Reasons to be cheerful in June…here’s the 2020 UCI schedule

Dear Rouleurs

Let’s face it the last 3 months or so has been bloody awful without competitive cycling. Watching the fairly boring replays of the Paris-Nice 2020 on SBS, is no substitute for a fully fledged spring classics season. So it was with some excitement that MMT heard through his favourite podcasts that the UCI had published a revised 2020 event calendar.

It looks like this. MMT hasn’t figured out how to show the Women’s events yet, so accusations of sexism please.

RaceCountryDate
 Eschborn–Frankfurt Germany1 May – Delayed due to COVID-19
 Strade Bianche Italy1 August
 Tour de Pologne Poland5–9 August
 Milan–San Remo Italy8 August
 Critérium du Dauphiné France12–16 August
 EuroEyes Cyclassics Germany16 August – Delayed due to COVID-19
 Bretagne Classic Ouest–France France25 August
 Tour de France France29 August – 20 September
 Tirreno–Adriatico Italy7–14 September
 GP de Québec Canada11 September
 GP de Montréal Canada13 September
 BinckBank Tour Belgium  Netherlands29 September – 3 October
 La Flèche Wallonne Belgium30 September
 Giro d’Italia Italy3–25 October
 Liège–Bastogne–Liège Belgium4 October
 Amstel Gold Race Netherlands10 October
 Gent–Wevelgem Belgium11 October
 Dwars door Vlaanderen Belgium14 October
 Tour of Guangxi China15–20 October
 Tour of Flanders Belgium18 October
 Vuelta a España Spain20 October – 8 November
 Three Days of Bruges–De Panne Belgium21 October
 Paris–Roubaix France25 October
 Il Lombardia Italy31 October

Now a few aspects of this schedule are immediately obvious, such as the enormous overlap between one day races and grand tours. Spain has lost all of its races, except the La Vuelta. MMT reckons that cyclists being earmarked for the Tour Guangxi would be looking for danger money.

But what’s interesting about this compressed season is the impact that it may have on the grand tours. It seems to MMT that teams will be forced to choose which races to prioritise. For a team like Ineos, they may choose to skip many of the one day events. For a team like Quickstep, MMT guesses that it will write off the Giro. The French and Dutch based teams will have serious thinking to do. One wonders which of the tours, Mitchellton-Scott will prioritise?

Either way its going to be fascinating to see how this turns out. Speaking of fascinating – MMT has completed his bike log for the first in years on time and May was a great month. The last week or so meant the Zwift-Tacx Neo trainer was pushed aside for some time outdoors. Some days were actually delightful for cycling.

So until next time, stay safe, ride safe

MMT