Puncheur

Tag: racing

  • 2025 Tour de France Preview

    It’s almost that time of year again. The 112th Tour de France commences July 5 in Lille. With the final team (INEOS Grenadiers) releasing its squad for this year’s edition, the start list is complete and it’s time to publish this piece. I’ll start by previewing each stage and picking a winner for each one,…

  • 2025 Liege-Bastogne-Liege Preview

    The final Spring Classic on the calendar, the end of Ardennes Week, the fourth Monument of the season, La Doyenne (The Old Lady, named as such because it is the oldest of the five Monuments), the 111th Liege-Bastogne-Liege is, more or less like every year, a hard 252-kilometer extremely hilly battle in Wallonia (the French-speaking…

  • Amstel Gold Race Preview

    The biggest race in the Netherlands is a one-day race at sub-Monument level, but Monument distance. Amstel Gold Race is 255.9 kilometers with 3,200 meters of elevation gain in 30+bergs. As the opening skirmish of Ardennes week, it used to be a race more for Classics specialists and puncheurs, but as the racing has gotten…

  • Ronde van Vlaanderen Preview

    It’s that time of year again: Flanders’ Holy Week is upon us. The best race of the year; the 2025 Tour of Flanders takes place on Sunday, April 6 from Bruges to Oudenaarde. The second Momument every year, Flanders is perhaps the biggest one-day race on the calendar (and according to me, the most prestigious…

  • Volta Ciclista a Catalunya Preview

    The third of the Big Seven one-week stage races gets going tomorrow, March 24. This is the Tour of Catalonia, an ancient race that takes in the beauty of one of Spain’s most famous provinces. This should be a great race. Let’s discuss the route first, according to ProCyclingStats.com: Stage One: Sant Feliu de Guixols-Sant…

  • Milano-Sanremo Preview

    It is time for La Classicissima di Primavera, the first Monument of 2025, Milano-Sanremo. The 289-kilometer (longest UCI event on the calendar) race takes place Saturday, March 22 because the extremely pious staunchly Catholic nation of Italy observes Mass on Sunday (all non-Italian major classics take place on Sundays). This is arguably the most important…

  • UAE Tour Preview

    The final race in the Middle East for 2025 is the highest-level. The The Seventh UAE Tour takes place from February 17-23. This race is a seven-stage WorldTour event, the second of 2025. The route is more or less the same every year, with four flat sprint stages (echelons possible), a flat time trial, an…

  • Tour Down Under Preview

    The first race of 2025 kicks off in Australia on Tuesday, January 21. This will be a brief preview because this race simply is not great. Why? South Australia does not exactly have big mountains to create an enthralling parcours (and the race has not utilized all of the hills available), the race isn’t very…

  • Pavel Sivakov Racing and Training Power Analysis 2024

    Pavel Sivakov is a professional cyclist riding for UAE Team Emirates, currently on a three-year contract that began in 2024 and will conclude at the end of 2026. Sivakov is one of Tadej Pogacar’s top domestiques and, in addition to a stellar performance at the Tour de France, was instrumental in Pogi’s fourth Il Lombardia…

  • 2025 Predictions and (Some Random) Hot Takes

    Tadej Pogacar will win seven Great Victories (Milano-Sanremo, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Tour de France, Vuelta a Espana, World Championship Road Race, Il Lombardia) and 27 total races, thus surpassing his 2024 season as the greatest ever Included in this rampage will be five stages of the Tour and eight stages of the Vuelta Pogacar’s…