Category: World Tour Racing

It’s late summer in Europe, the season is drawing to a close, the classics are a distant memory, the excitement of the Giro and the Tour are behind us and something needs to fill the void: step forward La Vuelta a España. However, La Vuelta is more than just the poor relation to the other grand tours; Spain provides a fantastic landscape for cycling. Here’s why we think La Vuelta is better than it’s Gallic counterpart:

1. It’s Unpredictable:

A mix of those for whom luck or form wasn’t on their side at the Tour and are seeking that missing win, those searching form for the world championships and young guns itching to show off their ability makes for explosive racing. There have been 8 different winners of La Vuelta in the past 10 years, which is a testament to the variety of the racing.

2. The Parcours:

There’s no such thing as a siesta in La Vuelta! The Vuelta is known for being the preferred parcours of the climbers for good reason: shorter, punchier stages make for aggressive and exciting racing. Those who cured their insomnia during the 200 km+ formulaic sprint stages of the Tour can expect no such rest from it’s Spanish counterpart. Only one stage of the 2018 Vuelta is over 200 km in length and there are also 9 summit finishes to look forward to. Stage 20, up to the Coll de la Gallina in Andorra, looks to be the deciding stage with 4,000 metres of ascent in just 105.8 km.

3. Crazy new climbs:

Of the aforementioned 9 summit finishes in this year’s race 3 are brand new, the first is on Stage Four in the form of the 16 km long La Alfaguara climb in the Sierra de Huétor Natural Park. Next comes Les Praeres de Nava on Stage 14: 4.7 km at a grueling 13.5% average which is sure to get the pure climbers out of the saddle off the front. Lastly, the conclusion of Stage 17 will feature the debut of Balcon de Bizkaia after 166.5 km through the Basque Country.

4. Riders are more accessible:

La Vuelta’s marginally lower profile coupled with Spain’s rather more chilled attitude to life means that riders are not fielded around in such a tightly controlled environment compared to the Tour, which is good news for media and spectators alike as it makes contact with riders at the start and finish areas more accessible meaning chatting to riders and getting the obligatory selfie is easier…

5. The weather!

The Spanish late summer weather is perfect for both racing and spectating. The oppressive heat of mid-summer has dissipated but autumn cold is yet to draw in. If the Giro is known for adverse weather affecting the outcome and the Tour for its scorching July heat then the weather at the Vuelta is barely newsworthy when it comes to the race as you can expect middle-ground temperatures and sunshine. That being said look out for any Pyrenean and Basque stages where weather is never dependable!

6. Emerging riders

Younger riders who have performed well throughout the season are generally given a chance to prove themselves over three weeks at the Vuelta meaning we get to see the potential future stars in action. These riders also generally light up the race as they are keen to ride aggressively and justify their place on the roster.

Like the sound of the Vuelta climbs? Here’s how to ride them with Eat Sleep Cycle:

• La Gallina, Andorra – get up close and personal with the riders on our Vuelta Tour this September
• Les Praeres – a feature in our Trans-Asturias epic.
• The Balcon of Bizkaia – check out our soon to be released Tour of the Basque Country

Liked this blog? Subscribe to receive weekly updates & don’t miss our Vuelta Series coming at you from the end of August.

Tour de France Diary Stage 13, Bourg d´Oisans to Valence, 170k

We´re edging higher into the double digits for stages completed and thankfully, yesterday offered a little more respite than the three days previous.

There was more downhill than uphill, which is rare, but don´t think for a second we were out for a Sunday ´bunchy´!

Yes, we covered 170k in an eye-watering 3 hours and 45 minutes….at an average speed of 45kph, bringing my saddle time up to a tidy 55 hours for the race so far.

It was just about trying to keep my legs as fresh as possible in the hope I can get in a break soon.

The long, hot stages in the Alps have taken their toll and the peloton is definitely tired now, and some more tired than others.

Yesterday we managed to get Michal in the break and what a relief that was that the move went by the time we hit the base of the  cat three climb after 30k!

In fact, the break went very early when escape artist Thomas de Gendt (Lotto Soudal) finally cleared the field with my Kiwi countryman Thomas Scully (EF Education First-Drapac).

Michael and Dimitri Claeys (Cofidis, Solutions Credits) stormed across, the peloton gave them the green light and they were gone for much of the day.

The fact they were gone before the cat three climb meant there was no real race up it and we in the bunch were all spared a big effort!

Getting in a break is a complex mix of blind luck,  timing and skill.

A rider high on GC is unlikely to get away, as is a sprinter because nobody wants to go to the line with them.

Guys who have had their heads down in the race are given more slack, and Michael is one  of those. He skipped across at a perfect time, so his timing was right. 

In short, if you´re strong as a horse you don´t need as much luck. If you´re not so strong, you need to be in the right place at the right time and get the nod from the bunch.

Michael was the last man standing yesterday as the other three dropped off one by one. 

Groupama-FDJ-led were among those really driving it on and with 25k to go it was clear Michael was never going to stay out there as his lead was cut to 30 seconds.

He made one last effort to try and stay away by going really deep over a small climb but with a hungry pack containing Sagan, it needed a lot more than what Michael had left to survive.

Still, he ended the day as the most combative rider and that was very fitting, given his efforts.

Greg gave the sprint a decent crack and took fifth, which proves he is far more than a one-trick pony!

Today we´ve another hilly one with an uphill finish on the cards. We start in Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux and finish in Mende with a total of 188k and 4 categorised climbs to get through.

The stage is too hilly for a pure sprinter to win and could be one for the break so I´ll be trying to get in this!

The categorised climbs are Cote du Grand Chataignier (Cat. 4, with an average of 7.4% and a distance of 1km), Col de la Croix de Berthel (Cat.2 with an average of 5.3% and a distance of 9.1km), Col du Pont Sans Eau (Cat.3 with an average of 6.3% and a distance of 3.3km) and Cote de la Croix Neuve (Cat.2 with an average of 10.2% and 3 km long).

Let´s see how we go.

Paddy

Tour de France Diary: Stage 12, Bourg Sant Maurice Les Arcs – Alpe d´Huez, 175k

When I eventually hang up my racing wheels, yesterday is one of the days I´ll recall with very fond memories.

Growing up in Taupo, New Zealand, I remember watching the Tour de France in the black of night and counting down the days until the race would hit the high mountains.

Alpe d´Huez is one of the sport´s iconic climbs and I would smash up hills near where I lived thinking I was on it, banking into each of the 21 hairpin bends and soloing away to victory.

As soon as I saw the route for this year´s Tour last October I had it as a goal for 2018 – to make the Tour de France team for BMC and savour the atmosphere on Alpe d´Huez.

If you´re a professional bike rider, it´s the race you really want to do and Alpe d´Huez is up there as one of the truly standout places to be.

So starting into yesterday´s 12th stage, I knew it would be a fight to the finish because Team Sky had a clear battle plan to really crush the opposition.

The pace from the drop of the flag was relentless and the 160k that preceded the climb was horrible, absolutely horrible.

I have to take my hat off to Kruijwijk for his long shot solo break because that was one hell of an effort. When I heard he was 6 minutes clear of the peloton I just thought, wow, that guy deserves to win!

The hardest part of the climb is the bottom but the crowds really pull you along. They´re in on top of you, shouting and screaming and urging you for more effort.

I was neatly tucked into a knot of around 40 riders and we were literally being sucked along. You hear your name being called on occasion, you get beer thrown over you, the noise is constant, there´s smoke and flares and Dutch guys in orange clothes going bonkers.

We hit corner 10 and it was like Ireland had invaded France there was such a crew there! One man in the race to support but what an atmosphere they created!

It was one of the most memorable climbs I´ve ever done in my life and afterwards you´re just so wiped out but you think, I could do that again some day! Hopefully I´ll have many more days on it in the Tour.

Maybe I´ll be a bit further up as well! We were all safely inside the time limit, which was some consolation. After that, it´s all about getting home really. There´s not much more you can do.

The pace is still pretty solid going up and though you find it hard to get your heart rate very high up after 12 days of hard racing, my power numbers told me I was still pushing harder than maybe I´d like.

That´s the same for us all though, and even though we were almost half an hour down on Geraint, we still had to fight for all our worth yesterday.

The atmosphere in these bunches can get a little terse too from time to time, and yesterday I´d describe it as glum!

But then again, if you go out and ride 5,200 metres and get a beer flung in your face, maybe you´re entitled to be a little cranky too!

Today, thankfully, has more downhill than uphill, which is to be celebrated.

It will probably end in a sprint unless the breakaway hold out.  We´re starting in beautiful Bourg d’Oisans and before we reach Valence after 168k we have 2 categorised climbs.

With so many sprinters gone from the race now; Cav, Kittel, Gaviria, Groenewegen and Greipel it means that there are even less teams to actually want to pull back a break for the sprint.

But once Sagan is there, you know Bora-Hansgrohe will pull for him.

Hopefully today I can get a chance to recover and maybe even sniff out a break!

Wish me luck.

Paddy

Tour de France Diary Stage 11, Albertville to La Rosiere, 108k

Deep in the Alps. Deep in suffer mode. At times, yesterday was like being submerged in water with our nostrils above the surface.

It was a pretty tough stage as we knew it would be after Tuesday´s er, stalemate?

I knew what to expect because we rode this exact stage last month on stage 6 of the Dauphine but the Tour is like the bigger, badder, uglier brother to the Dauphine. 

The Tour is the show. The Dauphine is the rehearsal. As Sean Kelly says on Eurosport, the Tour is the “100% race”! 

You don´t leave anything behind because you can´t. It was a short stage, relatively, but give me a 250k snore-fest over a 100k boxing match, uphill, any day!

Sadly for us yesterday, we lost the jersey. Greg gave all he could but when Team Sky decide to let rip, they take no prisoners and his eight-day reign as race leader is over.

He´s not disappointed to be unseated, mind. It was a run that had to come to an end at some point and he defended it very well on the first mountain stage on Tuesday. So we can all be proud of his, and our own, efforts.

Few riders can live with Sky when they ride like that.

I rolled home in the group with Greg around 22 minutes down and he´s now 27th overall. So our attention now goes to chasing stage wins, as Damiano demonstrated yesterday.

It was great to see him wriggle away and show his talent in an effort to win the stage, and I´m sure we´re going to see more of that in the next 10 days.

Riding up these Alpine climbs is an exhilarating experience. Forget the lactic acid and burning in the legs, the crowds are just unbelievable and they help numb that pain. 

A huge shout out to the Kiwi supporters who´ve come further than anyone on this planet to cheer us on.

There are only four of us in the race; myself, Dion Smith, Tom Scully and Jack Bauer but the amount of silver ferns and Kiwi flags the last few days have been inspiring!

Thank you guys! 

When that adrenaline courses through you on a stage it´s a magical feeling and you can go that little bit deeper to stay with the group. But boy is it a different story when it wears off and you sink into the seat on the team bus after a stage.

Now, onto day 12 today and that jaw-dropping Alpine behemoth towering above us; Alpe d´Huez!

It´s a new one for me because we didn´t do it last year. My earliest memory of it was watching it as a 13-year old kid growing up near Lake Taupo on New Zealand´s North Island.

The Tour would be on at crazy times of the day for me but  I´d be up watching it after midnight as we´re 10 hours ahead down there. The worst part was having to go to bed straight after it and wait until morning to ride my bike, thinking I was in the Tour ripping around the lake. 

I remember Lance Armstrong absolutely blitzing Ivan Basso back then, passing him on the road like he was standing still. The crowds blew me away and I remember thinking ´I want to be there some time´. 

They estimated the crowds at 750,000 people back then. 

But before Alpe d´Huez today we have to get over the Col de Madeleine (Cat. HC, avg. gradient of 6.2% and a distance of 25.3km), Lacets de Montvernier (Cat. 2, avg gradient of 8.2% and a distance of 3.4km), Col de la Croix de Fer (Cat HC, avg gradient of 5.2% and a distance of 29 km ) and then Alpe d’Huez (Cat.HC, avg. gradient 8.1% and a distance of 13.8km).

Don´t expect me to be passing any GC guys on the road like Lance did, however!

Thanks for reading.

Paddy

Tour de France diary; Rest day. July 16th, 2018

Boy was I in need of that day off yesterday!

Like I said in yesterday´s blog, my day would consist of very, very, very little, so if it´s excitement you´re after in this post, you can stop reading now!

90 minutes of easy pedalling is what I did, followed by complete rest at the team hotel.

By easy, I mean VERY easy, just me and the guys and a few of the staff (who were badly in need of some saddle time after a stressful opening week!).

It was as much a physical break as a mental one and that involved having as little stress, noise and distractions as possible.

Racing the Tour is the ultimate test of your cycling ability and it tests you in every way but when I´m wound up, I like to take a step back and look at this life I´m living and say, it ain´t so bad.

Rest days give me that headspace and I tried not to think too much about the week ahead.

Of course, when you´re in the Tour bubble it´s hard to escape and I know a punishing day lies ahead today.

I´ve raced in the Alps before: last year´s Tour and the Dauphine just a few weeks ago.

They´re unforgiving and we know it´s likely Greg will lose the jersey today, so we´re prepared for that.

But saying that, having a GC rider brings a certain responsibility and it means no matter how easy or hard a day it is, you still have to be switched on.

Feeding, watering and keeping Greg out of the wind will be the goal. 

Maybe a post-cycling career as a horticulturist is calling?

Today´s stage will be the first real mountain day  of this year´s race and we´re going to see the first big GC battle.

We roll out of Annecy and if you´ve not been, you really should check it out. What an awesome spot with a beautiful lake and a wonderfully vibrant atmosphere. I can´t help but notice the mountains soaring skyward from every direction!

Today´s stage to Le Grand Bornard is 158.5k and with a total of 5 categorised climbs, and real climbs for the first time in this year´s race.

I´ve raced in the Alps last year at the Tour and the Dauphine a few weeks ago so I know what to expect.

They´re brutal, no doubt, and if you have a bad day you´re going to lose time.

The first and the smallest categorised climb will be a cat 4 (Col de Bluffy) with an average of 5.6% and a distance of 1.5km, so that will be fine if I can go deep for a few minutes.

The second one is a different story, though. It´s the cat 1 Col de la Croix Fry with an average of 7% and a distance of 11.3k followed by the biggest of the stage, cat HC (Plateau des Glières climb)  with an average of 11.2% and a distance of 6k.

By that stage the race will be broken into pieces – though there are still two more climbs to go; the cat. 1 (Col de Romme) with an average of 8.9% and a distance of 8.8k and the fifth cat.1 ( Col de la Colombière) with an average of 8.5% and a distance of 7.5k.

Expect to see a major GC showdown here this afternoon. 

Oh, and if that wasn´t hard enough, we´re going to ride a gravel road for the first time since 1991!

Time to get kitted up!

Paddy

Stage 7, Fougeres to Chartres, 231k

Sorry if we bored you yesterday! Let´s get that out there before we start, shall we?

It was the longest of the race at 231 kilometres and on a pan-flat course, it was always going to be a day for the sprinters.

After the madness of the opening six stages I think everybody was keen for an ´easier´day and an average speed of just 40 kilometres an hour would suggest that.

But that doesn´t paint the full picture for a guy who spent over half of it towards – or on, the front keeping sketch.

There are no ´rest days´ when you have to ride 231 kilometres and for me, it was more of the same of the babysitting role I´ve done for the opening week.

By babysitting I mean constantly checking on Richie and Greg who is our GC leader and man in yellow, respectively.

We like to think Greg is minding the jersey for Richie and will pass it over to him when we get into the Alps next week! But let´s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.

Back to yesterday and as easy as it may have looked on TV, it was another day on tour for me.

For the last 120k I had to be on point and ready to be right there for my team.

Whenever there is wind there is danger and stress as some teams, namely Ag2r La Mondiale on this occasion, tried to split the race in the crosswind.

They do that by basically riding hard when the wind is buffeting us from the side, forcing a sharp rise in the pace.

They ramp up the speed and you can almost imagine a bell sounding to warn the peloton of impending danger and the safest place to be is at the very front!

It just puts the whole bunch on edge and anyone at the back is thinking, ´f***, time to get out of dodge´.

As it happened, a few GC men missed a split but the wind died down, their teammates went back for them and paced them back up. But it´s stress we can do without and energy we need to save.

At one point we were completely across the road and still riding at almost 400w. That´s a lot of power just to stay in front.

I read last night how some guys used the stage to chat and mingle and shoot the breeze with each other. Not me, though. I don´t really get time to chat, though I catch up with the Kiwi guys when I can.

It´s funny how the four of us live in Girona: that´s me, Dion, Scully and Jack but we use a Tour stage to catch up!

Anyway, we all got through it again, so it was another successful day defending yellow.

That brings us on to today which starts in Dreux just west of Paris and heads north for the finish in Amiens, with 181 kilometres ahead of us this afternoon.

Arnaud Démare is from the area and he will be among the favourites to win the stage as it is more than likely going to end in a sprint.

Speaking of the sprint stages, how hectic are they? I can´t recall a time when there was such an amount of fast men in the bunch and I could probably rattle off the names of 15 guys who can justifiably fancy it today.

Greipel is among those and he´ll be hunting his first win of this year´s race having also won in Amiens three years ago.

There´s likely going to be echelons, but maybe nothing strong enough to rip the race apart and with a wicked cobbled stage awaiting us tomorrow I reckon teams are wanna keep their powder dry for that.

Having said that, there´s still a couple of climbs to negotiate today; one after 35 kilometres with an average gradient of 4.3% for 2 kilometres and the second after  71 kilometres with an average of 4.3% and a similar distance of 2.3km.

That latter climb is over 100 kilometres from the finish, so expect another helter-skelter finish because the sprinters might not get another shot at it for a while!

Thanks for reading.

Paddy