As the title suggests, what are the big races leading up to the tour de france? I’m looking for the races that TdF gc contenders would want to do well in. I know that the Criterium du Dauphine is an important race, but I am sure there are others.
My initial thoughts would be some of the classics (Listed below) and Paris-Nice (Wiggins last year), Tour de Romandie (Wiggins last year), Giro (Hesjedal last year).
Cycling Classics 2013:
Omloop Het N Feb 23
Strade Bianche Mar 3
Milan-San Remo Mar 16
E3 - Harelbeke Mar 22
Gent-Wevelgem Mar 24
Tour of Flanders Mar 31
Paris-Roubaix Apr 7
Amstel Gold Apr 14
Fleche Wallonne Apr 17
Liège-Bastogne-L Apr 21
San Sebastian Jul 27
After the TdF
UCI Worlds Sep 22-29
Giro di Lombardia Oct 5
I was wondering whether the classics were good TdF training grounds or not. Typically, they are won by one-day specialists, no? A quick look at the standings of last year’s Milan-San Remo, and I see a lot of the top sprinters from the giro, tour and vuelta.
PETE, watch the classics. They are a whole different beast from the grand tours and arguably more entertaining.
Grand tour contenders flex their legs in the last week of the classics - the ardennes.
totally agree, in general i find the Classics more entertaining.
Most grand tour contenders don’t bother doing the Classics because they feel that they can’t win them anyways, like Contador. There are two notable exceptions though (at least, the two that most readily come to mind), and from what i read about them, they have similar race/train philosophies.
They are Nibali and Hesjedal. Both of them select their Classics races (the Strade Bianchi, Milano San Remo and the Ardennes - which are later in the Spring) and then go for the win. This way, being a main target of the season, they really go deep, like to their max, as they would during a Grand Tour, as opposed to say other GC riders who don’t target any of them and ride them all including Roubaix, Flanders; but then either don’t finish or don’t go hard because they tell themselves that they can’t win anyway.
My 2 cents to answer your question…
Paris-Nice (March 3-10)
Tirreno-Adriatico (March 6-12)
Volta Ciclista a Catalunya (March 18-24)
Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco (Tour of the Basque Country) (April 1-6)
[sometimes] Amstel Gold (April 14)
[sometimes] Fleche Wallonne (April 17)
[sometimes] Liege - Bastogne - Liege (April 21)
Tour de Romandie (April 23-28)
[if they’re idiots] Giro d’Italia (May 4-26)
[if they’re Chris Horner] Tour of California (May 12-19)
[almost always] Criterium du Dauphine (June 2-9)
Tour de Suisse (June 8-16)
Tour de Luxembourg (June 12-16)
I would personally not say that races like Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix (i.e. 1 day cobbled classic races) would be good candidates for training for modern GC contenders (usually heavier manly-man types win these and not the kind of dainty mountain goats that win the tour). That’s not to say that these races aren’t worth watching, in fact I would agree that they are sometimes more fun to watch.
Also, there’s different kinds of classics. You got your cobbled classics, sprint classics, and hilly classics. It’s logically plausible that a guy like Contador could win a hilly classic but because they’re just not that hilly it’s not like he’s an absolute favorite.
Check out http://www.steephill.tv/2013/uci-world-calendar/ Generally speaking the cool races are anything that’s labelled as “HIS” “PT” “2.HC” “2.1” “1.HC” and some of the “1.1” (Strande Bianche)
That being said, all bike races are cool and you should become a dork like me and consume everything procycling related
Thanks for the input! Full disclosure, i want to write a program that predicts the winners of the tour de france, using correlations between the standings of prior races.
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