Race Design Thread

[Gigs_98]

I am from Austria, a country which is perfect for any kind of cycling races. But although there are so many possibilities, nobody uses them, so I tried to make a "Österreich Rundfahrt, which doesn't have the same climbs like in the last ten years. I tried to not make any completely flat stages and in addition I make an Österreich Rundfahrt which goes from east to west to show that the reason, why the rout was so boring in the last years was not the direction

ÖSTERREICH RUNDFAHRT, STAGE 1: BREGENZ - ST. ANTON AM ARLBERG (185 km)
This tour won't start with a warm up stage, it will start with the queen stage. But although there are 4 first category climbs, the Österreich Rundfahrt won't be decided on this day because the last big climb, the Hochtannbergpass, is 32km ahead of the finish line. However there could be attacks by the favorites on the Flexenpass and the Arlbergpass which are very close to the finish

The climbs are:
Bödele (1st category)
Schnepfegg (4th category)
Faschinajoch (1st category)
Blons (4th category)
Dünsenberg (2nd category)
Furkajoch (1st category)
Hochtannbergpass (1st category)
Flexenpass (4th category)
Arlbergpass (4th category)

 

[Progsprach]

St Martine de la Porte - L'Alpe d'Huez (151km)
For this stage, we go onto more traditional mountain territory. The riders immediately tackle the Col de Beau-Plane(11.1km@6.5%, cat2), followed by the Telegraphe (11.4km@7.2%,cat1) - Galibier(16.4km@6.8%) double. After the descent the Mont-de-Lans (4.9km@6.1%,cat4) and a brief flat section give a bit of respite before the penultimate climb to Villard-Reynon(11.4km@8.5%) and the MTF at L'Alpe d'Huez (14km@8%). This the final high mountains test, so the climbers need to put in decisive attacks here.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Ronde van Nederland Stage 3 Groningen - Assen ()

Climbs:
VAMberg

Primes:
Zuidlaren
Gieten
Emmen
VAMweg
Grolloo

Combined Competition:
Climbs and Primes combined with bonus seconds at primes and the finish.

Today we start in Groningen, the main town of the same named region. We will head south towards Zuidlaren for the first prime. This is where the racing will begin. After two relatively easy days, we start the GC deciding days, with the cobble stage. We start with a dirt section, that gets a bit narrow towards the end, however it's like that for about fifty metres. We will head south over various cobbled sections with some being smoother than others. All these cobbles are used every year in the Jeugd Tour (Assen International Junior Cycling Tour). In between these sections, their will be primes at Gieten, home to the Superprestige cyclocross. The next is at Emmen. In between the prime at Emmen and the Prime at the VAMweg.
, there is the first climb of the race. This is the VAMberg. This is the main deciding item of the Ronde van Drenthe in both the mens race and the women's world cup. The final prime is at Groloo. After this their are just narrow roads (on the right where the bikes are) until we reach the town centre of Assen. However the race doesn't finish here, or the TT circuit where the vuelta stated in 2009. The race instead finishes by the canal.

Start:

Finish:

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Ronde van Nederland Stage 4a Zwolle - Apeldoorn (78.4km)

Climbs:
Aardmansberg

Primes:
Wezep
Elburg
Nunspeet
Uddel
Apeldoorn

Combined Competition:
Climbs and Primes combined with bonus seconds at primes and the finish.

This stage is a pretty simple stage with one climb (The Aardmansberg) and five primes(Wezep, Elburg, Nunspeet, Uddeland Apeldoorn. There are two finishing loops around Apeldoorn.

Start:

Finish(Velodrome, but not the finish):

 

[Gigs_98]

I guess for the netherlands this is a high mountain stage.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

I guess for the netherlands this is a high mountain stage.

No! I've still got Delderland and Limburg to come.

 

[Gigs_98]

I guess for the netherlands this is a high mountain stage.

No! I've still got Delderland and Limburg to come.

that wasn't meant serious I kind of expected that a stage in the area of the AGR will come

 

[lemon cheese cake]

I guess for the netherlands this is a high mountain stage.

No! I've still got Delderland and Limburg to come.

that wasn't meant serious I kind of expected that a stage in the area of the AGR will come

That stage is changing every day, so I'm warning everyone now, that final stage might be delayed a while untill i'm happy with it. Which I'm not and probably wont ever be.

 

[rghysens]

if this is a medium mountain stage, a high mountain stage is probably a nightmare

Depends on whose point of view...
Maybe you can make up for yourself, as this is the queen stage:

Tour de Suisse, stage 7: Brig - Grindelwald: 185km, high mountains
The course starts with 38km upstream along the Rhone river (which is called Rotten here), from Brig to Ulrichen. Then it turns right, to climb the Nufenenpass. The remainder of the day goes either upward or downward, to climb 4 Alpine giants.
Carnage!

Map & Profile:

Climbs:
Nufenenpass: km52; 13.3km@8.5%; 2478m; HC
Sankt Gotthardpass(by Via Tremola, fully cobbled): km86; 12.7km@7.3%; 2091m; HC
Sustenpass: km127; 17.4km@7.5%; 2259m; HC
Grosse Scheidegg: km174; 16.4km@7.7%; 1962m; HC

 

[rghysens]

Tour de Suisse, stage 8: Interlaken - Bern: 134km, flat

The final stage will probably be a sprint between survivors of the day before.

Map & Profile:

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Ha, brutal stage. As soon as you said that Crans wasn't the queen stage, but was the only MTF, I thought "I bet we have a Grindelwald finish" after the epic descent from 2011.

Beware, people, for there is YET ANOTHER VUELTA upcoming from me.

And while the others may have had their different taglines, this one's tag is "THE BEST DAMN MEDIUM MOUNTAIN RACE THE VUELTA CAN BE". You see, Javier and me had a bit of a disagreement after my last couple of Vueltas. He doesn't like too many long climbs and wants carnival gradients, I think that's all well and good but don't want MTFs at those because it kills racing elsewhere in the stage. So I went away and tried to keep both myself and Javier happy, including enough steep uphill to keep him happy, but with enough contrarreloj to balance the race.

So I will present to you a Vuelta which has just two ESP-categorized climbs... only six uphill finishes of any description (of which only one is higher than a cat.2)... no clear queen stage... a race ceiling below 2000m... 90km of time trialling... yet is still biased toward a climber, and only has four clear sprint stages (plus a couple more that could go to them). This is going to be a nightmare to control. An absolute nightmare.

 

[Gigs_98]

ÖSTERREICH RUNDFAHRT, STAGE 2: ST. ANTON - HOPFGARTEN IM BRIXENTAL (204 km)
This will be a hilly stage with "Wildschönau" as a climb near the finish, but definitely not difficult enough to cause time gaps between the race favorites. Probably this stage would be won by an attacker or a sprinter who is good in the mountains. This will be the longest stage of my tour, so there won't be any marathon stages

climbs:
Tobadill (3rd category)
Imsterberg (4th category)
Holzleitensattel (4th category)
Möserer Sattel (2nd category)
St. Michael (4th category)
Wildschönau (3rd category)

 

[The Hitch]

St Martine de la Porte - L'Alpe d'Huez (151km)
For this stage, we go onto more traditional mountain territory. The riders immediately tackle the Col de Beau-Plane(11.1km@6.5%, cat2), followed by the Telegraphe (11.4km@7.2%,cat1) - Galibier(16.4km@6.8%) double. After the descent the Mont-de-Lans (4.9km@6.1%,cat4) and a brief flat section give a bit of respite before the penultimate climb to Villard-Reynon(11.4km@8.5%) and the MTF at L'Alpe d'Huez (14km@8%). This the final high mountains test, so the climbers need to put in decisive attacks here.

This stage looks very familiar

 

[Gigs_98]

if this is a medium mountain stage, a high mountain stage is probably a nightmare

Depends on whose point of view...
Maybe you can make up for yourself, as this is the queen stage:

Tour de Suisse, stage 7: Brig - Grindelwald: 185km, high mountains
The course starts with 38km upstream along the Rhone river (which is called Rotten here), from Brig to Ulrichen. Then it turns right, to climb the Nufenenpass. The remainder of the day goes either upward or downward, to climb 4 Alpine giants.
Carnage!

Map & Profile:

Climbs:
Nufenenpass: km52; 13.3km@8.5%; 2478m; HC
Sankt Gotthardpass(by Via Tremola, fully cobbled): km86; 12.7km@7.3%; 2091m; HC
Sustenpass: km127; 17.4km@7.5%; 2259m; HC
Grosse Scheidegg: km174; 16.4km@7.7%; 1962m; HC

this is how a mountain stage has to look like. Love this stage

 

[Progsprach]

Clairmond-Ferrand - Clairmond-Ferrand (212 km)
This is a classics style circuit race, in which the riders will take six laps of a course including one categorized climb to Fontanas (4km@7.4%, cat4) and two smaller uncategorized ascents of 3.5km@6.6% and 2.5km@4.7% on a circuit length of about 36km. After the second and fourth passing of the Start/Finish. the intermediate sprints will be contested.

 

[Progsprach]

This stage looks very familiar

Well, with mountains as famous as this, similarities are inevitable .
@Libertine: Well then we will post our Vueltas at roughly the same time, but there probably won't be too much overlap if you mostly go through the Medium Mountains.

 

[The Hitch]

This stage looks very familiar

Well, with mountains as famous as this, similarities are inevitable .
@Libertine: Well then we will post our Vueltas at roughly the same time, but there probably won't be too much overlap if you mostly go through the Medium Mountains.

Not criticising, just remembering one of my favourite stages when Contador attacked 9k into the stage, though of course yours is better since you have 2 extra climbs and an extra 40k

 

[Progsprach]

Dijon ITT (39km)
And now the time trialist get one final shot at the GC, even though this one should be a lot more difficult for them than the one at Nantes, since it contains some relevant climbs. The first climb has two steps of about 1.5km@5% each and leads to the first time check at Corcelles-les-Monts. After that the course is flat for a while and then descends, before the second climb of about 3km@6% starts and leads into the second time check at Hauteville-les-Dijon. The rest of the course is basically flat, so the rouleurs can really start pushing in the final section.

 

[Gigs_98]

ÖSTERREICH RUNDFAHRT, STAGE 3: KITZBÜHEL - WAGRAIN (185 km)
Another medium mountain stage, although this one is very different than stage 2 because all the 3 categorized climbs are in the last 40 km. The finish could become very interesting because the last mountain is only 6 kms before the finish and the last 4 km will be slightly uphill

climbs:
Filzensattel (2nd category)
Dientner Sattel (4th category)
Wagrainer Straße (4th category)

 

[Progsprach]

Provins - Paris Champs-Elyseés (155km)
Well, it's the Champs Elysees, what am I supposed to say. This time the start is at Provins, with intermediates at Nangis and Cretelis. The circuit has been changed and shortened a bit, but it is still the same type of sprinters stage.

 

[Gigs_98]

ÖSTERREICH RUNDFAHRT, STAGE 4: RADSTADT - STODERZINKEN (189 km)
So finally a big mountain stage with a difficult mtf. The last pass is the Sölkpass which is also very steep. It might look as the route between the last two climbs is mostly flat but there is much "flat" descent.

climbs:
Ramsau (2nd category)
Obertauern (1st category)
Prebersee (2nd category)
Sölkpass (1st category)
Stoderzinken (HC)

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Tour de Suisse, stage 8: Interlaken - Bern: 134km, flat

Tour de Suisse, stage 7: Brig - Grindelwald: 185km, high mountains

I've been to both Interlaken and Grindelwald, and both are beutiful towns/villages.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Stoderzinken <3

 

[May0maniac]

Giro d' Italia

Stage 1a Palermo - Palermo; 96,4km

Ok, It's time to start my 2nd Giro. This time we'll have 2 stages on the first day, a 96km long hilly road stage an a 18,7km long TTT. I don't really like TTT but the teams and the sponsors seem to do.Having a short hilly stage and the very short TTT on the same day on the other hand could be interesting, the Teams that will want to ride for GC and those who want to win the TTT will be forced to softpedal stage 1a, some riders could gain minutes in the breakaway and the riders with a weak team for the TTT could attack to gain some time before the TTT, knowing that the other teams will try to save their firepower for the TTT.
After 5,5km we already have the first climb, 9,6km at 6,3%, with 250m in the middle of the climb at 13,5%. The next short climb comes after 7km of false flat, 4,8km at 4,3%. After that we have a 9km long descent that isn't very technical.
right after the descent comes the next climb, well it's 2 smaller climbs with 4km of false flat between it, the first one is 2,2km at 4,3%, the 2nd one 6km at 5,6%. The next climb is Monte Pecoraro, 5,4km at 5,8% with a few 10% steep ramps and after the descent to Carini the final climb of the stage starts, 4,9km at 7%. The 2nd part of the following descent features a few tricky hairpins and after 2,5km of false flat the stage ends near the airport of Palermo.
Like i already said, this one should go to the breakaway, but it should be fun to watch.

 

[May0maniac]

Stage b Palermo - Bagheria TTT, 18,7km

A short TTT for the sponsors, too short to have a real impact on the gc but after a hilly stage 1a we could see a few surprises. This TTT lacks tricky corners and should be a pure power test, wind could be a factor.
Having a hilly stage 1a and a short TTT as stage 1b adds another element and i think it's a nice way to start a GT, I normally prefer a prologue or a short ITT, but the combination of a short hilly stage and a short TTT is something different, the other option would have been a short ITT from Monreale to Palermo as stage 1b, with the first part of it being a highspeed descent.