We’re getting our racing fix from the Southern Hemisphere this month, as the Santos Tour Down Under 2025 gets underway with the first WorldTour races of the UCI season.
The Tour starts and finishes in Adelaide, with the women’s 322.8 km over three stages, and the men’s race covering 1198 km over six stages, all set across South Australia where riders will take on challenging routes while battling the heat.
Stage 20 looks like a stand-out stage in this year’s La Vuelta. It’s not only the penultimate day of racing but also the Queen stage of this Grand Tour featuring the toughest mountain riding.
From Villarcayo to Picon Blanco riders will face 172km with seven categorised climbs where the battle for GC and KoM points will make for an eventful day of riding, and captivating watching.
We have been eagerly awaiting the Men’s Tour of Britain having had a brilliant day out in Wrexham at the Women’s Tour of Britain back in June. With Remco Evenepoel, Julian Alaphilippe and Tom Pidcock all confirmed, it is set to be a fantastic event.
We were excited to learn early on in the race development that there would be a Stage in VeloViewer’s hometown of Sheffield, and it has been fun working with Rod Ellingworth (Race Director), Andy Hawes (Route Director) and their team over the last few months as they planned, recon’d and refined the routes.
VeloViewer has had a long-term working partnership with the legendary cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten, and, as the winner of the TDF Femmes 2022, she is the perfect rider to give us a perspective on how teams and riders will use VeloViewer in this year’s race.
The Cycling Podcast needs no introduction, I’ve listened to them for years and always enjoyed their daily coverage from the Grand Tours. Undeterred by the lack of a race to cover, Richard, Lionel and Daniel have created their own Giro taking in the best wines and foods Italy has to offer, as well as some of the most iconic climbs. Race director Friebe got in touch a few weeks back to help him come up with the route and when he mentioned that they hoped to offer their listeners the opportunity to ride key sections of each stage I hooked him up with the guys at RGT. From the short, intense 8.4 km prologue through to 47.8 km rolling route through Piedmont a different challenge awaits each day with routes using the RGT “Magic Roads” feature. From this Saturday (9th May 2020) join the official group ride or ride them at your own leisure to try and complete your own “Grandy” with the Classifica Generale available for you all on VeloViewer. Best of all, it is all free!
As a resident of Yorkshire for the last 28 years it is incredibly exciting to have this year’s biggest one-day races play out on its roads. For two years I lived in Harrogate while riding and racing as a Junior and made the most of the exceptional riding both on and off road, right on the doorstep. The 2019 World Champs road race and time trial courses all finish in Harrogate but start in different Yorkshire locations bringing the racing to the whole region and different styles of racing to each race. Let’s check out the routes for the main races.
Unsurprisingly, with the 2018 World Champs being in the heart of the Austrian Alps, the routes for the road races include a whole heap of climbing. 4700m of climbing over 260km for the men and 2500m over 155km for the women.
The Tokyo Olympics Men’s and Women’s road race courses have just been announced. I’ll let others debate the differences between the two courses and instead just provide the stats and maps.
2017 sees the British Road Race and Time Trial champs head into the Irish Sea to tackle the very famous roads of the Isle of Man with the road races taking on the classic IOM TT motorbike circuit (twice for the men) before a number of laps of a smaller circuit just outside of Douglas. The time trial tackles a lumpy circuit with a couple of stiff pulls and next to no flat road.
The 2017 edition of the Tour de Yorkshire very kindly finishes in VeloViewer’s global HQ of Sheffield taking in some of my personal, favourite cycling roads in the process. Here are the details of the 3 stages with the 2nd stage (Tadcaster / Harrogate) also being tackled by the Women’s peloton before the men’s race on the Saturday.