams on that level have entered the race. Sainbayar finished 6th in 2022, but it looks like he'll be up against the likes of Glivar and Pernsteiner thimse time around, as well as the defending champion and small Asian race expert Adne van Engelen.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Burgos and Corratec are riding the Tour of Sharjah. The fight for future GT/WT wild cards is really on now. There were actually 4 Pro Continental teams competing in the 2018 edition, but it looks like that is the only other time teams on that level have entered the race. Sainbayar finished 6th in 2022, but it looks like he'll be up against the likes of Glivar and Pernsteiner thimse time around, as well as the defending champion and small Asian race expert Adne van Engelen.

.2 races are barely worth any points though, I think the organisers simply threw some cash at Burgos and Corratec. Which, tbf, could help them fund trips to farm points in East Asia later in the season.

 

[Skijumper Roglic fan]

GP Marseillaise today…

Great race, every year. Sadly, the stars mostly avoid this race, and the Etoile de Besseges, few days after. The stars seem to think, GP Marseillaise and Besseges are „uncool“, or something like that.

I actually like these races, plus Province and Haut-Var. And Paris-Nice, as the highlight of these series of five races.

Nairo probably is glad that he doesn’t have to ride mentioned races, at Movistar, any more… 🙂

No illusions, these races are cold… Also southern France is Middle Europe, so this is road bike racing in hivernal conditions. Only suited to riders who accept the feeling they suffer, when the fingers are reheated, after 4-5hrs at these temperatures, with >40kms/hr average speed. That it intense pain…

 

[roundabout]

I think there is a bit of a heatwave in the south of France right now so should be pretty comfortable weather at least for today,

 

[Rob5091]

Last year it was cold and windy in Marseille with everyone wrapped up in thick winter coats, but the forecast is for 17C so not bad forJanuary.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Important to note that Marseillaise has reverted to the finale used until 2021 this year, i.e. the easy side of Route des Crêtes which backs directly into the final climb to Col de la Gineste, as opposed to the hard side of Crêtes which requires looping back over the easy Pas d'Ouillier to get to Gineste. There is a big tailwind for the final two climbs, so this should be one for the climbier/punchier types rather than the durable sprinters this year.

Profile:

Final two climbs:

 

[Netserk]

We are live. Toumire, Vermoote, Colman, Delacroix & Le Ny in front.

Arkea, Uno-X & Decathlon in front of the peloton.

 

[RedheadDane]

That looked nasty...

 

[Netserk]

Crash on the descent down Pas d'Ouillier. Menten worst hit.