Race Design Thread

[barmaher]

Tonton, that Tour de France was a fantastic read.

Having done a Giro last year, I know how much work goes into all of these posts / Tours so thanks Tonton, and to all the people on this thread.

I think to perfect the route you would need to dial the tough hilly stages back a touch. But that is a minor quibble. If ASO announce this route in October, I would explode with joy.

Chapeau.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Giro Rosa stage 2: San Benedetto del Tronto - San Benedetto del Tronto, 10,0km (ITT)

There have been many arguments and less-than-savoury debates on the forum over the years about the relative merits of women's cycling and the standard thereof. Strangely, the fact that with a few high profile exceptions women's races are not coterminous or on the same courses as men's races actually makes people more keen to directly compare them than in other sports where the women's events are part of the same, well, events (e.g. Tennis, athletics, alpine skiing, cross-country skiing or biathlon) because, though these offer greater opportunity to directly compare the level of the two, the women's events are seen as, if not equally prestigious in some cases, equally validated achievements.

Even where we can compare the men and the women directly, e.g. in World Championships races where they ride the same circuits, the courses are different lengths, and laptimes are hard to take into account except maybe the last one; they are however highly dependent on race situation. A time trial is more pure, of course, but how often do we see both race the same course? There's only really the Solvang ITT in the Tour of California and, in years gone by, the Lausanne TT on the last day of Romandie (which went the way of the dodo a few years ago)... here I've decided to go for a pure head to head though, because this is the same course as raced in the final stage of Tirreno-Adriatico for the last five years. Well, sort of, it's been the same course with some minor tweaks, lengthening from 9,1km to 10km over the period. I'm copying the most recent.

While you may point out that that Tirreno TT comes after a week's racing and this after just one day, it's still not a direct head to head comparison and not that different from Solvang or Lausanne where the women's race is a standalone event - and that is a valid argument of course - but both sets of athletes will be looking to peak a week or so later, the men for Milano-Sanremo, and the women for the most important GC stages of the Giro. Also, the fields will be more comparable as the races will attract at least some of the best GC riders in the world.

The course is, as you will all know from Tirreno-Adriatico, a pure out-and-back, which means it's a pure power test. For those who don't know, here's the footage from the 2015 race. The role of this stage in the GC of the Giro Rosa is to ensure timegaps and to put the strong flat engines in the lead early on, to defend themselves and make it tough to control in the next couple of days. It's not on day one because I wanted to do Pescara first, as this TT should be flat; it's not a prologue, it's a bit longer than that, but I wanted to keep the route comparatively balanced (it still favours climbing specialists, but I wanted to make them work for it) but also should mean the maglia rosa moves around a bit early in the race.

Lady of the stage: Ellen van Dijk

I was tempted to put Annemiek here, I really was. After all, she's a phenomenal prologue rider and, as a stronger GC option than most of the pure TTers, is more likely to be at peak form too. However, two things counted against her; firstly that the TT is a bit too long for prologue length and secondly that it's simply not technical enough, and so van Vleuten's technical skills and accelerations will not be of much benefit against the greater pure top end power of the more traditional time trial engine. Similarly, the stage isn't quite long or difficult enough for Anna van der Breggen. And with Villumsen targeting specific events and Brennauer preferring not to ride the Giro, this typically means that Ellen van Dijk is unopposed as best pure ITT specialist (Anna VDB is of course a more all-round GC threat, as are many of the other strong TTers you could expect in the field, such as Ferrand-Prévot or Stevens).

A converted speed-skater, van Dijk has also had a stint as a trackie, and is now renowned as arguably women's cycling's foremost all-season-round chrono specialist, having won the World Championships in the discipline in 2013 and also becoming Continental champion at the inaugural European Games last year. Her power on the flat is a key component to how she held the chasers at bay to take her biggest individual road race win, the 2014 Ronde van Vlaanderen; in a pure power test that's long enough to mean she can outlast the sprinters, Ellen is an excellent bet for the win - the only question is if she will be close enough after yesterday's stage to take the maglia rosa over just ten kilometres...

 

[Tonton]

I'm starting to like this Giro . And as always, the narrative is so well-written. Props.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

We carry on with the Challenge Bahrain/RCS Sport joint venture in the Middle East.

Bahrain International Cycling Tour Stage 1b: Bahrain Financial Harbour - Bahrain Financial Harbour (107km)

Sprints:
Budaiya @ 72.4km
Bahrain Financial Harbour @ 90.5km

Feed zone:
Riffa @ 57.6km

The second half of day one starts once again on the sea front, at the Bahrain Financial Harbour. The riders head out the same way as in the morning for the ITT prologue. This means they once again pass the impressiveFour Seasons Hotel. From here they leave the ITT circuit and enter the Muharraq Island, via the Shaikh Hamed Causway. They complete a loop of the island, taking in the Bahrain International Airport on the way round. The riders head back onto "mainland" via the Shaikh Isa Causway:

Once back on main land, the riders will proceed to the Sitra. Another little island connected to the main Bahrain expanse. Using a smaller bridge than the ones to get to the small islands, the riders will cross back onto the main island, where they will stay for the rest of the stage. Then the race proceeds to Riffa where a rather nice Fort stands.

After the Feed Zone at Riffa, the riders will take a long stretch of road that is rather major, as it is the first connection to the King Fahd Causway that connects Bahrain to Saudi Arabia. The first Sprint then follows at Budaiya. Following on from this, the riders head back towards Manama for the second Sprint of the day at the Bahrain Financial Harbour. The riders then head out on another loop to get the stage over 100km and then finish back at the second sprint point for a sprint finish outside the Bahrain Financial Harbour.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Giro Rosa Stage 3: San Benedetto del Tronto - Potenza Picena, 127km

The first really difficult stage is the third one, another stage through Tirreno-Adriatico terrain in central Marche. This one will be especially difficult and therefore it will be nice for the ladies to know that there is absolutely zero transfer and they can get up and set off from San Benedetto del Tronto once more. However, once they're on the road, things aren't so pleasant. The first part of the stage is side on to the coast, and although the prevailing winds don't tend to be too conducive to echelons in this region, the risk is always there if the weather is appropriate. With the sea close at hand, humidity will also play a role given the timing of the race - in July. We pass through many cities known to cycling aficionados - Civitanova Marche is a regular host of Tirreno, and Porto Sant'Elpidio has hosted the Giro in the recent past as well. It's also hosted the Giro Donne, albeit in a sprint stage won by then-dominant lady of the flat stages, Ina-Yoko Teutenberg.

After we head inland, however, it gets serious. Some uncategorized rolling uphill takes us across a particularly famous hilly ridge and deposits us north-east of Macerata; here we enter two laps of a 19km circuit which will be familiar to some - I have borrowed it from the excellent 2010 Tirreno-Adriatico stage where Mikhail Ignatiev attempted a long distance solo that for once in his life actually came off, Peter Velits attempted a slightly more realistic one behind him, and Scarponi and Garzelli continued their fight over the small seconds. Hilly circuits as ever are part and parcel of women's cycling, and this is an ideal little circuit to use, with a short steep ramp, then a tight descent and then a more gradual but inconsistent climb including ramps of up to 18%; this should break the field up.

To add insult to injury, like with Tirreno-Adriatico there, one time up there gives no mountain points but instead intermediate sprint points (so also bonus seconds are available!). You can see the closing stages of that race here. The second time to the summit is with 33km remaining, so I don't expect the all-important moves to be there, but we should have some pretty elite riders testa della corsa by this point owing to the nature of women's racing; we should have some elite groups stretching it out now.

After the final intermediate sprint, we break from the circuit and take on the first of our two late climbs, and the first one is arguably the most famous "wall" in Italy, the savage and awesome Montelupone.

The race may well have introduced some steeper walls in recent years, most notably the Muro di Guardiagrele of course, but Montelupone was the beginning of a new generation of wallclimbers, and much as the Mur de Huy still has something that holds it above the many other similar walls all over the Ardennes, the Muro di Montelupone just has that little bit more romance to it than the other walls of eastern Italy. Maybe part of it is that this is the place where the legend of Murito was born; maybe it's to do with how long those slaughterhouse gradients are kept up for in comparison to some.

The women do take on some legendary steep ascents of course - the Mur de Huy is the most obvious, but they also climb San Luca in the women's Giro dell'Emilia and there are quite a few walls of less legendary status that have peppered the history of the Emakumeen Bira. There's no reason Montelupone should be any different and so placing this cresting with 11km remaining will make for a brutal, brutal spectacle because I can't see riders being in groups now, they should be alone... and alone to face the final climb, which much like the classic Chieti stages in Tirreno isn't quite a HTF, instead cresting about 1,2km from the line and flattening out before a short false flat to the line.

Around 2km at 8%, the climb to the edges of Potenza Picena is relatively straightforward compared to Montelupone, but should not make this an easy run to the line. The walled city has a fair bit of recent history in the sport actually. In 2012 the "Muri Fermani" race around Fermo - which had passed through the town on its prior route - rebranded itself "Muri Fermani-Forza Marina" and started in the city, unveiling a new, hillier and more difficult route. The race was won by Alena Amialiusik, and the Belarusian climber then doubled up with a second win the following year. The same route, from Potenza Picena to Fermo, was included in the 2013 Giro Rosa, and saw the field completely shredded as Marianne Vos and Emma Pooley put nearly 3 minutes into the other elites and over 4 minutes on many other challengers - including the eventual race winner Mara Abbott.

Potenza Picena also has a deeper connection with women's cycling which is alluded to above - it is the hometown of Marina Romoli, the promising young rider who had been silver medallist at the junior World Championships and won national titles on the track and road at the espoir level, who was hit by a car on a training ride in 2010, causing almost fatal injuries. She was placed in a coma and her face and spine reconstructed, but she has never regained the use of her legs. Her fiancée, Matteo Pelucchi, was first to the scene, administering what aid he could and contacting the emergency services. He stayed at the hospital for several weeks, updating fans on her progress and in the process missing several key races; he initially quit cycling entirely even though his team told him he was welcome back anytime, but Marina persuaded him to return. She has since dedicated her time to studies, and to her charity which has become a staple of Italian races and even sponsorships, being promoted by the Bardiani Valvole team. Her fight to recover became a major ongoing story in women's and U23 Italian racing that year, which culminated in the Italian women's team's gloves in the World Championships, each rider having a letter so that in order they spelt out "Go Marina!"; Giorgia Bronzini, who had been a teammate of Romoli's the previous year, of course won the race, giving a pre-meditated heart-signal victory salute. Riders who've publicly supported and promoted the charity are many, but I will draw attention to Marianne Vos, Giorgia Bronzini, Valerio Agnoli (in particular Agnoli who appears to do quite a bit with them), Vincenzo Nibali and Pippo Pozzato. And, of course, Matteo Pelucchi.

Woman of the stage: Rossella Ratto

Maybe potentially a sentimental pick this one, as last year Rossella had a pretty disappointing year, although with the failure of the Estado de México team and the financial problems meaning settling on the smaller INPA-Sottoli Giusfredi team that is perhaps not as dramatic as anticipated; certainly she has become too established too young to be a flash in the pan like Cauz or Eleonora Patuzzo. Still just 22 years of age, Ratto has been an established face in the women's peloton for a few years now; the sister of Daniele Ratto, she is generally seen as a more all-round talent than him, and this has certainly been borne out in her performances. She was still a teenager when she had that wonderful podium in the 2013 World Championships, and she was in the chasing duo with eventual winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot that got back to the leaders in the closing stages of the 2014 Worlds. She podiumed the Muri Fermani race back in 2012 as an 18-year-old and also showed that she has a real knack for the steep stuff when she became the first winner of the women's Giro dell'Emilia, showing everybody a clean pair of heels on San Luca.

So why do I pick Ratto despite a disappointing 2015 season and with so many other strong climbers around? Well, my reasoning is twofold. Firstly, she's back on an elite team this year and she showed glimpses of her talent once more last year most notably in the Ardêche, a race over similarly hilly terrain. And secondly, with the amount of racing to come, the superteams may be reluctant to burn too many matches; the race will be broken up, but Rossella is not a strong time triallist, which will mean she will be less tightly marked, and also her long-form stage racing isn't that great just yet, and she has yet to show the recovery needed to compete over a Giro. As a result, she is more likely to be stagehunting than others who will be focusing on the GC; they will want to be in form later in the race where she may target days like today that suit her well, and also she's a really gutsy rider who will fight and fight to be part of any important move late on; as she is likely to have lost a bit of time in the TT she may be able to broker a stage win/maglia rosa deal with another contender.

There's also the simple fact that I really like Rossella Ratto and think she could potentially be awesome.

 

[May0maniac]

Stage 4: Tarvisio - Gorizia; 140k

Stage 4 is probably the esiest stage of my Giro della Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia. The stage starts in Tarvisio, a small town near the Austria border.

The first climb is Sella Nevea from North, a pretty easy climb, mst of it is false flat, the final 4km are at 4.4%.

After the about 10km long descent we have about 90km of false flat, then the next climb starts and at same time the riders will cross the Slowenian Border. It's the climb to Gonjace, 5.2km at 4%. Gojace is mostly known for the Gonjace Lookout tower, the view on top of it is stunning.
The descent is mostly false flat and shortly afer it the short climb to Villa Vasi starts, 2km at 6.2%.
On the following descent we'll return on Italian soil for a very short amount of time, then we'll visit Slowenia for the 2nd time, the final 4km are false flat and will bring the riders back to Italy.
The stage finishes in Gorizia, an important town near the Slowenian border. Since 1947, a twin town of Nova Gorica has developed on the other side of the modern-day Italian–Slovenian border, after WWII there were territorial disputes between Italy and Yugoslavia, the new boundaries were established in 1947 and the old town was left to Italy, Nova Gorica was built on the Yugoslav side. Gorizia has been a melting pot for centuries, latin, germanic and slavic languages and cultures collided here and influenced eachother,you could say that the whole city was formed by cultural exchange.

This one could go to the breakaway, the next stage will finish in Trieste and it will be a really hard stage, so I don't know if many teams will want to control the race, maybe if we have a few fast man that can climb a little bit we could have a reduced sprint, but the stage could also go to a late attacker, the final climb and the descent would give him a good chance, so a few riders could try their luck.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Giro Rosa Stage 4: Loreto - Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, 119km

The fourth stage of the Giro Rosa allows for a bit of consolidation after the steep gradients of yesterday. Starting from the town of Loreto, close to Civitanova Marche and therefore meaning only a very short and convenient transfer for the ladies this morning, this is a stage of a decent length which is mostly flat but includes some minor banana skins nonetheless.

A popular pilgrimage site for Catholics, the Basilica di Santa Casa will serve as a scenic send-off at the start of the stage. The city has some cycling heritage, hosting the Giro in 1995 and Tirreno-Adriatico in 2009; today however it's only a starting point, with the initial part of the stage until Ancona being rolling. After that we're into completely flat coastal roads, and so while the wind may be a potential threat, this one isn't necessarily going to be chaos. There is in fact some resemblance to stage 10 of the 2015 Giro, which was expected to end in a sprint but instead saw a five-man group hold on to the end, from which Nicola Boem triumphed. The run-in from the hilly stretch to the finish is much shorter in this stage, which should hopefully increase the chance of something like that happening; it is more common in women's cycling than men's cycling indeed, and indeed in the 2015 Giro Rosa, the stage after the first hilly one that broke up the field looked like this:

Perfect opportunity for a sprint, perhaps, but instead we saw a small group go clear, including the versatile Lucinda Brand, attack queen Valentina Scandolara, Italian national champion Elena Cecchini and GC hopeful who had been caught out the day before, Claudia Lichtenberg, and stay a minute ahead of the bunch. Here's an hour's highlights. The main thing with this stage will be the potential for a similar surprise mugging, and also pure scenery of course. The winding road that passes over the crest of Monte San Bartolo and stretches along the promontory from Pesaro to Gabicce Mare is scenic as all hell, and will also encourage a good technical test as riders struggle to get out of sight of the chasing pack, as well, as we all learnt in the 2013 Giro d'Italia when these roads were part of the epic time trial won by Alex Dowsett.

The actual categorized climb (only cat.4) is a little over 30km from the line, but there's plenty of uncategorized up and down on the road which traverses the mountain's upper heights, so there are chances to escape, and if it does end up going to a sprint a lot of the more one-dimensional sprinters could well have been burnt off the back (quite literally if the temperatures are anything like in the first half of the 2015 race!). This is doubly incentivized by the bonus seconds and points available in the final intermediate sprint in Cattolica; before long, however, we turn inland and head for Misano Adriatico, which leads us to the Grand Prix circuit which hosts the MotoGP circus every year, and similar to the nearby Imola it brands itself the San Marino Grand Prix.

With the shimmering Adriatic just behind it and in view from the helicams, the motor racing circuit rebranded itself in 2006 from Circuito Internazionale Santa Monica to Misano World Circuit, and then in 2012 it was renamed once more in honour of local rider (born in Cattolica in fact) Marco Simoncelli, a maverick and instantly recognizable young motorbike racer who was killed in an accident during the MotoGP race at Sepang in 2011, aged just 24. Motor racing circuits often play a part in cycle races owing to the confidence of producing a safe run-in to a sprint, with some occasionally interesting slight ramps (such as the Interlagos finish used for the Copa America de Ciclismo in Brazil). The Giro Rosa had a stage start out of Monza a few years ago, doing laps of the circuit there as well. Here, we just do the one lap before crossing the line after a sequence of fairly technical corners. This could be a sprint, or it could go to the break. It's not totally clear as the run-in favours the bunch, but the lead-in favours a strong break which, with the reduced depth of the women's péloton, means that if enough of the big teams are happy with their representation in that break, they may become difficult to bring back.

Lady of the stage: Lucinda Brand

Of the various options presented above for how this race pans out, Lucinda Brand perhaps more than anybody out there not named "Marianne Vos" is somebody who can legitimately lay claim to a very real shot at victory in all of those different outcomes (bearing in mind I've already awarded Lizzie Armitstead a stage and am doing one stage per rider, in case you wanted to argue in her favour). She won the Giro stage referenced above, being easily the strongest sprinter in the escape group and it playing a large role in how she was able to win the maglia ciclamino; but she's not just a stagehunter like that. She won the 2013 nationals on the hilly Kerkrade circuit in a solo escape of almost 100km, aided by Vos and van Vleuten being reluctant to chase her down until the non-Rabo riders had fallen by the wayside. The second Giro stage she won last year she took solo by a long way from the break, and had this profile including Naso di Gatto as the first climb, so she can make a difference on a climb as well. She's a master of Dutch-style racing of course, winning the nationals again last year on the much flatter Emmen circuit, solo again, and also took home the GP de Plouay solo back in 2014 as well. From a breakaway or a small group she knows how to turn that position in to victory and, now 26, she has only got stronger as her tactical sense has improved.

But Lucinda could also win this in the more conventional way if the stage doesn't turn out exciting, because she's also got a mean sprint on her. She'd need a reduced bunch, but heat plus some aggressive pace could well mean that the likes of Barbara Guarischi, Jolien d'Hoore and Lotta Lepistö aren't going to make it to the finish here, and Brand would be among the fastest finishers remaining. She could well think about defending that points jersey while the GC favourites are concerned about not wasting energy in a stage like this.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Giro Rosa Stage 5: Rimini - Santa Sofia, 99km

The first mountain stage of sorts, this is where the climbing will start in earnest, and we will perhaps start to learn who has got their form right. It's also the shortest stage of the race to date, and the first to check in at under 100km in length. It's only just within those parameters, however, and it is also far from easy, and so the riders will be glad to know there is minimal transfer after yesterday's stage, with Misano being part of that conurbation that stretches across the Adriatic coast in the easternmost part of Romagna, along with Riccione and today's stage host, the resort town of Rimini.

While for the most part so far in the race we have been heading northwards and westwards along the country's east coast, in this stage we move inland somewhat, which entails heading west southwest into the spine of Italy, the Apennine mountain range. We therefore head past the roads which lead to the border into San Marino, the most frequently used uphill finish in the history of the men's Giro d'Italia (really), and along the valley of the river Marecchia, one of the largest of the many that drain from the Apennines into the Adriatic, even if others may be more familiar for historic reasons (the Rubicone for example).

As we head further inland, we slowly creep uphill and the river narrows out; eventually we turn inland, and the ladies face their first cat.1 climb of the Giro, a long and complex grinder of a climb to Monte Fumaiolo which starts off with mostly false flat and gradually turns up the wick until finishing with a grandiose final 3km at 8%.

As you will see from the profile, the climb is over 20km at 4%, but if you take the final 10km only we're at 6%, and with its length and inconsistent slopes late on, it merits a cat.1 status. Certainly the break here will need to be more made up of those strong climbers who nevertheless are not likely GC threats, such as Flavia Oliveira, Mayuko Hagiwara or even Tetyana Riabchenko, although the big guns may be reluctant to let a couple of the likely escapees go. Because of the nature of the climb, we will likely see the pace gradually being upped by the big superteams in order to try to rid themselves of a few of the punchy riders who are good in the hilly races but have less engine for the sustained climbing.

There's still 39km remaining at the top, however, so the riders then take on a two stepped descent which begins with some technical corners, then some long, fast stretches, before the second half includes some real sweeping bends heading into San Piero in Bagno where the second and final intermediate sprint takes place (stages above 100km have three, stages below 100km have two). This long descent takes us into our final climb, a short-to-mid-length cat.3 ascent of the Passo del Carnaio. It's 4,2km @ 7,4% so it is hardly a monster, but it's enough to make a difference bearing in mind we should have a significantly reduced péloton together by this point.

After the ascent crests with 12,5km remaining, we have a descent which is comparatively shallow, but the second half of it - also the steeper part - is extremely technical, with a large number of twists and turns; because of a lot of technical circuits and short climbs, descents are a very common place to make differences in women's racing; it was for a long time the bane of Emma Pooley's life, so much so that when the Mortirolo was included in the Giro Rosa in 2011, the pocket-sized climber made jokes about ice cream shops in the locale, because she's apparently the female Bahamontes. In the end, she lost colossal amounts of time in the descents, so her reasoning was not unjustified. Mara Abbott is another who has superb climbing ability but struggles in the downhill, whereas those such as Vos and Ferrand-Prévot who are also champions in highly technical disciplines hold an advantage in such situations. When the riders arrive in the small town of Santa Sofia, there's a short (circa 750m) uphill drag with a couple of ramps of up to 10% to the line. It's not all that steep apart from those ramps, but enough that you could outfox the others in the run-in, it doesn't have to be a sprint if a few come into the final three kilometres together.

Lady of the stage: Elisa Longo Borghini

Like Rossella Ratto, who I mentioned before, Elisa Longo Borghini is the younger sibling of a men's pro, the now retired former Barloworld, ISD and Liquigas rouleur Paolo Longo Borghini. Paolo is over a decade older than his sister, but has amassed several years where she scores more CQ points than her brother did in his entire career; Paolo was a respected domestique, but Elisa has grown to become one of the elite talents of the women's péloton, and assuming Francesca Cauz continues to hæmorrhage time in flat and rolling stages and show frustrating inconsistency, and Dalia Muccioli still needs a season or two to develop, Elisa will be the logical choice for the loyal tifosi, as the Italian most likely to compete for the podium or even victory in her home race.

Elisa burst onto the scene very young; she's still only 24 now. And she's very well-placed to take a win in a stage like this; since moving from Hitec to Wiggle before the 2015 season she now has Mara Abbott as a teammate, somebody nobody wants to guide through the descents, because it's very likely Mara can grind them to dust uphill; therefore if Elisa wants to attack downhill she may be able to rid herself of many of the chasers - and it's something she is happy to do. She also has enough endurance to deal with longer climbs as she's shown in the Giro Rosa in the last couple of years, finishing 5th in 2014 and 8th last year - although she mistimed form a little last season and subsequently went on a few weeks later to utterly dominate the Route de France, winning solo on Planche des Belles Filles, so steep and mid-length climbs are very much to her liking. She's also shown an aptitude for shorter steep stuff, winning the Giro dell'Emilia last year and being second in the Philadelphia International, finishing on the Manayunk Wall.

Plus, of course, Elisa has shown a propensity for daring in big races and going solo; this is how she won the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, a difficult hilly race, and also arguably her most famous win, the Ronde van Vlaanderen. She has excellent technical skills and if she can get out of sight of the chasers - quite possible on the technical forested turns of the Carnaio descent - it's hard to see her being caught.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Giro Rosa Stage 6: Portomaggiore - Mirano, 136km

Yes, it's that scourge of all race designers where Italy is concerned... the vast majority of the country offers far too much choice in terms of which mountains to use, which walls to send the riders up, which sections of sterrato to force them along... but then, there's the Po valley; that vast, pan-flat floodplain that covers much of the northern third of the country and separates the Alps from the Apennines. It's difficult to avoid it without massively imbalancing the route, so here we are with a hard and fast flat stage, not even any minor ramps to enliven it, as we head northwards as week one comes towards an end.

A fairly long transfer for the riders after yesterday's short stage, so most will overnight in either Forli or Ravenna before moving on to the small city of Portomaggiore. Its main cycling heritage is as the birthplace of multiple Tour and Giro stage winner Dino Bruni, a pro back in the 1950s and 1960s. We set off on a thankless stage, which is likely to be both hot and humid, offering the riders little option for shelter, so a blistering tempo could hurt quite a few riders despite the lack of obstacles; if the wind blows it could become pretty tough as well. This is a comparatively long stage at almost 140km, but it's possible this could be the stage with the fastest average tempo in the race nonetheless. As previously mentioned, a Po floodplain stage last year with just one small obstacle early on led to a surprising nine-woman break including some big names and even a GC-oriented climber, so this isn't necessarily the same kind of waste-of-a-day that it would be in a men's race; nevertheless, this is probably one for the sprinters to duke out, given they've not had too much chance thus far and will want to make themselves known.

The stage finishes with two and a half laps of a short and fast circuit around the town of Mirano. This town of a little over 20000 inhabitants is like many others in the suburban world of the Po Valley; it has a picturesque square at its centre, some modern redevelopment, many of its populace commute to larger nearby cities like Padova and Treviso (and Venice). So why did I pick it as a stage town? Firstly, due to the lower funding, women's cycling often has smaller start/finish towns than you see in men's cycling. But secondly, and more importantly, it's the hometown of Chiara Pierobon.

Last year, Chiara was a promising young domestic pro on the Top Girls-Fassa Bortolo team. She was a developing rider with a few noteworthy results - she'd been in the top 10 of the Durango-Durango Emakumeen Saria, a hilly one-day race which precedes the Emakumeen Bira, in the first chasing group behind the lead quartet. She was then 7th in the Giro del Trentino, a one-day race which, as its name would suggest, is also pretty hilly. A further top 10 in the Giro stage I mentioned earlier, the surprise breakaway in the flat stage, followed, and she was selected to ride the European U23 Championships, a decision which reached her early on August 1st, 2015. Following the news, she met up with her team to drive to the Sparkassen Giro, a World Cup race in northern Germany the following day. She never arrived, however, suffering what was believed to be a pulmonary embolism en route; the team urgently raced to a nearby hospital but it was too late to save the 22-year-old, who died the same day. Understandably, the team withdrew from the race and returned to Italy; at the European road race championships, Ilaria Sanguinetti won a silver medal which she dedicated to Pierobon, having raced with "Ciao Chiara" marked on her gloves in tribute. Women's cycling does quite like to honour the fallen and the competitors of the past, so it seemed in keeping to include such a finish.

Lady of the stage: Giorgia Bronzini

Not really out of left field, but it's certainly the case that the now 32-year-old Giorgia had a season last year which, by her own high standards, was rather forgettable. Let's not forget, however, that her standards include multiple stage wins in pretty much every high profile race, wins on every continent, national and World titles on the track and of course two World Championships on the road. Bronzini has been there and done that, and for a durable sprinter there's not much that she could do that she hasn't done.

Although to many cycling fans Giorgia was a relative unknown when she emerged from the back of the group at the end of the World Championships in Geelong to take the victory in the sprint, she had been one of women's cycling's pre-eminent sprinters for several years prior to that, however having spent much of her time in Italian teams that enabled her to split her time with her track commitments meant she had sometimes not done some of the biggest races. With six stage wins in the Giro Donne/Giro Rosa to date and several wins in other difficult rouleur races such as the Tour of Qatar, the Women's Tour and the Holland Ladies' Tour, she has the experience to place herself in such a finish. She's also more versatile than she's often given credit for, as she has podiumed the Giro dell'Emilia and the Ponferrada Worlds which you'd consider to be more hilly than the Geelong race that she won.

While certainly as she's got older other sprinters have rather superceded Giorgia in the pecking order (and early in her career certainly at least Ina-Yoko Teutenberg could claim pre-eminence over her) to the point where she's probably not the best sprinter on her team anymore (having moved to race for Wiggle a couple of years ago, she has to contend with the impressive breakout of Jolien d'Hoore), she still wins enough to remind us that she should never be overlooked - she's still a contender anytime the race comes to a fast finish. But why do I name Bronzini for this stage ahead of other sprinters? The main reason is simply that Giorgia Bronzini is a female Óscar Freire in many respects; in Geelong that group continually thinned out and thinned out and Giorgia was always near the back of it, hidden away. Her name never came up when the top 20-25 came up from the transponders... but she was always there. The first time she was mentioned all day was when she emerged from the group as they caught Cooke a few hundred metres from the line. And the longer a stage is, the more competitive she is. As we brush up against the longer stage distances you can get away with in a multi-day event in women's cycling (you can go further in one-day racing), some of the less durable riders may not have the legs for a sprint at the same level that Bronzini has by this point in the day; also given her track background in the scratch and points races she also has excellent skills for dealing with traffic and the kind of troubles that can come from racing on a short and fast closing circuit.

 

[togo95]

Tour of Tennessee - 1

I have another race in USA here, this time a 7 stage long Tour of Tennessee. Its nature is a bit like Vuelta al Pais Vasco, with higher MTF and longer ITT.

Tour of Tennessee stage 1: Nashville - Nashville; 171 km





First stage comprises of a big loop around the west of Nashville. It is mostly flat with a few short spikes along the way. However, the last 12 km in Nasville could cause some trouble with many short ascents starting with the very steep 12th Street. They are very twisty, with some fairly narrow sections and a short cobbled street at about 1 km to go. Here's an overview of the "climbs":

Union Hill (cat 3, km 25) - 1.7 km @ 4.8%
Bearwallow (km 74) - 1.6 km @ 4.7%
TN-249 (80) - 0.7 km @ 7.2%
Pond Creek (101) - 0.6 km @ 12%
McCrory Lane (111) - 0.9 km @ 7%
Harpeth Ridge (118) - 1.3 km @ 5.4%
Lynnwood Way (132) - 1.2 km @ 8.5%
Hidden Valley (134) - 0.4 km @ 13%
Hills in Nashville

Nashville:

 

[togo95]

Tour of Tennessee - 2

Tour of Tennessee stage 2: Nashville - Monteagle; 184 km





Second stage heads SE for most ot the time, before the two climbs of the day. Both are fairly similar in nature and with the second one ending just 10 km before the finish in Monteagle, it could be a springboard for attacks. They are regular climbs with no steep sections, but since there is no descent afterwards, sprinters who get dropped might find it hard to rejoin the peloton.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Giro Rosa stage 7: Riese Pio X - San Fior, 119km

On the Friday before the second weekend of the race, we're into another trademark of women's cycling: that is, when an area is supportive, reward that support with continued racing. This stage is very much a legacy of that, for two separate reasons. The start town of Riese Pio X has featured on the route twice, as the start of a sprint stage in 2007 won by Giorgia Bronzini, and the finish of a 2010 sprint won by Ina-Yoko Teutenberg. The town, of a little over 10000 inhabitants, is named after its most famous son, Pope Pio X (Pius X), and is popularly known simply as "Riese". It also hosted the 2010 nationals, which were won by Monia Baccaille. Its connection to women's cycling is rather lessened now, but for many years it was connected to the sport because it is the home of the Pasta Zara company, which was a sponsor of a prominent team for a decade until 2013. While the most successful iteration is probably the Diadora-Pasta Zara incarnation in 2011, with Mara Abbott, Claudia Häusler, Shelley Olds and Olga Zabelinskaya, it is the earlier Safi-Pasta Zara teams of 2008-10 that I remember most fondly, with Ziliute, Bronzini, Eleonora Patuzzo, Andruk, Sylwia Kapusta and pre-ban Bastianelli and Leleivyte.

After heading across the floodplain past the Montello ridge which hosted the World Championships back in the 80s, the other part of the familiarity for riders manifests itself; they'll be familiar with this course all right. That's because the finish town of San Fior has featured in the Giro Rosa the last two years; both years have provided us with some of the best stages of the whole season.

Giro Rosa 2014 stage 6: Gaiarine - San Fior
In 2014, the San Fior stage was one of the toughest, including the ascent of La Crosetta. As a result, this was where the important moves were expected to be made, so when perennial Queen of the Mountains Emma Pooley attacked on the smaller earlier climb, the panic button was hit and the race was shredded. She rode through the break and dropped all of them, save for a teenage neo-pro, Kasia Niewiadoma, who stayed with her for much of the climb. Once Emma had finally rid herself of the Pole, said Pole was put to work pulling amongst the chasing group of six to assist the chase, and though she eventually was dropped by the chasers, they just ran out of road to capture Pooley, despite putting four minutes into even the next group of elites.

Giro Rosa 2015 stage 2: Conegliano - San Fior
The following year the stage was earlier in the race and as a result less mountainous, instead of La Crosetta the biggest climb of the day was the comparatively benign Piai, however a combination of the tricky profile (much more difficult than the misleading profile suggested) and the uncomfortable heat made it a really exciting stage, with Taylor and Oliveira duking out the escape, and various attacks and counters behind until the eventual elite group of eight was formed that would compete for the stage, which Megan Guarnier won.

I have effectively wholesale copied the 2015 stage, because really, it provided great racing which was selective without being so selective that it totally destroyed contenders' races early on, so why wouldn't you, as the course is obviously conducive to good racing! This means heading through Conegliano, and doing two laps of a mostly flat circuit around the finish town including a small climb to Colle Umberto. Conegliano is the hometown of mercurial and oft-frustrating Italian climbing star Francesca Cauz, so expect much support for her on the road here; however the stage is probably not tough enough for her to be a genuine threat for victory. The hardest climb is Piai, which though it includes a couple of kilometres at around 4-5% before what is shown in the profile, is hardly the Zoncolan. It does, however, crest just 14km from the line which could well mean a frantic chase - especially with the small Colle Umberto climb getting rather in people's way and offering a small possibility for a late attack to be effective if the group is small enough - as it may well be.

Lady of the stage: Megan Guarnier

Unlike the Italians or the Dutch, who tend to bring their riders through very young (the former in particular) it is far from uncommon to see American cyclists take a few years to really hit their stride as top level pros; Megan Guarnier is one such rider, who despite several years' experience in her national scene took until she was 26 to make it to Europe; after a spectacular 2012 with TIBCO she was signed to Rabobank, but took a bit of time to adjust, and moved on to Boels after just one season, but since then she has gone from strength to strength. Now 30, Guarnier's best season - by far - was last year, and her ability in stages like this was a large part of that.

Megan can get over most of the obstacles in an intermediate stage, and even if she is dropped she is unlikely to be outside of the first bunch of chasers. She's a gutsy, gritty rider, and won Strade Bianche solo to show that she doesn't need to rely on a Valverde-esque ability to sprint out once all the sprinters are long gone; she has some serious all-round skills. She can climb - the podium of the Flèche Wallonne had made that abundantly clear even before her spectacular Giro Rosa, where she took the maglia rosa after winning the very stage that this route has been based upon, and defended it over some seriously tough stages including the sawtoothed Morbegno stage, before falling away in the TT, though producing a stronger than expected time herself which enabled her to protect a podium position in the GC. Elsewhere she won a stage of the Emakumeen Bira - again, though the climbs are a little steper, similar profile nature to this - and the national championships, as well as making the podium in the World Championships on home roads. She won the gradually hilly Tour of Norway and placed highly in the Boels Holland Ladies Tour, based primarily on her result in the mini-Amstel-Gold stage to Valkenburg.

And of course, if anybody ever wants the clearest reason there ever could be for why I selected her as the winner of this stage, that straightforward reason is that they held a very similar stage in the Giro Rosa, and it was hard enough to drop all but a select few; and Megan Guarnier was the strongest finisher left in that group, so Megan Guarnier won that stage...

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Giro Rosa stage 8: Farra d'Alpago - Passo di Fedaia (Dolomiti Stars), 86km

The first mega monolith stage of the Giro is also its shortest road stage (which is not atypical for the Giro Rosa in fairness), and is our first real sight of the brutal mountains. Route design philosophy-wise this has the potential negative impact of dulling the racing in the San Fior stage, but that's a fairly combative design anyhow, with this being a short stage it will hopefully help... and also it's a Saturday stage. This will mean that the highlights of this stage can be sent out to the largest potential audience. For me, one thing that the Giro Rosa really has as an opportunity is that more so than almost any other stage race it has the opportunity to let the women truly showcase themselves in the iconic spots of the sport, and it still be fresh every year. I'd like it if, every year, there would be one stage where the women got to race on a truly legendary cycling spot, as this does help provide attention and also our familiarity with the locations give us a greater ability to identify with the racing.

In fairness to the Giro's organisers, this is something they've been trying to do... in 2010 a stupendously short but brutal stage took them to a mountaintop finish on the Passo dello Stelvio, where the two greatest climbers in the world got away on one of the most mythical passes of the sport, then giggled and held hands like a couple of adolesce...no wait, that was the Tour de France. The women tried to destroy one another on the climb (Abbott, in the maglia rosa, eventually triumphing over Pooley, in the QOM jersey, for the record). In 2011 the Mortirolo followed, albeit from an easier side, Vos clinging to the coattails of the climbers and then pulling out a big lead in the descent while the likes of Guderzo and Pooley struggled. In 2014, the classic sites were back, with a final day mountaintop finish at the Madonna del Ghisallo, Emma Pooley getting the last of her three stage wins, albeit with a huge assist from the Rabobank team, who marked - sometimes unfairly - Mara Abbott out of proceedings as they sought to protect Vos' maglia rosa. And then last year, it was the turn of Aprica, although in its shallow gradients it had the usual Montevergine "sprint of the elites" role. More on that later.

Much as the Dolomite stage of the men's Giro, we are starting in Farra d'Alpago, a smallish but scenic commune not far from Belluno, and therefore a short transfer from yesterday given most teams will be staying in Vittorio Veneto or Conegliano (in Francesca Cauz's case, possibly even staying at home!). Like that 2010 Stelvio stage, I'm borrowing the format of a two-climb stage, one a difficult classic Giro climb to break the field up, and the latter an all-time classic Giro beast to let the ladies showcase their abilities on one of the sport's hallowed grounds. And because I am, well, me... did you expect anything other than Fedaia?

Fedaia!!!

Anyway, before we get to that, there's an early intermediate sprint in Ponte nelle Alpi (actually on the bridge in the picture below), so if there's a tough battle in the points classification they may duke it out - or alternatively GC contenders might fight for some bonus seconds, especially if somebody who climbs well but has a useful enough sprint on them has the maglia rosa they may look to take advantage here with plenty of recovery time before the climbing begins in earnest.

However, when the climbing does begin in earnest, it really does begin. We start climbing at around the 18km mark, and for nearly 35km we are going uphill, in stages. Some stretches aren't categorized but would have been in an earlier stage; some bits are just false flat. The last 12km or so, however, are a Giro classic.

That profile shows the whole scale of the suffering, though like RCS themselves in the men's Giro, I am only categorizing the last 12,5km, which average 6,8%. It is the climb where Paolo Savoldelli won himself the 2005 Giro. Well, in theory. It was more the descent of the Passo Duran which allowed him the advantage to enable him to work with Basso on the climb, but you get my point. The women will already be all over the road here, as only the very best climbers will be at the front of the course; they don't get to take on 12km at 7% mountains fresh very often and so we will really see the top climbers coming to the fore here. The views are dramatic and imposing and the legs will be glad for a respite. The riders won't be able to switch their brains off, however, as the descent is very technical and twisting; the less adept riders downhill could lose minutes here while the stronger technical riders could make big gains. As I mentioned in an earlier stage, technical descending often plays an integral part in race development among the women and so getting this right will be key.

Although there's a bit of a ramp into the mythical-looking Colle Santa Lucia, this is uncategorized and the descent takes us all the way into Caprile. Which leads us into the second and final intermediate sprint in Rocca Pietore, and then, you know what comes next: spamming of pictures of the Serrai di Sottoguda and the other wondrous sights of the Passo di Fedaia.

Fedaia!!!

It is possible that at some point I will get sick of posting pictures from the Passo di Fedaia, but I think we're still a long way away from that. Anyway, the climb has only ever been a mountaintop finish once, in the 2008 Giro when it was the final cherry on the top of a short but monstrous Dolomite odyssey. This was won, of course, by a rocket-fuelled Emanuele Sella, which perhaps RCS would prefer to gloss over. However, the steepness of the final climb did rather discourage too much action beforehand, save for the seven dwarves of CSF-Navigare, and maglia rosa Bosisio being dropped early. Fedaia's final brutal ramps, the final 6km at 11% and maximum of 18%, are such that it may scare people off attacking earlier, but attrition will break things apart here anyway, and even if not, you can guarantee there will be some real gaps opened by this one which will have some big impacts in the days to come. After all, the women's World Tour is mostly about flat, hilly and punchy races, so the Giro really needs to go all in on the climbs to help encourage specialisation. And really, the women will get the prestige of competing for a win at one of Italian cycling's great cathedrals, and we fans can watch some brutal racing and look at the scenery of the Passo di Fedaia: everybody wins.

Lady of the stage: Pauline Ferrand-Prévot

As far as spectacular achievements in cycling go, there are few out there who can top Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, often abbreviated to "PFP" by fans. For a few short weeks, she was the reigning road World Champion, having won at the last in Ponferrada in 2014, the reigning cyclocross World Champion, having bested Sanne Cant in an epic battle in Tabor, and the reigning (and still currently reigning) mountain bike World Champion, winning solo in Vallnord in August 2015 - the first time all three had been held by the same person. She's a pretty spectacular talent, and this much has been known for many years. She's collected national, European and World titles over the various disciplines since being a teenager, and even top 10ed the two hardest, climbing-wise, World Cup races as a 19-year-old amateur.

Since going pro, she's gone from strength to strength, of course, culminating in that spectacular 12 months of rainbow collection. I wrote up my stage allocations before it became known that she's riding an extremely limited road calendar in 2016 based around her twin assaults on the MTB and Road Race at the Olympics; it is likely that she will skip the Giro this year as a result. Nevertheless, in the faux world in which these races exist, she's a major candidate to win a stage like this.

While Pauline isn't the greatest pure climber in the péloton, the difficulty of the descent in this stage is likely to mean Mara Abbott, who probably is, will be starting the final climb to Fedaia with something of a deficit. And PFP is not the kind of rider who's easy to haul back on the climbs, as those who were left eating her dust in the Emakumeen Bira in 2014 found out to their detriment. In addition to this, she's making a bit of a habit of being the strongest on the most iconic climbs in the sport - having won La Flèche Wallonne of course, but also picking up the win in the 2015 Aprica stage in the Giro, despite having been injured in the run-up to the race and not entering it at anything like her best form. And in 2014, she was arguably the strongest in the Ghisallo stage; given that she had to ride to protect her teammate, she had plenty left at the end. It wouldn't have been too much of a stretch to think that, without the need to ride for Vos, PFP could have caught the 20" or so to Pooley, who was exhausted from two lengthy solo escapades in the previous three stages. She was 4th to San Domenico that year as well, but of those ahead of her, Abbott tends to ride herself into form (she also doesn't like descending, whereas as a CX and MTB rider, Ferrand-Prévot is excellent at them), van der Breggen is a teammate so may not be able to chase her if she goes first and can serve as an anchor on any chase by anybody else, being a super-strong climber herself (also, I have quite a few climbing stages, and having committed to one stage per person, they both get stages later in the race; Pauline is an élite racer and an excellent climber so gets a mountain stage almost by default), and Pooley is semi-retired. In an ideal world ALL of these mountain stages would be won by Emma Pooley, but we don't live in an ideal world. Pauline is also good when the slopes are really steep, as borne out by her performances on climbs like the Mur de Huy; if she can get to that brutal last 5km at the front of the race, then she's going to be really hard to catch.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Giro Rosa stage 9: Lago di Tesero-Val di Fiemme - Asiago, 109km

Another reason for the MTF at Fedaia yesterday was that with this being the final day before the rest day, there's the temptation for riders to fear a brutal stage upcoming and neutralize a difficult stage preceding it; this is a hard stage and therefore if the Fedaia stage wasn't a mountaintop finish, riders may have been more tentative about being aggressive, finishing on a steep climb means there will be guaranteed gaps, and that means there should be more aggression in this stage as there will be a) time gaps that need to be fought back, and b) tired legs out there looking forward to the upcoming rest day.

I had to get one of my traditions in, I'm afraid. When people discuss the Val di Fiemme, often they are referring to the village of Lago di Tesero, within the Val di Fiemme. This is because this is where the famous cross-country skiing venue, which has held the Nordic World Championships three times, in 1991, 2003 and 2013 in the name of the valley, is located. It has also become iconic within the sport for hosting the final legs of the Tour de Ski, including the pursuit race from the stadium to the top of the Alpine skiing run at Alpe Cermis. It makes an ideal stage host as it is, unlike most Alpine skiing resorts, within a valley so we don't need to start with a major descent, it has facilities, and it's relatively accessible. The stage begins with a little loop around the valley to ease the riders into things before an early intermediate sprint in Cavalese. Then, se armó un zapatiesto.

The Passo Manghen is one of the true brutes of the Dolomites, long, relentless and on the steeper side of moderate in gradient. It's become a sparingly-used Giro classic, but normally it's used as a precursor to Alpe di Pampeago, which normally hosts the finish when the Val di Fiemme pays up for the race. We never see it from the north. Until now.

Like with Fedaia yesterday, the steepest stuff is at the end, the final 6km averaging 10%. But unlike Fedaia, when the women are done with Manghen, there's another 70km to race. This race is going to have colossal time gaps, but also some will be careful not to drop too many helpers as it's not a pure climbing fest here. Anyway: we have a long and difficult descent, which again may restrict or nullify early aggression from the likes of Abbott. After the descent there's another climb, but this is much more gradual and leads into a technical descent once more, so I anticipate this will be like an exaggerated version of the Naso di Gatto stage of the 2015 Giro, where some strong climbing domestiques and second-tier contenders like Mayuko Hagiwara and Carlee Taylor can get into the break, then the big guns ride across to them and we get a final climb face-off.

The riders will be glad of a brief respite as there's a reasonable amount of flat riding in Valsugana, before the intermediate sprint in Levico Terme which then yields to the last major climb the women will face before they can have a well earned rest day. And it's an almost undiscovered (I specify almost) beast, the Passo di Vezzena.

The city of Asiago is, you would think, nicely located to host the Giro. It sits on a high plateau, it has facilities, it can be approached via a number of passes. However, the central location on that plateau means that generally you have around 20km of shallow descent, flat or rolling terrain after the final climb. When the climb is as difficult as the Passo di Vezzena, however, that's not such a problem (it's also a lot less of a problem in women's cycling where the lesser depth of péloton makes controlling the race in the fashion we've often become accustomed to in men's races difficult, and the lack of pure climbers - with a handful of exceptions - means we shouldn't see as much of an attritional or cagey race as we often see from the men here); after all, the first 7km average over 9%, and though the steepest stuff ends about 25km out (there's a short respite then a couple more kilometres of climbing at lower gradient to the summit), that's plenty close enough to make it difficult for riders to bring this one back together. We could have, in theory, a Rabobank or Boels descending pairs, trios or even quartets TTT to try to capture escaped climbing specialists, we could have elite groups, or we could even have everybody spread all over the mountain. This could be great; the descent IS a descent. but it's very shallow so the usual gains that can be made are limited; they'll still need to be pedalling, and the technical tests are very few - this should be a very fast run-in.

The climb has been seen in the men's Giro twice, but never from this, its hardest side. First in 1972 and secondly in 1993. If Asiago is interested in paying up again, then surely it's overdue a visit; here we have another of the potential benefits of the Giro Rosa; because of the lower budget and lesser funding for the women's race, it is easier for organisers to get all of the race caravan to and through such passes and locations, and so not only can the women blaze a trail but they can show the men's race what is and isn't achievable with regards to new or long-forgotten climbs (remember, the Giro Donne went up the Zoncolan in 1998, albeit from Sutrio). Yesterday the women got to show what they can do on the mythical passes of the sport, today they can show the men what they've been missing out on, on the unused or rarely used greats.

Lady of the stage: Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio

South African national champ Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio has one of the more circuitous routes into cycling. She has a degree in chemical engineering, and while studying met her husband, who is an XTERRA triathlete. A series of injuries derailed her attempts to become a triathlete herself, but she found she had a knack for the cycling part of the events and so this was the direction she went with it. She didn't turn pro until she was 24, and even then it was with the relatively small concern that was the Lotto Ladies team at the time. For a couple of years, especially at the smaller races, she and her husband effectively were able to serve as de facto medical assistance on course. In 2011 she started to build up convincing results, with a top 10 in the Emakumeen Bira perhaps the most notable, aided by a 4th place in the Kanpazar MTT, behind only Pooley, Vos and Arndt. Although the field wasn't so deep, 2nd behind Pooley only in the Tour de l'Ardêche showed she had climbing nous; she replicated this performance (again behind Pooley) a year later, as well as underscoring that she was no surprise package anymore with a top 5 in La Flèche Wallonne and a top 10 in the Giro. She upgraded the Flèche result to a podium a year later, and replicated her Giro result thanks to top 10 results in both MTFs, to Monte Beigua and San Domenico. Ardêche was... another 2nd place, this time behind Antoshina. A change of scenery served her well, however; after a year with Hitec at a similar level, last year at 29 she took advantage of the better protection offered by Bigla and key absentees to showcase what she really is capable of, finishing 2nd in the Emakumeen Bira by just 1", and finishing 4th in the Giro Rosa, having been in the top 5 of all of the main GC stages, whether mountain or time trial. She also took home stage race glory at last, winning the Auensteiner Radsporttage race in Germany after crushing the field in the hilly final stage. 4th in La Flèche Wallonne and 2nd in the Giro dell'Emilia showed that she is now a year-round threat.

I've put Ash down for this stage because she's shown in the last two years that the tougher a stage is, the more likely she is to be there at the business end; stages like Morbegno and Loano in the Giro showed that she had the best sprint at the end of the stage of any of the big names save for Guarnier; on a stage as mountain-centric as this one, I would normally - though not always - expect Moolman-Pasio to be in the group after the likes of Guarnier have been dropped. The big question really would be whether enough of a selection would be made that she wouldn't potentially lose out due to being outnumbered; with Vos having shown a weakness on sustained climbs in 2013, I'd expect her to beat any Rabo rider likely to be there with her in a sprint - Niewiadoma, van der Breggen and Ferrand-Prévot being the ones I'd anticipate - and if Guarnier has been dropped I'd back her against any Boels or Wiggle GC threat in a sprint as well. The problem is that Cervélo-Bigla aren't very big, especially now they've lost Annemiek, and so she could be made to chase down attackers on the way in. If the climb breaks up the race enough to be a head to head, however, Moolman-Pasio has every chance of taking this one home as I wouldn't expect her to be too far from the head of the race over the summit, and she's plenty strong enough to pull back time on, or help pull back time on, most attackers in the 20km run-in from the summit to the finishing line.

 

[May0maniac]

Stage 5: Gorizia – Trieste; 129km
the first 65km:

the 21.4km long finalcircuit that the riders will have to ride thrice:

The final stage of my Giro della Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia is another short stage, but it's a really hard one that features my favourite urban climb.
The first 65km are mostly false flat and will bring the riders close to Trieste, then the climb to Prosecco on the Strada del Friuli (yes, that's the actual name of the Village) starts, 1.4km at 8.1%.

After the actual climb we have 5km of false flat/slightly rolling terrain, then a 6km long section of false flat, I wouldn't call it an actual descent, it's only about 3% steep, this one should be great for the powerful riders that are able to push huge gears, starts.
Right after the descent the next climb starts, it's the Strada per Basovizza, 2km around 5.2%.

The following descent is 6km long, only the first 3km are steep, the rest is mostly flase flat, and will bring the riders close to the Port of Trieste were the the hard circuit starts near Piazza della Libertà, the riders will have to ride the whole thing thrice, starts.
Piazza della Libertà:

The first 500m of the circuit are false flat, the the Via Commerciale climb starts, 2.8km at 9.4% with a max. gradient of 16% and 800m of rolling terrain on top of the climb.

The following descent is rather technical and steep.
Right after the descent my favourite urban climb starts. It's the ungodly steep Scala Santa, 2km at 16.2% with a max. gradient of 20% on gentle urban cobbles, it's just an awesome climb, you have a climb that is in the same league as the Muro di Somaro in the middle of a large Italian city, that's just awesome.

The rest of the circuit is identical to the final 14km of the first part of the stage, once again we have false flat, the Basovizza climb and the final descent.
This stage has the potential to create large gaps, the triple Stada Commerciale + Scala Santa Combination is just brutal. You also have to consider the fact that you don't have an actual descent right after Scala Santa, so you don't really have time to recover before the start of the Basovizza climb, if you crack on Scala Santa you're probably done.
You could also use the 65km long first part of the stage and the final circuit to create the hardest WC RR ever, Zomegnan would probably love it and it would be brutal for the riders, just imagine the Men's RR, they'd have to climb the Strada Comerciale-Scala Santa combination nine times, that would be a little bit over the top and maybe the descent after Via Commerciale is a little bit too small and technical for the WC RR, but Enzo Cainero (The guy who organises most of the Giro stages in Friuli, he was also the one who put the Zoncolan on the Map) has said multiple times that he'd like to organise a WC in Trieste.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Bahrain International Cycling Tour Stage 2: Bahrain Financial Harbour - Al Durrat Petals

Sprints:
Askar @ 70.8km
Al Dur @ 80.3km

Feed Zone:
Riffa @ 56.5km

Once again the race starts at the Bahrain Financial Harbour, however doesn't finish there. The riders will instead head around the Four Seasons hotelas before, but will then head west along the highway which arcs south. Then the riders head back east for a short time before heading south into Riffa for a Feed zone. A loop back to Riffa follows before headong to the coast for a trip south to the finish. Not much can be said as the course isn't that interesting, but the wind could play a factor into the race with the roads being open. However there are sprints at Askar and Al Dur. Then the riders carry on down to the finish a the Al Durrat Petals.

Bahrain Financial Harbour:

Al Durrat:

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Scala Santa is absurdly brutal. I also have very little doubt that we will legitimately see this Tour of Bahrain before long.

Meanwhile, the women have had their rest (and hopefully some better food and accommodation than is provided at some races, as the amusing journey Annemiek van Vleuten took from disappointed to infuriated at the Tour de Languedoc-Roussillon a few years ago shows) and are ready to return for week 2 of the Giro.

Giro Rosa stage 10: Soave - Gardaland, 103km

Following the rest day, the riders set out for a mid-length stage. It is likely following the stage finish in Asiago that the riders' day off will be spent in either Castelfranco Veneto, Vicenza or Verona; all will make satisfactory sizable bases to reduce transfer distance. With Bassano del Grappa another possibility, if they stay there or Castelfranco Veneto and don't mind a bit of travelling they could feasibly stay in the same hotel from stage 6 through to today.

Today's start town of Soave is believed to have adopted its name from the Latin for the Swabian tribes, although this is by no means universally accepted and other theories also have currency. It is a wine-making region famed for its scenic castle as shown above. It is also the hometown of arguably the single most aggressive racer in the women's péloton, the mighty breakaway queen Valentina Scandolara, here captured in her natural habitat, the solo attack.

For those who aren't really familiar with the women's péloton, Valentina Scandolara often becomes one of the first riders they can recognise. This is as when you look at the bunch, she's very easy to spot: she is the one attacking off the front of it. She's the female equivalent of Johnny Hoogerland, of Stefano Pirazzi, of Jacky Durand, of Amets Txurruka... if ever things are getting dull, she can be relied on to enliven things at least temporarily. She's a little harder to spot now that she's moved on to Orica and now to Cylance - previously it was even easier to recognise her thanks to her old teams' kits - first it was Vaiano-Solaristech, who seemingly raced in their pyjamas, then the cornea-scorching Alé-Cipollini team... the kits may have got a bit less outré, but never fear, Valentina's racing is still the same. And this is a straightforward good thing.

This would be a good stage for her in fact; once the first flat stretch is done with, including circumnavigating the outskirts of Verona, we have two laps of a moderately hilly circuit which involves descending to and climbing away from the shores of Lake Garda in and around the small town of Costermano.

The actual climb on the circuit isn't huge - 3,1km @ 7,2% - but it should be enough that the purest sprinters are detached given that we climb it twice. The second time up the climb is at 32km from the finish, so there's time to fight back on, and given that the racers have had a day's rest to recover from the weekend's brutal mountains, and there's only really one more chance for the fast women to pick up a stage here, they'll likely want to make this one count. However, once they've descended back to the shores of Lake Garda after the second time up the Virle climb, they aren't done; there's a second climb, although it is a pretty straightforward one. The climb to Villa Albarè is similarly around 3km long but only averages about 4%, with a short ramp at around 8% the biggest challenge. It officially crests 17km from home, but the last kilometre of that is effectively flat; however, if a selection has been forced by the earlier circuit, this will give them a chance to break from that. However, the final few kilometres to the medieval theme park of Gardaland are mostly very straight, so riders will find it hard to get out of sight of the chasers here, which could therefore lead to a racy run-in with sprinters' teams depleted by the climbs and trying to chase down elite groups with some strong but more versatile sprinters of their own in them. The last kilometre is ramrod straight and superficially similar to the new (worse) Ronde van Vlaanderen finish so if teams have multiple bullets in their gun they could be forced to control here; one of those potential sprints that's difficult to judge.

Lady of the stage: Elena Cecchini

Loyalty is not a strong suit for 23-year-old Elena Cecchini, who is now starting her sixth year as a pro, with her sixth different team. In fairness, some of that wasn't her fault - she was, for example, part of the Estado de México team that went under and is to all intents and purposes a continuation of the Faren-Let's Go Finland! team she was on the year before. After really confirming herself as a major player last year with Lotto, she has now moved on to the pseudo-new Canyon-SRAM team which is in many respects of course a continuation of Specialized-Lululemon. It also means that, with all respect to the Lotto lineup, which in recent years has included a few of my absolute favourite racers, she has the benefit of stronger tactical presence as there are multiple options the team can play around her, such as Guarischi for a sprint, Amialiusik if the race is more aggressive in the hills, and both Cromwell and Cecchini in between.

Cecchini also has something in her favour for this race, which is the tifosi - she is the reigning national road race champion, having defended her title which she won in 2014; like PFP she seems to do very well in classic cycling locations, with those wins coming on the 2008 Worlds course and in the Milano-Torino-alike 2015 nationals finishing at the Basilica di Supergà, which showcases some pretty useful puncheur skills as well. Indeed, earlier in the 2015 season she showed her ability to deal with the breakaway in that kind of hilly racing when she podiumed the Durango-Durango Emakumeen Saria, the hilly race which precedes the Emakumeen Bira and has a similar profile to the men's Klasika Primavera Amorebieta - while she eventually finished third, a few seconds behind the leading duo, the fact that the front quartet consisted of one of the best riders in the women's péloton, Emma Johansson, and two very strong climbers in Katarzyna Niewiadoma and Evelyn Stevens, shows that Cecchini is no mug when it comes to getting over obstacles. At last year's Giro, however, her best results came from sprinting - either from a small group, such as that stage 3 surprise escape, or from a reduced bunch; in that respect there are similarities to Lucinda Brand's Giro performances. Elena can also play it canny in the groups she finds herself in in the run-in following races with the obstacles in the middle, such as Omloop het Nieuwsblad; she's strong enough in a sprint to duke this one out if it's conservatively raced (I expect there to be too much to it to allow some of the more pure sprinters like Lepistö to come back with enough in their legs to fully contest the finale), but she's capable enough to make the moves if needed... and as the outgoing Italian national champion she also has all the motivation in the world to show prominently in the race.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Bahrain International Cycling Tour Stage 3: Bahrain Financial Harbour - Sakhir International Circuit (117km)

Sprints:
Al Jazaer Beach @ 87.9km
Al Areen Palace Hotel and Spa @ 97.8km

Feed Zone:
Riffa @ 62.7km

The race once again starts at the race HQ of the Bahrain Finanical Harbour. Then the riders head out on the start loop around the Four Seasons Hotel in Bahrain Bay. The riders then head onto the isle of Sitra. Following on from this, the riders head down along the coastline before doubling back on themselves to pass the Tree of life. The feed zone then follows, which is once again placed in the Manama suburb of Riffa. Then the riders head south once more, past the University of Bahrain and down towards the first sprint of the day. This is at the Al Jazaer Beach. The riders go round a hairpin and follow the arc-ing road back round to the Sakhir circuit, but then turn right before reaching the entrance. The race will pass the The Lost Paradise of Dilmun Water Park twice as the riders will head out on another out and back run to the Al Areen Palace Hotel and Spa for the final sprint of the day. The riders will enter the Sakhir International Circuit after this via the paddock before completing a lap of the 5.4km circuit. There are a couple of rises on the cicuit, however they shouldn't trouble the likes of Gaurdini or Kenny van Hummel (if van Hummel wasn't retired). The finish is on theStart/Finish/Pit straight.

Bahrain Financial Harbour:

Sakhir International Circuit:

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Bahrain International Cycling Tour Stage 4: Bahrain Financial Harbour - Bahrain Financial Harbour (134km)

Sprints:
At the finish (Every lap)

Feed Zone:
Just after the finish on every lap except the first two and final crossing before the finish.

The final stage of the BICT. The another race in the middle east, with uninteresting topography, that lacks any sort of excitement, or decisiveness (apart from the bonus seconds at sprints and the finish). However, there might be some crosswind action on stage 2 to the petals. But just in case the wind doesn't come, the race will be decided on the final day, like it is in the Dubai Tour (the race that this somewhat emulates). However, to make this circuit race more interesting, there will be sprints every lap. This is to try to spice the racing up, however a breakaway will probably go up the road and take all of the sprints just to annoy RCS Sport...

So look forward to a day of nothing but Heli cam shots of the area, as well as the race leader's team riding on the front for the whole day.


Manama:

Any of what I have said up there isn't me being sarcastic, just look at the final stages of the Dubai Tour and the Abu Dhabi Tour.

So.... another race has finished. I look forward to creating something that won't be used by organisers in the future. We will probably see a race in Bahrain, popping up in 2017/2018.

 

[w52]

Almost forgot to post the last stage of my TdF

Tour de France

Stage 21: Orleans - Paris (114.7km)

Not much to say...the usual parade

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After my first GT i will return to Portuguese territory for a weekend race. A version of GP Jornal de Notícias. I think i will post it next week.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

With W52 almost forgetting to finish his Tour de France, I almost forgot to give a library for the Bahrain International Cycling Tour.

Bahrain International Cycling Tour:

Yesterday we got the news that Nibali was apparently linked with a new Bahrain sponsored team (along with Lampre Merida, which is old news). This got me thinking. A race in Bahrain! So here is the scenario:
The organsiers if the Triathlon race Challenge Bahrain were looking for other sports events to take place here. They looked across the Persian Gulf and saw the countries of Qatar and the UAE already holding bike races in the Middle East (Bahrain can't see Oman!). So the organisers of the triathlon event sprung into action and contacted the ASO. However they were not willing to make losses on another race, due to the fact that Oman was starting to falter. However they then contacted RCS Sport who were wanting to expand their amount of races in the Middle East. RCS were more than happy to oblige and sent Mauro Vegni to investigate. Toing and froing took place and a race soon formed. RCS believed this was their answer to the wind swept Tour of Qatar!
This event would probably take place inbetween the Tour Down Under and the Dubai Tour. However it can not be called the Bahrain Tour as this was Copyrighted by Sepp Blatter as he looked into cycling after his ban from football (atleast in the hypothetical Race Design Thread world anyway!). So It shall be called the Bahrain International Cycling Tour.


Bahrain International Cycling Tour

Stage One a (ITT) 6km

Stage One b (Road) 107km

Stage Two (Road) 101km

Stage Three (Road) 117km

Stage Four (Circuit Race) 134km

A Four day stage race that probably will take place in the future.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Giro Rosa Stage 11: Chiari - ILLVA Saronno (Amaretto di Saronno), 92km

What with a Tour de France parade stage, the Tour of Bahrain (which appears from the tone of the posts to be a kind of apocalytpic view of the inevitable future on LCC's part?) and now this, it is an unusually good time to be a sprinter in the Race Design Thread. Normally we traceurs like to make the sprinters work for their coin, but of late we've been more generous to their ilk than normal. And so it is with this Giro Rosa stage, the easiest of the entire race.

It's not quite as flat as the stage to Mirano in week 1, but it is over 40km shorter, being the second-shortest road stage of the race (after the Fedaia one, which is obviously far more difficult. Fedaia!), which is likely to make it much easier to control. Having not had a chance for several days, the more pure sprinters in the bunch will want to make the end here, as for many of them it will also mark their final chance to make a difference in the race; more durable riders may still have a stage for them, but the less all-round will see this as their final potential stage win. As such, it is therefore unlikely that, unless one of their teams is also trying to protect the maglia rosa, a breakaway strong enough to get all the way to the line on such a flat parcours will be given enough rope to do so.

We begin in Chiari, a town on the outskirts of Brescia that also serves as one of the early stop-offs in the modern version of the Mille Miglia, originally one of the most feared endurance motorsport events in the world, a long-distance time trial event where margins were scored in hours and minutes, not minutes and seconds, and fatalities were part and parcel of the event, but now a "regularity" race for historic automobiles with target times and concourse. The stage heads through the Milan suburban sprawl and satellite towns as we traverse northern Lombardia, with one of the few real points of interest being the first intermediate sprint at the Parco di Monza, which contains the legendary Autodromo di Monza, which you could make a legitimate case for being the most famous purpose-built motor racing course in the world (Monte Carlo is a street circuit, Le Mans is a partial street circuit, Spa was a partial street circuit until very recently; the only cases against I think you could make are the Nürburgring and the Brickyard at Indianapolis).

In the lower budget world of espoir racing, women's racing and .1/.2 races, particular sponsors provide stage "towns" with some regularity; this is especially useful as disruption can be minimized when edge-of-town areas are hosting. Examples include Tartiere Auto in the Vuelta a Asturias, or Riese Pio X and the Pasta Zara factory in the Giro Donne. Of course, at times this principle has even applied to the biggest races - Destilerías DYC hosted the Vuelta a España for several years in the 80s and 90s. It is for this latter reason that I have gone to the world of alcohol for a stage town here. It does also mean that we could get a run in spiced up a little by an intermediate sprint in the actual town of Saronno just 3,5km from the line; the finish, however, is at ILLVA, the company responsible for Italy's most famous exported liqueur, Amaretto di Saronno. This does mean a comparatively less characterful finish, being as it is within an industrial estate, but it also means a much safer sprint, as much of the centre of Saronno features narrow roads, cobbles and tight corners.

Lady of the stage: Jolien d'Hoore

There are very few people you'd call pure sprinters in the women's péloton, mainly as the lesser depth means that the amount of people who can deploy full trains and rely completely on pulling the break back can be counted on one hand. Jolien d'Hoore is somewhere between the two. She is capable of making moves stick and going with them, but nobody wants to go to a sprint with her, and with good reason. Upon finishing her studies, the current Belgian national champion fixed her attention on the road, and swiftly saw her results skyrocket; moving from the Lotto team to the nascent Wiggle superteam saw her make another distinct jump to the point where she is now the pre-eminent sprinter in the bunch. With 12 wins in UCI road races last year she was one of the most regular visitors to the top step of the podium, and this despite a disappointing Giro campaign after she crashed during the prologue; she would likely have dropped out earlier but injury forcing the early retirements of Cordon and Sanchis meant the team were shorter of engines than they may have wanted, necessitating d'Hoore being pushed into domestique action. Nevertheless she bounced back with an absolutely dominant stomping of the BeNe Ladies Tour shortly afterward.

d'Hoore's sprint prowess has also enabled her to become a Coupe de Monde force; she won the GP de Suède Vårgårda and the Ronde van Drenthe, both flat to rolling World Cup races, as well as a 2nd place in the Women's Tour in Britain with a stage win, a podium in the Ronde van Vlaanderen and La Course, and the top 5 of Gent-Wevelgem. The one thing that would stand in Jolien's way here - on form I feel she is a cut above the other purer sprinters in the women's péloton, such as Lotta Lepistö or Shelley Olds, and Kirsten Wild isn't likely to race the Giro - would be that, like many other sprinters,she also has a dedicated track program, specialising in the omnium (in which she was 5th in the 2012 Olympics, and she's a markedly improved rider over the last four years) but also being strong in the longer races such as the scratch and points events; with 2016 being an Olympic year she is scaling back her road commitments for that reason. But if she were to race the hypothetical Giro Rosa I have here, the biggest obstacle for her would be her own recovery rather than any threat from the opposition...

 

[w52]

As i said before, my next race takes place in Portugal and is a version of GP Jornal de Notícias.
Jornal de Notícias is a Portuguese daily national newspaper, being one of the oldest in Portugal. It was founded in Porto and was first published on 21 June 1888, ~128 years ago. Nowadays is one of the biggest newspappers in Portugal with a circulation of more than 60000 copies.

JN was one of the most important sponsors of portuguese cycling from the 1970’s to the last decade of XX century. Volta a Portugal had some editions organized by this newspaper and the GP JN was one of the most important races of the national calendar. With changes in tha administration of JN, active support to cycling decreased a lot and the GP JN disappeared from portuguese calendar. But that situation changed in the last year. In 2015 the race was in the road in a total of +/- 300km distributed in 3 stages (1 prologue + 2 normal stages) and the winner was António Carvalho from W52-Quinta da Lixa. This year, is expected the 26th edition of the race, with only a national status.

My idea was to create a route, in the same terrain where the GP JN is raced but with more stages and it would be a new international race in Portugal with a 2.1 status.

The race i will present has 3 days and 4 stages (first day will have stage 1a and 1b) in a total of 374,9km. The stages are all different, 1 short ITT, 1 stage in a circuit finishing in a cat.4 climb, 1 MTF and 1 hilly stage.

GP JN

Stage 1a: Vila do Conde - Aguçadoura (11.7km ITT)

The race starts in Vila do Conde with a short flat ITT. Vila do Conde is located in the north-west coast of Portugal, near Porto, the total population in 2011 was 79,533 and the city has an area of 149.03 km². Although not very big the city has a lot of interest sites like the Monastery of Santa Clara or the beaches.

Vila do Conde

Looking now to the route of the ITT, we can see that it is tottaly flat. Competitors will pass in roads near the coast, where the wind, sometimes very strong in that area, will be the main problem to everyone. Starting in Vila do Conde, the rout heads to Povoa do Varzim, a town with tradition in portuguese cycling, where is place an intermediate point (5.6km). The ITT will finish in Aguçadoura which is Rui and Mário Costa (Lampre-Merida) homeland, being this finish a little tribute to the first and only portuguese cyclist to win a WC, in cycling Although short and flat this ITT can creat small gaps and force attacks already in the afternoon stage of this day

Aguçadoura

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Giro Rosa stage 12: Arona - San Domenico di Varzo, 112km

The second and final MTF of the Giro Rosa comes on this, stage 12, as the action is hotting up. This is a mid-length stage with a severe finale that the riders should now know what to expect from. Before that, however, we start from the town of Arona, located close to where the north-bound trunk roads into Switzerland cross the east-west highways in the northern edges of the Po valley. Riders will likely be overnighting for a couple of days in Gallarate, Gravellana Toce or the historic cycling city of Varese; they will of course know their way around this from the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, one of the first races of the World Cup calendar in years gone by and a key race for hilly-specialised riders. This stage, however, is more for the climbers. We're also by the shores of Lake Maggiore, so this should be pretty scenic as well.

Arona has hosted the men's Giro twice, with two stage finishes, one in 1966 which was won by Franco Bitossi, and a late stage featuring two ascents of the Mottarone in 2001 won by Gilberto Simoni. Here it's another decisive stage, just not as a finish, as a start instead. We start by heading around the shores of Lake Maggiore, including passing through a number of other scenic towns along the way, such as the popular resort town of Stresa.

We also pass by Verbania, which means we're in Elisa Longo Borghini territory; much as the area around Conegliano is Cauz territory, this is ELB's home region - she's from Ornavasso, a small town nearby which for a long time was a linguistic island of highly dialectal German before being comprehensively Italianized oer the last 120 years or so. Despite that, I haven't for a second considered her for lady of the day; despite it being one of the toughest training climbs near her home, Elisa is on record as absolutely hating San Domenico and typically struggles on it.

Before Elisa can curse me out too much, however, there's the small matter of another climb, the long and gradual, multi-steppedPiano di Sale[/url]. This is mostly to shell some tired legs and give a reason for the breakaway, as it's not likely to see much action (not now Emma Pooley's retired, since she used to occasionally try attacking one climb before the big climb to take people off guard because everybody knew she'd attack on the big climb). A long but uncomplicated and not particularly technical descent ensues, before we set up for the big finale: the climb to San Domenico di Varzo.

There's actually a bit of false flat uphill that leads into that final 11km at 8%, but since it's not got too many steep ramps the attacks will all come in the scale of that profile there. While the final 4km at 9,5% would likely see the majority of the action in a men's race, with the wider performance levels and fewer domestiques in women's cycling I'm thinking that kilometre at 10% is where the moves will be made, which would seem to be borne out by history.

You see, while I'm typically against repetitious routes, predictable designs and so forth, there's one thing about the inclusion of San Domenico here; it is arguably the only mighty climb of this kind of size and stature which has prominence and history only in relation to women's cycling. The VAMBerg may be more famous to women's cycling than men's because the women's Ronde van Drenthe is more important, and the women may use many mythical and historical cycling spots, such as the Koppenberg, Molenberg, Mur de Huy and the Stelvio, but with its usage in the last three editions of the Giro Rosa, San Domenico di Varzo is the first time any such climb has developed any kind of mythos specifically as part of the Giro Rosa. Once that mythos is fully established they can start going back to it periodically, like with Angliru's layoff from 2002 to 2008; but for now, it's good to build the legend. It has helped to shape the race each time; in 2013 it was the second straight mountaintop finish and was won by Mara Abbott in the leader's jersey; in 2014 self-same Abbott fought back much of her lost time to the Rabobank leading trio so that, although she lost out on the stage to Emma Pooley, it set up a final stage showdown; while in 2015 San Domenico was that final stage showdown, with Abbott having risked her entire strategy on being able to take enough time out of the leaders on this one mountaintop, the hardest of the race... she couldn't, and Anna van der Breggen resisted the American's onslaught to preserve her maglia rosa and take her first GC win in women's cycling's only surviving Grand Tour.

You can (re-?)watch those showdowns on youtube; 2013 is here with Luperini's swansong prior to her bike weight DQ, Cauz's emergence and Häusler (now Lichtenberg) showing that she still has what it takes in the climbs when she times form right; 2014 is here with Emma Pooley being awesome and Abbott defying the Rabo rainbow onslaught; and the 2015 GC battle is settled here, amid a great many of the climbing stars of women's cycling other than those contesting the GC itself.

Lady of the stage: Mara Abbott

When it came to picking lady of the stage for the various stages, none of them were as straightforward a choice for me as "Mara Abbott for the San Domenico mountaintop finish". I mean, in the three times they've finished here in the Giro, Mara has won two of those stages and finished second in the other - and in addition to that, the woman that beat her that time is now semi-retired. With Pooley now only an occasional cyclist, with Rio in mind, the question that had gone back and forth between Emma and Mara for the best part of the previous decade - who was the best pure climber in the women's péloton? - seemed to have been answered definitively, since Emma was no longer in the péloton. Indeed, it's more or less agreed that in the big mountains, the lady from Colorado holds the cards over pretty much anybody who she'd be competing against. I've put her for this stage over the other mountain stages because this one is the nearest to a one-climb stage as well; the descending is not technical and on comparatively wide roads, so she isn't likely to get gapped to the same extent as she may in the Staulanza descent; she knows and likes this climb, and because it comes off the back of a flat stage she likely won't have had to take too many risks or expend too much energy the day before either.

Mara's had an interesting career, it's safe to say. Despite her obvious talent for climbing, she has shown little outside of the major climbing stage races; she is in many ways similar to an Andy Schleck-type character; tall and slender, a superb climber who has some quite fundamental flaws in other aspects of her game that prevent her from competing year-round in the way that other excellent climbing pros can, but who likes to peak for selected events rather than race the full calendar. Psychologically, she's an interesting case as well; some coaches have found her frustrating, as she doesn't improve the weaker parts of her racing. She's bounced from team to team despite what a major player she is in the sport and has rarely settled anywhere. She's also returned to racing for US domestic teams after spells in Europe more than once; the two times she's actually won the Giro are the two times she entered it for an American national team rather than for a trade team. After she won the 2010 Giro, she signed for the Diadora-Pasta Zara team, which was an amalgamation of the existing Italian (but Lithuanian-licenced) Safi squad with the likes of Patuzzo, Zabelinskaya and Andruk with some funds from Geox as they were linked to the men's Geox-TMC team, and then some expertise in from the American national side of things, before signing Claudia Häusler, the 2009 Giro winner, in the wake of the Cervélo pull-out. Mara did about four races all season, two of which being US national calendar races she didn't do for her trade team. She had a disappointing Giro and then disappeared from the sport for a year. She then returned to the American national calendar in 2013, dominated, got an entry via the national team to the Giro Rosa, and won it comfortably thanks to winning on both Monte Beigua and San Domenico. After a year with United Healthcare she moved to the Wiggle superteam last season, although it must be noted that she continued her usual race program, only occasionally coming to Europe to race for them.

Being with a team like Wiggle, which doesn't need to lean on her for results, probably helps her feel comfortable with the situation, and also helps them in that it means they don't need to run her into the ground and can allow her to do the domestic races she prefers to use to warm up for the Giro. She has never been a one-day racer no matter how climby the parcours, and has seldom shown herself to be a willing domestique either, so her value from a World Cup perspective is little. Her career has been dogged by repeated rumours of eating disorders and health problems, and she is clearly somebody who needs careful psychological management in order to get the best out of her as well. Nevertheless, if she's properly motivated and healthy, there isn't a rider out there currently active in the women's péloton who can touch her on a finish like this (Pooley pending). When you consider her skillset, I really ought to like Mara more than I do, but I've never truly warmed to her. But that's not Mara's fault; it's mainly because I'm a huge Emma Pooley fan, of course.

 

[w52]

GP JN

Stage 1b: São Félix Circuit (105km)

GP JN first day continues in the afternoon with stage 1b. After a short ITT in the morning the peloton will have a short stage in the São Félix Circuit, in the municipality of Póvoa de Varzim.
Póvoa de Varzim is a Portuguese city in Northern Portugal and sub-region of Greater Porto. It is the seventh-largest urban agglomeration in Portugal and the third largest in Northern Portugal. Póvoa de Varzim has been a well-known beach resort for over three centuries, the most popular in Northern Portugal, it is also one of the few legal gambling areas in Portugal, and has significant textile and food industries.

Póvoa de Varzim

Now about the circuit itself, it has the total lenght of 17.5km and the riders have to do 6 laps in it. The race starts in front of the hotel placed in the Monte de São Félix. The first couple of km's are in descent, passing in the villages of Seixo and Mão Pedrosa. An interesting detail are the roads, some of them rural and with this look.

After that part, the race goes to a urban part in the centre of Póvoa, being this the easiest part of the circuit. In the D.Maria II street the peloton turn right to the Avenida do Mar and start to approach to Laundos by the N205 road, the village where Monte de São Félix and the finish line is placed. The finish line coincides with a cat.4 climb in the top of Monte de São Félix, the highest point of Póvoa de Varzim with 202m height. This climb is short 1,5km, but is very steep with an average gradient of 8% and most important is in pavé.

The circuit although mainly flat would not be for a pure sprinter or a mass sprint and can creat some important gaps between the favourites to win the GC. Some attacks are expected because of the gaps in the ITT making this stage one of the most important of the race