The European Climbing Tour

gntlmn

I'm trying to find out if there would be much interest in a new tour which would be exclusively climbing--no downhills, no time trials, no flat stages. I guess there would still be an occasional sprint, but they would be uphill. I'm thinking it would be good to use climbs in Italy, France and Spain. This tour can then feed on and add to the excitement of the 3 Grand Tours.

If we used 6 climbs, and spaced them out during the entire season, I suspect that there may be a good turnout. It would be the only stage race with such an approach.

The first 2 stages would be climbs in Italy, and would be a buildup to the Giro. They would start sometime in the middle of April to the end of April to allow about a month's rest before the Giro.

The second 2 stages would follow the Tour de France and would allow for about a month rest before the Vuelta. The last 2 stages would be after the Vuelta.

Like any stage race, if you do not finish a stage, you do not ride in the next one. If you ride in a stage, you have to have raced the previous stages. The winner in the GC is the rider with the lowest combined time of all stages. There would be an awards ceremony after each stage to announce stage results and the tour leader.

The winner of this tour would be arguably the best climber of the season, from the beginning during the spring classics to the end after all the Grand Tours.

Remember, this is not a World Cup Event, which awards points to winners of designated races and announces overall points results throughout the season. This is a tour with all results expressed in units of time, not points. These times would be posted on the internet as the season progresses.

Kathrin

I perfectly see your point in insisting on all riders riding all stages, but then again I think there are also arguments for restricting the GC only to riders tackling all climbs and keeping stages open for any rider who wants to participate. Here are two:

1. It will be a new event and so I guess it is a good idea to encourage as many riders to take part in it as possible.

2. The tour will be so spread out that it is possible that some real good climbers might miss a stage, due to illness, injury or whatever. And as stage wins will also be prestigious a more open structure would give them a change to participate in this way.

gntlmn

The main reason that I don't like the format that you suggest is that it would not be a "tour" if you open it up to every rider, whether or not he is disqualified for not completing a stage. In every stage race, riders are required to complete each stage or else they are called DNF's (did not finish). They can't take a day off and then come in for another stage and make excuses for other stages that they didn't complete. If they don't make it, they can't compete in the stage. Pettachi won sprint after sprint in the Tour this year, but when he bailed as the peloton started climbing, he was denied further glory when it went back to the flats again. I think this is more fair to the other tour riders. If they want to race the classics, there are plenty of those. This would be a tour.

It's a matter of pride for the riders who complete this climbing tour and end up in the top 5. They have bragging rights for best climber of the year which wouldn't be watered down by claims that certain riders would have done better than them if they would have done the whole race instead of only 1 or 2 stages. If they want to brag, they better have what it takes to do a tour, not just a one day race.

There will be plenty of riders who will sign for the tour just to do the 2 climbs in Italy at the beginning of the race. Many of those will choose not to go on, I suppose. But those that do will garner more publicity from all the fanfare at the beginning. For riders who compete in the Tour de France, but not the Vuelta, there will be plenty of time to rest after the French climbs. And for those who compete in the Vuelta but not the Tour de France, there is still plenty of time to rest. The stages, as I suggested, would be timed around the Grand Tours, not clashing with them.

patch70

If you are separating the 'tour' over time, then to make it compulsory to compete all stages is making it tough. With injuries and various team and other committments, you wouldn't get many riders doing the whole tour.

Also, I can't think of very many climbs that are longer than 20km so how do you suggest there be "no downhills"? Surely the stages would need to be longer than 10 - 25km.

gntlmn

On the contrary, I think that serious tour riders would look at this schedule and figure they could fit it in even though they are riding each or a combination of the following tours: Giro, Tour de France, Vuelta. Injuries are no more likely to sideline a rider in a spread out event than they would for a consecutive days event. The requirement is to show up at the starting line for 6 days. Injury could sideline someone in any tour, whether it is spread out or done all together.

You make a good point about what I said, "no downhills". What I meant really was that there would be no flat stages or downhills which would not then be followed by more climbing. Downhills leading to flats and a finish line wouldn't be a part of the course. And long flats followed by uphills I wouldn't want either because it wouldn't then be a pure climbing tour. But some very modest uphills followed by more serious climbing ahead would be fine. Also, some flats, if they are short, would be ok too if they had more climbing ahead.

Can you think of 6 climbs in Europe which would be longer than 25 km: 2 each in Italy, France and Spain? 25 km of straight hors category climbing for 6 stages probably doesn't exist, but if this tour were 6 stages of 25 km hors category climbing, it seems like it would be a good tour. With this ideal in mind, it's a matter of finding the toughest and longest climbs in each country and including the 2 toughest from each in this tour. Sure, it would be great to have a 100km race in hors category, but you are right, it would be tough to find it in reality.

Kathrin

All fine and good, but what we are currently discussing is no longer a real tour as that would involve subsequent stages over a period of up to 3 weeks (with maybe some rest days in between). This was what you initially had in mind. Now, we are discussing an event that will take place on 6 days over 5 months. So basically, it is a climber's world cup to which some rules of a tour are applied. As long as there are rules which will ensure that only a rider will win who rides all 6 stages I think it is unnecessarily strict to disqualify riders who don't participate in all stages. Remember that this new event that first has to grow in momentum. Why is it necessary to drive riders away? Please don't say now because it is a tour.

As for the climbs which should be included, I think Mont Ventoux simply has to be in just as the Angliru.

Kathrin

Hey gntlmn, what's up? Have you lost interest in your excellent idea? That would be a real shame. Let's continue discussing the possibility of a European Climbing Tour!

gntlmn

Practically speaking, the original idea of a climbing tour would be great. I still think so, but it would necessarily have to be ridden instead of, not in addition to, the other tours. And what you speak of, a tour with many stages, is a "grand tour". A race is still a tour if it only has two stages. It's just not a grand tour. So we are still talking about a tour in the sense that the times are cumulative in this event. What you do on your first or second time affects your total time for the entire tour. Such is not the case with a world cup event.

I'm not so sure there is much interest in such an event now, but this may change after it appears in the headlines for a few years. The riders would know the worth of a win in this event. It wouldn't be a small victory.

As for driving riders away, I think that the tour event would be most friendly to the riders who are doing the entire tour, which is what I would hope for. They won't have to contend with the "ringers" who just want to come in for glory without doing the whole tour. For example, if the Tour de France contenders had to deal with the likes of Petacchi after he failedto climb the mountains, it probably wouldn't have been good for morale. So I would hope for a tour-like event rather than a world cup in order to drive fewer true tour riders away from the event. It seems that you like the one day climbers, not the tour climbers. These would be the riders I would hope would not appear to steal thunder from the tour climbers.