Do longer races actually mean better bike racing?

Adam Becket

News editor at Cycling Weekly, Adam brings his weekly opinion on the goings on at the upper echelons of our sport. 

This piece is part of The Leadout, the offering of newsletters from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.

I like long things. I’m a fervent supporter of Test cricket, I don’t mind films over three hours long - even if Oppenheimer didn’t deserve that many Oscars - and I’ve always loved the Bayeux Tapestry. However, things can be too long. A history of the 1848 revolutions, as good as it is, remains on my bedside table because its 700 pages are intimidating. 

Longer does not always mean better when it comes to bike racing, despite more road adding to the test. In fact, shorter races are often more exciting, more memorable.

This thought was provoked by a multitude of things over the past couple of weeks of racing, but also because this weekend brings Milan-San Remo, the famously long Monument. However, this year, there is a twist. For the first time since 2002, the route is officially under 290km, and even with the neutralised zone, is not going to top 300km. 

I am not a fan of San Remo: what’s the point in a seven-hour long bike race where only the final hour is exciting? At least that is the point of it, though. It is length for length’s sake that annoys me more than anything else.

Strade Bianche has always been an exciting event, but the lengthened course this year for the men’s race made Tadej Pogačar’s win all the more inevitable. His performance was outstanding, and historic, but it could have been a more exhilarating race the organisers had not added 30km. Tom Pidcock said post-race that the leading group were already on their knees with 80km to go. Ideally, races are alive for as long as possible, without getting boring. This is not what happened at Strade.

Perhaps it’s an Italian thing, as two stages at Tirreno-Adriatico were over 200km for no discernible reason, while none at Paris-Nice were. In fact, the two most exciting stages of the 15 separate races at Paris-Nice and Tirreno were the two final days in France, where neither distance was above 110km. 

The races I wanted to watch were the ones where the action exploded as Remco Evenepoel, Matteo Jorgenson or Mattias Skjelmose were animating things, partly thanks to the shorter courses, whether through design or through fate. 

The Tour de France has five stages at or above 200km this year, with the Giro d'Italia containing four. The 229km between Piacenza and Torino on stage three of this year’s Tour looks like a particular snoozefest. It is time for us to fight back against extremely long days. 

Of course, there are so many other factors in what makes a compelling day’s bike racing, from the weather to the makeup of the field, but length seems like an easy one to get right. Making things long just to make them harder seems like an easy way to get a bike race wrong.

The Classics are good because they are hard, yes, but the length of the likes of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix have been worked out to make them as exciting as possible, but crucially, not too hard. 

After my piece last week on the annoying choice between Paris-Nice and Tirreno, and the radical suggestion that they should not be run at the same time, I can imagine the traditionalists will not like this idea either. I’m simply of the opinion that we should make racing as interesting to newcomers to the sport as possible, and getting rid of protracted races is another step on the way there.

Milan-San Remo can remain the exception to the ‘shorter is better’ approach, even if I don’t like it, because of history. Other than that, make bike races less long winded. They’ll benefit from it, I promise.

This piece is part of The Leadout, the offering of newsletters from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.

If you want to get in touch with Adam, email adam.becket@futurenet.com.