O! What a week it was! The 100th Edition of the Volta a Catalunya was not so much epic and historic this year as it was simply just a feast of feel-good racing. Part of the delight came from the fact that so many riders based in the Catalonian town of Girona feel this is their home race, thus they ride with more confidence and are more chipper in the surroundings they know so well. Another delightful aspect to this year’s very edition—in addition to its centenary—is the fact that the race was completely cancelled last year due to the pandemic, and thus it is O! so refreshing to see a beloved race return. But as always had to be the case, the riders and the racing itself was the source of the lion’s share of the week’s Good Vibes.
Stage 1 was an intriguing hilly stage that was to be considered the “sprinters” day—O! please be aware how lightly I use the term sprinter at this race. After the Movistar team torched the peloton on the early climbs to whittle down the field, chaos ensued across the final kilometers with the downhill run-in to Calella. And from a late breakaway of four, with the peloton breathing down their necks it was the young 22-year-old Dane Andreas Korn who took the stage and leader’s jersey for his Lotto Soudal team—ah! victories like these are always sweet, for perhaps the next great legend has just come onto the whole cycling world’s radar. Stage 2 was a Time Trial and another feel-good affair. Rohan Dennis (Ineos Grenadiers) rolled back the clock to take a fine TT victory for the first time since his TT World Champion days. And three more Grenadiers put in good rides as well: Richie Porte, Adam Yates, and Geraint Thomas all put themselves high on the General Classification (GC) with their superb rides against the clock. It would serve them well on the next stages where the real fun and the Greatest Vibes were about to begin.
Stage 3 and 4 ventured into Catalonia’s inland high mountains that are in league with the Pyrenean Mountain Range that separates Spain in the South and France in the North. The Stage 3 summit finish climbed to the ski resort at the top of the Vallter 2000—yes, the summit tops out at over 2000m high. It was a proper day of racing up those slopes. The Spaniard Alejandro Valverde the Movistar veteran of veterans proved for the umpteenth time he may be an old dog but still he has all sorts of fight left within him. He looked great on the Vallter 2000 climb, and the only ones in the moment who could match him were the Grenadier Adam Yates and Jumbo-Visma’s American climbing star Sepp Kuss. They flew up the climb while the others all battled behind. It was great to see Arkea-Samsaic’s Nairoman Quintana climbing like a superhero once more, the same was true of Ecuador’s Grenadier Richard Carapaz; but both were surprisingly outdone by another South American this day. Up front, Yates’ pace was too high for Valverde and he rode a steady tempo to the top to limit his losses, while with a kilometer or two from the finish Yates completely cracked the American Kuss who would lose a more time than if he had not tried to go toe-to-toe with Yates. But it was neither Valverde nor Kuss that would finish second on the day to the fabulously climbing Adam Yates. That honor would go to the top South American of the day…and O! how excited we all were to see him flying up the climbs once more! Estaban Chaves, Team Bike Exchange’s Colombian who considers himself half-Australian, was on flying form this day coming from nowhere to almost hawk down the flying Yates in the final three or four kilometers. It was a great effort, and it was only a preview for the next day’s stage. On Stage 4 to the summit finish at Port Aine, Estaban Chaves—the 31-year-old with the smile worth two-million-bucks that should be hung in every dentist’s office for surely it is the gold standard for its charm is O! so contagious in the best possible of ways—went on the attack once more. With 7km of hard climbing to the finish, he simply broke away from what remained of the peloton with four or five stronger Grenadiers still pacing on the front. Despite the Grenadiers’ relentless high pace, this Estaban Chaves put in a supreme display to stay away. Others would try to attack, but their attacks would quickly sputter out and come to nothing with Ineos riding such a high tempo behind. Only Chaves was able to stay away and take the victory. O! To see him cross the line in victory was the pinnacle of Good Vibes this week. Truly, truly, we all felt five years younger, back to the heady days of 2016 where this smiling Chaves was winning Giro and Vuelta stages one day, winning il Lombardia on another, and making us laugh on Greenedge Backstage Pass videos for the rest. (AUTHOR’S NOTE: I cannot recommend more highly binging ALL of the daily Giro 2016 Backstage Pass videos on YouTube for a couple hours of supreme pleasure). Yes, with two stunning high-mountain performances in a row, we all dare to hope for big things in to come in the summer Grand Tours for this Colombian climber who of course since 2016 has been a member of that elite Makes-Our-Day Club. Surely, all who saw that Stage 4 Chaves victory had a smile on their face and their day was completely made. But Chaves was not the only member of the Club to take a win at this race.
On Stage 5 where Bora’s Lennard Kamna took a deserved and well-earned stage from the break; it was made sweeter for it was clearly immediate redemption from the day before where he was the last hardworking early-break escapee to be caught on the final climb by the GC contenders. It was a great win for Bora and provided many Good Vibes to the fans, but it was on Stage 6 that our hearts were warmed to their fullest. On another hilly stage, but considered a sprint stage by Volta a Catalunya standards, the racing was wild and fierce all the way into the finish. Daring opportunists rolled their dice and launched late attacks hoping to steal victory, it was exciting racing because they attacks were launched with extreme prowess and most seemed a genuine threat. It took a great effort from the teams who wanted to keep everything together to keep everything together. But by the end, Bora-Hansgrohe, off the back of yesterday’s victory, had kept it together for the sprint. The finishing town’s streets where quite narrow and twisting, the sprint finish itself was dicey…but he finished off the job as we all hoped he would. No disrespect or hard feelings to any other fastmen in the race, it would have been great to see many other people win too, but there was one favorite that we cheered on most. After a rough shortened season with only one victory and his late start this season due to catching Covid, it was great to see the Rockstar Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) roll back the clock to take a powerful sprint victory. The final straight was so narrow, it was not easy to come around and even weave through the competition, but Sagan did and it took us back to his heyday of wild sprint finishes that dazzled our eyes and hearts so. It was reassuring to see he still has that kind of fight and sprint in him. It was great to see him get off the mark—to get the monkey off his back—for the early season, because it provides confidence for all his bigger objectives to come sooner and later. And of course, just as the case with Chaves, Peter Sagan the Rockstar is a part of that Makes-Our-Day Club. Not only is he apart of it, he is of course the President. And once again I claim, none of this can be doubted: was your day not made? Has your day not always been made when you have seen a Sagan victory? He has been winning since 20210, but ever since the 2014-15 years where he—after take literally ten second places for every win—finally turned the tables to take his first World Championship in Richmond, and it was on that day he Founded the Makes-Our-Day Club.
Finally, to wrap up the week of Good Vibes, we were given a last treat on the difficult hilly—almost mountainous—Barcelona circuit. Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) dazzled us for the last time with his Supertucking in a breakaway with The Specialist of Breakaway Specialists Mr. Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal). Mohoric conjured up eight years of Supertucking nostalgia in our hearts, for it was he who popularized the move in the 2013 U23 Florence Worlds Road Race, and now it was he who put on the last great show of Supertucking before its banning on the first of April. But it was De Gendt that finished off the day to add another breakaway victory to his collection of Famous Escapes—the Houdini of the peloton. The race wrapped up as well with three Ineos Grenadiers on the GC Podium: Adam Yates took victory with his strong climbing, veteran Richie Porte a former winner of this race held his own, and Geraint Thomas showed he is coming on form with his solid third place. Yes, perhaps this was the week of Good Vibes because we were given so many chances to remember and rollback the clock as we saw all the old champions prove they still have fight left in them. Conspicuously absent this week were any great superstar performances from the youngsters who have been waging a hostile takeover from the older generation for the past two years. We saw Sagan and Chaves, the first two members of the Club, each get off the mark this week, and thus before April all the members of the Makes-Our-Day Club have taken a victory—a feat quite frankly I feared would not happen this season. Old Valverde fought well. De Gendt showed he still has it in the breaks. Mohoric dazzled with the Supertuck. Yes, it was a satisfying week for we saw all we longed for most, O! honestly even the Beach Boys could not have provided as Good of Vibes as this 100th Edition of the Volta a Catalunya.
Cycling Odysseys 