The stage race championship returns with a six day, shark-tooth profile jaunt across the Basque Country. The climbing starts from kilometre zero and doesn’t let up until the final whistle. This is a wonderful mix between youth and experience with two of the previous three winners on the start list being over 35 years of age, and four of the other main favourites are 25 or under. It should be one hell of a week!
The Route
As I said, the climbing starts right away with a 2.4km climb at 7% as part of a 13.8km individual time trial. It doesn’t let up after this as every stage contains around 3000 vertical meters and stage five contains over 4000 vertical meters. Three of the five road stages end in short inclines meaning all of these stages will impact the general classification (GC) in some way. Below are the profiles for the stage one time trial, and the final stage profile to give you a taste of what’s coming up.
The Riders
Because this race is almost entirely GC based, I’m going to concentrate on those riders. After this I’ll look into the budget picks and perhaps an opportunistic punchy stage hunter or two to round things off. At the top of the odds tree are two of the youngest competitors in Isaac Del Toro, available for 24 credits, and Paul Seixas, up for selection at a mere 18 credits. The former has enjoyed stage race success at both the UAE Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico already this year, proving that his leap last year wasn’t a coincidence. Seixas is making his own leap this year and at just 19 years of age, he’s finished 2nd at the Volta ao Algarve with a stage win, won a Pro level one-day race, and finished a strong 2nd behind Pogačar at Strade Bianche in March. Also in contention is Juan Ayuso, the 2nd most expensive rider in the game at 20 credits and looking to bounce back after his crash and DNF at Paris-Nice a month ago. For 18 credits are the Red Bull duo of Florian Lipowitz and Primož Roglič. This race would have been bread-and-butter for Roglič in recent years, but has the young German taken over his mantle? Roglič did finish 5th at Tirreno-Adriatico, but it’s hard to see what his ambitions are this year besides another Vuelta. Lipowitz on the other hand looked super strong in Catalunya and finished a narrow 3rd overall behind Vingegaard and a resurgent Lenny Martinez. He was 4th here last year and he definitely seems even better this year.
In the mid tiers, I really like Tobias Halland Johannessen for 14 credits. He looks in super form this year and had a very strong Tirreno-Adriatico finishing in 4th place overall. Mattias Skjelmose is also 14 credits and whilst he’s supporting Ayuso, he’s more than capable of his own decent result. Antonio Tiberi could possibly have a good race, but he hasn’t shown enough to be worth 16 credits for me, especially not with this start list. For 12 credits we have the likes of Bilbao, Riccitello, Healy, and Uijtdebroeks for GC, and Vauquelin and Aranburu for stages. I’m not sure how many stages don’t go to the GC guys, but if two of three are contested by a larger group, then these guys should be in a good position. Vauquelin might start well with the opening time trial as well. The 10 credit pot has a host of Astana riders, a couple of Quick-Step riders, Julian Alaphilippe, Ben Tulett, and Axel Laurance. I’m not sure how many points these guys can score, but Tejada and Landa might be the best place for GC.
It’s really hard to call the single digit riders for this race. If the majority of the stages go to GC, then assist points or breakaway hopefuls might be the way to go. The only guys I like for 8 credits are Izagirre and Soler. Izagirre did just win the Gran Premio Miguel Indurain one-day race at the weekend and this is his home race. Soler might have limited chances with Del Toro here, but try telling him to race conservatively in Spain. For 6 credits you could go for Busatto who had one good stage finish in Catalunya. Bisiaux will be supporting Seixas, but could be a strong finisher himself. Veistroffer will probably try and be in more breaks than there are stages once again and Kron will be hoping for better than his performance at Tirreno-Adriatico. The 4 credit riders really are just a selection of hopefuls including many of the riders from Burgos, Caja Rural, Equipo Kern Pharma, and Euskaltel-Euskadi.
The lack of truly decent options for 6 and 4 credits and the potential for dominance from the GC riders makes this a hard race to call. Do you go top heavy and hope that you cheaper picks score a good few points? Is there something to be said for only two expensive picks and then pack the middle order? I might end up with a combination of the two. I’m not a huge fan of going really top heavy and it never pans out that they mop up all the points anyway. I have a feeling they’ll be a couple of riders who’ll be in everyone’s teams, but it’ll be how the teams are completed that’ll make this interesting. It could be a very fun week! A reminder of the league for those not yet in it: 649949130
The Pelotonian 