Race Design Thread

[mikii4567]

Paris-Nice
Stage 4: Montluçon - Chalmazel-Jeansagnière (208km)
http://www.la-flamme-rouge.eu/maps/viewtrack/hd/79223

The queen stage of my Paris-Nice is in the Puy-de-Dome range, and features some great mountains. At 208km, it's also bound to be a relative test of endurance, with the numerous steep climbs towards the end offering what should be a great spectacle and fight amongst the GC contenders. First of all, though, it's time to establish the setting. After a short transfer south, the riders find themselves leaving from Montluçon, the middle-aged town that once was part of the Duchy of Bourbon. Today, the commune has numerous ancient churches which attract tourists, however one can also visit the castle of the Bourbon dukes, a XIII-XIV century monument, which overlooks the city. The end is Chalmazel-Jeansagnière, at the ski station (I know the Paris-Nice is held in March, so during the ski seaason, but I believe the line can be drawn there), which saw a victory for Jesús Herrada in this year's Dauphine.

After a series of minor côtes during the first 135km, including the intermediate sprint at Saint-Dier-d'Auvergne, the first climb worthy of a mention is the Col des Fourches. This climb, which crests with 66km to go, is the first to have decent numbers; 2km at 6%, with a maximum of 7.3%.

The descent is relatively easy and wide, but after this comes a major challenge; the Col de Chansert. It's the first cat. 1 climb, and it surely deserves it. 12km at 5.7% gives a real opportunity for selection, whilst the maximum of 8% may encourage some riders to have a go at a long-range attack, though the biggest names will probably want to stay put for now.

The last challenge of the day, and probably one of the hardest climbs of the race (though there are further similar challenges to come ) is the mighty Col du Beal. The figures say it all: 8.8km at 9.1%, along with its position mean that the stage will very likely be decided here. The GC riders won't be able just to sit in the peloton if they want to win this race; Beal is the place where they need to try and gain, especially if they lost time the day before, in the ITT. The second intermediate sprint is located halfway through the climb, at Saint-Pierre-la-Bourlhonne - this should also encourage riders to attack, to take the available bonus seconds.

(the riders only climb the last 9km)
There's a 10km descent, and then a false flat 3km to the line at the ski station.

As I said; queen stage, and no sitting around for the favourites. Today is where they need to show their faces if they hope to win, especially if they're sitting with a loss after the ITT. Of course there will be other opportunities to gain time, but today is a prime example of those.

Start
Montluçon, Avenue Marx Dormoy (km0 is at Sainte-Agathe, on the D2144)
Finish
Chalmazel-Jeansagnière (station de ski), Bois Couzan E

Climbs
Côte de Larequille (7.3 Km at 3.1%, cat. 2),
Côte de Les Baraques (7.0 Km at 4.2%, cat. 3)
Côte de Pialoux (7.2 Km at 3.2%, cat. 3),
Col de Toutée (14.3 Km at 3.8%, cat. 2)
Col des Fourches (2.6 Km at 6.1%, cat. 2)
Col de Chansert (12.8 Km at 5.7%, cat. 1)
Col du Beal (8.8 Km at 9.1%, cat. 1)

Sprints
Saint-Dier-d'Auvergne
Saint-Pierre-la-Bourlhonne

The next stage
Another difficult stage... with a well known and tough conclusion.

 

[cycleMN]

Pacific Tour
Stage 12 Mountain Home- Twin Falls 152 km Flat

Stage 12 is back on the flat roads of Idaho. The race runs along and in the Snake River Canyon for most of the day so this one will be great for the helicopter shots of water and rocks. Should be a sprint but after yesterday the sprinters teams might look for an easy day so a small break could stick. However, with only two more sprint stages left in the race on stages 13 and 17, anyone attempting to win the points jersey can’t throw away opportunities to claim points at the line. No major difficulties along the way at least help them in their cause to control the bunch.

Snake River

National Forest Area

Perrine Bridge over Snake River

Twin Falls on the Snake

Mormon Temple- Twin Falls

 

[fauniera]

TOUR DE FRANCE

(Sat) stage 8: Auch - Cauterets, 166 km

The first Pyrenean stage is quite easy, Sunday will be much harder.

Final ramp, finish.

Auch

Cauterets

 

[Libertine Seguros]

A somewhat unusual short stage race from me now.

I've done a couple of Russian races before, an attempt at making something that wouldn't totally suck out of Pat McQuaid's absurd "St Petersburg to Moscow to Sochi" money race, and two different World Championships routes, one in a fairly accessible and reasonable location (Sochi), and one completely out in the sticks (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, the biggest city in the world that can't be accessed by road). I've long had an element of fascination with that part of the country east of the Urals; Siberia and the Russian Far East hold some kind of appeal, due to their relatively uncharted nature, the aspect of these isolated colonial outposts and secret Soviet cities and so on perhaps, I'm not quite sure, but there is a level of interest there. Unfortunately however, that does mean that much of Russian northern Asia has little to offer in the way of cycling; those roads that offer interesting enough terrain to produce racing are often far too far from any towns of note to be reasonable; far better to put the races in those parts of central Asia where Alpine skiing is actually remotely possible, towns have to be linked via passes and so on.

I have, however, designed a race that could produce some interesting racing out in the Russian Far East, although not in Siberia, rather in the maritime areas bordering the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk. The race is the GP Primorskogo Kraya, or Tour of Primorsky Krai, the region around Vladivostok, the eastern Terminus of the Trans-Siberian railway since 1916, which offers some more varied terrain and some worthwhile hills to create tough racing without biasing things too much. The region borders China for much of its western edge, and Khabarovsky Krai to the north; there is a small border with North Korea to the southwest but we don't go near that in the course of the five stages.

An interesting question would be whether the race would be included as part of the UCI Europe Tour or UCI Asia Tour - the only other really notable international race to take place in Russian Asia was the Way to Pekin, arranged around Chita for three years in the mid 2000s, which was placed on the UCI Europe Tour for two years then on the Asia Tour for its last edition. It's worth noting that classifications are sometimes a little flexible in this part of the world - Admiral Vladivostok hockey club play in the KHL, linking mostly Russian teams with eastern Europe, while PSK Sakhalin on nearby Sakhalin island play in the Asian league (to add a level of further confusion, the KHL recently admitted a Chinese team, although most of its players are Russian, so you have a Chinese team playing in the European competition and a Russian team in the Asian competition). Even if placed on the Europe Tour, though, the sheer distance is unlikely to make the race appealing to most European teams; unless packaged well with a race like Qinghai Lake (it's still a long way to travel from there, but easier to convince people than to fly out especially) or the Tour of Japan or Korea that some teams do. Certainly of 2016 teams you wouldn't expect anybody from the top two tiers other than Gazprom-Rusvelo to show up (unless an Italian team with little better to do fancied some potentially cheap continental cup points). It could be good to get some of the Japanese teams with some European names to make the short trip, though, with the likes of Toribio, Benjami Prades, Juanjo Oroz, Marcos García, Thomas Lebas, Wes Sulzberger and Óscar Pujol. There's also Lokosphinx, Helicopters, Astana City and Team Vino-4-Ever, and other teams from CIS or CIS-affiliated states such as the Minsk team, or Kolss, and some of the Chinese teams who bring in riders for Qinghai Lake and their own late season races. If we're especially lucky, some of the Iranian crazies could add another element to the field. Either way, we could get an unusual field and that would mean an interesting range of potential outcomes.

So, the race. The race consists of five stages, a prologue and four road stages; these vary from flat to hilly. There are no super long stages, as the field here isn't likely to be super strong, and while we do have interesting terrain here in Primorsky Krai, it isn't exactly the Kavkaz, so the biggest climbs are mostly short and it is their position, steepness or volume that will be expected to create the gaps, and there are only two categories for the mountains jersey. To lower costs, apart from one day the race apparatus will overnight in Vladivostok throughout, and all but one stage ends with a circuit to maximise potential fan involvement. Furthermore, the prologue will be, as with the Tour of Qatar a few years ago, conducted on road bikes with optional clip-on tri-bars, no full on time trial bikes. This based-around-one-main-city approach is fairly standard, following in the footsteps of major Russian national calendar stage races like the Tour of Sochi, the Tour of Adygeya and the short-lived and pan-flat GP Udmurtskaya Pravda.

Prologue: Vladivostok - Vladivostok, 7,3km

We start in the race's main base, the Pacific port city of Vladivostok, which sits on the Zolotoy Rog, or Golden Horn bay. The name "Vladivostok" derives from the root meaning "ruler" and the Russian word for "East", and it has served as the de facto capital of Russia's far east for almost its entire existence after being ceded by the Chinese in 1860; until 1916 it was a hard-to-reach colonial outpost, but the completion of the Trans-Siberian made it more accessible, and also enabled it to be used by the Whites in conjunction with other major powers including the US and Japan to springboard an offensive against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. Once this was decisively won, the city's strategic position and Russia's lack of alternative navigable sea routes meant that the Soviet Pacific Fleet was housed in the city, and therefore for the majority of the Soviet era it was closed to foreigners. In addition to being protected by the sea it also is surrounded by hills enabling it to remain defended and secluded; the highest of these is Gora Kholodil'nik (literally meaning "Mount Refrigerator"!).

We aren't climbing that much to begin with however, but this isn't a pan-flat straightforward time trial; instead there is a little climb in the middle of it that will mean that it could throw out some interesting results.

The stage begins at Central Square, on its southern side, riding along the edge of the bay past the Admiral Square park and the Teatr Kukol in the first kilometre before arriving at the much larger Opera and Ballet Theatre and leaving the shore to head up the first climb of the race; there will be a timecheck at the top and the fastest times there will garner mountain points. The climb consists of an initial uphill repecho of around 250-300m at 6-7%, before it flattens out for around 600-700m before the more sustained ramps begin. The first real steep bit leaps up to 13% before some more sustained climbing at 7%; it then ramps right up for the last 200m, saving its toughest gradients until last, when it gets up to 17% before riders turn left off Volodarskogo and onto Vsevoloda Sibirtseva. Overall it weighs in at 1700m at 5,7% but the last 800m are around 9%.

After the more traditional architecture near the coast, the riders then pass the Soviet-era Teatr Gorkogo, named for fabled socialist realist writer Maxim Gorky, on their way to the westernmost tip of the city, slowly sauntering downhill in a very straight route that will suit powerful and aerodynamic riders. When they get to the coast they are at the Okeanarium, a major attraction in the early days of the post-Soviet opening of the city, but now likely to be supplanted after the opening of the space-age looking Primorsky Aquarium across the straits on Russkiy Island.

A quick left-hander around Dinamo Stadium and then a couple of corners bring us back on to one of the city's main thoroughfares, Svetlanskaya, a nice imperial-era type street that takes us back to Central Square, where we finish on the opposite side to where we started, just a stone's throw from the train station that signals the end of the line for the TransSib.

At over 7km this is a fairly long prologue, but the gaps ought to still be pretty small, and it is quite likely time bonuses will therefore offer something to play for in the stages to come, nevertheless with the small berg in the middle of the stage there will most certainly be gaps produced in the GC and some riders will find themselves with a deficit to work back in the four stages to come.

 

[cycleMN]

Pacific Tour
Stage 13 Twin Falls- Pocatello 191 km Flat

This is the last flat stage that will have a high probability of ending in a large bunch sprint. The race overnights in Twin Falls and heads due east to Pocatello, a town of 57,000. For most of the race the riders follow I 84 either on a frontage road or close to it on other side roads. The scenery doesn’t alter from the first picture (see below). In other words- this is the stage to miss if you had to choose. This is a transition stage so one must get through this Friday stage to be rewarded with climbing and wind affected races for the next week.


Snake River Plain

American Falls

Pocatello

 

[cycleMN]

Pacific Tour
Stage 14 Idaho Falls- Jackson 143 km Medium Mountains

The teams head 45 mins to the start in Idaho Falls in the morning from their stay in Pocatello and the race leaves Idaho for a finish in Jackson, Wyoming. It is a short stage at 143 kilometers but the cat 3 climb towards the end of Teton Pass will be decisive. Before they get there, the peloton will have to deal with Pine Creek Pass which is another cat 3 climb. After the race passes through the sprint in Victor, the road is gradually uphill and the final 3.3 km average 9.2% which bodes well for an attack. The decent is a fast one so it will be a pursuit on the flat run in of 11 kilometers to the finish. The sprint in Wilson will tempt some of the sprinters to hang with the group or get in the break to collect points there then at the finish 15 minutes later. Probably a break will make it to the finish line first since the GC contenders will have their eyes on the time trial tomorrow. Jackson Wyoming sits in prime ski country and is just south of Grand Teton National Park.

Teton Pass Summit

Jackson side of Teton Pass

Jackson and Surroundings

 

[Libertine Seguros]

With some bonus seconds at the end of the descent though I wouldn't be surprised if you got some GC riders with a good sprint on them (the Evans/Valverde type) keen to keep the pace high on the climb though, at over 9% that's got a legit chance to take somebody by surprise. How's the descent, we could be in for something like the Gap 2011 stage if we're lucky.

 

[cycleMN]

It is a typical US main highway descent. In other-words it has sweeping corners that one can carry speed with little technical ability needed. Average of 8.4%.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Hello
I've designed a fantasy route for the 2017 Giro
Can I just start posting it at any time or should I wait till one of the current races is done?

 

[mikii4567]

You can start, I guess. I'll be done on Wednesday/ Thursday, dunno about the others.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Hello
I've designed a fantasy route for the 2017 Giro
Can I just start posting it at any time or should I wait till one of the current races is done?

Yes in short. You can start posting races when you want. However, when someone creates a race in the same area that someone is already posting, they will wait until the other has finished to create less confusion.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

You can start, I guess. I'll be done on Wednesday/ Thursday, dunno about the others.

Hello
I've designed a fantasy route for the 2017 Giro
Can I just start posting it at any time or should I wait till one of the current races is done?

Yes in short. You can start posting races when you want. However, when someone creates a race in the same area that someone is already posting, they will wait until the other has finished to create less confusion.

Cool, thanks

 

[cycleMN]

Pacific Tour
Stage 15 Teton Village- Teton Pass ITT 22 km Mountains
***Sorry about the following confusion. The first map is accurate through the first 14 kilometers, then refer to the second one for the final 8 kilometers. The stage profile is similar with both routes but I couldn’t find a program that let me take the old road which is now a bike trail closed to traffic. The old road has an average grade of 9% while the new one is 8.4%.***

This is the final time trial of the race. The riders will tackle the east face of Teton Pass individually in a stage in two parts. Teton Village is a ski resort which will host the stage of the stage. The finish of the stage is just off the main road on the summit of Teton Pass. The first 13 kilometers of the stage are dead flat so any sane person will start on a full aero time trial bike. After the first time check in Wilson the riders turn onto the old road to the top of the pass. Soon after the turn the road kicks up and the final 6 kilometers of the climb average 9.5 %. This means a bike change to a road bike will occur which should bring tension for riders, mechanics and fans alike hoping all goes well. It also should be taken note that this is the last day before the second rest day so there is no reason to hold back in a relatively short effort. This Sunday stage should be one of the decisive ones of the entire race.

Side note: Coming up in the final week 5 out of the 6 stages are mountain stages.

Teton Village

Old Highway Teton Pass

 

[Forever The Best]

Tour of Turkey Stage 7 Samsun-Ordu 155 km

http://www.la-flamme-rouge.eu/maps/viewtrack/hd/75594

The stage is mostly flat until we start a 2nd cat climb that is 13.6 Km at 4.2% and it tops at 25 km from the line.
After the descent and a bit of flat we start the 2nd and final climb of the day which is 6.4 km at %7.3 and it tops out 4.3 km from the line.A steep and extremely technical descent takes the riders to the finish at Ordu.
The intermediate sprint of the day is located in Fatsa.

Samsun:

Ordu:

Fatsa:

 

[LaFlorecita]

Fantasy 2017 Giro
Next year's Giro is of course Il Centesimo - the 100th edition. For this special occasion I wanted to use as much of Italy as possible. Just like the real race, the start of my version is on Sardinia, after that we'll visit Sicily and of course the mainland. It will be a mountain-heavy race but there'll also be a fair number of TT kms to balance this out a bit. The winner should be allround and also consistent, because both the 1st and last week are very tough: you can't get away with a super peak in just one week.
It was very tempting to include zero flat stages, but of course the sprinters should get their opportunity as well in a GT. There will be a few, but not too many true sprint stages, with several others that could possibly end in a bunch sprint depending on how they will be raced.

Anyway; let's get started with the first 3 stages in Sardinia

Stage 1: Sassari ITT, 12.9km

This time trial will form a first selection, but the gaps among the GC contenders likely won't be much bigger than 30 seconds. There is a short but steep road roughly halfway through, no KOM points can be earned here.
The start ramp will be on the Piazza d'Italia, which seems like a perfect name for the start of the 100th Giro d'Italia, and the finish will be located right besides the Cattedrale di San Nicola.

Piazza d'Italia

Cattedrale di San Nicola

Stage 2: Sassari - Oristano, 173.3km

This is a true medium mountain stage, with three 3rd category and two 4th category climbs. The stage takes us along the west coast to Oristano. Along the way we pass the Basilica della Santissima Trinità di Saccargia and the picturesque city of Bosa.
The hills shouldn't be any issue for the GC contenders but they give them an chance to loosen their legs and warm up for what is still to come later on in the first week. They also provide a good opportunity for KOM jersey hunters to open their account. The stage win could go to a break, but the sprinters and their teams are still fresh and without many opportunities for them, they might want to bring the race back together.

Basilica della Santissima Trinità di Saccargia

Bosa

Stage 3: Oristano - Cagliari, 133.4km

A short, flat stage will take the peloton to Cagliari. The sprinters should grab this opportunity with both hands because they won't get many more stages that are just as perfect for them as this one.
The finish will be scheduled early in the afternoon so the riders can arrive in Palermo (by flight) early in the evening.

Duomo of Oristano

Cagliari

Stay tuned for the next part...

 

[w52]

Volta a Portugal

Stage 10: Murça – Senhora da Graça (184.2km)

Stage 10 is the Monte Farinha day, in one of the Grandíssimima marks. In this edition the stage starts in the beautiful village of Murça in Trás-os-Montes region and will not have a single km of flat terrain, in a 184.2km of hell to the riders.
Right after the start in Murça we have the first climb of the day, a cat.3 in Pópulo an usual climb in some small Portuguese races. From Pópulo, riders will face a continuous up and down in direction to Vila Real where they star the first cat.1 of the day in Alvão, which is extremely used in the Volta nowadays.

Reached the top of Alvão, instead of going straight to Mondim de Basto, like in the previous editions of the real Volta, riders will go in direction to the Ermelo zone, which is known by the magnificent landscape with waterfalls (Fisgas do Ermelo).

The landscape can be beautiful but the competitors are not in the race for tourism and right after the passage in Ermelo, they have to climb the second cat.1 of the day in the Alto de Campanhó

Past Campanhó there will be 40km without categorised climbs, but the terrain will not be flat. In that section there are passages in some villages like Campeã and Santa Marta de Penaguião. At km127 is the 4th climb of the day a cat.3 in Pomarelhos. From Pomarelhos, a reduced main group will head to Vila Real again for a 2nd passage in Alvão, where someone can try a long range attack, since there will be few domestiques to help the leaders at that moment.

After the top of the ascent there is a long descent to Mondim de Basto and the last ascent of the day in the mythical Monte Farinha, with the finish line place in the Senhora da Graça sanctuary.

Overall, this stage should create big gaps in the GC and decide the winner of the competition….or not

Btw, its complicated when you are suffering in your bike and you see you have to climb this...

 

[cycleMN]

Pacific Tour
Stage 16 Casper- Mt. Casper 231 km Mountains

After the rest day we have a tribute to the now defunct Casper Classic. On paper this is the most decisive stage for the overall GC battle. Normally a flat stage with only a final climb doesn’t sound that threating but one would be wrong in that assumption. First, we are in the third week of the race now and it is the day after a rest day. Second we are in Casper, Wyoming and if one has ever been to this area of the country then they know that the wind never stops blowing a gale. Third, this stage is the longest of the race.

Now to flesh out the more fine details of this stage. The riders will tackle two parts of stages that were used in the Casper Classic Stage race which was a national level stage race that drew the best riders in the country from the mid 1980’s until 1995 when it folded. The first part of the stage is the Shirley Basin Road Race. The wind is relentless in Shirley Basin because as you can see in the pictures below there is nothing there to block the wind. The race will echelon there and groups will form by the feed zone with more than 100 kilometers to go. It will be a must to be at the front so you don’t lose out. Minutes will be lost if you get it wrong.

What is left of the lead group will fight out the stage on the slopes of Mt. Casper which hosted the mountain top finish in the Casper Classic every year. This is a deceptively difficult climb in the middle and having 225 kilometers of hard riding in the legs wouldn’t help. Riders that run out of energy here still can lose two minutes to the climbers that have something left after a hard day battling the wind. It is the equivalent of a spring classic with Ax-3-Domaines thrown in at the end for good measure. I hope you enjoy it.


Mt. Casper Profile

Casper

Shirley Basin

Mt. Casper

1990 Casper Classic Elite Women: Martha Wavrin in Yellow- most victories on Mt. Casper (3)

1990 Casper Classic Pro/1: Michael Nields Overall Winner

 

[Gigs_98]

@LaFlorecita
One year too late

 

[LaFlorecita]

@LaFlorecita
One year too late

Too bad

 

[May0maniac]

I'll finally continue my Giro dell' Euregio.
Giro dell' Euregio stge 2: Mezzocorona - Hoch-Imst; 209km

The stage starts in the small town Mezzocorona.

This stage is rather similar to the 2nd stage of this year's Giro del Trentino, long, a bit of rolling terrain and an uphill finish with a short but steep final climb. He difference is that this time we have another categorised climb, the Reschenpass/Passo Resia. On paper it's not a hard climb, but the Vinschgau/Val Venosta is known to be pretty windy, the Vinschgerwind can be pretty strong and usually it's a really strong headwind that makes the rather easy climb a lot harder, if you're riding alone it can be a rather unpleasant surprise, the breakaways riders will probably hate it.

The Vinschgerwind is also the main reason why the whole valley is pretty dry and the fields have to be irrigated. That's the rason why the Locals buil the so called Waale, small irrigation channels. Most of them have a small trail that goes alognside the channel, the so called Waalwege. They are pretty popular when it comes to hiking in that area.

Anoter interesting thing abou the Vinschgau i the fact that until the 17th century most of the population still spoke the Romansh language, the germanisation was a long process that started after the Reformation, the conflicts between the HRE and the Old Swiss Confederacy, mostly the House of Habsburg, also played a big role, and only ended durning the first half of the 19th Century, until then the Romansh language was still used in the Upper Vinschgau.
After the Reschenpass it's mostly false flat, with a few short and rather gentle descents until the final climb to Hoch-Imst, a ski station, starts, 2.1km at 12.2% with a max. gradient of 17%.

Someone like Purito would love the climb, short and really steep, perfect for light and explosive riders. on paper it really looks like one of those climbs that you'd expect to see in Pais Vasco and the whole stage looks like something that you'd usually find in the Vuelta (ok, maybe it's a bit longer than your usual Vuelta stage).
At the end of the stage we should get some gaps btween the gc favourites, not huge ones, but the more explosive gc contenders should be able to gain some time.
Imst:

 

[LaFlorecita]

Fantasy 2017 Giro

After three stages in Sardinia, the race continues in Sicily

Stage 4: Palermo – Caltanissetta, 190.9km

We’ve arrived to Sicily and the first stage here is a transition stage to Caltanissetta with 3 categorized climbs. The most difficult one is the 2nd category climb to Geraci Siculo, it’s not very steep but rather long. The fast guys will have to turn themselves inside out to stay within reach of the peloton and even then they will still have to get over the slightly shorter Resuttano. It seems this stage is more likely to go to a Kwiatkowski or Alaphilippe type of rider, or of course someone from a breakaway.

(Don’t mind the typo on the profile )

The climb to Geraci Siculo

Palermo

Cefalù

Stage 5: Ragusa – Monte Etna, 231.1km

Of course, when the race is in Sicily, it’s impossible to skip the mythical volcano. In 2011, Etna was climbed twice in the same stage (stage 9), first to Rifugio Citelli from Linguaglossa, then to Rifugio Sapienza from Nicolosi. Now we’ll do it in a different order: first we’ll climb to Rifugio Sapienza from Nicolosi. This is the hardest side of Etna, although all sides are rather similar in length and average gradient. The “official” climb starts in Nicolosi, but if we also count the uphill part between Piano Tavola and Nicolosi and even the short section before Piano Tavola, this side has 40km of nearly non-stop climbing.
After a descent into Zafferana Etnea, the riders will have to go up this beast another time, now to Rifugio Citelli. In 2011, the riders descended down this road instead.
An intermediate sprint is located in Zafferana Etnea. GC contenders could try to grab some bonus seconds here, however, those few seconds will be peanuts compared to the time that can be gained or lost on the final climb.

Rifugio Sapienza

Rifugio Citelli

Etna at the 2011 Giro

Ragusa

Siracusa

 

[w52]

Volta a Portugal

Stage 11: Felgueiras - Braga (149.5km)

After a demolishing stage in the previous day, we continue in difficult terrain in stage 11. This stage is another one with few sections of flat terrain, where are present several climbs, that will create a good show in theory.
Stage starts in Felgueiras, considered the capital of the shoes industry in Portugal. From Felgueiras riders will go in direction to Guimarães, climbing Penha. This side of Penha is the less used in competition, being only a cat.4. Its short but steep and can be decisive to create the break of the day. After Penha there is a descent to Guimarães, the city where Portugal born.

From Guimarães, stage goes straight to Vizela, where is placed the 2nd categorised climb of the day in S.Bento, a cat.2 short but very steep (+9% average) that is still unknown to Volta organizers.

Past São Bento, stage continues in a tricky terrain without flat sections, where Alto de Airão (cat.4) is the only categorised climb. From there to Braga is placed the most easy section of the stage. However, reached Braga difficulties start again with the ascent to Sameiro, that will be climbed 3 times in a final circuit in the city of Braga. The finish line is placed in the final of the descent of Sameiro.

This stage is ideal for a break or even for long range attacks of someone that had a bad day in the previous stage in Senhora da Graça

 

[cycleMN]

Pacific Tour
Stage 17 Casper- Wheatland 204 km Flat

This is Wyoming at its finest. Stage 17 is the last flat stage of the race. Starting in Casper, the finish is in the town of Wheatland (pop 3,500). After the finish, the riders will transfer to Cheyenne, Wyoming which is right down I- 25. This stage is gently rolling and exposed the whole way and the final 60 km or the section from 60- 140 kilometers will be strong crosswinds (depending on the most common wind directions). Any possible action will depend how the riders decide to race it because they will be shattered from the day before and the final four stages are in the high mountains. In summary, this is a true wildcard stage which could either cause havoc or be a snooze-fest. A small group of riders of around 5-20 will contest the victory in all probability either from a break or reduced bunch from the wind.

Douglas

A lot of this today

Wheatland from a Distance

Small Preview of the Grand Finale

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I'm off somewhere completely different, but going about things the same way as w52, it seems.

GP Primorsky Krai
Stage 1: Bolshoy Kamen' - Nakhodka, 172km

This is a bit of a strange way to start the first road stage of the race: Bolshoy Kamen' (Большой Камень), which literally means "large stone" is a town of around 40.000 people which was a former Soviet closed town, owing to its integral naval base and the Zvezda shipyard. The town was integral to the decommissioning of the former USSR's nuclear submarines, and as a result it was only in 2015 that the closed status was revoked and the town became accessible again. As a result, after the historic colonial town and expanding cultural hub of the Russian Far East that is Vladivostok, this will be a stark reminder of the former world, being as it is so typical of Soviet planned industrial towns, with wide open boulevards and prefabricated, drab and crushing apartment blocks in the appropriate style.

The stage is really not about its start though, as it's divided into two parts, the route to Nakhodka and the circuit within the city. There isn't a great deal of true flat in this stage, so there could be some interesting fights for the breakaway, although it doesn't really get too challenging too early as we wind our way along the A188 through rolling, bumpy terrain through towns like Fokino until we reach the stage town, the city of Nakhodka (Находка), meaning "Discovery". With over 150.000 inhabitants it's one of the largest cities in the whole Krai, although it wasn't ever thus; the city was a mere fishing village until the 1930s, when a new harbour was built and the city rapidly swelled around it. As a result of only having city status since the 1950s, it's very modern and spacious, but also luckily not as blockish and miserable as many industrial cities of the era.

Once the riders have arrived in Nakhodka, they have four laps of a 23,5km circuit to undertake. There is only one categorized climb on the circuit, although the rest is far from flat. The circuit begins almost immediately with a ramp of around 450m at 7%, before it heads into a rolling phase along the seafront into the southern part of the city. Then a 90º right-hander takes us onto a long straight which takes us through the first half of the most serious climb of the stage.

With a maximum gradient reaching 18%, this is a puncheur's climb for sure, with those 2km averaging close to 9% before it flattens out just before the final drag to the summit. The descent is quite fast, with some sweeping corners but no real technical tests, and quite wide, so you'll need more than a few bike lengths at the summit to make it count as there are 13,2km from the end of the climb to the end of the circuit. As it's the only real challenge on the course (the other climbs will break up rhythm and cause some consternation but they're mainly short, and as the circuit is fairly long, I anticipate the last lap to be where all the real moves will be made). The last obstacle is that, after the fast lefts and rights of the descent, there's a leg-sapping drag of around a kilometre in length into a fairly new housing area. It's dead straight and while most of it is only 3-4% there is a max of 9% so this could give a platform for a last attempt at a solo if a group is together at the head of the race here, being just 5km from home. The finish comes on Prospekt Mira, to ensure safety of a group should we see a reduced bunch gallop.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Stage 2: Nakhodka - Artëm, 174km

If stage 1 was best suited to puncheurs and Classics men, then this second stage is more for the durable sprinters, although there are options for a tough rouleur; there are plenty of platforms for a good baroudeur to give it a go but they'll need to be pretty powerful to make it stick. After overnighting in Nakhodka, the only night away from Vladivostok in the race, the riders head off on a course of similar length to yesterday's as they head back northwestwards, only this time taking the inland routes rather than the lowland routes near the coast that they did yesterday. This entails going through the "Golden Valley", Zolotaya Dolina, а scenic verdant natural region fed by the Partizanskaya river.

Here's a shot of the road in the background with the river at the fore:

This route also enables an early intermediate sprint in Partizansk, which gives its name to the river and is the largest town in the area, with a population of just under 40.000. It sits in the foothills of the Sikhote-Alin Mountains, a low-lying range which brings most of the challenges of the day's racing. For the most part this is false flat at first; we've already been over a couple of low gradient ramps by this point, but just out of the town there is a steeper climb which is categorized. This leads into the toughest climb of the day after a rolling uphill stretch that will suit the escape as there's little chance for the bunch to build a rhythm. From the village of Serebryanoe to the summit of the pass of the same name there's 8km at around 4%, but the first half of that is just false flat; the last 4km are at over 7% and essentially make up the toughest climb thus far, although with 80km remaining it's of course unlikely to make much difference to the outcome. However, some sprinters whose climbing skills are among the least convincing in the bunch may have to work to get themselves back on in the long and fast valley section that follows, as the bunch will want to gradually turn up the heat to catch the breakaway.

There are two categorized climbs in the last 30k but they really aren't that threatening, and so this should be one for the bunch, however miscalculations are possible - this is the only stage without circuits at the finish as well, so the race is straight to the line rather than giving riders a chance to get to know the run-in; the first of the two climbs is at 26km remaining and it's 1,9km @ 4,3% with one ramp of 10% around halfway up that could provide a platform for an exploratory move, at least among a smaller group such as the break. The second climb, much closer to the finish, crests just inside 15km remaining, so there's a chance riders could be tempted to give it a go, especially in the scope of the race (not to give too much away), although they will find it hard to make this climb especially decisive, being 2,8km but averaging a mere 3,6% - barely if at all categorizable elsewhere save for that it's relatively close to the line. The climb consists of a stepped first kilometre at a bit over 4%, then a flattening out before a gradually steepening 600m or so that culminate in the climb's only severe gradients, a section reaching over 10%, before flattening to a final kilometre averaging a more consistent 4%. A lot will come down to positioning as, like Milan-San Remo, the descent of the final climb is tougher than its climb.

Unlike the more illustrious race, however, said descent is not especially challenging, so this will likely be a frantic chasedown for the weaker climbing sprinters to get themselves and their trains back on to the group contesting the win and then get themselves into position to benefit from that. The all important section is a long left-hander with around 750m to go - it's about a 150º corner, although it is comparatively wide and so shouldn't cause the kind of bottle-necking to the extent we often see on hairpins or areas where the road narrows.

The finishing town of Artëm (Artyom) is rapidly expanding, going in the opposite direction to many of the former closed and military towns in the region; acting as a satellite of Vladivostok its population has grown from 60.000 to over 100.000 since 2000, although the population had dwindled a little in the immediate post-Soviet era to artificially inflate that increase slightly. Traditionally a mining town, the proximity to Vladivostok International Airport has become a boon to the city's economy since its larger neighbour was opened up to foreigners, with the accompanying Trans-Siberian Railway tourism meaning huge numbers of tourists start or finish their journeys here, as well as internal transportation for the vast quantities of goods imported from Japan via the ports at Nakhodka and Vladivostok.