I was pleased to be invited to a small but very select group of Rouvy members to form a virtual racing league. Running over 7 weekly stages points were given for Strava segment placings, each stage had at least one and some had up to four.
I placed tenth, which I was happy with.
Getting my excuses in quickly, I was the oldest contender at aged 67. However if you take a look at the results below it might be apparent that the top two were only a few years younger than me and I was around an hour behind them overall.
This is probably my favourite race of the year. Paris – Roubaix is a close runner up but the beautiful scenery and the finish in Siena slightly outdoes Flanders and a finish in a velodrome. I love the Lombardian images and the ride through Siena. I am not sure what the various sections are about but if you win the race three times you have one named after you. Fabian Cancellera is the only triple winner so far but Pogacar has a great chance in 2025 after his second success in 2024.
Race conditions were good for the viewer at least, if not the riders. Light rain had been forecast but it turned into a level of biblical magnitude. The riders, some of whom were in SS jerseys must have been frozen. Combine that with a big peloton and some very sharp turns, one that I saw that was almost 180 degrees, and there was a recipe for accidents to happen. Nothing too serious though.
The race was boring. Yes, there was a great breakaway from Tadel Pogacar with 81km to go but there was no chase. Once he had a 3 minute gap everyone just gave up. Pidcock tried to retain the title with a battling solo performance for fourth but neither him nor anyone else was going to catch the leader.
So which races form the Monuments and why do they do so? Directly from Wikipedia:-
The Monuments are five classic cycle races generally considered to be the oldest, hardest, longest and most prestigious one-day events in men’s road cycling, with distances between 240 and 300 km.
Milan – San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris – Roubaix, Liege – Bastogne – Liege and The Giro de Lombardia.
Strade Bianche is a new race by comparison, started in 2007 and over a distance of 184km which is much shorter than the monuments. So really there is no good reason to include it as a monument. However the Lantern Rouge podcast did, tongue in cheek, suggest that whichever race Tadel turns up at then it automatically becomes a monument race.
William Fotheringham, the doyen of cycling writing, also argues that it shouldn’t be a monument but instead a new group of ‘dirt epics’ including Strade Bianche and Ghent-Wevelgem should be formed. I suppose some will call them gravel races but those, IMHO, are rides that are predominantly off-road, not just having sections of rough stuff.
Please subscribe using the ‘Follow’ link on the home page (bottom R/H corner)
I reviewed a set of data regarding the Fulgaz riders showing who filmed the rides and collated the data into various tables. My interest was sparked by an ongoing mini project that I am undertaking where I try and ride all the Alexis Berthillier Californian rides.
I started wondering who had filmed the most elevation and the most rides. I thought that would be Hans Peter Obwaller and Alexis Berthillier respectively. Close but no cigar.
Below I show a list of the top 20 filmers by ride count. I have left the Ironman rides in but they were filmed mostly from a motor vehicle and by a variety of people.
The Death AKA Tour of the Californian Alps is a 162Km 3998 metre tour. Starting and finishing at Turtle Rock Park in Markleeville, Calif., the 103 mile course begins at 5:00 am and covers both sides of three mountain passes: Monitor Pass (Hwy 89), Ebbetts Pass (Hwy 4), and the Pacific Grade (Hwy 4). The full course is not for the faint at heart! The image and the previous sentence is from the ride website
It was filmed for Fulgaz on a quiet day in October 2023. It is the hardest ride, with the most elevation out of the 2500 ride Fulgaz catalogue. Clearly it was calling out to me to be completed. Wishing to share my pain I arranged a challenge through the month of February to ride it and I was the first one to complete it.
Below are some of the lessons learned, how I fuelled and tips for others.
I came across an app for my phone (Android) and Ipad (IOS) which is quite interesting
All the information of your favourite climbs, hils or cols worldwide in one free and fancy app.
It reads the Strava ride and matches segment to its known climbs. However it also provides some nice history or information on many of the well known climbs. It only requires a standard Strava subscription, not a Premium one.
It took a while to scan about 8 years of Strava rides but now after each ride it updates the app with any new or re-ridden rides showing date and time and a link to the Strava file.
At this time of the year I like to focus on my objectives for the years cycling. I do like to have something to push for otherwise I get rather lazy and aimless. Therefore I have set myelf two main objectives – which go hand in hand.
I want to ascend 100,000 metres on my bike, whether indoor or outdoor. In parallel with that I want to climb all the routes I can find virtually from the book Mountain High – Europe’s Greatest Cycle Climbs by Daniel Friebe and Pete Goding
Another year complete and another Rapha 500 complete (despite declaring that I would not do one again).
I went into the Rapha very uncommitted and with the thought that I might do a couple of big days of downhill rides only – it was only for my own benefit anyway.
In the end I found it quite easy, and I ended up with very similar stats to the previous years. Of course, doing 100K on the 24th and then another one on the 27th helped.
I also managed 15 new Fulgaz rides, which was a bonus. Everything on Fulgaz bar the final ride which was a Rouvy race. That was something new to me but I enjoyed it.
I have mentioned before that I really like the challenges set up by Graham Love on the Virtual Brevet website.
There is a good variety, although they all involve serious distances and are to be done virtually. A quick look at the page gives an indication of the type of rides available. Specific routes are available in both Rouvy and Kinomap (and also Big Ring VR as I understand it). However many of the distance challenges can be undertaken in Fulgaz as well as the platforms mentioned above.
As we move into the winter period (UK) I start to think about my challenges over the next 6 months or so. Many are driven by the Facebook group Virtual Randonneuring, of which I have been a member for about 18 months and I have posted on the Fulgaz site saying how motivating I found it.
Randonneuring is a long-distance cycling sport with its origins in Brevet cycling. (also known as Audax in the UK, NZ, Australia and Brazil). This group is for indoor rides only. Graham, who manages the site has developed it well and runs a number of challenges which can all be seen on the Virtual Brevet website.
sixtyplustimetrialling 