Its like spring again!
No, not THAT kind of spring where Belgians run one day races over uneven bits of road though that can be fun to watch too. No, I'm talking about the alternate spring where short stage races happen all the time, like 2, 3, even 10 or 50 stage races in a week. (I may be exagerating.) But look what's happening now:
- Vuelta a Burgos started us off last week with its signature Queen stage on Sunday
- The Eneco Tour started today and runs through next Sunday, the 12th.
- Tomorrow starts the Tour de l'Ain which runs through Saturday. Will wil keep us posted on all the details there.
- Also tomorrow, the Tour of Utah, billed as America's toughest stage race, starts, also going till Sunday. And one of the great things about Utah is that it races later in the day than the other two. Check out the web page for Tour Tracker info (live video of each stage, complete)
Three stage races, each with a different flavor. You can read about Eneco here and here. l'Ain here. Below the jump lets look at Utah's stage profiles...
America's Toughest Stage race?
That's for you to decide. But check out the stages:
Stage One:
Not bad. Probably a bunch sprint but the sprinters are gonna earn it. Oh who is racing this? Heavily America-oriented of course. Check out the startlist at Cycling Fever. Nice assortment of riders led by Jens!
Back to the stages.
Stage two is a team time trial this time around the same motorsport park as used previously. 13.5 MILES. Okay: 21.75 km. Now you know why so many decent time trialists are here.
Stage three:
Stage four:
Stage five, the Queen stage. Remember the Levi-Henao dual last year here?
Stage six. It appears that there's about 7 miles of descending after that very long final climb:
