Ah! Now we come to a preview I looked O! so forward to doing. Yes, this is the beauty of cycling: no race is the same. Though this one comes when weeklong World Tour stage races are coming thick-and-fast every other week, and the most Classic of Classics—Monuments even—are taking place, still this race has a definitive and beloved character of its own. Let us leave the further Northern Classics where Springtime is dawning. It will be difficult to confuse this race with the harsh and unpredictable Paris-Nice. The stage profiles will still be clearly different than Tirreno-Adriatico. Even this race’s half-brother, the Volta a Catalunya will be highly distinguishable from this one—none would ever mistake Catalunya’s High Mountain days with the spicy hills of this region. And it would be a laughable affair to confuse this race with the freezing affairs in Switzerland. Of course I speak of a race that grows all viewing hearts bigger: the Itzulia the locals now call it, having rejected the Spanish Pais Vasco title, in English we call it the Tour of the Basque Country. Yes, you heard me speak a fortnight ago about the separatist leanings of Catalonia….from what I gather historically, the Catalonian concerns have been child’s play compared to the Basques’ desire for autonomy. I cannot get into the weedy details at this time, but for a number of years the Vuelta a Espana, the Tour of Spain mind you, refused to enter the Basque Country for fear of stirring unrest. When I heard this, I was blown away that tensions must be so high…for these Basques are in that highest echelon of greatest cycling fans! Things were so bad they did not even want to welcome in the national Grand Tour?
Yes, the Basques are a historic and proud people who nowadays especially love their cycling. There are many famous Basques, but a contender for the top spot of fame and a personal favorite is St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits; meanwhile in the realm of cycling history this is the region from which the O! so dominate Miguel Indurain hails from—the first man to win the Tour de France five times in a row. To look through the list of all their top athletes and prominent people in history, a trend really does start to appear: yes, most are historically associated with the Spanish as well (or even a few with the French), but there is some intangible that sets all these Basque people apart. Most easily it can be seen in their names: the spellings are all interesting, the love of “X”s and “O”s, “Z”s and “EU”s is palpable. Yes, their language is where it is most notable. The Basques call their own language Euskara, and it has the honor to be the only non-Indo-European language in Western Europe. There are three other known non-Indo-European languages spoken in pockets of Eastern Europe, but their migrations into Europe from the cold Urals separating Siberia is well known in history….there is no recorded Basque migration. As far as recorded history goes, the Basques were already there since the first Roman historians mentioned them. In fact, it is most likely the case that the Basques were a proto-Indo-European people. When prehistoric migrations of Indo-European speaking peoples came in waves from East to West across Europe, they either stamped out or bred out all the old proto-Indo-Euro peoples except for these Basques. Thus historically they have always been a people apart, and of course proud of their separate roots as well; it can be seen in their language, and in my opinion no name better embodies their language than their de facto national cycling trade team: Euskaltel-Euskadi. From the mid-1990s to 2013 they were the beloved mountain goats seen in the Tour and Vuelta with their orange jerseys representing their Basque Country who love their cycling. For a number of years the team policy was that they would only ever hire natural Basque riders. They were almost to the man supremely bad time triallists—the joke was that none ever even touched a TT bike except on TT stages—but they made up this deficit by lighting it up on every mountain stage. And yet in 2013, the team went under and a solemn Diaspora occurred: there were O! so many World Tour contracts signed for these riders, but only in ones and twos were they picked up: the beloved Basque National Team was finished. But thankfully in recent years, the team has been resurrected and is on the rise, and there is no race where they wish to excel more than in their home race, Itzulia.
In recent years the organizers have relabeled the race Itzulia—short for Euskal Herriko Itzulia which seems to just be the Tour of the Basque Country in the already referenced native tongue—emphasizing the native proud culture. But it is already the third paragraph of this piece, and I have yet to address the geography element! Where does this Itzulia take place? Where is the Basque Country? Yes, it is part of Spain…but not all of the Basque country is contained within it, the most Southwest Corner of France is also part of the cultural Basque Region. Thus now you can start to understand where the Basque Country lies: at the very top-center-north of Spain, encompassing a portion of the Western-most Pyrenean peaks. But the Basque Country is not known only for its mountains—though by no means has enough been said of those yet—but also its beaches. The Basque Country rests not on the relatively tranquil Mediterranean coast, but on Spain’s North Coast facing the harsh Bay of Biscay that is a part of the mighty Atlantic Ocean itself. Those waters are known to be fierce, and those beaches surely are not patronized year-round. But O! how beautiful the landscape is, and O! what an excursion it must be to spend a summer day of swimming and sunbathing when the days are long and hot. In addition to the Tour of the Basque Country, at the height of summer, usually a week after the Tour de France’s completion, the Basque Country holds their finest one-day Classic named for the hosting town: San Sebastian. As that race finishes, the final run-in is right along the pretty shores where every beach is filled with a multitude of fans, and the beaches look O! so gorgeous in the late-afternoon Sun. With the race’s location established and your tourism desires starting to stir, let us address some features of the Itzulia race itself.
Yes, the location, the scenery, the culture are all worth a trip to see the Basque Country, it is a must for cycling fans especially since it is so close to Catalonia to the East and Asturias to the West…but be forewarned, cycling in the Basque Country is not for the faint of heart. First, it must be noted, the beautiful landscapes are not produced by arid desert weather: in the winter and spring at the very least, in the Basque Country it very often rains. And of course when viewed on television, the stunning vistas will be there to delight at every turn as usual, but what the viewer will quickly pick up on and acknowledge as well: the hills of the Basque Country are O! so bewilderingly steep! There are no long climbs to the passes thousands of meters well above sea level. Instead, there are many climbs rarely ever over 10km, but what they lack in length they make up in steepness. Every edition, many times on each stage, the peloton is seen scaling gradients of 15% or 20% in the middle of a climb mid-stage; there is usually one climb or two each edition where the gradient is literally higher than 30%—which is usually the record for steepest grade seen in a pro-race each year. Truly, all question the Basque geographers who planned out the roads—if they ever existed—but all have much respect and admiration for the Basque road builders who completed such engineering feats. Yes, as I said before, when the Basques or the Belgians claim a certain road is a “Wall:” all about to attempt to ride such a beast should gird their loins. There is not much rhyme or traditional reason to most of the Itzulia stages. Every stage is extremely hilly, including the Time Trial that is almost always held. The stages with the least steep hills are for the ones who have any sort of sprint, the hilliest ones are usually won by proper climbers or GC men. It is beyond a fair race, some rank it as the toughest weeklong stage race on the calendar. What really makes it difficult is that the climbs have the already mentioned extremely steep pitches, but other parts of these climbs are almost completely flat. The gradients change constantly in volatile extremes; thus, it is difficult for the riders to find any sort of rhythm, and looking at the average gradients in the roadbook is absolutely meaningless for this race. Hypothetically, a 7km climb may only average 6% here, but that includes 1km at 8%, 4km at 3%, and the final 2km at 12% where there is a 500m stretch at 28%…when all of that is understood surely this is a brute rougher than 6%!
Yes, this is yet another stage race where sprinters “go to die” or are sent as an unproductive punishment from which they shall gain no victories nor even form for the future. Instead, this is actually the last stage race appointment for the puncheurs who shall target the Ardennes Classics in a few weeks’ time. The Ardennes Classics are the treble of races that take place in the small Arden Mountain range in and around Southern Belgium after all the Cobbled Classics further North in the “flatter” regions are completed. The Ardennes Classics are known for the steep 3 to 6km climbs like what is faced in the Basque Country, the Ardennes climbs are steep but they do not reach the insane gradients of the Basque Country. Thus the Basque Country seems resistance training for the puncheurs, and serves as the last place to hone form before the Ardennes campaign. If you have looked at the calendar, you may have noticed the slightly strange dates of this race: from the first Monday of April to the Saturday six days after. A six-day race is nothing strange, but why end on a Saturday instead of cycling’s traditional Sunday finishing date? It seems over the decades, the Tour of the Basque Country has come to understand it is part of Cycling’s Holy Week. Instead of having its final day overlap with the third Monument of the season, Paris-Roubaix traditionally held on the second Sunday of April, why not just nestle between both? In fact, the Saturday finish has proven practical in the past. In the 1980s, beloved Irish Classics Specialist Sean Kelly—a living legend of the sport—rode for a Spanish team that for local sponsorship reasons always wished him to ride the Tour of the Basque Country race despite the fact that the Tour of Flanders the day before and Paris-Roubaix the day after were always two of his biggest objectives on the calendar. And yet, Kelly dutifully would ride the Basque Country and get right back to northern France in time for the Roubaix Monument which he twice won. Nowadays, it is shocking to see a soul ride Flanders or Roubaix and also hop in Itzulia before or after. But as I said, Itzulia—the Tour of the Basque Country—is the weeklong World Tour stage race that bridges across Cycling’s Holy Week. It always attracts a handful of top GC men and many top climbers and puncheurs. The scenery is beautiful, the racing is extremely fierce, and the Basque culture and fans are top notch for they really do love their cycling. Truly, by this point in the season, one is probably locked-in to watching all the cycling races as they come. Those who cannot keep up have abandoned long ago. Thus hopefully now Itzulia, the Tour of the Basque Country has been described well for it is yet another great race with so much unique character of its own—so great that cycling would be a lesser sport without its existence.
Cycling Odysseys 