The Emakumeen Bira is one of the oldest continually running Women’s stage races. It’s taken place each year since 1988 in the Basque region of Spain. For 2019, the time trial is gone – replaced instead with more climbing. The first stage is lumpy but expected to finish in a bunch sprint. The start of the 2nd stage has two decent climbs but their positioning...
California here we come, right back where we started from – or something. The Women’s Tour of California is a 3 stage race with a couple of sprint stages and 1 queen stage that will see the general classification sorted. And it starts tonight for us Brits. The sprint stages are no formality though. Stage 1 has a perfectly positioned little dig of a hill...
After the fun of the 2017 edition of the Velo Birmingham, the event made its belated return in 2019. A completely different route saw the riders head east into North Warwickshire instead of west into Worcestershire. This made a difference to the parcours with a flatter profile and smaller rolling hills. It also meant paying a visit to lovely Coventry city centre. Thankfully after attempts...
As in 2017 and 2018, I went down to Redditch to watch the Women’s Tour Series and Men’s Tour Series kick-off in Redditch. The Tour Series is a set of races that take place across the country for the next few weeks and are shown on ITV4 for good measure too. The race in Redditch ended up wet. It was damp and drizzle for the...
Chongming Island is, unsurprisingly, an island on the Eastern side of China. Roughly twice the size of the Isle of Man it’s almost pan-flat with the highest point being 2.6 metres above sea-level. With that in mind, the race has always been a sprint fest. There are 3 stages in the race, which takes place between 9th-11th May and all 3 should come down to...
The Women’s Tour de Yorkshire includes two hilly 132km stages on 3 and 4 May. Both stages will be broadcasted live in full on ITV4 from 9am-1pm The 2019 Women’s Tour de Yorkshire is a World Tour race in all but name. It’s got a stacked startlist, live coverage of the full stages, the race is on equal footing with the men’s in prize money...
