14 DAY TRIAL // The language of cycling uses the term classic races to refer to a limited number of one-day competitions that have been around for a long time, tend to take place over long distances and include a variety of challenges for the riders, including steep hills and cobbled sections.
Traditionally, the type of rider who is able to win this kind of contests has a very different profile from the ones who try and find success in the three Grand Tours, which take place over three weeks and require different types of effort.
But in an effort to add more variety to the race, the ASO has chosen to make the second stage of this year’s Le Tour de France a classic-looking experience, with a large number of third and fourth category climbs that create a very complex and hard to negotiate course.
A large second category hill will test even the best of sprinters, and it’s highly likely that a solid breakaway, made up of riders who know the classics, can stay away and contest the finish.
The plan for my own group of riders is to control the early parts of the race as much as possible and then send a powerful rider, potentially Fabian Cancellara, in the group that seems most likely to win the stage.
If that fails, we will see what other opportunities open up on the road.
Once again, the early break needed a lot of time to form and when it finally coagulated I put Voigt in there, put he never managed to have much of an impact and lost all the points that were offered for both mountains and sprints.
Voigt is one of the oldest riders in the peloton, praised for his attacking spirit, but finally his legs seem to fail him.
The second category climb served as a launch pad for some other riders to go ahead, but none seemed like a big threat and none of my own riders were having a great day in the saddle so I just ignored them.
I then led the chase in the final 20 km and then launched Cancellara, but once again I left it too late, and Warren Barguil, one of the exciting newcomers from Giant Shimano, managed to take the stage and fool much more experienced riders like Contador, Valverde or Mollema.
Take a look at the final kilometers of the second stage of the Tour de France 2014 below.
