On The Road
by: Bill Oetinger 5/1/2023
Spring Fling
Here we are at May again, with Springtime well and truly launched. And what a Spring it has been. After several years of drought, we got drenched. Boy, did we ever! Record-breaking rainfall, early and often. Reservoirs brim full and releasing into their downstream creeks and rivers. The Sierra snowpack also setting records and the only worry being whether the snow will melt too soon and too heavily and cause flooding.
It may not be cycling weather up around Truckee but it surely is down here in the temperate coastal hills. We had our little snow-capped peaks up along the Geysers a few weeks ago, looking very scenic, but now it’s almost all sunshine and dry roads off into the future. We may get a few more sprinkles but mostly we’re out there rolling out our miles and shedding more and more of our cold-weather clothing each week.
But this column isn’t a local weather report. I only start with that theme to get the ball rolling on the real topic: the racing season in Europe through the first months of the year. And, to echo my opening: what a Spring it has been! If you’re a fan of bike racing, all seasons are fascinating. But I can’t recall a recent Spring season that has been as entertaining as this one and so full of omens and auguries for the even bigger races ahead.
I can’t cover every single itty-bitty race on the Euro calendar, nor the early-season events in the Southern Hemisphere. I have to focus on the ones that seem most significant, both in their own right and in what they may say about the prospects of certain prime-time players going forward into those bigger races on the horizon. I’m going to divide this up into two parts: the stage races and the one-day Monuments and classics. (This will be a long review. If you’re a race fan, you should enjoy it; if you’re not, you won’t hurt my feelings if you move on to other, less taxing reading.)
There were two 5-stage events running from February 15-19: the Volta ao Algarve and the Ruta del Sol (aka Vuelta a Andalucia). Let’s take the one that seems less significant first…
At the Volta ao Algarve, nothing too significant happened through the first three stages. There was an uphill finish on Stage 2 but all the presumptive GC favorites finished in a bunch, within 2 seconds of each other. On Stage 4, a mild uphill finish, Tom Pidcock (INEOS Grenadiers) won and took over the GC, with other hopefuls down through the top ten, all within :30. The final stage was an almost flat time trial of 24.4 km…15 miles. I would have thought Pidcock would kill it in such a short, easy ITT. (See his performance at Strade Bianche, later.) But he coughed up a hairball this time and finished in 19th place at 1:27. Sneaking in among the ITT specialists—Kung, Cavagna, Ganna, Foss—Pidcock’s teammate Dani Martinez finished 4th at :16. He had been :23 behind Pidcock going into the time trial, so that was enough to put him on top. (No one else was close.) Martinez is a decent time trial rider—he’s won the Colombian national title three times—but this was impressive and maybe a little unexpected, just about as unexpected as Pidcock’s flop. This is Dani’s only good result so far this year.
At the Ruta del Sol, Tadej Pogačar (UAE) opened his account for 2023 by pretty much running the table. He won three of the five stages (1, 2, 4) with modest but comfortable leads over either Mikel Landa (Bahrain-Vicotious) or Enric Mas (Movistar). Stage 3 laurels went to folks in a breakaway—none of them a threat—while Pogačar again finished ahead of his chief rivals in the main peloton. Stage 5 was a day for the sprinters and this time he once again finished ahead of the other GC riders. In the end he won the overall by 1:18 over Landa, with a few other big names scattered down through the top ten. It’s not all that important an event but what makes it feel significant was the casually competent way Pogačar controlled the race from start to finish. He hardly looked like he was trying but he rode away from his rivals whenever he needed to.
Next up was the 7-stage UAE Tour (Feb 20-26). Pogačar had won this race the last two years. Adam Yates won it in 2020. There was a fair amount of head-scratching and speculating when UAE signed Yates this past off-season. This race at least partly explained why they did it: Yates would be the team leader, freeing up Pogačar to do other events, such as Ruta del Sol. More arrows in their team quiver. But Yates and his UAE team got caught out on the very first stage: dropped off a small front group in one of those classic crosswind fiascos. Long story short, a dozen riders managed to stay away and finish almost a minute ahead of the main group. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) hung on at the back of that small sprint group and got the same time as the winner. So after what should have been an inconsequential stage, Yates was already :54 behind a very dangerous rival. Stage 2 was a short team time trial (17.4 km…under 11 miles). Evenepoel’s Soudal-Quick Step team won and Yates’ UAE team was down in 8th at :16. More time lost for Yates. Stage 3 was an uphill finish and Evenepoel finished 2nd with Yates right behind him. That put Remco into the GC lead. The other mountain finish was the final stage. This was the last chance for Yates to win, and win he did. He dropped Evenepoel with 3 km to go and put :10 into him. But Yates’ win barely put a dent in the time he had to make up. Evenepoel won the overall comfortably. He knew how much time he had in hand and perhaps didn’t even contest the finish over those final kilometers. He never looked dominant but by dint of clever riding and a good game plan—and by asleep-at-the-switch riding by his chief rivals—he carried the day.
Running almost at the same time was the 4-stage O Gran Camiño (Feb 23-26). This gives us our first look at Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), the reigning Tour de France champion. He didn’t disappoint. Stage 1 was canceled because of blizzard conditions. After that, he won the remaining three stages, including an ITT on the final day. Stages 2 and 3 were both uphill finishes and I do mean uphill: both with ridiculously steep pitches. He won them both convincingly, as he did the time trial. This is not a really big race, although from the standpoint of spectator entertainment, it’s a treat. The start list is not star-studded. That said, Vingegaard was the pick of the litter and by a comfortable margin.
However, that would change in his next race: the 8-stage Paris-Nice (March 5-12). Primoz Roglič won this event last year and dominated it the previous year before crashing out on the final stage. Meanwhile, his big rival, Tadej Pogačar, was winning Tirreno-Adriatico the past two years. (It runs at the same time as Paris-Nice.) This year, they decided to swap events. Pogačar moved over to Paris-Nice while Roglič switched to Tirreno-Adriatico, which he won in 2019. Jonas Vingegaard was also entered at Paris-Nice, so a first rematch this year between Pogačar and Vingegaard. Stage 1 was for the sprinters and both Pogačar and Vingegaard finished together in the main bunch, behind the sprint. However, Pogačar, always attentive and a pretty good sprinter when he chooses to be, picked up a :06 time bonus in one of those mid-race sprints. (You can’t ever take your eye off the ball when he’s in the race.) Stage 2 was another sprinters’ stage and everyone finished in the same time. But Pogačar did it again: he scooped up another :06 time bonus in another intermediate sprint, moving him to just :02 out of the overall lead without ever being close to winning either stage. Stage 3 was a team time trial of 32.2 km…20 miles. Jumbo-Visma won it and UAE lost :23 to them. So now, for the moment, the tables were turned: Vingegaard was :11 ahead of Pogačar. That didn’t last long. Stage 4 was a substantial uphill finish which Pogačar won, while Vingegaard lost :43. That put Pogačar into the leader’s jersey and he kept it all the way to the finish. Stage 5 was a sprinters’ stage and not much changed except for the irrepressible Pogačar snapping up :02 in another intermediate sprint. Stage 6 was canceled because of high wind that knocked down trees across the course. Pogačar won Stages 7 and 8, widening his lead each day. When the champagne had been sprayed around in Nice, he had a lead of :53 over David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), with Vingegaard 3rd at 1:39. Vingegaard hung tough but never really came to grips with Pogačar.
Meanwhile, over at the 7-stage Tirreno-Adriatico (March 6-12), we get our first look at Primoz Roglič (Jumbo-Visma). Stage 1 was an individual time trial of 11.5 km…only 7 miles; really just a prologue. Filippo Ganna won (one of the best ITT guys these days) and Roglič was down in 12th at :49. Kind of disappointing for the reigning Olympic time trial gold medalist. But if you set aside the ITT specialists like Ganna, the placement among the GC wannabes was like this: Joao Almeida—:41; Roglič—:49; Aleksandr Vlasov—:50; Jai Hindley—:51; Tao Geoghegan Hart—:52; Enric Mas—1:00; Mikel Landa—1:15; Adam Yates—1:18, etc. So he was well-placed for the overall. Stages 2 and 3 were sprint finishes and nothing much changed. But the next three stages had uphill finishes and Roglič won all three. He didn’t put time into any of his chief rivals on any of them. All three ended in uphill sprints amongst select groups of climbers…the last remaining riders after the long ascents. But in all three cases, he won, which gave him the lion’s share of the bonus seconds. The final stage was a sprint and the overall standings remained the same. He won the overall, with Almeida (UAE) at :18 and Geohegan Hart (INEOS Grenadiers) at :23. Not overwhelming, smack-down numbers, but he was clearly the strongest and, perhaps more importantly, the smartest rider. He worked each of those uphill finishes like a master…waiting, feinting, probing, and then delivering the final, decisive blow each time.
He was back at it a week later at the 7-stage Volta Ciclista a Catalunya (March 20-26). He won the first stage, put on the leader’s jersey, and never took it off until they were done with the final stage in Barcelona. This time his primary rival was Remco Evenepoel…their first rematch since last fall’s Vuelta a España, won by Remco. In the end, it was just about the two of them. There were several very good riders entered but none of them really figured in the overall. Two stages were sprint finishes and the other five were some sort of uphill finishes or punchy stages hard enough to weed out the sprinters. Of those five stages, Roglič won Stages 1 and 5 with Evenepoel 2nd on both. Evenepoel won Stages 3 and 7 with Roglič 2nd on both. On Stage 2, Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) won, with Roglič 2nd and Evenepoel 3rd. On four out of the five stages they finished together, so only the time bonuses for their relative placings made a difference. The only exception was Stage 5, where Roglič finished :06 ahead of Evenepoel. And that ended up being the final difference on GC: :06 in favor of Roglič. So close!
April brought us the 6-stage Itzulia Basque Country (April 3-8) and a chance for some redemption for Jonas Vingegaard. Without Tadej Pogačar to beat him up, he was again the best of the rest. Stages 1 and 2 were for the sprinters. Stage 5 was too hilly for the pure sprinters and ended up with a sprint for a group of 22 climbers, all of whom were given the same time. The decisive stages were 3, 4, and 6, and Vingegaard won them all. He eked out very small gains over Mikel Landa on Stages 3 and 4 but on Stage 7, he put things out of reach with an impressive attack off the front with 28 km to go…28 km, two big climbs, two big descents and a final 10 km or so of false-flat uphill to the line. All of his closest rivals trailed in :49 seconds behind. In the final standings, positions 2 through 8—Mikel Landa to Simon Yates—were covered by :27. Vingegaard’s lead over Landa was 1:12. In other words, he dominated.
Now we hit rewind and go back to review the one-day races.
Let’s begin with Strade Bianche (March 3)…184 km (114 miles) of a mix of paved and gravel roads in the rolling hills of Tuscany, with a steep finish in the centro storico of Siena. That finish would make for a thrilling battle if a pack of riders arrived together. But we haven’t seen that lately. Last year, Tadej Pogačar spoiled the fun by winning with a 47-km breakaway. This year, Tom Pidcock did the same thing, only his attack was only from 23 km out. Still, an impressive display of solo “time trialing” to stay away. (He won by :20 over a determined chase group.) Which is why I was surprised at his rather anemic time trial over almost the same distance—24 km—at the Volta ao Algarve, just three weeks before this race.
Next up was la Primavera: Milano-San Remo (March 18), one of the five Monuments and one of the most important races of the year. 294 km…182 miles. As is almost always the case, all those many miles were just an implacable way to weed out the pretenders before the surviving front group hit the Poggio climb with about 10 km to go. Midway up that ascent, Tadej Pogačar launched a stinging attack and opened up a little daylight between himself and the bunch. But Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) responded with an even better counterattack. He blew by Pogačar, crested the summit alone and was never caught, all the way down the hill and through the flats to the finish. A group of three riders came in :15 later: Filippo Ganna (INEOS Grenadiers), Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), and Tadej Pogačar, in that order.
On March 24, Wout van Aert got some payback by winning the E3 Saxo Bank Classic (204 km…127 miles). He won a three-up sprint with—who else?—Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar. It’s a punchy parcourse, with over two dozen short but steep uphills and about a dozen cobbled sectors…perfect for all three of these riders.
Three days later—March 26—we had Gent-Wevelgem (261 km…161 miles), another tough course with loads of those nasty little bergs and cobbles. Jumbo teammates Wout van Aert and Christophe LaPorte got away late in the ride and rolled down the home stretch arm in arm, with a comfortable lead of two minutes. Wout van Aert made sure LaPorte’s wheel crossed the line first, a gracious gesture to his hard-working domestique.
Three days after that—March 29—La Porte won again, this time at Dwars door Vlanaderen (184 km…114 miles). He attacked the main pack with 4 km to go and made it stick, with a gap of :15 back to the bunch. It might not have played out that way if van Aert hadn’t crashed midway through the race.
And that brings us to the next Monument of the year on April 2: the Tour of Flanders (273 km…170 miles). Over 15 steep climbs, most of them on cobbles, and most of them packed into the second half of the race. This turned out to be Tadej Pogačar’s day. He won after dropping Mathieu van der Poel on the Oude Kwaremont climb with 17 km to go…had :16 on him at the finish, with no one else even close. It seemed as if Pogačar attacked on every one of those climbs, usually getting a gap over the tops…then, over the ensuing level and rolling miles, he’d be reeled back in. But each time, after each uphill, the number of riders getting back to him was fewer and fewer, until, finally, it was just van der Poel, and then we was gone, over that last hard climb. Pogačar did a brilliant ride for an epic victory. But he may have had a little help from the fates. Van der Poel’s whole team was gapped early in the day and had to hammer hard for 30 km to regain the main bunch, using up precious reserves. And Wout van Aert was involved in a crash that slowed him down and may have sapped his energy. But hey, that’s all part of racing…especially in the spring classics. Tadej Pogačar becomes only the third rider ever to win both the Tour de France and Flanders, joining the rather elite company of Louison Bobet and Eddy Merckx. Whew!
But van der Poel got his back at the next Monument: Paris-Roubaix (April 9; 256.6 km…159 miles). (Pogačar was not entered.) The Hell of the North needs no introduction: nearly pan-flat but with those infamous 30 sectors of cobbles, some of them very long and very rough. Add to that the high speed all day. (This year’s edition set a new record of over 29 mph for 159 miles.) Van der Poel finished alone after a 15-km solo break. 46 seconds back, his teammate and chief domestique, Jasper Philipsen, won a two-up sprint over Wout van Aert. Much has been made of the fact that the Jumbo-Visma duo of van Aert and LaPorte had four flats between them (two apiece), while the Alpecin-Deceuninck duo of van der Poel and Philipsen had only one flat (Philipsen’s). The brutal pounding on the cobbles takes its toll on tires and rims and on this day, the Jumbos got the worst of it. Van Aert’s second flat was just before van der Poel’s decisive attack. Bad luck for van Aert but nevertheless an awesome win for van der Poel.
The third week in April brings the spring classics season to a rousing crescendo, with Amstel Gold on Sunday, the 16th, Fleche-Wallone on Wednesday, the 19th, and Liege-Bastogne-Liege on the next Sunday, the 23rd. Sometimes it seems as if the collective races of the classics season, through March and April, almost add up to a fourth Grand Tour. Two or three races a week, all over long distances, usually on rough roads—cobbles, gravel—and frequently with atrocious weather. (I’m only covering the highlights here; there are several more races that most of these guys do.)
Amstel Gold is a very tough race: 254 km (157 miles) with 33 categorized climbs, almost all steep and together adding up to almost 11,000’ of gain. The start list for this race looks a bit different than that at Paris-Roubaix the week before. Gone are most of the big bruisers, replaced by more of an all-rounder crew with decent climbing credentials. Naturally, this sort of course is tailor-made for Tadej Pogačar and he once again showed why he’s the number 1 rider in the world right now. His relentless attacks over those many short-but-steep bergs whittled the chasers down until only Tom Pidcock was left on his wheel, and then he dropped him on the Keutenberg with 28 km to go and soloed home from there. At the finish, Pidcock just shook his head and said, essentially: “There was just nothing I could do.”
Fleche Wallone is always one of my favorite races, simply because of the last kilometer: the Mur de Huy (the Wall of Huy), with pitches up around 20%. The rest of the course is tough too: 194 km (120 miles) with over 15 stiff climbs. The final 100 km consist of three trips around a repeated loop, meaning three times up the leg-breaking Mur de Huy. But all of the first 193 km are just prologue, right up until the group hits the final climb for the final time, cranking it up in the world’s slowest, most painful field sprint. By this point in this season, it should come as no surprise that Tadej Pogačar won the race. He noodled along at about third wheel until the last couple of hundred meters and then got out of the saddle, upped his cadence a little and…bye! He had time to sit back down and cheerfully wave to the crowd going over the line, while behind him was the usual weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. I have to assume he’s working hard but he just makes it look so easy…
And then, finally, Liege-Bastogne-Liege: 258 km…160 miles, with at least 15 steep climbs, some over 15%. First run in 1892, it is the oldest and one of the most prestigious of all pro bike races…one of the five Monuments. It marks the end of the spring cycling campaign. All the pre-race hype was about the match-up between Tadej Pogačar, who was on such a roll of wins, and Remco Evenepoel, the defending LBL champion. But that was not to be. Pogačar tangled with another rider about 85 km into the race and went down hard. He sustained multiple broken bones in his left wrist and hand. He was immediately taken to specialist hand surgeons that afternoon. The next day they were saying the surgery was a success and he would be looking at a four-to-six-week recovery. More about that later.
That left LBL at the mercy of Evenepoel, who won again in almost a carbon copy of his victory last year. With about 34 km to go, on one of those nasty climbs, he drove the pace and only Tom Pidcock could hang with him…just barely hanging on. With 30 km to go, he upped the tempo again and Pidcock had to give way, same as he had to do with Pogačar at Amstel Gold the previous Sunday. Remco soloed the rest of the way and won comfortably.
So where does that leave us, with the spring calendar complete and the bigger events coming up? Prior to LBL, I would have felt comfortable putting Tadej Pogačar head and shoulders above everyone else. What a spring season! He won three stages and the overall at Ruta del Sol. Won three stages and the overall at Paris-Nice. Won Flanders, Amstel Gold, and Fleche Wallone, and was 4th at Milano-San Remo and 3rd at Saxo Bank. But his crash and injuries cast a cloud over his future, at least a little. He was already due for a rest after LBL: nothing else scheduled from April 23 on into June…at least the six weeks suggested as his recovery window. Add to that another four weeks before the Tour de France. He can be back on a trainer in a week or two and is—obviously—young and superbly fit. So maybe he’ll come out the other side of this little difficulty rarin’ to go. Or…he has a screw in his wrist now. He may be fit to ride within the suggested time frame, but that wrist could still be uncomfortable for months to come. Legs and lungs and heart are not all that matters at the top level of racing. It’s a whole-body workout, including the arms on the bars. If he’s not fully healed, who knows?
If nothing else, it serves to remind us that there are no locks, no sure things in this grueling and sometimes dangerous sport. Just ask Primoz Roglič, after he crashed at the last two Tours de France and at last year’s Vuelta. His spring season was not quite as splashy as his countryman’s but was still not too shabby. He won three stages and the overall at Tirreno-Adriatico. He won two stages and was 2nd—on equal time—on three other stages and won the overall at the Volta a Catalunya. But that seems to be it for results. All good but not tearing down the house.
Jonas Vingegaard won three stages—including an ITT—and the overall at O Gran Camiño. He won three stages and the overall at the Tour of the Basque Country. And he was 3rd at Paris-Nice…which sounds good until we recall he was slapped around by winner Tadej Pogačar…never really seemed to be on an equal footing with him. He’s very good but on current results, not quite on a par with Pogačar…but will the latter’s injury even things up a little?
And then there’s Remco Evenepoel. What to make of this young phenom? He exploded on the scene last year with a dominant win at the Vuelta a España, showing some serious climbing chops we had not seen from him prior to that. And his three breakaway wins at LBL, San Sebastian, and the World Championship were instant legends. This spring he won the UAE Tour without winning a stage or doing anything spectacular. He was a so-close 2nd to Roglič at Catalunya, winning two stages. And then Liege-Bastogne-Liege…another impressive breakaway off the front of a star-studded cast of rivals. What if Pogačar hadn’t crashed? We’ll never know.
We know this much: Pogačar and Vingegaard are both on the start list for the Tour de France, rejoining their epic battle from last year. Roglič and Evenepoel are both on the start list for the Giro d’Italia, rejoining their own epic battle from last year’s Vuelta. Bearing in mind all the usual disclaimers about luck and the Fickle Finger of Fate…crashes, weather, mechanicals…at the moment, the world of bike racing in Europe appears to be dominated by these four riders. There are many other really good riders out there but so far this year, none of them has shown us enough strength, stamina, or skills to get the better of these stars. However, as we know so well, it’s an unpredictable sport…so no predictions from me! It wouldn’t be very exciting if we already knew who was going to win.
Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net