To start with there’s not a lot competitors. There’s solely 4 stage races on the calendar now that the Vuelta is finished. In ascending order, I rank ‘em like so:

4. Tour de Kyushu. Three phases, October 12-14. That is simply the second yr for this race and the primary yr on our FSA-DS calendar as they’ve two WT groups, EF, and Astana. Let’s give them a pleasant spherical of applause and hope that the plucky new race has an awesome future.

3. Gree-Tour of Guangxi. Sure it is a WT race on October 15-20. Sure there are 14 WT groups set to attend. Sure, that is (certainly one of) the final races on the calendar. However come on: that is the race the place asshole DS’s ship the riders who’re of their doghouses to race. Who actually desires to be right here? The poster boy of that is Enric Mas who again in 2019, in his final race with Quickstep, gained the GC right here. Do you actually suppose Mas thinks of this race as certainly one of his profession highlights? Mas beat Danny Martinez by one second in the one stage with any type of climb that mattered-and that duel was the slowest end to a “mountain” stage that you just ever noticed. I swear that each of them had been pounding some brews throughout that climb. Discuss lack of motivation.

2. CRO Race. Six phases from October 1-6. Located as it’s in the midst of the autumn Italian/remainder of Europe single day race calendar (it overlaps with Binche – Chimay – Binche, Sparkassen Münsterland Giro, Giro dell’Emilia, Coppa Agostoni, and Paris-Excursions) it has a ceiling to its significance. However on the lositive aspect it’s simply throughout the Adriatic from these Italian races so riders can simply make the journey earlier than and after to these races. Plus its acquired some good punchy hills and scary dash phases by way of some amazingly fairly territory to maintain issues fascinating. Six WT groups too together with seven strong Professional Conty groups. It’s at all times a superb signal {that a} race of this stature has most of its startlist already set because it exhibits that groups have designs on this race. And the defending champ, Orluis Aulur, is again to defend his title.

1. That leaves the Skoda Tour de Luxembourg as the large stage race. Sure it’s a .professional race. It additionally has 10 WT groups, making it simply as vital in FSA-DS lore as Guangxi, each cat 3 races, plus eight extra PRT groups. Its acquired severe riders who’re reaching their high fall kind for Worlds: Hirschi, Skjelmose, MvdP, Mads, Tiberi, Storer, Cort, Madouas, Ayuso, Laporte, and Kelderman to come back in third or no matter.

However why is Luxembourg such a comparatively huge race? Followers could recal that earlier than the pandemic, the Tour of Luxembourg was simply one other stage races in an overcrowded spring calendar. In FSA-DS phrases it was not even on the calendar in 2018 and 2019 as no WT groups bothered to enter. In any other case it was a cat 6 or perhaps a cat 5 race, simply missed. Butthen the Pandemic Lockdown occurred and race organizers took benefit and moved 2020’s cancelled Could race to September. All of a sudden Luxembourg was in style and it caught with September and the upper profile adopted. It’s now a comparatively huge race yearly.

I additionally love that Luxembourg labels its categorized climbs as both cat 1 or HC. I feel the logic goes like this: France is 213 instances larger than Luxembourg (I appeared that up) so for those who shrink the whole lot down then these climbs such because the opening stage Cote de Eschodorf (2.5km @ 8.6%) ought to, if there’s a God in heaven, that’s an HC climb. Its Luxembourg’s Tourmalet.

I simply can’t argue with that. Who’s gonna win? Onerous to move by the rider who’s on a severe scorching streak, and is the defending champ

Right here’s stage 1: