But there are more races going on, that the pros are entering! (They probably don't have to enter themselves and fill in the forms online.) If you want a complete list of all the professional races during 2016 you can find it here. However, we will not follow all the races on that list. Even if we would have liked to, which to be honest is quite doubtful, there are just too many. Instead, we decided to make our own alternative list, the races that we will follow, not so much because they have high UCI race classifications, but rather because we simply like them. So here goes:
We would like to begin with mentioning Tour de Taiwan, which is held from the 6th of March to the 10th of March. It might be quite hard to follow, at least here in Sweden, and it's not one of the "bigs", but if you want to check out the beautiful country of Taiwan, or ever see an Iranian winner in a bicycle race, this is your chance. (Actually there are teams from Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Dubai, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zeeland, Kazahkstan, PROC, Sweden, UK, USA and of course Taiwan too.) Their web page, which we like even though it is a bit slow, is here.
Then, on the 19th of March: Milano - Sanremo. The spring Classic. 298 kilometres, the longest professional one-day race, from the million people city Milano to the smaller town Sanremo, by the Mediterranean coast. Read more about it here. And, if you want: Write to the organisers and tell them to bring the Primavera Rosa women's professional race back, which was held the same day from 1999 to 2005.
10th of April: Paris - Roubaix. L'enfer du Nord! The cobblestone Classic. Read more about it here.
20th of April: La Flèche Wallonne and La Flèche Wallonne Féminine. Because we like Wallonia and because we think that it's cool that the women's version of the race is becoming a standard. Read more about it here and here, respectively.
24th of April: Liège - Bastogne - Liège. Also one of the Classics. Read more about it here.
6th of May to 29th of May: Giro d'Italia. The Giro d'Italia is arguably the most beautiful and important race of the year. Read more about it here.
1st of July to the 10th of July: Giro Rosa. Sort of like the women's Giro d'Italia. It's not easy to find information about it. There is an outdated web page here, with the results from 2015 and a picture of two really old guys as a background. One of them might be Ernesto Colnago, whose company Colnago will sponsor two of the jerseys of the race... But why not have a photo of the women who race instead?
2nd of July to the 24th of July: Tour de France. Inarguably the most important race of the year, regardless of what you think of the French (and we do!). Read more about it here.
24th of July: La Course by Le Tour de France. A one-day women's race, held in Paris, France, before the male cyclists of the Tour hit the city. Read more about it here.
19th of August: Crescent Women World Cup in Vårgårda, Sweden. Another women's race with quite hard-to-find information. The official web page is this one, with a little information about the 2016 edition of the race.
20th of August to the 11th of September: Vuelta a España. We rank this race as "the third race", together with Giro d'Italia and Tour de France. Read more about it here.
4th of October: Il Lombardia. Seriously, how can you not like a race named Classica delle Foglie Morte - The Classic of the Dead Leaves? We do, and you can too. Read more about it here.
Our favourite teams for 2016 will (most probably) be Movistar Team on the male side, and Cervélo Bigla Pro Cycling Team on the female side. Movistar because we like Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde, and Cervélo Bigla Pro Cycling because we like Lotta Lepistö. (Actually Lotta Lepistö seems super cool.)
We can't have a blog post without a single picture, so here is Lotta Lepistö. (We borrowed this picture from Cervélo Bigla Pro Cycling Team. Hope that's OK!)
Ride safe!
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