Lesser known races 2025 edition

[QueenStagiaire]

How are there only 20 UCI points for the Stage win here but 25 for 11th in a Tour stage?

 

[RedheadDane]

How are there only 20 UCI points for the Stage win here but 25 for 11th in a Tour stage?

Tour bigger!

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Tour bigger!

There are also more points for moving up from 16th to 11th on GC in this race than for winning the stage which are weird incentives.

 

[SafeBet]

Milesi has been a pro for almost three years now but still has to improve in reading races.

 

[Pantani_lives]

Friday the Tour of Colombia starts. This race is unique because of its extreme altitude. Five out of ten stages go over 2800 m. Stage 6 finishes on the Alto la Linea at 3261 m altitude. This makes the Mont Ventoux look like a molehill.

One of the participants is 48-year old Oscar Sevilla for Team Medellín.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Benji Praedes wins the queenstage and the gc of the Tour de Banyuwangi Ijen in Indonesia, he won the MTF 2sec ahead of Van Engelen. The stage results
Patluding Ijen might be the hardest obscure MTF in a small fry race that you have never heared of before:

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

So two out of five stages in Wallonie won by the breakaway, with the group catching them so late that they are given the same time (Cofidis being the winning team both times). Love that combination of mistiming and desperate dredging of final reserves.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Lovely how Cofidis didn't join the breakaway in the Tour to sprint with Coquard and in Wallonia they arguably had the 2nd best sprinter in the field and went in the break nearly everyday.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Finally the Tour Alsace La Planche des Belles Filles finish is tomorrow, luckily the climb will always be in one race a year that way.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Benji Praedes wins the queenstage and the gc of the Tour de Banyuwangi Ijen in Indonesia, he won the MTF 2sec ahead of Van Engelen. The stage results
Patluding Ijen might be the hardest obscure MTF in a small fry race that you have never heared of before:

This race had a brief run as a heavy meme potential event while the Tabriz Petrochemical superteam were around, in fairness.

As for the most brutal climbs in the small, far-flung races (with UCI categorisation) we also have La Georgina / Cerro de la Muerte in the Vuelta a Costa Rica (over 45km at 6,1% to the true summit, 39km at 6% dead on to La Georgina), Aynaloo which has been climbed once by the Tour of Iran-Azerbaijan (24,3km @ 7,6%), Bukit Larut aka Maxwell Hill (used in the 2010 Jelajah Malaysia)(8,4km @ 11,5%), Gunung Jerai (also used in the Jelajah Malaysia)(full climb is 11,6km @ 10,2% but they only went up the first 8,5km or so in the races), Pusuk Sembalun (15km @ 8,1%) that has appeared in the Tour de Lombok, and the west face of Esquipulas Palo Gordo (25,3km @ 7,5%) which has appeared in a couple of Vuelta a Guatemala editions, but not for a couple of decades now.

Slightly better known, there's Filo de Merlo (16km @ 7,8%) in the Tour de San Luís, Mount Fuji in the Tour of Japan (11,6km @ 10%) and Genting Highlands in the Tour de Langkawi (22,3km @ 7,3%).

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Tour Alsace (2.2), stage 3:

The profile is from race website and it is a keeper.

Race just started.
Ticker : https://www.directvelo.com/direct/6032/tour-alsace-etape-3

Stream:

View: https://youtu.be/3tnDeYv8zYM

 

[RedheadDane]

Neutralised because of a crash... (based on my rather limited knowledge of French.)

Hopefully nothing too bad.
Hmm... the general mood of the peloton doesn't seem to imply that they've just watched someone suffer a serious crash, so... that's good, I guess.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Neutralised because of a crash... (based on my rather limited knowledge of French.)

Hopefully nothing too bad.
Hmm... the general mood of the peloton doesn't seem to imply that they've just watched someone suffer a serious crash, so... that's good, I guess.

I think it was serious. Fayolle has been evacuated after the crash. Not sure about the status. Race still neutralized.

 

[RedheadDane]

I think it was serious. Fayolle has been evacuated after the crash. Not sure about the status. Race still neutralized.

Oh, I was just basing it on the fact that the other riders seemed to be mostly either annoyed/joking with each other. Neither seeming like behaviour one would have after watching a potentially serious crash.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Oh, I was just basing it on the fact that the other riders seemed to be mostly either annoyed/joking with each other. Neither seeming like behaviour one would have after watching a potentially serious crash.

To be fair, the riders at the front shouldn‘t have seen the crash considering they hopefully don‘t ride around looking backwards all the time.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Oh, I was just basing it on the fact that the other riders seemed to be mostly either annoyed/joking with each other. Neither seeming like behaviour one would have after watching a potentially serious crash.

note: this information was reported on the ticker. now that info is gone.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

note: this information was reported on the ticker. now that info is gone.

edit: now the info is back.

 

[RedheadDane]

note: this information was reported on the ticker.

Let's hope it's more at the level of THJ at the Tour, than Privitera at Aosta...

To be fair, the riders at the front shouldn‘t have seen the crash considering they hopefully don‘t ride around looking backwards all the time.

But you'd think the words from those who did see would spread around...

 

[Dazed and Confused]

I guess we will have to wait for info from Arkea.
Race about to restart. 25Km to go.
On the cat 1 climb.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

The neutralised pace on this false flat is intense.

 

[RedheadDane]

Okay, I really hope the fact that they're back racing in earnest means that it's not life threatening.
Might just be me, but I think it would be a bit weird to neutralise a race because of a crash, have a rider be airlifted away in critical condition, and then decide to "Oh, nevermind. Let's race."

 

[Didinho]

I’ve done the 3 Ballons grandfondo this year. Lovely to see these climbs again, though it’s too soon to even watch the Planche.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

9Km to go.
PdBF climb coming up in 3km.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Beloki (?) has attacked

 

[RedheadDane]

Final K.
He's still solo.