Lesser known races 2025 edition

[Dazed and Confused]

Some realistic racing here....

 

[RedheadDane]

Martin again.
Less dominant than yesterday.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Good effort by Martin, very measured. Congrats.

 

[Cycling111]

Although participation isn't the best, Martin has gone three years without winning.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Who's that? If that's Cian, I don't get the reference.

Really? He has copied Mollema's silky smooth climbing style.
Anyway, he finished at a mere 15 minutes, good to see the problem has been fixed.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Vasseur frothing at the mouth right now

 

[RedheadDane]

And over in Loir, it would appear as if Boguslawski has made a bit of a coup.
Stage finished over an hour ago, and according to both PCS and FC, he's the only one who has finished.

Judging by the results on FC, it would appear like there was a crash.

 

[search]

And over in Loir, it would appear as if Boguslawski has made a bit of a coup.
Stage finished over an hour ago, and according to both PCS and FC, he's the only one who has finished.

Judging by the results on FC, it would appear like there was a crash.

there was a crash, but nothing too major. Maybe they preferred to get some dry clothes first

View: https://youtu.be/_vgbUpdcfeE?t=148

 

[Sciatic]

During the Tour du Jura broadcast I thought they were calling one of the earlier climbs the Côte du Chamoix, which I thought seemed fitting given some of the veritable goat paths they were ascending Would be fun to more of cycling top mountain goats tackle this course!

 

[Sandisfan]

It was good to see Odd held on for 7th at the Finish.

 

[Sciatic]

It was good to see Odd held on for 7th at the Finish.

That was impressive. It's rare to see someone who was out front for a long time and was putting everything into staying away still keep producing enough power after being caught by fresher riders.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

The last stage of the Cher Tour got cancelled. If I could turn back time and keep the crashes from happening, we'd know whether Niklas Larsen was strong enough to win regardless. Luckily I believed in life after Uno-X and scored another 25 points in the CQ game.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I didn't watch the race, but Mattéo Vercher got his first pro win today, while Jesus was beaten by Gotzon.

 

[Sciatic]

I didn't watch the race, but Mattéo Vercher got his first pro win today, while Jesus was beaten by Gotzon.

Perhaps Jesus was late in rising today

 

[Dazed and Confused]

PCS has the avg. speed of Tour du Doubs to be north of 52 km/h. Even with the longish downwards section in the beginning, this must have been raced pretty hard. Congrats to Vercher with an excellent win.

 

[Sciatic]

Looking forward to watching Tour of the Alps (if I find it) to tide me over till LBL

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Vuelta a Asturias has risen back to four days this year, and though the parcours largely follows established regular host towns, I am encouraged by a stage over in western Asturias, as this is largely undiscovered. They even have La Bobia, from one of the worst sides possible admittedly, but the fact they're even going around places like Castropol and Taramundi where there are copious climbs undiscovered by racing is encouraging.

 

[RedheadDane]

Vuelta a Asturias has risen back to four days this year, and though the parcours largely follows established regular host towns, I am encouraged by a stage over in western Asturias, as this is largely undiscovered. They even have La Bobia, from one of the worst sides possible admittedly, but the fact they're even going around places like Castropol and Taramundi where there are copious climbs undiscovered by racing is encouraging.

The team will also feature something as rare as a cycling team from Guam.

 

[Tim Cahill]

HTV cup appears to descend into some sort of early 20th century 350km alpine grand tour stage as Mikhail Fokin riding for 'Công Ty CP Tập Đoàn Lộc Trời' and his Russian counterpart put 7 minutes into Hoogerland's group, 16-30 minutes into everyone else and only 45 people finish.

These Sputnik's are way beyond me I'm afraid, I know it's a strange ass race, maybe someone on here knows what's happened. I was just looking to see what Petr Rikunov was up to and realised he wasn't doing it this year.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

HTV cup appears to descend into some sort of early 20th century 350km alpine grand tour stage as Mikhail Fokin riding for 'Công Ty CP Tập Đoàn Lộc Trời' and his Russian counterpart put 7 minutes into Hoogerland's group, 16-30 minutes into everyone else and only 45 people finish.

These Sputnik's are way beyond me I'm afraid, I know it's a strange ass race, maybe someone on here knows what's happened. I was just looking to see what Petr Rikunov was up to and realised he wasn't doing it this year.

It's the Nha Trang to Đà Lạt stage, which is typically the queen stage. There are two main routes they use to get to Đà Lạt, either from Phan Rang-Tháp Chàm via the Ngoạn Mục pass, or from Nha Trang via the Khánh Lê pass.

The former is typically flat until around 19km @ 5%, then about 20km of flat (it's a lopsided pass) before the final climb of Prenn (around 7km @ 5,5%) into Đà Lạt; the route from the east from Nha Trang, however, features a tougher climb but further from the finish. Khánh Lê is around 30km at over 5% and would be legit HC in any language, but it's about 75-80km from the finish, there's then a partial descent (it's lopsided but not as much as Ngoạn Mục) into a long period of terrain with a number of smaller rises and ramps until arriving in Đà Lạt before descending to the south into a loop to include the Prenn climb, which crests around 2km from the finish.

I haven't checked the highlights yet but I suspect they blew the race to pieces on Khánh Lê and then the lack of real flat terrain after that has completely wrecked people; the high proportion of DNFs is likely due to riders reaching Đà Lạt and electing not to bother with the final loop including Prenn, similar to those riders that DNF Milano-Sanremo by staying on the coast road rather than go up the Poggio at the end.

 

[Cycling111]

Steff Cras wins in Asturias. Soler takes second place.
It was Cras's first professional victory.

There are no images from this race.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1915428261129072746

View: https://x.com/ciclopedreste/status/1915428261129072746

 

[Wvv]

After his extreme amount of injuries and disease, a win is really granted. First one as a pro even. Happy for Stef!

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Clearly someone somewhere (in springtime) made a mistake. Maybe a teammate crossed the finish on Crass' bike. Or Crass only now finished last year's race. UAE told Soler there was an extra lap... Let's try to make sense of this people!

Seriously though, nice for him. He's certainly not had the easiest career so far, not only the crashes, but also finding his own path. I remember a rival of Crass from the U23 actually quit cycling because it wasn't happening for him either, Niklas Eg. Damn, and with that comes the realisation that Lambrecht would have been 28 by now.

 

[RedheadDane]

I remember a rival of Crass from the U23 actually quit cycling because it wasn't happening for him either, Niklas Eg.

The heart issue also played a role.