Race Design Thread

[lemon cheese cake]

Re: Re:

Peter Sagan won a similar stage in 2012 I think.

That was with a decent climb a technical descent in it, iirc

It was still in Lugano though.

 

[Progsprach]

Bordeaux - La Rochelle (193km)
As move northwards, the riders make it through coastal flat from Bordeaux past the intermediates at Pugnac and Saintes, with no relevant obstacles. The fastest man will win this one, barring group split shenanigans or a dozy peloton letting a break go. Hopefully, this should make the points jersey a lively contest between traditional sprinters and more all-rounder types.

 

[Progsprach]

Nantes ITT (41km)
This scenic, pan-flat time trial through the city on Nantes should be a big chance to take some ground back from the pure climbers. Passing by the time checks at the Galerie Art and in Reze, the riders fight the clock until St-Herblain. With 41km of lenght, no climbs and a course, which is not that technical for the most part, this should be a pure test of power.

 

[Progsprach]

Rennes - Caen (182km)
The riders should savor the fact that this stage contains no real difficulties, since they will not get this feeling again until the Champs-Elysees. At Avranches and Villers-Bocage there are intermediate sprints, which may become important, if the points jersey race is close, but even more important, of course, will be the points and win in the sprint at Caen.

 

[Progsprach]

Rouen - Wallers (235km)
Now, one might call this a cobbles version of a Vuelta stage (except in longer). 228km of nothing except two intermediate sprints at Amiens and Cambrai, but between 5km and 2,5km before the finish the riders will force themselves over the Tourée d'Arenberg of Paris-Roubaix fame and we all know how good that is at splitting pelotons. The fact that the stage ends 2.5km after should probably help limit the time gaps.

 

[Gigs_98]

Rouen - Wallers (235km)
Now, one might call this a cobbles version of a Vuelta stage (except in longer). 228km of nothing except two intermediate sprints at Amiens and Cambrai, but between 5km and 2,5km before the finish the riders will force themselves over the Tourée d'Arenberg of Paris-Roubaix fame and we all know how good that is at splitting pelotons. The fact that the stage ends 2.5km after should probably help limit the time gaps.

why don't you use some more cobble sections? I love the idea of a finish near the touree d arenberg but the fact that there is only one section also means that the rest of the stage will be very boring. I think a handful cobble section before arenberg would really make this stage more interesting.

 

[Progsprach]

why don't you use some more cobble sections? I love the idea of a finish near the touree d arenberg but the fact that there is only one section also means that the rest of the stage will be very boring. I think a handful cobble section before arenberg would really make this stage more interesting.

The reason is that, the last time cobbles were used in the Tour there were more sections earlier in the stage and there were a lot of complaints that it was too risky and it was possible to lose too much time if one had, say, a mechanical on a section early in the stage. So while it would definitely make the stage more interesting if there were more cobble sections (and obviously if this were a one-day race or short stage race I'd have done it), I opted for the safer approach and limit the time gaps by making the part after the section very short. In the end, I hope my tour will be decided by something other than mechanical problems and falls on cobbles.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

How many TTs? Something like the third one including the TTT. You're only now about half way!

 

[Progsprach]

Re:

How many TTs? Something like the third one including the TTT. You're only now about half way!

There's a lot of TTs(i think two normal one + a TTT and a MTT) until now and still one more to go. That is a ridiculous amount, I agree, but it's not actually that may km when you add them up. The actual amount of TT Kilometers is similar to 2012. I just wanted to have many different styles of tíme trials represented and also wanted my GTs to have a different flair to them. The Vuelta will be different and have alot less time trials, just two short ones.

 

[rghysens]

why don't you use some more cobble sections? I love the idea of a finish near the touree d arenberg but the fact that there is only one section also means that the rest of the stage will be very boring. I think a handful cobble section before arenberg would really make this stage more interesting.

The reason is that, the last time cobbles were used in the Tour there were more sections earlier in the stage and there were a lot of complaints that it was too risky and it was possible to lose too much time if one had, say, a mechanical on a section early in the stage. So while it would definitely make the stage more interesting if there were more cobble sections (and obviously if this were a one-day race or short stage race I'd have done it), I opted for the safer approach and limit the time gaps by making the part after the section very short. In the end, I hope my tour will be decided by something other than mechanical problems and falls on cobbles.

A safer approach by sending an entire peloton through le Trouée d'Arenberg?

 

[rghysens]

Tour de Suisse, stage 2: Sankt-Gallen - Einsiedeln: 133km, medium mountains

The longest stage is followed by the shortest stage (in line), but by no means it will be a walk in the park.
The first half of the stage covers some rolling terrain, with two short climbs. A bit after the halfway mark the peloton crosses the Zurichsee., followed by some kilometres on flat roads to Siebnen. When leaving this village, the first real difficulty of the day starts: the more then 11km long climb to the Sattelegg. While its average gradient and altitude are nothing to be afraid of there's still a 2km long stretch of over 10% about 3km from the summit. A short descent and some downhill false flat lead the peloton to a first passage of the finishline.The downhill false flat continues for a few extra kilometres and then turns into a fast descent to the Zurichsee once again. The riders won't enjoy the sights, as the road will point skyward after the end of the descent in Pfäffikon. The short but steep Etzel -a kind of Xorret de Cati in Switzerland- will shred the remainder of the bunch to little pieces. The equally steep, but short, descent is followed by a short and steep bump and some false flat. This will be the last chance for the strongest of the day to get rid of their opponents, if that didn't happen earlier.
The finish will be in the vicinity of Einsiedeln abbey.

Map & Profile:

Climbs:
Wasserfluh: km27.5; 2.3km @ 7.7%; 843m; 3rd cat
Hulftegg: km47; 2.8km @ 6.7%; 953m; 3rd cat
Sattelegg: km96; 11.7km @ 6.4%; 1190m; 1st cat
Etzel: km125.5; 4.6km @ 11.2%; 950m; 1st cat

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Ok. I was just thinking Tony Martin would be jumping for joy if this route was real! Anyway back in the Netherlands:

Ronde van Nederland Stage 2 Rotterdam - Zandvoort (124.5km)

Climbs:
None

Primes:
Monster
Den Haag
Katwijk
Noordwijkerhout
Haarlem

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

Today we start in the 'Gateway to Europe'. Rotterdamhas one of the largest ports Europeas well as a pretty large cruise terminal. However, we don't care about how large ports are, as it is the host city for the start of stage two. We will start by looping round east and out of the city, before heading west towards the coast. Once pretty close to the coast, we will head north and pass through Monsterfor the first prime. Continuing to head north, we come to the second prime at Den Haag. We will skirt round LeidenThe third prime will be at Katwijk. After the third, the fourth will be at Noordwijkerhout and the fifth at Haarlem. After a hairpin, we leave Haarlem and will eventually do a right turn. It's straight to the coast now at Zandvoort. But this is not the finish. The finish is at the former Formula 1 circuit just outside the town.


Start:

Finish:

 

[fauniera]

Tour de Suisse, stage 2: Sankt-Gallen - Einsiedeln: 133km, medium mountains

I like it, but Sattelegg surely is more than cat2, don't you think?

 

[rghysens]

Tour de Suisse, stage 2: Sankt-Gallen - Einsiedeln: 133km, medium mountains

I like it, but Sattelegg surely is more than cat2, don't you think?

Probably, but I'm afraid i won't have enough 2nd category climbs compared to 1st and HC. Maybe I"ll revise it later.

Edit: I edited stage 6 a bit, so it has more 2nd cat climbs now, without changing the general design too much. And I made Sattelegg -rightfully so- a 1st cat climb.

 

[rghysens]

Tour de Suisse, stage 3: Zug - Zug: 38.3km, TT

Switzerland is not only a country of moutains, but also one of lakes, as this tour shows. It started on a lakeside, the first stages skirted a lake, the second crossed a lake and the third stage will be nothing but a loop around another lake. The shores of the Zugersee will be the battlefield of the this stage: a flat TT from Zug to Zug.

Map & profile:

 

[rghysens]

Tour de Suisse, stage 4: Schwyz - Solothurn: 185km, medium mountains

We're leaving the lakes behind us today. The start from Schwyz will lead the peloton to the Vierwaldstättersee, which will be followed to Kussnacht. This will be the beginning of the climb to Michaelskreuz, a climb that also features in the 2015 Tour de Sisse, but from its more difficult north side. The descent to Root is followed by more than 100km flat and rolling roads to Solothurn, today's finishing location. A rather long local lap of 34km will completely splinter the field. The Weissenstein will sort the pretenders from the contenders, while the Balmberg, short but very steep, is tailormade for a stage winning move.

Map & profile:

Climbs:
Michaelskreuz: km36.5; 4.4km @ 5.3%; 772m; 3rd cat
Weissenstein: km159.5; 8.8km @ 9.5%; 1284m; 1st cat
Balmberg: km171.5; 2.9km @ 13.8%; 1078m; 2nd cat

 

[TheGreenMonkey]

Really beautiful stage, extremely tough climbs with descents that would play a large role. Love it.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Ouch! Those final climbs look horrible! However this race still looks beautiful, hopefully will carry on that way.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Helluva finale there.

Thread rebuild progress report
I am currently 60 pages into the cataloguing of every link for every race posted, so around 35% done. What's going to happen basically is that I'm going to try to preserve the current format of the libraries in terms of links per category, but each stage race will have its own library page, because of the limitation on the number of URLs. The exception is where the same person has posted multiple versions of the same short stage race (for example I've done two Tours des Pays-Basque Français). As a result I will also posting stage starts and stage finishes in the library posts (which for reasons of character limit on the old board is not currently the case) so that searching for an individual stage or location within the thread is easier and more intuitive.

When I have brought the cataloguing fully up to date, I will post to ask for a ceasefire on new posts to enable me to make the dozens of posts required to resolve the libraries issue. After this I will update the first post in the thread (which will obviously have the now-functional library links) to advise of a couple of things. I think it's only fair at this point that once I have done this I will ask posters, when posting stage races, once they've finished posting the race, to do a separate post linking to the individual stages. I know some posters - Ferminal and Another Dutch Guy are two I remember - have on occasion done this before anyhow. I will then use that post to fit into the existing structure of race libraries.

Hope you all don't mind the request, it should hopefully not be too onerous, but I certainly don't want people to stop posting stages individually, as that gives us plenty of time to talk about and discuss the races' possibilities, and I see this as a way of helping to get around the URLs limitation. Now that we've started up posting again I don't want to stop people unless I have to, so feel free to continue posting as you have been doing until I ask for the ceasefire when I've finished doing the libraries.

I will do this bit-by-bit as I also have some races I'd like to post myself and will start adding my own contributions to the thread again shortly.

 

[Progsprach]

Saarburg - Colmar (182km)
A hilly transitional stage takes the riders through some vosges climbs, first the Rocher de Mutzig (10.2km@3.9%,cat3) and then later the Moyenne Mont (nominally 24.8km@3%, but it is actually a three steps climb with mostly gradients of 4-6%, cat 2), with an intermediate sprint Saint-Die-des-Vosges in between. After the descent there are about 25km left to the finish, so this might be a breakaway stage.

 

[Progsprach]

Montriond - Lac de Saint-Guerin (192km)
We have reached the mountains once more and for the first act we will use some lesser known climbs before paying homage to some of the legendary mountains in the next stage. Almost immediately after the start, the riders tackle the ascent to Avoriaz(12.7km@6.2%, cat2), which is succeeded right away by the Cote'd Arboz (9.4km@5.9%,cat3) and Haute Pointe(7.3km@5.2%,cat4). After that there is a long descent and some breathing room for the riders until the intermediate sprint in Bonneville. The Col de Saisies(nominally 30.3km@3.4%, but its last 7km have gradients around 6%, cat2) opens the climbing again. It is followed by the Col de Saisies(14.3km@5.3%,cat2) and Mont Cornillon (16km@5.7%, cat1). The finish is at the peak of the final climbt to Lac de Saint-Guerin(7km@7.6%,cat2).

 

[rghysens]

Tour de Suisse, stage 5: Biel - Fribourg: 169km, hilly

Today's stage is something for the breakaway or strong sprinters. There's a short, flat part in line from Biel to Fribourg and then 2 times a big local lap on hilly and rolling roads.

Map & Profile:

Climbs:
Côte de Villarsel: km61/119; 2.4km@5.4%; 3rd cat
Guggisberg: km82/140; 3.8km @ 6.4%; 3rd cat
Spisi: km92/150; 1.2km @ 7.4%; 3rd cat
Zum Holz: km99.5/157.5; 2km @ 6.4%

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Re: Re:

And once it's fully ok I'll launch my challenge to you all [I had it planned since quite a long time, but the forum revolution delayed it]

When is this going to happen?

 

[rghysens]

Tour de Suisse, stage 6: Bulle - Crans-Montana: 193km, medium mountains + MTF

The first (and only) mtf of the race. Well, more or less, as the last 1.5 km are ever flattening out.
This is not the queen stage.

Climbs:
Col des Mosses: km38; 14km @ 3.8%; 1448m; 2nd cat
Col de la Croix: km62; 8.4km@7.3%; 1776m, 1st cat
Ovronnaz: km128.5; 10km @ 9%; 1371m; 1st cat
Ayent: km160; 5.8km@7%; 947m; 2nd cat
Lens: km167; 4.2km@5.1%; 1136m; 3rd cat
Crans Montana: km192; 13.7km@7% ; 1495m; 1st cat

 

[Gigs_98]

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