Category Archives: Stage Races

2021 Suisse, Papal Visits, and Other Matters

And thus my procrastinating has paid off, because I now get to conclude with musings on the Grenadier and out-rider of chainsaws Egan Bernal’s Wednesday day-out wearing fine street clothes.

2021 CDD: It’s All About the Weekend

Often it seems to be the case that the Dauphine needs some relative time to warm up before it gets into full swing. This is an unfair and inaccurate observation. Ah! But when the Dauphine begins, all of us are still just only beginning to come down from our high from following the Giro d’Italia that always goes out with a massive bang in the final week. This year, the Dauphine was actually a week early and the opening stage clashed with the Giro’s final day TT in Milan. Thus Lotto’s Brent Van Moer’s solo-break stage win on the opening day was not as exciting to us as it should have been—I was arduously editing my final stage report of the Giro as I watched. Nor was Bora’s Lukas Postlberger’s similar solo-break stage win the next day for I could not endure another cycling race. In both cases they just barely held off the peloton with Bahrain’s Sonny Colbrelli winning the sprint for second. Luckily, Colbrelli could not be denied on Stage 3, where he took victory. But I barely watched much of that Colbrelli stage until the very finish, too busy was I trying to get my life back in order after a three-week adventure in Italy. I was too busy to even watch any of the Stage 4 Time Trial that was surprisingly won by Alexey Lutsenko (Astana-Premier Tech). It was not until the very last kilometer of Stage 5 that the Dauphine started to suck me in and grab my attention. Until that point I had only been looking to see who was on good form for the looming Tour de France…the top answer was of course: Sonny Colbrelli for any sort of lumpy stage.

2021 TDR: A Proper Hardmen’s War (Written)

And it had been threatening all week, but finally the torrential rains really started to pour on Stage 3—all the bounteous green beauty of Switzerland must come from somewhere.

Itzulia, The Tour of the Basque Country (Written Musings)

“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.”

2021 Catalunya: Good Vibes All Week in the Centenary Edition

“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.”

2021 T-A: The Greatest Edition of Neptune’s Race (WRITTEN)

‘And all the race previews were hyping up the race well…except for one….“Well, this irks me,” King Neptune said. “What is this Cycling Odysseys podcast? Who is this Patrick Santino ant? A podcast named for that horrid Odysseus?”‘

2021 P-N: The Final Day of Paris-Nice Turns the Race on its Head (WRITTEN)

“Yes, with all the headliners of any sort of climbing or Classics prowess away in the south at Italy’s Tirreno-Adriatico, Primoz Roglic seemed to be starting his season right cruising to a dominant Paris-Nice victory that resembled his Vuelta domination to end last season…But then we came to the final Sunday’s Stage 8.”