Culture check… it’s nice to see lots of evidence around the sport of cycling that this remains “opening weekend,” despite plenty of evidence to the contrary that, well, people are racing their bikes already. At the UCI level. World Tour even. Because I am old, I can remember the Tour of Qatar from the mid-aughts, when guys would go down there and soft-pedal for a few hours until it was time for Tom Boonen to sprint. Now… I would not be so dismissive of the action we have seen in Spain, Portugal, France, and even the UAE. Guys are racing their bikes pretty hard, and if we are overreacting to those early season results, it’s simply not as ridiculous as it used to be.
It is still an overreaction, though, since it’s a long season and results tend to reflect who is ahead or behind, accidentally and/or on purpose, in their training. Josh Tarling is ahead, can we agree on that? Maybe Jay Vine too? And definitely Tim Merlier, unless you want to note that he’s always pretty fast in February, so perhaps he is simply on time. Wout Van Aert is definitely behind, with seven race starts and only one win! The shame of it all.
Anyway, this weekend we have the opening of Belgium classics racing at the Omloop and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, in addition to the Faun Ardèche Classic and the Faun Drôme Classic, two races in the adjoining Ardèche and Drôme regions of southeastern France, between Lyon and Marseilles. The Tour de France passes through both regions relentlessly, either entering or leaving the Alps phase, and often with spectacular action for those middle-mountain stage-chasing days. Both of this weekend’s classics feature plenty of climbs, with longer climbs to nearly 700m altitude on Saturday, and shorter, punchy bits at lower altitudes on Sunday. The “Faun” in Faun Ardèche and Faun Drôme is a company that makes… garbage trucks? Anyway, garbage collection is not as sexy as business time, but it’s still very important.
On the women’s side, it’s an equally busy weekend, and more definitively the start of real hostilities, with the Omloop and its companion race, the Omloop van het Hageland, running Saturday and Sunday, plus the Clasica de Almeria in Spain. The Hageland is an old name…
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