We all have our favorite races on the calendar, Paris-Nice is one of mine. In fact, of all the weeklong stage races sprinkled throughout the calendar: this one is my absolute favorite. It sports one of the best nicknames in cycling “The Race to the Sun,” even if it does not always live up to such a name. And its general itinerary is always the same: perhaps it is tightly bound by its title, or perhaps it knows it has found a winning formula.
In former eras, this was a race used by the top men to ease back into racing at the season’s beginning, but tell that not to Monsieur Paris-Nice, Sean Kelly. King Kelly, the greatest cyclist Ireland’s ever known, won the race a record 7 times, all in succession from 1982 through 1988. And say nothing of warmups to these modern men of cycling either, this is the first European World Tour stage race of the season—already much is at stake. For many World Tour teams, all World Tour points are vital, and this provides another early opportunity to amass a respectable haul of points to help set the team on a good trajectory for the rest of the season. For many French riders it is an early objective of pride to do well on home roads. For many Grand Tour contenders, this is the first big appointment of the season to not only build form, but start the season off well with some good results. The beauty of this race is that it is so balanced: there are enough opportunities to attract the top sprinters to achieve some well-earned victories, there is always a time trial for the riders to see how they stack up against their rivals against the clock in this early season, and as they go further south there are some proper mountain stages for the climbers to target and the Grand Tour men to come to the fore and foreshadow the duels to come in the summer Grand Tours.
Ideally on a cold and wet and wind-howling Sunday, the riders bundle up to start this hardmen’s race in a suburban or outskirt-ing village of Paris. Like with Opening Weekend, on Stage 1 of Paris-Nice let us root for a traditional brutal weather start to the Race to the Sun, may the March Lion not yet transform into the March Lamb. May the riders put on their thermal jerseys and pants to keep the core and pistons warm, thick shoe covers and gloves to avoid frostbitten appendages, and under the helmet may they fit a winter casquette that covers the ears nicely while the brim combats the elements trying to obscure their views. Yes, make the riders yearn for the sun to come in a week’s time. The furthest North is the best chance for such a stage as this at this time of year, and it has started the race off right with harrowing ordeals of wind and rain—O! how enduring and endearing it is when a hardman of the Classics or a sprinter made of stern-stuff celebrates the victory in some horrid winter conditions. Not only does it make for a good addition to the rider’s palmares, the brutal-cold stages provide stories to help flesh out the champion’s legendary aura, and they are essential tales to be incorporated into the Race to the Sun’s Pantheon of Immortal Rides.
Typically, the next couple of stages are still in the flat north of France. These too can be biting-cold days, and it is quite a spectacle when they are. But ideally what comes about on these flat transitional stages, and note the organizers definitely seek out and design the routes looking for the best chances of this phenomenon, are crosswind battles. Yes, if a cold harsh-weather start near Paris was not enough, in an ideal Paris-Nice the opening cold-shock is backed up by one or two days of ravaging crosswinds. O! When the winds come at the riders from the side, how the peloton transforms into aero-formations of such beauty they rival the instinctual aerial armadas of avian flocks migrating between the famous latitudes of the globe. Yes, to see an image of echelons—group after group lined across the road horizontally while vertically up the road is the stronger group a “rung” higher on this imagery ladder—is one of the most beautiful sights in cycling. As stated, the echelons, the “rungs” of an imagery ladder, look tranquilly beautiful from a landscape-distance away, but O! how fierce the battles are inside to hold one’s ground amidst the pack. Surely, they are the most cutthroat of battles cycling can serve up: should you not have the skill or strength to ride the winds and hold ranks in the group, a rider is agonizingly spit out the back until absorbed in another echelon behind. May those who cannot stomach the crosswinds not even craft General Classification (GC) aspirations for this race; either grow in fortitude or forsake your challenge now, for if you perform not well in the crosswinds expect to lose minutes on these harrowing days. And though it is no surprise the Quickstep team have been the foundation-shakers in the crosswinds for around a score of years, Classics prowess or build of body is not a prerequisite. There is something more to riding the Crosswinds, perhaps most it is tenacious guts and positioning-craft that are required, for not all big-unit riders who lay down the most serious watts have a knack for the Crosswinds, while in very generation one tiny Colombian GC rider proves they too have the courage and the Right Stuff to mix it up with the hardmen and big engines of the Classics who lick their lips every time the wind blows across. Whether the crosswinds materialize or not each year, these northern flat stages are also verdant pastures for the top sprinters to take their first World Tour European stage victories of the year. O! How surely important they are to the psyches and confidence of these hot-handed sprinters’ egos, always they wish to continue to rake up the sprint wins and avoid periods of dreaded droughts where they then lose their mental edge.
As the race travels further south and comes within sight of the northern-most Marches of the French Alps, the GC race begins to kick into high gear if the crosswinds have not already dashed pretenders’ dreams. It is usually a fair test against the clock: a proper time trial instead a prologue that packs a punch or after-thought chrono that wraps up the race with a frivolous bow. And yet, the Time Trial (TT) is never overbearingly decisive. The TT only sets the stakes for the high mountains that decide the race’s finish: who is up 30 or 40 seconds on GC, who must recover the 1:20 in the mountains that they shipped to their competitors in the TT? Usually another fine feature on one of the middle days of the Race to the Sun is an archetypal breakaway stage. O! May the greatest escape artists come out to play! On a lumpy, but not so extremely decisive day, may the breakaway specialists flex their muscles and show off their chops. Give me the audacious lone wolf who is ready to roll the dice and attack his breakaway competitors as their energy wanes and the peloton ratchets up the pace behind. How thrilling it is to see one man narrowly hold off a peloton bearing down on him after a long-enduring day in the saddle. Yes, to be a breakaway specialist takes something special—copious amounts of grit—they are a rare breed, less than a handful of reliably successful breakaway specialists arise each generation. But as I said, by the time the race has set the GC storyline with the TT and sometimes before the classic hilly breakaway stage, the Race to the Sun is eyeing the Alps.
Some years they find a brutal stage in France’s northern Alps—so far north inland an untraveled local might mistake an oar for a shovel, still far from the Mediterranean coast are they. Such stages as these are always surely gambles, for in March many of these villages have not yet thought to pack away their heaviest winter coats for the season. Yes, tough tests are these mountain stages in the elements as the race experiments and explores the climbs off the beaten path. The route goes up and down all day, weaving up the narrow climbs which are often steep, but not too long—for surely the tops of the grueling giants seen at July’s Tour are still snowed in, and yet these new explorations can prove good tests for future features to be incorporated on that ultimate stage race in July. Meanwhile, soon the race finally starts to reach if not the Sun at least warm weather. For the last two or three days none shall have pants and few even knee-warmers, many arms shall have only short sleeves for the body will be quite warm as it fires on all cylinders up proper high-southern Alpine climbs. Yes, there is usually at least one or two traditional full high-mountain stages with a proper summit finish worthy of a Grand Tour. Surely, the hope is that it effects or shakes up the GC…but in a fine edition of Paris-Nice, the race is not decided until it reaches its destination namesake.
In the past, it was tradition for Paris-Nice to not just finish with a final road race into Nice, one of its title towns, but also do a final TT up the Col d’Eze climb to fully wrap up the race. King Kelly and Irishman Tour de France winner Stephen Roche were so dominant in that TT, the Col d’Eze has become known as Irish Mountain. The climb itself is tough a brute, there are legendary stories of the intense roller warmups after already completing a road stage that same morning, and what was the ideal gearing to haul oneself up to the top proved quite an intricate science. As one predisposed to embracing tradition, I mourn that the race has scraped that illustrious TT. And though I would not mind if they found a place for the Col d’Eze TT once more—perhaps even have two stages in one day that are now so rare for the riders hate them O! so much—I must say I love the new traditional final stage the organizers have crafted. You have seen in recent years how in the Grand Tours the organizers have served up a mighty 200+ km high-mountain stage on a Saturday, followed by a short and thrilling mountain stage Sunday only some 120 km long that leads to unbridled and uncontrollable racing filled with GC coups and ambushes. The Grand Tour organizers have copped the idea from this new traditional Paris-Nice finish. After a hard and often long or high-altitude mountain stage on the penultimate day, the final stage takes place around all the most famous climbs walling in the coastal Mediterranean city of Nice. Nice is a home-base for a large percentage of professionals, so this explosive stage takes place over all the climbs that they know like the back of their hand. With usually 6 or 7 proper climbs packed into only some 120 km of racing, there is not a meter of flat, and the team leading on GC shall have their hands very full trying to maintain control of the race. If the GC is under a minute, or even 90 seconds, this stage is perfect ambush territory for a GC rival to attempt a successful race coup. Their teammates set a relentless pace from the beginning of the day, the leader himself breaks away mid-stage to attempt to steal a long breakaway escape. Behind what is left of the GC leader’s team tries to ride more controlled and keep the gap within a margin of their team leader’s lead. In more years than not, this day is sopping the riders with buckets of rain—so much for the Race to the Sun—and that makes the race all the more difficult to control. This race has been so close, decided sometimes only by two or four seconds, it comes down to who pedals the hardest or gets into the fastest aero position on the final descent into the finish line in Nice. This last genius day of racing has often taken the GC race down to the absolute final wire or turned the race on its head. This finish has so often delivered a great thrilling final spectacle, it is the perfect ending that makes Paris-Nice my favorite weeklong stage race. After the harsh beginnings in the cold and/or crosswind-y northern stages ending in memorable epic days or ferociously fast sprints, through the skirmishes and battles of breakaway and GC affairs in the time trial and mountains going ever further south, to this final day where it is not over until the fat lady sings: Paris-Nice proves to be an ideal complete race—an odyseey with everything—that always provides and produces great champions and future stars.
Cycling Odysseys 