It is *that* time of year again.
Early Autumn in Vermont is the most lovely season in the most lovely place on Earth. I’ve been soaking up the (unseasonally) hot early October sunlight and looking at the blazing crimson sugar maples in sheer wonder, like a young boy from Florida who could have never imagined that a tree with red leaves could be of this world. I cannot identify the lower-key golden, orange, and ochre trees, but I appreciate their more subtle beauty too. Every fall this happens, and for the rest of the 50 weeks of our year, we all forget how breathtaking it is.
I suppose there could be a message taken from this cycle of life as usual, beauty, death (with the falling leaves), forgetting, then rebirth (in May) then back to usual. Humans evolved to be short-term thinkers. It is one way we survived in the wilderness for hundreds of thousands of years. Forgetting about how beautiful autumn is, well, that is just an instinct. How does recalling the beautiful scarlet and burgundy that appears for less than two weeks per year help one hunt down a mammoth in 100,000 BC?
It is something that contributes greatly to my own struggles with mental health. Simply riding the waves of daily life can be an agonizing experience when one is a slave to the most recent occurrence. It is a recipe for suffering, and I recognize that. I have hardly ever, since adolescence, escaped the roller-coaster. And there is far more pain than joy. So if any one of my readers has an idea on how to rewire one’s brain to operate on a more long-term basis, I am all ears.
While there are certainly parallels that could be drawn between that aside and cycling, I think it makes sense to now talk about the location and the race in question. Arguably the most beautiful race in the most beautiful place (wrapping around Lake Como), Il Lombardia is the final race of significance on the cycling calendar.
Lombardia is a traditional region in Northern Italy, one of the most historically relevant and famous provinces in Italy. It contains perhaps the cultural capital of the entire European Union, Milan. I could bombard the reader with more geographical, and political facts, or its insane history (partially drawn from Wikipedia) or I could finally get to the race itself.
The Race of the Falling Leaves, cycling’s final Monument, takes place from Como to Bergamo on Saturday, October 7. It is a hilly 238-kilometer route with about 4,600 meters of total elevation gain with some climbs that are steeper than others.
Tadej Pogacar has won the last two editions, and in fact has a perfect 100 percent victory record in the race. He will start as my narrow favorite.
The other two chief contenders for the victory are Primoz Roglic, who just defeated Pogacar in the Giro dell’Emilia, and Remco Evenepoel, whose form is unkown following the Vuelta. It is difficult to imagine one of these three riders not winning, despite a few strange results in the most recent Italian Classics, including a victory by Ilhan Van Wilder in Tre Valli Varesine, in which he soloed away from Roglic and Pogacar to win. My thinking with Lombardia is that the route is too long and difficult for a pretender to sneak away because Jumbo-Visma and UAE will control the race for their leaders, and Remco could enter the race in absolutely flying form.
Some other riders I see with the potential for a top-5, or perhaps Podium result are Michael Woods, Richard Carapaz, and most of the UAE squad depending on if they sacrifice their race for Pogi or not (though besides Hirshi their team lineup is unconfirmed). I would enjoy seeing Matteo Jorgenson in the top 10 for the USA, too.
My final prediction is that Remco will surprise most people and solo away to a dominant victory. Roglic will win the sprint for second and Pogacar will be relegated to 5th or something. Third will go to Santiago Buitrago.
This is a guess, of course, but it’s based on the fact that Pogacar, despite absolutely cooking for most of the season, and the past four years in general, has not shown near his top form in the Italian autumn this year. He has not won a race since July, when he got stage 20 of the Tour. I would love to see him win this race again, but I just do not think it is in the cards this year.
I’m already looking ahead to 2024. But we’ll keep the focus on Lombardia and the Tour of Guangxi lol the final WorldTour race of the season for now. I’ll pump out plenty of content in the offseason too.
In the meantime, I’ll be back with a Lombardia recap this weekend.
Jamie
Puncheur 
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