I still haven't posted the last stage of my Fraustro Tour, because I kept being unsatisfied with its design. Then LS started posting her Cuban excursion, and I never got around to finish my race. But it will happen one day.
-
The Cycling News forum is still looking to add volunteer moderators with. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to
In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.
Thanks!
I know that feel. So many times I've got a race I'm happy with and halfway through posting it I suddenly get the urge to change one of the stages or I discover something and suddenly a whole bunch of rewriting is necessary.
Another option is to design multiple editions (you are at what now, 11 Vuelta editions?).
11 posted editions. There are at least 2 more that have been completed but require some revisions, plus a few abandoned versions where stages or stage ideas have been cannibalised into later routes.
In this case, it didn't have that much to do with the write-up, as I've tried to keep them fairly brief for this race, apart from my summary of Cavellar's life and career. I did however end up including too many sketchy roads I wasn't fully sure about the quality of, and a lot of the stage would also take place in Germany. Right now I'm considering abandoning the original finish and going for a different kind of a stage than originally intended.
Tour of New England, Stage 2- Foxwoods Resort Casino to Goshen(CT), 223km
Leaving Rhode Island, we journey west and start our day at the Foxwoods Casino. One of two Tribal owned casino locations in Southeastern Connecticut, it has evolved to include go karting, ziplining, brand name shopping outlets, and a new massive indoor waterpark set to be completed in June of 2025.
(Foxwoods Resort and Casino)
Leaving out the casino, we continue in a northwesterly fashion for the next 40 kilometers until we reach the town of Willimantic for the intermediate sprint.
(Willimantic ~1950’s)
Willimantic is one of many towns in New England that was founded and flourished due to the presence of the textile industry. Remnants of the era still remain with a museum detailing the history of the 19th century in Willimantic and Victorian houses dotting the Prospect Hill neighborhood.
Leaving Willimantic, we venture more in a direct west direction, reaching our first KOM Sprint of the race, Blackledge Falls.
As with many hill sprints of this race, I had to take inspiration from the nearby area to name the KOM, and since the parking lot for the hike to Blackledge Falls was at the crest, the name was born
(Blackledge Falls)
Continuing on, at KM 80, the race undergoes a roughly 70km horseshoe pattern to avoid Hartford, the state capital, and the traffic crapshow to get in and out of there.
(Hartford Skyline)
Rejoining a relatively more “direct” route to the finish on kilometer 150 in Avon, the peloton also enters the hillier phase of the race as we adjourn onto US 44.
Our next KOM, North Canton, has no special naming to it, but is the first difficulty in about 100 kilometers.
(North Canton)
Continuing downhill, the peloton passes the most picturesque moment of the stage, the Barkhamsted Reservoir.
(Barkhamsted Reservoir “House” in fall)
We head back to US 44, and continue onwards until Winsted, where we head south onto CT Route 263 and our second KOM
Likewise to North Canton, Winchester has no special meaning, other than being a tougher climb than the last and coming with roughly 25 kilometers to go. While North Canton is roughly the same grade, Winchester continues the climb for roughly 2 more kilometers, with the race leaving CT Route 263 shortly after the KOM sprint.
(Winchester)
From here, the race dashes into Torrington, another one of the former mill towns of New England, but one of a more formidable size, sustaining twice the population of Willimantic.
Perhaps most famous of people to be born in Torrington, however, had nothing to do with textiles.
John Brown was born in 1800 here in Torrington. If you’re not a buff on American History, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard this name. To prevent myself from going on a long winded history lesson, I’ll just put the short notes on who he was.
(John Brown)
John Brown was born in the wrong era. He believed that all men were created equal, which he’s right, but was not widely accepted in the early 1800’s, especially in the American South where he eventually campaigned in. Brown participated in the Bloody Kansas campaign(decided if Kansas was a “slave” or “free state”) and incited murderous riots and rebellions on white slave owners. Brown met his end at Harper’s Ferry, where a slave rebellion led on a federal arsenal ended horribly as state and federal militias enclosed his group. John Brown was publicly hung and was allowed to move his final resting place to North Elba, New York, closer to his hometown of Torrington.
(Harper’s Ferry)
Anyways, back on the race, once we enter Torrington city limits we continue to head south until reaching North Elm Street, where we head west onto our final climb of the day.
A theme of the last few KOM’s, no originality was had in deciding the name for this climb. Route 4 was the simplest, so it stayed. However, this climb of roughly 2k’s at 5% with pitches up to 10% will cause some commotion in the peloton and have a ending to a race not too dissimilar to Longwy in 2022.
(Part of Route 4 on route to Goshen)
After the climb tops out with roughly 5k’s to go, it doesn’t go completely downhill. Rather, the remaining of the race, it’s rather flat with a small rise about halfway between the sprint and finish line.
As you can see here the last couple k’s has a sharp bend to the left and a right angle turn very close to the finish line but not one too dangerous for it to be very problematic.
The race finishes right in front of the Goshen Fairgrounds, home to one of the more popular Connecticut fairs on Labor Day Weekend and provide a worthy backdrop to a stage that can bring some surprises, right before the second-toughest challenge tomorrow.
(Goshen Fairgrounds)
Leaving Rhode Island, we journey west and start our day at the Foxwoods Casino. One of two Tribal owned casino locations in Southeastern Connecticut, it has evolved to include go karting, ziplining, brand name shopping outlets, and a new massive indoor waterpark set to be completed in June of 2025.
(Foxwoods Resort and Casino)
Leaving out the casino, we continue in a northwesterly fashion for the next 40 kilometers until we reach the town of Willimantic for the intermediate sprint.
(Willimantic ~1950’s)
Willimantic is one of many towns in New England that was founded and flourished due to the presence of the textile industry. Remnants of the era still remain with a museum detailing the history of the 19th century in Willimantic and Victorian houses dotting the Prospect Hill neighborhood.
Leaving Willimantic, we venture more in a direct west direction, reaching our first KOM Sprint of the race, Blackledge Falls.
As with many hill sprints of this race, I had to take inspiration from the nearby area to name the KOM, and since the parking lot for the hike to Blackledge Falls was at the crest, the name was born
(Blackledge Falls)
Continuing on, at KM 80, the race undergoes a roughly 70km horseshoe pattern to avoid Hartford, the state capital, and the traffic crapshow to get in and out of there.
(Hartford Skyline)
Rejoining a relatively more “direct” route to the finish on kilometer 150 in Avon, the peloton also enters the hillier phase of the race as we adjourn onto US 44.
Our next KOM, North Canton, has no special naming to it, but is the first difficulty in about 100 kilometers.
(North Canton)
Continuing downhill, the peloton passes the most picturesque moment of the stage, the Barkhamsted Reservoir.
(Barkhamsted Reservoir “House” in fall)
We head back to US 44, and continue onwards until Winsted, where we head south onto CT Route 263 and our second KOM
Likewise to North Canton, Winchester has no special meaning, other than being a tougher climb than the last and coming with roughly 25 kilometers to go. While North Canton is roughly the same grade, Winchester continues the climb for roughly 2 more kilometers, with the race leaving CT Route 263 shortly after the KOM sprint.
(Winchester)
From here, the race dashes into Torrington, another one of the former mill towns of New England, but one of a more formidable size, sustaining twice the population of Willimantic.
Perhaps most famous of people to be born in Torrington, however, had nothing to do with textiles.
John Brown was born in 1800 here in Torrington. If you’re not a buff on American History, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard this name. To prevent myself from going on a long winded history lesson, I’ll just put the short notes on who he was.
(John Brown)
John Brown was born in the wrong era. He believed that all men were created equal, which he’s right, but was not widely accepted in the early 1800’s, especially in the American South where he eventually campaigned in. Brown participated in the Bloody Kansas campaign(decided if Kansas was a “slave” or “free state”) and incited murderous riots and rebellions on white slave owners. Brown met his end at Harper’s Ferry, where a slave rebellion led on a federal arsenal ended horribly as state and federal militias enclosed his group. John Brown was publicly hung and was allowed to move his final resting place to North Elba, New York, closer to his hometown of Torrington.
(Harper’s Ferry)
Anyways, back on the race, once we enter Torrington city limits we continue to head south until reaching North Elm Street, where we head west onto our final climb of the day.
A theme of the last few KOM’s, no originality was had in deciding the name for this climb. Route 4 was the simplest, so it stayed. However, this climb of roughly 2k’s at 5% with pitches up to 10% will cause some commotion in the peloton and have a ending to a race not too dissimilar to Longwy in 2022.
(Part of Route 4 on route to Goshen)
After the climb tops out with roughly 5k’s to go, it doesn’t go completely downhill. Rather, the remaining of the race, it’s rather flat with a small rise about halfway between the sprint and finish line.
As you can see here the last couple k’s has a sharp bend to the left and a right angle turn very close to the finish line but not one too dangerous for it to be very problematic.
The race finishes right in front of the Goshen Fairgrounds, home to one of the more popular Connecticut fairs on Labor Day Weekend and provide a worthy backdrop to a stage that can bring some surprises, right before the second-toughest challenge tomorrow.
(Goshen Fairgrounds)
Stage 3 of the Tour of New England: Windsor Locks(CT) to Mount Acustney(VT), 213.6km
Today’s journey along the Connecticut River will culminate in a first true test to see who’s up to snuff for this race.
We begin in Windsor Locks, eastward of yesterday’s finale. Windsor Locks is most notable for housing the biggest airport in Connecticut, Bradley International Airport.
(Bradley International)
We head north for the duration for the stage, with few exceptions of heading far from the Connecticut River. One of the two exceptions is heading west to avoid downtown Springfield Massachusetts and head through West Springfield, Westfield, and Holyoke.
The race passes through downtown Holyoke, which is most well known for its Irish Heritage and subsequent St Patrick’s Day Weekend celebrations. Over 400,000 spectators line the streets of Holyoke on “parade day” to celebrate the cultural backbone Holyoke was founded upon.
(Holyoke Parade Festivities 2023)
Out of Holyoke, we head into South Hadley, and on the road out of South Hadley is where our first KOM point of the day will be contested, at the Notch overlook trailhead.
(Top of the Notch trailhead looking eastward)
Past the Notch, the race continues due north, bypassing the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and eventually meets up with US Route 5 in Bernardston on the border of Vermont and Massachusetts at kilometer 109.
The race enters a false flat, which the bottom of it consists of our intermediate sprint in Brattleboro.
Brattleboro is likewise another town that has seen economic decline in the past 100 years or so, but not because of textiles. Brattleboro was home to many large bookbinding companies and one of the largest pipe organ manufacturers in the world. When those industries went by the wayside, so did Brattleboro on a global economic scale, however it still is important for trade for the rest of Vermont due to its position on the Connecticut River and key cargo train tracks.
(Brattleboro)
Continuing on US 5, in the town of Putney, we reach our second KOM sprint, aptly named “US 5 Putney”.
(Putney)
The race enters its flattest portion of the race, all the way to the foot of the brutal Mount Acustney.
Just by the profile you can tell it’s a brute of a climb. Of the climb proper, the 5.6 kilometers averages a gradient of 12.2%, and has extended stretches of over 15%. The second toughest climb of the race(if you know anything about bike climbs in the United States you know what’s the toughest) should prove worthy of being a key decider of the general classification.
(View from Interstate 91 Northbound of Mount Acustney)
Today’s journey along the Connecticut River will culminate in a first true test to see who’s up to snuff for this race.
We begin in Windsor Locks, eastward of yesterday’s finale. Windsor Locks is most notable for housing the biggest airport in Connecticut, Bradley International Airport.
(Bradley International)
We head north for the duration for the stage, with few exceptions of heading far from the Connecticut River. One of the two exceptions is heading west to avoid downtown Springfield Massachusetts and head through West Springfield, Westfield, and Holyoke.
The race passes through downtown Holyoke, which is most well known for its Irish Heritage and subsequent St Patrick’s Day Weekend celebrations. Over 400,000 spectators line the streets of Holyoke on “parade day” to celebrate the cultural backbone Holyoke was founded upon.
(Holyoke Parade Festivities 2023)
Out of Holyoke, we head into South Hadley, and on the road out of South Hadley is where our first KOM point of the day will be contested, at the Notch overlook trailhead.
(Top of the Notch trailhead looking eastward)
Past the Notch, the race continues due north, bypassing the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and eventually meets up with US Route 5 in Bernardston on the border of Vermont and Massachusetts at kilometer 109.
The race enters a false flat, which the bottom of it consists of our intermediate sprint in Brattleboro.
Brattleboro is likewise another town that has seen economic decline in the past 100 years or so, but not because of textiles. Brattleboro was home to many large bookbinding companies and one of the largest pipe organ manufacturers in the world. When those industries went by the wayside, so did Brattleboro on a global economic scale, however it still is important for trade for the rest of Vermont due to its position on the Connecticut River and key cargo train tracks.
(Brattleboro)
Continuing on US 5, in the town of Putney, we reach our second KOM sprint, aptly named “US 5 Putney”.
(Putney)
The race enters its flattest portion of the race, all the way to the foot of the brutal Mount Acustney.
Just by the profile you can tell it’s a brute of a climb. Of the climb proper, the 5.6 kilometers averages a gradient of 12.2%, and has extended stretches of over 15%. The second toughest climb of the race(if you know anything about bike climbs in the United States you know what’s the toughest) should prove worthy of being a key decider of the general classification.
(View from Interstate 91 Northbound of Mount Acustney)
Being from New England myself I have often thought about a 'ToNE' and what it would be. I love that you are doing this, you're more motivated than me LOL.Stage 3 of the Tour of New England: Windsor Locks(CT) to Mount Acustney(VT), 213.6km
Today’s journey along the Connecticut River will culminate in a first true test to see who’s up to snuff for this race.
We begin in Windsor Locks, eastward of yesterday’s finale. Windsor Locks is most notable for housing the biggest airport in Connec
One critique; you're not going to utilize Mt Greylock? Best climb in MA and Melville's inspiration for the Great White Whale! Or am I jumping the gun and you will come back to it?
With this race, my biggest disappointment was the lack of Massachusetts Berkshire climbs, and that was necessary to incorporate the best areas of Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire for climbing. The ending of this race was up in the air, and a Greylock finish got axed for what I ended up doing. As a native of Western Mass, personally was a little disappointment but the entertainment wouldn’t have nearly been as high in that form of the race.
My personal favorite stage of this race, this medium mountain test should be to the delight of riders willing to expand or make up times in the General Classification.
We start our race in White River Junction, a community in Hartford VT most prominent for its intersection between Vermont’s only interstates, 91 and 89.
(White River Junction)
From there, we head south on previously ridden roads, even passing by the road to Mount Ascutney where the race presumably blew up yesterday.
In the town of Weathersfield, we turn west onto Vermont Route 131, and head towards the intermediate sprint at Okemo Resort.
The resort at Okemo is one of the biggest ski stations in Vermont, and has much better beginner slopes than the other top ski stations in the state.
Further past Okemo, the road starts to shift to the north, reaching Rutland, a turning point in the race and signaling the business end of the race is coming soon.
Heading onto US 4, we have our first KOM of the day, the climb up to Pico Mountain Rssort which brings us into Killington. At 11km’s at roughly 3%, this should be little more than a warm up for the days final festivities.
Past the Pico Mountain resort, we join the loops the race will complete 3.5 times before reaching the finish line at Killington.
The main obstacle on this course is most certainly the 4 kilometer 7% pitch of asphalt to be completed 3 times before the finish line, the last of which comes with just 3 kilometers to the line, and not too much valley time to see attacks be insignificant before the last climb(however all descents + valleys are on highway standard road)
(climb of East Mountain Road)
(Killington Mountain)
Killington mountain itself may not need any introduction to those of you who follow alpine skiing, as “The Beast of the East” is a regular fixture on the FIS World Cup schedule. Killington Ski Resort is the largest one on the East coast, and features runs from beginner to challenging for experienced skiers.
As for the cycling, aside from this stage, Killington would also be my preferred host if you were to run a world championships in New England. You have a robust house rental market for teams to stay at(there are dozens of houses that can easily house 30 guests-I’ve stayed in one)enough resorts in Killington and Rutland to house any tourists and media, which has been proven by their capability to produce successful ski seasons year after year.
(Killington Mountain Slopes for World Cup Competition)
For the terrain you can incorporate East Mountain Road if you want a more selective race, or go up the main road to Killington Resort and down East Mountain Road if you want it hilly but not too selective.
Anyways, for this race, the climb of E Mountain Road 3x should hopefully see someone spring action on the GC before tomorrow’s hill descent finish.
(A Final Look of Killington Mountain)
Stage 5: Killington Resort to Sugarbush Resort, 170km
Unfortunately, during the weekdays, I now have significantly less time for higher quality write ups like the write ups before. So for today and tomorrow, I don’t expect the write ups to contain too much quality. However, on weekends like the one upcoming I have time to deliver better reading experiences to you forum viewers.
Todays stage is rather open, with three very solid climbs, the last of which summiting with 8.5k’s to the line(that does contain its steepest part at the end of the climb) before a short kicker topping out at 3k’s to the line offers a fun stage before the two most straightforward finishes of this race.
(Lincoln Gap Road)
(Appalachian Gap Road)
(Sugarbush Resort)
Unfortunately, during the weekdays, I now have significantly less time for higher quality write ups like the write ups before. So for today and tomorrow, I don’t expect the write ups to contain too much quality. However, on weekends like the one upcoming I have time to deliver better reading experiences to you forum viewers.
Todays stage is rather open, with three very solid climbs, the last of which summiting with 8.5k’s to the line(that does contain its steepest part at the end of the climb) before a short kicker topping out at 3k’s to the line offers a fun stage before the two most straightforward finishes of this race.
(Lincoln Gap Road)
(Appalachian Gap Road)
(Sugarbush Resort)
Stage 6: Middlebury to Stowe, 184km
Today’s stage is the first straightaway sprint, or at least it should be. Mount Mansfield Gap does feature almost a kilometer at 12% at its top, but from the summit there is 55 km of valley descent and flat. The sprinters should have their time in the spotlight, that is if they made the trek overseas in the first place.
(Mount Mansfield Gap)
(Stowe Vermont)
Today’s stage is the first straightaway sprint, or at least it should be. Mount Mansfield Gap does feature almost a kilometer at 12% at its top, but from the summit there is 55 km of valley descent and flat. The sprinters should have their time in the spotlight, that is if they made the trek overseas in the first place.
(Mount Mansfield Gap)
(Stowe Vermont)
Stage 7, St Johnsbury(VT) to Lancaster(NH), 46km
The original plan for this stage was it to be as pan flat as possible(according to cronoescolada, this stage only has 40 meters of elevation less than my original design). However, in this grand tour of New England, a boring pan flat stage is not what the people deserve. So, instead, I drew out an ITT directly connecting the two towns across state lines, and in between added a cool Northern New England staple: a covered wooden bridge. With the second ITT taking place on stage 7 instead of stage 15(the original plan), I will indeed have to change the ending of the stage race and may recant some previous words I said to @firefly3323 in this thread. For now, this should be a deserving start to the 3 most important GC stages of this race, and next up is possibly one of the toughest climbs to grace the American roadways.
(Mount Orne Covered Bridge)
(Lancaster NH)
The original plan for this stage was it to be as pan flat as possible(according to cronoescolada, this stage only has 40 meters of elevation less than my original design). However, in this grand tour of New England, a boring pan flat stage is not what the people deserve. So, instead, I drew out an ITT directly connecting the two towns across state lines, and in between added a cool Northern New England staple: a covered wooden bridge. With the second ITT taking place on stage 7 instead of stage 15(the original plan), I will indeed have to change the ending of the stage race and may recant some previous words I said to @firefly3323 in this thread. For now, this should be a deserving start to the 3 most important GC stages of this race, and next up is possibly one of the toughest climbs to grace the American roadways.
(Mount Orne Covered Bridge)
(Lancaster NH)
It's always interesting to look at what there is there, the problem as ever is one of accessibility. Sadly for Britain the climbs that would be of the most interest are not of the scale to be more than medium mountain, save for a couple, and then you'd fall into the same pitfall as races like the Volta a Portugal where it's always the same mountains every year. Not only that, but ones like Bealach na Ba are in the middle of nowhere, with very little by way of alternative routes for traffic for fans to get there. Britain is nevertheless one of a few places where a one-week race can't really be enough (notwithstanding the issues with parcours currently, where a week most definitely IS enough), but a three-week race simply couldn't offer enough variety year on year to be viable long-term, as they would have to rely extremely heavily on the same few climbs; unfortunately climate does not allow for the same development of the skiing industry in Britain to enable the range of established infrastructure at mountaintops or at high enough altitude for there to be sufficient variety in summit finishes.
The three week nature of the Grand Tours is a product of the countries they take place in, and it's hard to see too many options for other countries that could viably host a genuine fourth GT without fundamentally changing the formula for what we have grown to accept as the characteristics of a Grand Tour; touring only part of a country doesn't feel big enough in scope (even if, as with places like California, that part of a country is as big as the existing GT hosts), but many countries are simply too big to feel like you've actually toured them in three weeks (which works against e.g. a Tour of the USA, Tour of China, Tour of Australia), while others are too small to offer sufficient variety even if they have the terrain for it (which works against e.g. a three week Tour de Suisse). Places with sufficient geographic diversity to ape the kind of routes we get from the Grand Tours also need to have the accessibility and the roads that achieve this (Germany and Britain struggle from too much of their mountains being medium-sized and not enough high passes; Morocco suffers from too few nodal routes in the mountain ranges and most of them being at very low gradient). 12 to 14 stages over two weeks, like the old Milk Race, is the perfect length for a Tour of Britain I feel, long enough to let the whole of the country be explored and satisfactorily say you've toured the country, but short enough that you can mix it up year on year.
Also like when there was that post about the fan who designed their own women's GT of Britain on the CN homepage, another problem is - and one that I'm extremely guilty of myself - going too far in the direction of what the country as a whole has to offer and not enough to who is currently ponying up the funds; the East of England is all too easily to leave out of British fantasy routes because it offers so little to work with, but it's also the most cycling-supportive region in the country, similar to how I don't really pay enough mind to the northwestern part of the meseta in my Vuelta designs or areas like the Vendée in my Tour designs, but both are major hubs of cycling in their respective countries and would invariably be included even though they would add little to the race from a spectacle point of view unfortunately.
For me, the perfect race for Britain would be the Classics man's stage race par excellence with a medium-sized MTF or two and a TT or two thrown in, 12-14 days utilising some of the tricky circuits like the Glasgow Worlds route, some of the cobbles of West Yorkshire or the Lincoln GP circuit, Ardennes-alike short steep climbs around places like the Peak District and the Lake District, a Flèche Wallonne-type finish or two (Sutton Bank perhaps, or similar to the Great Orme stage in the linked route) and some medium mountains in Wales and Scotland. It would make it something akin to the old Peace Race parcours-wise, covering the gamut of parcours styles of the Classics. I genuinely love the idea of countering the decline of cycling races in the UK by going for the balls-to-the-wall "not only are we not going to shrink our one remaining race, we're going to GROW it and gamble on it galvanising the interest!" approach, and it's sad that after the initial boom of cycling through the 2010s, the scene is back to the doldrums of pre-Sky British domestic cycling with a lot of bonus second fiesta races and all the young talent going overseas to get noticed (although there is a LOT more of it going overseas and getting noticed now than there was in those days), but while I think a one-off three week race in the UK could work in theory, in the long term it would benefit more from an intermediate, two week type approach imo.
The three week nature of the Grand Tours is a product of the countries they take place in, and it's hard to see too many options for other countries that could viably host a genuine fourth GT without fundamentally changing the formula for what we have grown to accept as the characteristics of a Grand Tour; touring only part of a country doesn't feel big enough in scope (even if, as with places like California, that part of a country is as big as the existing GT hosts), but many countries are simply too big to feel like you've actually toured them in three weeks (which works against e.g. a Tour of the USA, Tour of China, Tour of Australia), while others are too small to offer sufficient variety even if they have the terrain for it (which works against e.g. a three week Tour de Suisse). Places with sufficient geographic diversity to ape the kind of routes we get from the Grand Tours also need to have the accessibility and the roads that achieve this (Germany and Britain struggle from too much of their mountains being medium-sized and not enough high passes; Morocco suffers from too few nodal routes in the mountain ranges and most of them being at very low gradient). 12 to 14 stages over two weeks, like the old Milk Race, is the perfect length for a Tour of Britain I feel, long enough to let the whole of the country be explored and satisfactorily say you've toured the country, but short enough that you can mix it up year on year.
Also like when there was that post about the fan who designed their own women's GT of Britain on the CN homepage, another problem is - and one that I'm extremely guilty of myself - going too far in the direction of what the country as a whole has to offer and not enough to who is currently ponying up the funds; the East of England is all too easily to leave out of British fantasy routes because it offers so little to work with, but it's also the most cycling-supportive region in the country, similar to how I don't really pay enough mind to the northwestern part of the meseta in my Vuelta designs or areas like the Vendée in my Tour designs, but both are major hubs of cycling in their respective countries and would invariably be included even though they would add little to the race from a spectacle point of view unfortunately.
For me, the perfect race for Britain would be the Classics man's stage race par excellence with a medium-sized MTF or two and a TT or two thrown in, 12-14 days utilising some of the tricky circuits like the Glasgow Worlds route, some of the cobbles of West Yorkshire or the Lincoln GP circuit, Ardennes-alike short steep climbs around places like the Peak District and the Lake District, a Flèche Wallonne-type finish or two (Sutton Bank perhaps, or similar to the Great Orme stage in the linked route) and some medium mountains in Wales and Scotland. It would make it something akin to the old Peace Race parcours-wise, covering the gamut of parcours styles of the Classics. I genuinely love the idea of countering the decline of cycling races in the UK by going for the balls-to-the-wall "not only are we not going to shrink our one remaining race, we're going to GROW it and gamble on it galvanising the interest!" approach, and it's sad that after the initial boom of cycling through the 2010s, the scene is back to the doldrums of pre-Sky British domestic cycling with a lot of bonus second fiesta races and all the young talent going overseas to get noticed (although there is a LOT more of it going overseas and getting noticed now than there was in those days), but while I think a one-off three week race in the UK could work in theory, in the long term it would benefit more from an intermediate, two week type approach imo.
Sorry about the lack of posts continuing my race, really been busy recently so likely only weekend posts, so stage 8 should be written up and posted Saturday morning-ish EST.
Stage 8, Conway to Mount Washington, 152km
(Due to some weird routing issue, it wouldn’t allow me to connect Mount Washington to the rest of the stage)
There’s no sugarcoating it; this stage is the most important one of the race. That is because of the 12km, 12%(!) climb of Mount Washington, the tallest mountain on the eastern seaboard.
We move south to Conway for the start of the next two stages. Today we move east to start with the difficulty of Hurricane Mountain Road, which we will visit later in this race again.
From the crest until the base of Mount Washington, we only encounter the intermediate sprint and a manageable cat 3 climb, however the road is lumpy all the way to the base.
Mount Washington should provide massive gaps amongst those high in the general classification. Unlike many climbs in Europe, the gradient is regular 11-13% all the way up the climb. If you hope for respite, you are out of luck. The victor at the top of the climb is definitely one to be deserved of his stage crown.
(Mount Washington)
(Due to some weird routing issue, it wouldn’t allow me to connect Mount Washington to the rest of the stage)
There’s no sugarcoating it; this stage is the most important one of the race. That is because of the 12km, 12%(!) climb of Mount Washington, the tallest mountain on the eastern seaboard.
We move south to Conway for the start of the next two stages. Today we move east to start with the difficulty of Hurricane Mountain Road, which we will visit later in this race again.
From the crest until the base of Mount Washington, we only encounter the intermediate sprint and a manageable cat 3 climb, however the road is lumpy all the way to the base.
Mount Washington should provide massive gaps amongst those high in the general classification. Unlike many climbs in Europe, the gradient is regular 11-13% all the way up the climb. If you hope for respite, you are out of luck. The victor at the top of the climb is definitely one to be deserved of his stage crown.
(Mount Washington)
Great climb, looks like a longer and harder Mortirolo (on a side note, i really miss Mortirolo in the Giro)
There's an access gate on Mount Washington, I believe it may be a toll road or similar? If you set the map to OpenRouteMap, it should have a symbol that looks like a ≠ sign.
If that's the case, you have to set it to manual routing, manually draw a straight line along the road as it shows on the satellite map until you're the other side of the ≠ sign, and then switch routing back to regular mode. There are a few other significant climbs where this method is required, the Alto de La Línea in Colombia is a noteworthy example.
After doing one defunct early-season Latin American race, I thought I’d go with a more active one. I’ve long been trying to come up with things in Venezuela, as it is, after Colombia, the most cycling-passionate nation in Latin America; it has insane variety and potential for race routes, and geographically and culturally it’s an interesting place. The big problem has always been finding a route that I’m happy with, because there’s so much choice; it’s why I’ve not done a national tour of either Colombia or Venezuela despite having editions sort-of complete for months, even years; every time I think I am sorted, I discover something new I want to include, and then it requires a lot more adjustment and eventually we’re back to the drawing board.
Doing this enables me to take a different tack, however; one area in Venezuela has more cycling history, passion and culture than any other, and it has its own race which is arguably more prestigious than the national race - and that region is the westerly, Andean province of Táchira, on the border with Colombia. While the Vuelta a Venezuela has run since 1963, the Vuelta al Táchira is barely any younger, starting in 1966, and hasn’t had any breaks where’s the national Tour has had a couple of cancellations in time or drops to amateur level. While the Vuelta al Táchira may not have stuck to its home location - indeed it has grown to be more of a regional tour than a simple tour of its own province, with stage hosts all over the neighbouring provinces - it has always retained a close link to its home, and the fact that it has maintained a very steady role in the national calendar, taking place in January, has made it a very important race on the Venezuelan schedule. This calendar location has also made it quite convenient as a pre-season tune-up race for teams from further afield, with the late 70s and early 80s seeing a number of Eastern Bloc teams travelling over here before the Vuelta a Cuba (indeed in 1982 and 1988, Ramazan Galyaletdinov and Vyacheslav Ekimov respectively even won the GC), and Italian and occasionally Spanish second- and third-tier teams have more recently elected to get their seasons started over here, most notably Savio’s mob when sponsored by Colombian or Venezuelan sponsors, and the post-Farnese Vini iterations of Scinto’s motley crew when the Venezuelan state helped sponsor them. Also, the Vuelta a Venezuela seems to like a lot of flat stages and circuit races, leading Táchira to be thought of as the “real” test of a Venezuelan GC man. And the crowds come out in their droves for it.
The first Vuelta al Táchira was a mere five-stage race contested by different regional teams representing regions of Colombia and Venezuela, but it was immediately conferred some prestige by Martín Emilio “Cochise” Rodríguez, the most important Colombian rider of the era, winning the inaugural edition and returning to win two more. At first, Colombians largely held sway; Vicencio Rivas became the first Venezuelan to win a stage when he took stage 2 of the second edition in 1967, but by and large Venezuelan wins were in flat stages, until 1969, the first year a home rider got on the GC podium as well, with Nicolás Reidtler achieving the feat. The race had reached 10 stages by 1970 and Reidtler would go one better the next year, but Santos Bermúdez would become the first home winner when he took the GC in 1973 and Reidtler would go on to be the race’s Poulidor, achieving five 2nd place finishes but never winning the GC. Early experiments included a first pass over the Santo Domingo pass - a shoulder of the Collado del Cóndor - in 1968, and stage hosts across the border in Colombia from 1971 when Pamplona (not that Pamplona) hosted a stage finish. The Cubans would arrive in 1974, the likes of Carlos Cardet and Aldo Arencibia animating the race, before in 1975, the USSR, Poland and others would turn it into a cosmopolitan endeavour.
Over the years, as well as Cochise, major names to have won the race include José Patrocinio Jiménez, Álvaro Pachón, Cuban star Eduardo Alonso, Vyacheslav Ekimov, Hernán Buenahora and major Venezuelan names like Mario Medina and Leonardo Sierra, while the podium has been graced by the likes of Enrique Campos, former Giro KOMs Freddy Excelino González and his namesake José Jaime “Chepe” González, Savio team stalwarts Jackson Rodríguez and José Serpa and former GT GC candidate turned long-time exile in South America Óscar Sevilla. In 2015 one of the longest-standing records was broken when local favourite José Rujano Guillén won his fourth Vuelta al Táchira, making him the most successful rider ever at the race, breaking the record of Pachón and Rodríguez; perhaps for this reason it was the race he chose to be his last, retiring after finishing 18th in the 2021 edition, years after his peak and having “retired” multiple times already.
Rujano can win this Giro, says Savio
But perhaps the race’s most notorious appearance in cycling lore in recent years came in 2014, when race winner Jimmy Briceño had to be stripped of his title after a positive test for EPO and recording a mind-blowing hematocrit measurement of 63%, beyond even the levels of Bjarne Riis in the 90s. The race had always been known to harbour a fair amount of suspicious activity, shall we say, but “Mr 63%” as he came to be known semi-jokingly really seemed to be taking things to the next level. The race being the focal point of the Venezuelan calendar for climbing type riders has led to a relatively negative reputation around doping, however, and Briceño is far from alone in getting disqualifications or asterisked performances at the Vuelta al Táchira; he may be the only winner to have got disqualified, but elsewhere there is something of a rogue’s gallery of riders in the GC or stage winners who have chequered history behind them - Briceño has also won the 2012 and 2019 editions, and the man who acquired the 2014 GC win, Carlos Galviz, also a couple of years later tested positive for EPO, placing him alongside 2011 winner Manuel Medina, Yonathán Monsalve, Miguel Ubeto, Óscar Sevilla, José Isidro Chacón and Juan Murillo as prominent riders at the Vuelta al Táchira to later see results expunged or come under a cloud following later positive tests.
“Señor Briceño, which performance enhancing substances did you use en route to your victory?” “Yes”
At its lengthiest, the Vuelta al Táchira reached 14 stages in duration, and would start all over Venezuela before heading towards Táchira for its final week or so of action. Starting in 1990, this role was usurped by the introduction of the Clásico Ciclístico Banfoandes, a sort of secondary Vuelta a Venezuela analogous to the Clásico RCN in Colombia or the Rutas de América in Uruguay, that was a tour of the country but unable to be called that as there was already a separate extant one. Sponsored by (of course) Banfoandes, the Andean banking conglomerate, the race would always finish in San Cristóbal, capital of the Táchira region, seeing as that was where the bank was headquartered. The Vuelta al Táchira at this stage would consolidate as less of a national race and more of a western race that took in Táchira and surrounding provinces such as Zulia, Mérida, Barinas and Trujillo. While it was still a two-week race as recently as 2011 (it was shortened from 12 stages to 10 in 2012), in recent years the race has reduced down to a consistent 8-stage duration, a bit shorter than its heyday, but still allowing for a strong race and with an extremely competitive (and often quite heavily enhanced) péloton (just look at some of the comments from Luca Scinto about some of the riders offered to him during the Venezuelan sponsorship - and bear in mind those are coming from somebody who signed Danilo di Luca in 2013). I have included some circuits and some oddities to try to keep it semi-authentic in style, with short stage lengths and geographic foibles, but also to enjoy a bit of tracing around an area that, although well-trodden, also offers more than you might think that is new.
Also it makes it easier to design a Vuelta a Venezuela route in future if I’ve already given the lowdown on the cycling-friendly sites in Táchira state, of course.
Stage 1: San Cristóbal de Táchira - San Cristóbal de Táchira, 117km
GPM:
Monumento Honor al Ciclista (cat.3) 1,0km @ 5,3%
It will probably come as no surprise to you to see this, after all, most of you will be well aware that I am something of a sap when it comes to honouring tradition in these races; especially when doing these races off the beaten track I like to honour a bit of the history in the area, like including the Morgul-Bismarck Loop and the Tour of the Moon in my Tour of Colorado, or the Parque Erick Barrondo circuit in my Vuelta a Guatemala. The Vuelta al Táchira has, for many years, started and finished in San Cristóbal, the largest city of the province and its capital, and I’m not about to deviate from that template. I will deviate from it slightly, however, and that’s in that I am looking at a historic and traditional circuit, however this is a circuit that typically in recent years has been the closer of the race, but here it will be the opening.
Home to 280.000 people, San Cristóbal is the economic hub of the Táchira region, and after its establishment in 1561 has quickly grown as an important economic hub, not only for its rich and fertile soil that made this region a very important agricultural centre for Venezuela but also since independence and in more recent times because of its proximity to Colombia, enabling vast quantities of cross-border trade that has helped it remain a population centre and a trade hub to this day. Coffee, sugar, and fruit and vegetables (especially pineapples and corn) are abundant in the region and extensively farmed for this purpose, but the city has also grown rich from local production of ceramics and also, especially after the damage created by the Cúcuta Earthquake of 1875, excavation of oil wells helped enrich San Cristóbal - although once the far vaster reserves of nearby Zúlia state were discovered, Táchira was rather left behind as a result. However, its position as a trading hub have enabled it to establish a strong position in the banking sector and service industry professions, with important national institutions like Sofitasa and, formerly, Banfoandes, being based out of the city.
San Cristóbal has had many famous sons and daughters, some of the most notorious being Rafael Inchauspe Méndez, known as Nogales, a mercenary soldier who fought in many conflicts in the early 20th Century, including the Spanish-American War (for Spain), World War I (for the Ottoman Empire), participated in a failed coup against dictator Cipriano Castro and you might note from the above that he was on the losing side of all of them - he did however write many eyewitness accounts as part of his memoirs and gives us some of the most well-reported first-hand reports of the Armenian Genocide. It is also home to Isaías Medina Angarita, the founder of the Venezuelan Democratic Party and the first Venezuelan sitting president to visit the United States, which he did in 1944. Generally regarded as a centrist and a moderate, Medina nevertheless also helped establish Venezuela’s relations with China and the Soviet Union in 1943 and 1945, and helped complete Eleazar López Contreras’ work to transition Venezuela from a series of coups and juntas to a democratic republic. For a while, at least. A fellow San Cristobalense was a key part of the more recent political developments in the country, Francisco Javier Arias; a member of the clandestine opposition movement MBR-200 (the “Boliviarian Revolutionary Movement” founded by Hugo Chávez in 1982) and a participant in a failed 1992 coup, Arias had successfully captured Maracaibo when Chávez turned himself in; disillusioned by this, Arias split from MBR-200 and instead stood for La Causa R, becoming governor of Zúlia in 1995, but still backed Chávez’ presidential bids later on. However, he once again became distrustful of his former comrade, and even stood against him in the 2000 presidential elections, supported by a breakaway group of MBR-200 that would become known as Partido Unión. Eventually he would reconcile with Chávez and join his government in 2006, and even serve a second stint as governor of Zúlia from 2012 to 2017.
The city is also well known for its annual Feria de San Sebastián, a huge event at the end of every January which links numerous major events through the city including parades, concerts, ExpoTáchira, a huge exposition/exhibition event, and the event’s centrepiece, bullfighting. The Vuelta al Táchira is usually timed in January in order to coincide and be included within the festivities; the fair involved with the Feria de San Sebastián is the largest one in all of Venezuela, with agricultural, commercial and industrial segments and huge amounts of trade undertaken within the event’s confines, so small business and industry is focused elsewhere allowing for greater disruption to be possible and allow for the logistical restrictions necessary to enable the Vuelta al Táchira to close even some significant major roads in the area.
With that, it’s really not surprising that many of the top Venezuelan cyclists over the years have called San Cristóbal home, too. These include Robinson Merchán (seen here on the left), who won the Pan-American Games Road Race in 1991; Moscow Olympians Mario Medina (a three-time GC winner at the Vuelta al Táchira who holds the record to this day for the most days in the leader’s jersey) and Jesús Torres; Franklin Chacón, a national TT champion and Pan-American medallist in both the Team Pursuit and the road Time Trial, the unrelated Miguel Chacón, who won stages of the Vuelta a Venezuela and of Cuba in the same era; Ronald González, who won the Vuelta al Táchira outright in 2009 and has twice finished on the podium since; and Juan Murillo, a winner of countless stages of Latin American races through the late 2000s and 2010s until an EPO positive in 2017 at the Tour de Guadeloupe brought his career to a screeching halt. The city is also the adoptive home of the Colombian-born (in Cúcuta) Rodolfo Antonio Camacho, a rider who settled in and represented Venezuela throughout his adult life and whose greatest triumph was to win self-same Tour de Guadeloupe in 2001, also winning multiple stages of the Vuelta al Táchira and the Vuelta a Venezuela. His story is tinged with tragedy, however; in August 2016 he and his 16-year-old son confronted intruders into his home in San Cristóbal, and for their troubles received fatal gunshot wounds by the fleeing invaders. He was 40 years old.
In addition to the Vuelta al Táchira, the Clásico Banfoandes and the Vuelta a Venezuela, San Cristóbal has also appeared on the route of the Vuelta a Colombia. It was not the first overseas host - Tulcán, in Ecuador, would host a stage finish in 1955 - but it was the first overseas départ, with stage 1 in the 1965 edition being a 120km stage from San Cristóbal de Táchira to Pamplona in Norte de Santander won by Gliserio Penagos, which served as the impetus necessary to start the local race, which held its first edition a year later in 1966. The same edition of the Vuelta a Colombia would also see Táchira start a long tradition of providing a team to compete in the race, consisting of the top local riders, sponsored mainly by Lotería del Táchira (whose teams have won 19 editions of the local race but none at the Vuelta a Colombia to date).
All this cycling heritage may go some way to explaining why San Cristóbal became the host of the first UCI World Championships to be held in South America, when it was chosen to organise the 1977 World Championships. Held on a 16,9km circuit which included a long but gradual ascent within the city called Las Pilas (3,9km @ 4,6%), the race would be won by Francesco Moser in a two-up sprint against Dietrich Thurau, in a race perhaps best known as the final World Championships of both Raymond Poulidor and Eddy Merckx, who would finish together at the back of the remaining péloton and be the last two classified finishers. Here is Lasterketa Burua’s approximation.
Moser wins the World Championships in San Cristóbal
However, surprisingly, while the Vuelta al Táchira has frequently, almost invariably, included at least one circuit race in San Cristóbal, it has been very rare to see the 1977 Worlds course, instead we usually see a shorter, flatter course known as the Circuito Santos Rafael Bermúdez, named of course for the first home winner of the race.
This circuit is a largely out-and-back affair which starts and finishes at the same spot as the World Championships did back then, but is a shorter route which takes place mostly on Avenida España and Avenida 19. Abril. This circuit has in recent years typically been the site on which the final day’s racing has taken place, with the final lap then seeing the riders head up to the velodrome for the stage finish; we’re not going to be looking at a velodrome finish on stage 1, so we will have to settle for mimicking the 1977 World Championships finish, just using the Circuito Santos Rafael Bermúdez en route. It’s not always been this way - indeed many stages here have been pure circuit races, as has been the case whenever the circuit race is not held on the final day - but it has been a feature of the race ever since 1978, with prominent previous winners on the circuit including Vyacheslav Ekimov twice, and Yonathan Monsalve no fewer than four times.
Péloton on the Circuito Santos Rafael Bermúdez
Standard circuit stage
What you may notice, however, is that despite the circuits being identical, the stage lengths tend to vary slightly, and that is because of that velodrome finish being sometimes appended. I have elected to retain the finish on the World Championships finish line, as mentioned, to keep the finale in the velodrome from being used on the first day of the race when a bunch sprint is much more likely. So what are the features of the circuit? Well, it’s 9,75km in length and so 12 laps of the circuit makes up for a 117km stage length, and it includes a small ascent in the middle of the route, although it is not especially significant - a kilometre dead straight up the Avenida España, averaging a not-especially-threatening 5,3%. At the summit of the road, there is a monument to the history and tradition of cycling in Táchira, which depicts two early heroes of Venezuelan cycling, Mario Medina (mentioned earlier on) and Nicolás Reidtler (or Reytler, spellings have varied over the years) - I mentioned him in the preamble, being the Raymond Poulidor of the Vuelta al Táchira, finishing 2nd 5 times and 3rd once without ever successfully winning his home race. He did, however, win the Vuelta a Venezuela twice, in 1967 and 1971.
Monumento Honor al Ciclista
After passing the monument, the circuit loops around the outside of the sporting complex at the east end of the city (hence the climb up to it as the city is on the shoulder of mountains) taking us around the Plaza de Toros Monumental and then back onto the out-and-back part of the route. The circuit includes a small chance for an outcome other than a sprint, and the Vuelta al Táchira is hardly a race renowned as being friendly to the sprinters (despite having at least a couple of flat stages most years), so we do have the potential of other outcomes, but the Circuito Santos Bermúdez being on stage 1 instead of the final stage in this particular route means we’re more likely to see a sprint here.
Doing this enables me to take a different tack, however; one area in Venezuela has more cycling history, passion and culture than any other, and it has its own race which is arguably more prestigious than the national race - and that region is the westerly, Andean province of Táchira, on the border with Colombia. While the Vuelta a Venezuela has run since 1963, the Vuelta al Táchira is barely any younger, starting in 1966, and hasn’t had any breaks where’s the national Tour has had a couple of cancellations in time or drops to amateur level. While the Vuelta al Táchira may not have stuck to its home location - indeed it has grown to be more of a regional tour than a simple tour of its own province, with stage hosts all over the neighbouring provinces - it has always retained a close link to its home, and the fact that it has maintained a very steady role in the national calendar, taking place in January, has made it a very important race on the Venezuelan schedule. This calendar location has also made it quite convenient as a pre-season tune-up race for teams from further afield, with the late 70s and early 80s seeing a number of Eastern Bloc teams travelling over here before the Vuelta a Cuba (indeed in 1982 and 1988, Ramazan Galyaletdinov and Vyacheslav Ekimov respectively even won the GC), and Italian and occasionally Spanish second- and third-tier teams have more recently elected to get their seasons started over here, most notably Savio’s mob when sponsored by Colombian or Venezuelan sponsors, and the post-Farnese Vini iterations of Scinto’s motley crew when the Venezuelan state helped sponsor them. Also, the Vuelta a Venezuela seems to like a lot of flat stages and circuit races, leading Táchira to be thought of as the “real” test of a Venezuelan GC man. And the crowds come out in their droves for it.
The first Vuelta al Táchira was a mere five-stage race contested by different regional teams representing regions of Colombia and Venezuela, but it was immediately conferred some prestige by Martín Emilio “Cochise” Rodríguez, the most important Colombian rider of the era, winning the inaugural edition and returning to win two more. At first, Colombians largely held sway; Vicencio Rivas became the first Venezuelan to win a stage when he took stage 2 of the second edition in 1967, but by and large Venezuelan wins were in flat stages, until 1969, the first year a home rider got on the GC podium as well, with Nicolás Reidtler achieving the feat. The race had reached 10 stages by 1970 and Reidtler would go one better the next year, but Santos Bermúdez would become the first home winner when he took the GC in 1973 and Reidtler would go on to be the race’s Poulidor, achieving five 2nd place finishes but never winning the GC. Early experiments included a first pass over the Santo Domingo pass - a shoulder of the Collado del Cóndor - in 1968, and stage hosts across the border in Colombia from 1971 when Pamplona (not that Pamplona) hosted a stage finish. The Cubans would arrive in 1974, the likes of Carlos Cardet and Aldo Arencibia animating the race, before in 1975, the USSR, Poland and others would turn it into a cosmopolitan endeavour.
Over the years, as well as Cochise, major names to have won the race include José Patrocinio Jiménez, Álvaro Pachón, Cuban star Eduardo Alonso, Vyacheslav Ekimov, Hernán Buenahora and major Venezuelan names like Mario Medina and Leonardo Sierra, while the podium has been graced by the likes of Enrique Campos, former Giro KOMs Freddy Excelino González and his namesake José Jaime “Chepe” González, Savio team stalwarts Jackson Rodríguez and José Serpa and former GT GC candidate turned long-time exile in South America Óscar Sevilla. In 2015 one of the longest-standing records was broken when local favourite José Rujano Guillén won his fourth Vuelta al Táchira, making him the most successful rider ever at the race, breaking the record of Pachón and Rodríguez; perhaps for this reason it was the race he chose to be his last, retiring after finishing 18th in the 2021 edition, years after his peak and having “retired” multiple times already.
Rujano can win this Giro, says Savio
But perhaps the race’s most notorious appearance in cycling lore in recent years came in 2014, when race winner Jimmy Briceño had to be stripped of his title after a positive test for EPO and recording a mind-blowing hematocrit measurement of 63%, beyond even the levels of Bjarne Riis in the 90s. The race had always been known to harbour a fair amount of suspicious activity, shall we say, but “Mr 63%” as he came to be known semi-jokingly really seemed to be taking things to the next level. The race being the focal point of the Venezuelan calendar for climbing type riders has led to a relatively negative reputation around doping, however, and Briceño is far from alone in getting disqualifications or asterisked performances at the Vuelta al Táchira; he may be the only winner to have got disqualified, but elsewhere there is something of a rogue’s gallery of riders in the GC or stage winners who have chequered history behind them - Briceño has also won the 2012 and 2019 editions, and the man who acquired the 2014 GC win, Carlos Galviz, also a couple of years later tested positive for EPO, placing him alongside 2011 winner Manuel Medina, Yonathán Monsalve, Miguel Ubeto, Óscar Sevilla, José Isidro Chacón and Juan Murillo as prominent riders at the Vuelta al Táchira to later see results expunged or come under a cloud following later positive tests.
“Señor Briceño, which performance enhancing substances did you use en route to your victory?” “Yes”
At its lengthiest, the Vuelta al Táchira reached 14 stages in duration, and would start all over Venezuela before heading towards Táchira for its final week or so of action. Starting in 1990, this role was usurped by the introduction of the Clásico Ciclístico Banfoandes, a sort of secondary Vuelta a Venezuela analogous to the Clásico RCN in Colombia or the Rutas de América in Uruguay, that was a tour of the country but unable to be called that as there was already a separate extant one. Sponsored by (of course) Banfoandes, the Andean banking conglomerate, the race would always finish in San Cristóbal, capital of the Táchira region, seeing as that was where the bank was headquartered. The Vuelta al Táchira at this stage would consolidate as less of a national race and more of a western race that took in Táchira and surrounding provinces such as Zulia, Mérida, Barinas and Trujillo. While it was still a two-week race as recently as 2011 (it was shortened from 12 stages to 10 in 2012), in recent years the race has reduced down to a consistent 8-stage duration, a bit shorter than its heyday, but still allowing for a strong race and with an extremely competitive (and often quite heavily enhanced) péloton (just look at some of the comments from Luca Scinto about some of the riders offered to him during the Venezuelan sponsorship - and bear in mind those are coming from somebody who signed Danilo di Luca in 2013). I have included some circuits and some oddities to try to keep it semi-authentic in style, with short stage lengths and geographic foibles, but also to enjoy a bit of tracing around an area that, although well-trodden, also offers more than you might think that is new.
Also it makes it easier to design a Vuelta a Venezuela route in future if I’ve already given the lowdown on the cycling-friendly sites in Táchira state, of course.
Stage 1: San Cristóbal de Táchira - San Cristóbal de Táchira, 117km
GPM:
Monumento Honor al Ciclista (cat.3) 1,0km @ 5,3%
It will probably come as no surprise to you to see this, after all, most of you will be well aware that I am something of a sap when it comes to honouring tradition in these races; especially when doing these races off the beaten track I like to honour a bit of the history in the area, like including the Morgul-Bismarck Loop and the Tour of the Moon in my Tour of Colorado, or the Parque Erick Barrondo circuit in my Vuelta a Guatemala. The Vuelta al Táchira has, for many years, started and finished in San Cristóbal, the largest city of the province and its capital, and I’m not about to deviate from that template. I will deviate from it slightly, however, and that’s in that I am looking at a historic and traditional circuit, however this is a circuit that typically in recent years has been the closer of the race, but here it will be the opening.
Home to 280.000 people, San Cristóbal is the economic hub of the Táchira region, and after its establishment in 1561 has quickly grown as an important economic hub, not only for its rich and fertile soil that made this region a very important agricultural centre for Venezuela but also since independence and in more recent times because of its proximity to Colombia, enabling vast quantities of cross-border trade that has helped it remain a population centre and a trade hub to this day. Coffee, sugar, and fruit and vegetables (especially pineapples and corn) are abundant in the region and extensively farmed for this purpose, but the city has also grown rich from local production of ceramics and also, especially after the damage created by the Cúcuta Earthquake of 1875, excavation of oil wells helped enrich San Cristóbal - although once the far vaster reserves of nearby Zúlia state were discovered, Táchira was rather left behind as a result. However, its position as a trading hub have enabled it to establish a strong position in the banking sector and service industry professions, with important national institutions like Sofitasa and, formerly, Banfoandes, being based out of the city.
San Cristóbal has had many famous sons and daughters, some of the most notorious being Rafael Inchauspe Méndez, known as Nogales, a mercenary soldier who fought in many conflicts in the early 20th Century, including the Spanish-American War (for Spain), World War I (for the Ottoman Empire), participated in a failed coup against dictator Cipriano Castro and you might note from the above that he was on the losing side of all of them - he did however write many eyewitness accounts as part of his memoirs and gives us some of the most well-reported first-hand reports of the Armenian Genocide. It is also home to Isaías Medina Angarita, the founder of the Venezuelan Democratic Party and the first Venezuelan sitting president to visit the United States, which he did in 1944. Generally regarded as a centrist and a moderate, Medina nevertheless also helped establish Venezuela’s relations with China and the Soviet Union in 1943 and 1945, and helped complete Eleazar López Contreras’ work to transition Venezuela from a series of coups and juntas to a democratic republic. For a while, at least. A fellow San Cristobalense was a key part of the more recent political developments in the country, Francisco Javier Arias; a member of the clandestine opposition movement MBR-200 (the “Boliviarian Revolutionary Movement” founded by Hugo Chávez in 1982) and a participant in a failed 1992 coup, Arias had successfully captured Maracaibo when Chávez turned himself in; disillusioned by this, Arias split from MBR-200 and instead stood for La Causa R, becoming governor of Zúlia in 1995, but still backed Chávez’ presidential bids later on. However, he once again became distrustful of his former comrade, and even stood against him in the 2000 presidential elections, supported by a breakaway group of MBR-200 that would become known as Partido Unión. Eventually he would reconcile with Chávez and join his government in 2006, and even serve a second stint as governor of Zúlia from 2012 to 2017.
The city is also well known for its annual Feria de San Sebastián, a huge event at the end of every January which links numerous major events through the city including parades, concerts, ExpoTáchira, a huge exposition/exhibition event, and the event’s centrepiece, bullfighting. The Vuelta al Táchira is usually timed in January in order to coincide and be included within the festivities; the fair involved with the Feria de San Sebastián is the largest one in all of Venezuela, with agricultural, commercial and industrial segments and huge amounts of trade undertaken within the event’s confines, so small business and industry is focused elsewhere allowing for greater disruption to be possible and allow for the logistical restrictions necessary to enable the Vuelta al Táchira to close even some significant major roads in the area.
With that, it’s really not surprising that many of the top Venezuelan cyclists over the years have called San Cristóbal home, too. These include Robinson Merchán (seen here on the left), who won the Pan-American Games Road Race in 1991; Moscow Olympians Mario Medina (a three-time GC winner at the Vuelta al Táchira who holds the record to this day for the most days in the leader’s jersey) and Jesús Torres; Franklin Chacón, a national TT champion and Pan-American medallist in both the Team Pursuit and the road Time Trial, the unrelated Miguel Chacón, who won stages of the Vuelta a Venezuela and of Cuba in the same era; Ronald González, who won the Vuelta al Táchira outright in 2009 and has twice finished on the podium since; and Juan Murillo, a winner of countless stages of Latin American races through the late 2000s and 2010s until an EPO positive in 2017 at the Tour de Guadeloupe brought his career to a screeching halt. The city is also the adoptive home of the Colombian-born (in Cúcuta) Rodolfo Antonio Camacho, a rider who settled in and represented Venezuela throughout his adult life and whose greatest triumph was to win self-same Tour de Guadeloupe in 2001, also winning multiple stages of the Vuelta al Táchira and the Vuelta a Venezuela. His story is tinged with tragedy, however; in August 2016 he and his 16-year-old son confronted intruders into his home in San Cristóbal, and for their troubles received fatal gunshot wounds by the fleeing invaders. He was 40 years old.
In addition to the Vuelta al Táchira, the Clásico Banfoandes and the Vuelta a Venezuela, San Cristóbal has also appeared on the route of the Vuelta a Colombia. It was not the first overseas host - Tulcán, in Ecuador, would host a stage finish in 1955 - but it was the first overseas départ, with stage 1 in the 1965 edition being a 120km stage from San Cristóbal de Táchira to Pamplona in Norte de Santander won by Gliserio Penagos, which served as the impetus necessary to start the local race, which held its first edition a year later in 1966. The same edition of the Vuelta a Colombia would also see Táchira start a long tradition of providing a team to compete in the race, consisting of the top local riders, sponsored mainly by Lotería del Táchira (whose teams have won 19 editions of the local race but none at the Vuelta a Colombia to date).
All this cycling heritage may go some way to explaining why San Cristóbal became the host of the first UCI World Championships to be held in South America, when it was chosen to organise the 1977 World Championships. Held on a 16,9km circuit which included a long but gradual ascent within the city called Las Pilas (3,9km @ 4,6%), the race would be won by Francesco Moser in a two-up sprint against Dietrich Thurau, in a race perhaps best known as the final World Championships of both Raymond Poulidor and Eddy Merckx, who would finish together at the back of the remaining péloton and be the last two classified finishers. Here is Lasterketa Burua’s approximation.
Moser wins the World Championships in San Cristóbal
However, surprisingly, while the Vuelta al Táchira has frequently, almost invariably, included at least one circuit race in San Cristóbal, it has been very rare to see the 1977 Worlds course, instead we usually see a shorter, flatter course known as the Circuito Santos Rafael Bermúdez, named of course for the first home winner of the race.
This circuit is a largely out-and-back affair which starts and finishes at the same spot as the World Championships did back then, but is a shorter route which takes place mostly on Avenida España and Avenida 19. Abril. This circuit has in recent years typically been the site on which the final day’s racing has taken place, with the final lap then seeing the riders head up to the velodrome for the stage finish; we’re not going to be looking at a velodrome finish on stage 1, so we will have to settle for mimicking the 1977 World Championships finish, just using the Circuito Santos Rafael Bermúdez en route. It’s not always been this way - indeed many stages here have been pure circuit races, as has been the case whenever the circuit race is not held on the final day - but it has been a feature of the race ever since 1978, with prominent previous winners on the circuit including Vyacheslav Ekimov twice, and Yonathan Monsalve no fewer than four times.
Péloton on the Circuito Santos Rafael Bermúdez
Standard circuit stage
What you may notice, however, is that despite the circuits being identical, the stage lengths tend to vary slightly, and that is because of that velodrome finish being sometimes appended. I have elected to retain the finish on the World Championships finish line, as mentioned, to keep the finale in the velodrome from being used on the first day of the race when a bunch sprint is much more likely. So what are the features of the circuit? Well, it’s 9,75km in length and so 12 laps of the circuit makes up for a 117km stage length, and it includes a small ascent in the middle of the route, although it is not especially significant - a kilometre dead straight up the Avenida España, averaging a not-especially-threatening 5,3%. At the summit of the road, there is a monument to the history and tradition of cycling in Táchira, which depicts two early heroes of Venezuelan cycling, Mario Medina (mentioned earlier on) and Nicolás Reidtler (or Reytler, spellings have varied over the years) - I mentioned him in the preamble, being the Raymond Poulidor of the Vuelta al Táchira, finishing 2nd 5 times and 3rd once without ever successfully winning his home race. He did, however, win the Vuelta a Venezuela twice, in 1967 and 1971.
Monumento Honor al Ciclista
After passing the monument, the circuit loops around the outside of the sporting complex at the east end of the city (hence the climb up to it as the city is on the shoulder of mountains) taking us around the Plaza de Toros Monumental and then back onto the out-and-back part of the route. The circuit includes a small chance for an outcome other than a sprint, and the Vuelta al Táchira is hardly a race renowned as being friendly to the sprinters (despite having at least a couple of flat stages most years), so we do have the potential of other outcomes, but the Circuito Santos Bermúdez being on stage 1 instead of the final stage in this particular route means we’re more likely to see a sprint here.
Now I have that old jingle that they used for the race in my head, la loteria, loteria del Tachira...
Stage 2: La Fría - Santa Bárbara del Zulia, 124km
GPM:
None
If stage 1 was a flat stage with a bit of a chance of there being another type of conclusion given the small climb on the circuit, stage 2 is a flat stage where, unless the weather plays ball, there is simply not going to be any chance of anything other than a sprint being the outcome, as this stage is an absolutely pancake flat route through the north of Táchira state and then on into the southern parts of neighbouring Zúlia, the wealthy oil-rich neighbour to the north. After all, the Vuelta al Táchira has frequently included excursions - sometimes several stages long - into Mérida, Trujillo, Barinas and of course Zúlia. The race had been heading out into Barinas state as early as 1968 (the third edition of the race), and Mérida (via the Santo Domingo super-climb) was introduced in 1969. Portuguesa, Trujillo and Sucre would follow in 1971, with periodic excursions as far as Biscucuy and Valera, and even as far afield as Lara in 1978. Hell, in 1986 and 1987 the race even managed to start in Caracas, foreshadowing what would become the Clásico Banfoandes. Zúlia state, despite its proximity to Táchira, would not be introduced until 1989, when the race started with two stages around Maracaibo (a road stage and a prologue) and then a third departing from Cabimas, with the fact that the state is predominantly flat (or at least the parts with paved roads are) being the main obstacle to its introduction prior to this point, with Mérida and Tovar paying up meaning that the portion of the route that would typically have had the opportunity to enter Zúlia would instead track along the valley at the spine of the Andes in the area instead. The region would return, being passed through in 1991’s edition, a brief excursion in the 1992 race, and periodically since. However, Zúlia has been very closely linked to cycling in Venezuela due to its local teams being historically very strong thanks to the economic strength of the region; when riders like José Rujano returned to Venezuela in 2009, he signed with the Zulia team, and major Venezuelan riders like Manuel Medina, Carlos Galviz and Franklin Chacón were among those who would back him up; other riders of some repute like José Contreras, Eduin Becerra and Noel Vásquez are among those who have passed through the squad.
At the northern tip of the mountain range separating the most densely inhabited parts of Táchira from the northern flatlands around Lake Maracaibo and the Catatumbo and Chama river floodplains, La Fría is however a pretty regular host of the Vuelta al Táchira. Founded in the mid-19th Century and lying around 40km north of San Cristóbal as the crow flies, La Fría was for a time one of the main gateways into Táchira, due to a much more manageable airport to approach, being outside of the Andean mountains and therefore not requiring as much technical expertise in the event of variable or inclement weather. Before the coming of the airport (and the railroad), it was a small outlying village, but it has since become a bustling town of around 60.000, with the logistics involved in transferring much of the air freight around the Táchira region and southern Zúlia accounting for the largest amount of trade and employment in the city. It is a relatively late inclusion in the Vuelta al Táchira; historically La Grita, in the mountains, would typically host the preceding stage after coming from the mountains to the east, usually from Tovar or via Zea (to come via the Monte de Barro pass, which is pretty monolithic but not quite as brutal as Portachuelo, the more direct route from Tovar, and allowing for an uphill finish in La Grita rather than going straight to the line. Nowadays, La Grita hosts an MTF but it’s more of a tempo grinder), and then head through La Fría to finish at San Juan de Colón. La Fría was only introduced as a stage host in 1984, but has since become extremely regular as a stop-off on the route, with 22 appearances on the route of the Vuelta al Táchira since, as well as a couple of additional stages in the Clásico Banfoandes.
However, almost invariably, La Fría has hosted stage starts - just as I have it doing today. Probably because of that location. Anyway, it has only hosted a couple of finishes, those being in 1995, when Raúl Saavedra won a stage starting and finishing in the city; in 1996, when Joselin Saavedra (yes) won an ITT that finished here, and in 2016 when Marco Zamparella, of Italian Continental team Amore e Vita, took it on a slight uphill ramp. Otherwise it has always been the salida, not the llegada, and even pulled double duty in 2012, with both stages 6 and 8 starting in the city. Go figure.
Victory for Zamparella in La Fría, 2016 Vuelta al Táchira
This is not a long stage and it is not a complicated stage. The only thing for the breakaway to do with this one is collect some metas volantes, and in all honesty we don’t even pass through a large number of major towns or cities on the way. We cross over from Táchira state into Zúlia around a quarter of the way through the stage, arriving at the Puente de Venezuela crossing the Zúlia river where we leave the Ruta Troncal 6 and then move on to the city of El Guayabo, where we bear northeast and on towards our stage finish.
This leads us through a long and unthreatening flat stretch - much of it dead straight - for a good 50km before arriving in Santa Cruz del Zúlia, and then turn right onto Avenida Bolivar before a technical, twisty approach through near the Santa Bárbara airport, and then a mostly very un-technical final 3km, the idea being to give the opportunity to escape late on given the nature of this péloton, and then a final stretch that should be safe, into the finishing host of Santa Bárbara del Zúlia.
The capital of Colón municipality, this city is rapidly growing, with 80.000 people at the turn of the millennium and a cool 126.000 as of the 2023 census. It forms a twin city with San Carlos del Zúlia and dates its origins to the start of the 18th Century as an important staging post in the transit routes - especially when the majority needed to be by river traffic - between the economic and agricultural hubs of the Andes and the port city of Maracaibo. It is probably best known as the hometown of the present Governor of Zúlia state and one of Venezuela’s best known opposition figures, Manuel Rosales.
A former youth leader of Acción Democrática, Rosales is a self-described social democrat who had been part of the political landscape in Zúlia since the mid 80s including a stint as mayor of Maracaibo, before he went on to found the centre-left Nuevo Tiempo party in 2000 and win the electoral race to become state governor, a position he held from 2000 to 2008. He was implicated in the coup of 2002 due to some strange administrative circumstances, and stood as the main opposition to Hugo Chávez in the 2006 election, as one of only two governors opposed to the incumbent President at the time. However, while Rosales was successful in uniting the opposition parties’ politicians behind him, he was less successful at rallying the populace, being criticised for a campaign marked by relatively drab efficiency over charisma and leadership. After aggressively pushing Chávez on a number of topics, he stepped back from governorship in 2008 and returned to mayoral duties in Maracaibo, although charges relating to misuse of public funds led to his removal in 2009 (he maintains that these were fabricated to allow Chávez to replace him with a more pliable alternative - however given this is Venezuelan politics, both theories are equally plausible), creating a minor political storm when Venezuela withdrew diplomatic relations with Peru after he sought refuge there and seeing the Human Rights Watchdog citing his case an an example of politically-motivated persecution. He was arrested and incarcerated for 13 years upon his return to Maracaibo in 2015, but this was later commuted to house arrest and reduced to just over a year with his being released in December 2016. He has now become a face of more moderate opposition, having accepted Maduro’s presidency in 2018 and been rehabilitated into Venezuelan politics despite his ongoing oppositional stance; he returned as governor of Zúlia in 2021, and even ran as an opposition candidate for the 2024 election, though withdrew his candidacy in support of Edmundo González Urrutia’s bid later. This was a controversial position at the time as he had been expected to support María Machado’s campaign, so his initial independent candidacy had raised a stir and created some friction in the opposition.
Santa Bárbara has appeared on the route of the Vuelta al Táchira three times in its history. The first was in 1991, when Italian sprinter Marino Marcozzi won the first of two stages of that edition - he was part of Domenico Cavallo’s Selle Italia team that brought Leonardo Sierra and Richard Parra to Europe from Venezuela; this team would later go on to be acquired by Gianni Savio and become the long-running team that we knew and loved, becoming ZG Mobili, Roslotto, Selle Italia-W52 (!!!), Colombia-Selle Italia, Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni and eventually Androni Giocattoli, so have a long and well-established history at the race. The following year the Colombian José Fabio Moreno would win in the city - he would go on to race the Vuelta in 1993 when the Colombian Gaseosas Glacial team would be invited, but this win would be his biggest. Finally, the city would host the start of the Mérida stage in 2003, which was won by another Colombia-Selle Italia rider, this time Rubén Marín. That stage saw him come in solo around 30” ahead of a reduced pack, but that’s because Mérida is in the Andes. The two stages that finished in Santa Bárbara were both sprints, and that’s what we should expect here, too.
GPM:
None
If stage 1 was a flat stage with a bit of a chance of there being another type of conclusion given the small climb on the circuit, stage 2 is a flat stage where, unless the weather plays ball, there is simply not going to be any chance of anything other than a sprint being the outcome, as this stage is an absolutely pancake flat route through the north of Táchira state and then on into the southern parts of neighbouring Zúlia, the wealthy oil-rich neighbour to the north. After all, the Vuelta al Táchira has frequently included excursions - sometimes several stages long - into Mérida, Trujillo, Barinas and of course Zúlia. The race had been heading out into Barinas state as early as 1968 (the third edition of the race), and Mérida (via the Santo Domingo super-climb) was introduced in 1969. Portuguesa, Trujillo and Sucre would follow in 1971, with periodic excursions as far as Biscucuy and Valera, and even as far afield as Lara in 1978. Hell, in 1986 and 1987 the race even managed to start in Caracas, foreshadowing what would become the Clásico Banfoandes. Zúlia state, despite its proximity to Táchira, would not be introduced until 1989, when the race started with two stages around Maracaibo (a road stage and a prologue) and then a third departing from Cabimas, with the fact that the state is predominantly flat (or at least the parts with paved roads are) being the main obstacle to its introduction prior to this point, with Mérida and Tovar paying up meaning that the portion of the route that would typically have had the opportunity to enter Zúlia would instead track along the valley at the spine of the Andes in the area instead. The region would return, being passed through in 1991’s edition, a brief excursion in the 1992 race, and periodically since. However, Zúlia has been very closely linked to cycling in Venezuela due to its local teams being historically very strong thanks to the economic strength of the region; when riders like José Rujano returned to Venezuela in 2009, he signed with the Zulia team, and major Venezuelan riders like Manuel Medina, Carlos Galviz and Franklin Chacón were among those who would back him up; other riders of some repute like José Contreras, Eduin Becerra and Noel Vásquez are among those who have passed through the squad.
At the northern tip of the mountain range separating the most densely inhabited parts of Táchira from the northern flatlands around Lake Maracaibo and the Catatumbo and Chama river floodplains, La Fría is however a pretty regular host of the Vuelta al Táchira. Founded in the mid-19th Century and lying around 40km north of San Cristóbal as the crow flies, La Fría was for a time one of the main gateways into Táchira, due to a much more manageable airport to approach, being outside of the Andean mountains and therefore not requiring as much technical expertise in the event of variable or inclement weather. Before the coming of the airport (and the railroad), it was a small outlying village, but it has since become a bustling town of around 60.000, with the logistics involved in transferring much of the air freight around the Táchira region and southern Zúlia accounting for the largest amount of trade and employment in the city. It is a relatively late inclusion in the Vuelta al Táchira; historically La Grita, in the mountains, would typically host the preceding stage after coming from the mountains to the east, usually from Tovar or via Zea (to come via the Monte de Barro pass, which is pretty monolithic but not quite as brutal as Portachuelo, the more direct route from Tovar, and allowing for an uphill finish in La Grita rather than going straight to the line. Nowadays, La Grita hosts an MTF but it’s more of a tempo grinder), and then head through La Fría to finish at San Juan de Colón. La Fría was only introduced as a stage host in 1984, but has since become extremely regular as a stop-off on the route, with 22 appearances on the route of the Vuelta al Táchira since, as well as a couple of additional stages in the Clásico Banfoandes.
However, almost invariably, La Fría has hosted stage starts - just as I have it doing today. Probably because of that location. Anyway, it has only hosted a couple of finishes, those being in 1995, when Raúl Saavedra won a stage starting and finishing in the city; in 1996, when Joselin Saavedra (yes) won an ITT that finished here, and in 2016 when Marco Zamparella, of Italian Continental team Amore e Vita, took it on a slight uphill ramp. Otherwise it has always been the salida, not the llegada, and even pulled double duty in 2012, with both stages 6 and 8 starting in the city. Go figure.
Victory for Zamparella in La Fría, 2016 Vuelta al Táchira
This is not a long stage and it is not a complicated stage. The only thing for the breakaway to do with this one is collect some metas volantes, and in all honesty we don’t even pass through a large number of major towns or cities on the way. We cross over from Táchira state into Zúlia around a quarter of the way through the stage, arriving at the Puente de Venezuela crossing the Zúlia river where we leave the Ruta Troncal 6 and then move on to the city of El Guayabo, where we bear northeast and on towards our stage finish.
This leads us through a long and unthreatening flat stretch - much of it dead straight - for a good 50km before arriving in Santa Cruz del Zúlia, and then turn right onto Avenida Bolivar before a technical, twisty approach through near the Santa Bárbara airport, and then a mostly very un-technical final 3km, the idea being to give the opportunity to escape late on given the nature of this péloton, and then a final stretch that should be safe, into the finishing host of Santa Bárbara del Zúlia.
The capital of Colón municipality, this city is rapidly growing, with 80.000 people at the turn of the millennium and a cool 126.000 as of the 2023 census. It forms a twin city with San Carlos del Zúlia and dates its origins to the start of the 18th Century as an important staging post in the transit routes - especially when the majority needed to be by river traffic - between the economic and agricultural hubs of the Andes and the port city of Maracaibo. It is probably best known as the hometown of the present Governor of Zúlia state and one of Venezuela’s best known opposition figures, Manuel Rosales.
A former youth leader of Acción Democrática, Rosales is a self-described social democrat who had been part of the political landscape in Zúlia since the mid 80s including a stint as mayor of Maracaibo, before he went on to found the centre-left Nuevo Tiempo party in 2000 and win the electoral race to become state governor, a position he held from 2000 to 2008. He was implicated in the coup of 2002 due to some strange administrative circumstances, and stood as the main opposition to Hugo Chávez in the 2006 election, as one of only two governors opposed to the incumbent President at the time. However, while Rosales was successful in uniting the opposition parties’ politicians behind him, he was less successful at rallying the populace, being criticised for a campaign marked by relatively drab efficiency over charisma and leadership. After aggressively pushing Chávez on a number of topics, he stepped back from governorship in 2008 and returned to mayoral duties in Maracaibo, although charges relating to misuse of public funds led to his removal in 2009 (he maintains that these were fabricated to allow Chávez to replace him with a more pliable alternative - however given this is Venezuelan politics, both theories are equally plausible), creating a minor political storm when Venezuela withdrew diplomatic relations with Peru after he sought refuge there and seeing the Human Rights Watchdog citing his case an an example of politically-motivated persecution. He was arrested and incarcerated for 13 years upon his return to Maracaibo in 2015, but this was later commuted to house arrest and reduced to just over a year with his being released in December 2016. He has now become a face of more moderate opposition, having accepted Maduro’s presidency in 2018 and been rehabilitated into Venezuelan politics despite his ongoing oppositional stance; he returned as governor of Zúlia in 2021, and even ran as an opposition candidate for the 2024 election, though withdrew his candidacy in support of Edmundo González Urrutia’s bid later. This was a controversial position at the time as he had been expected to support María Machado’s campaign, so his initial independent candidacy had raised a stir and created some friction in the opposition.
Santa Bárbara has appeared on the route of the Vuelta al Táchira three times in its history. The first was in 1991, when Italian sprinter Marino Marcozzi won the first of two stages of that edition - he was part of Domenico Cavallo’s Selle Italia team that brought Leonardo Sierra and Richard Parra to Europe from Venezuela; this team would later go on to be acquired by Gianni Savio and become the long-running team that we knew and loved, becoming ZG Mobili, Roslotto, Selle Italia-W52 (!!!), Colombia-Selle Italia, Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni and eventually Androni Giocattoli, so have a long and well-established history at the race. The following year the Colombian José Fabio Moreno would win in the city - he would go on to race the Vuelta in 1993 when the Colombian Gaseosas Glacial team would be invited, but this win would be his biggest. Finally, the city would host the start of the Mérida stage in 2003, which was won by another Colombia-Selle Italia rider, this time Rubén Marín. That stage saw him come in solo around 30” ahead of a reduced pack, but that’s because Mérida is in the Andes. The two stages that finished in Santa Bárbara were both sprints, and that’s what we should expect here, too.
I love doing this & the BANTRAB on procycling manager. One of the few races where I can turn up with the train & destroy everyone 
Todays stage, the final stage before the rest day, going south from Conway provides another test after the previous day’s stage to Mount Washington
Our second straight depart from Conway(and not the last time it’ll be featured in this race), the race goes for the two category climbs before the finish, both of which are low gradient tempo climbs.
For the next 140 kilometers from the top of the cat 1 to the bottom of Mount Kearsage, this is little difficulty for the riders, but if someone wants to drill it the roads are very lumpy compared to what you see on the profile.
For the last 7 or so kilometers, the race faces Mount Kearsage, with inconsistent and steep gradient, a climbers playground before the rest day
The GP de Montreal is often pretty boring unfortunately, with all the action coming on the last lap - mostly on the Mont Royal itself. So I looked at how it might be improved.
I've shifted the route to the south of Mont Royal rather than north. There I've added three short climbs of about 300 metres and 8% after a short bit of technical narrow descent. The section contains 13 90 degree corners within 13 km. I've kept the finish line with the 180, which I like a lot. Hopefully the techinal nature of the circuit could stretch the race out and make early attacks viable - like a Glasgow circuit, you know...
I've shifted the route to the south of Mont Royal rather than north. There I've added three short climbs of about 300 metres and 8% after a short bit of technical narrow descent. The section contains 13 90 degree corners within 13 km. I've kept the finish line with the 180, which I like a lot. Hopefully the techinal nature of the circuit could stretch the race out and make early attacks viable - like a Glasgow circuit, you know...
TRENDING THREADS
-
Teams & Riders The Remco Evenepoel is the next Eddy Merckx thread- Started by DNP-Old
- Replies: 29K
-
Teams & Riders The Great Big Cycling Transfers, Extensions, and Rumours Thread- Started by RedheadDane
- Replies: 11K
-
Teams & Riders Alberto Contador Discussion Thread- Started by LaFlorecita
- Replies: 51K
-
Teams & Riders Tadej Pogačar discussion thread- Started by Lequack
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Teams & Riders Everybody needs a little bit of Roglstomp in their lives- Started by johnymax
- Replies: 19K
-
Teams & Riders Chris Froome Discussion Thread.- Started by Miburo
- Replies: 21K
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram