Two things I learned in the past week:

1. In Utrecht, cycling is an absolute pleasure.
2. In Dublin, cycling is an absolute battle.

Prior to this week, Dublin has been the only city in which I have had the experience of cycling and having now had the pleasure of cycling in Utrecht, it is clear that Dublin is a complete disaster in comparison. While Utrecht has an infrastructure of proper two-way, unbroken cycle lanes with their own traffic light system, Dublin city council deem it sufficient to paint a red stripe on the side of roads, the refurbishment of which, apparently cost the government €800,000 last year. This is embarrassing. The cycle lanes in Dublin are just plain dangerous in plenty of places and are a result of irresponsible and uninformed planning. There is a Flickr account dedicated to documenting the appalling Irish cycle lanes, some of the photos up there are really quite disturbing.

Cycling around Utrecht, here was a photo op in front of the Dutchest scene I could find.

So having been off the radar in Utrecht for the past while (where I delivered a paper concerning Irish Traditional Music at the ISMIR conference, here’s a link to the paper if anybody is interested), I haven’t really had the chance to comment on Daniel Martin’s fine win in the Tour of Poland. It’s the biggest win of his career so far by some distance, his best result previously had been a win in the Route du Sud, a 2.1 category French stage race. But the Tour of Poland is a Pro Tour race, and is now, although hasn’t always been, far more prestigious than the Route du Sud. Former winners of the Tour of Poland include Jens Voigt, Kim Kirchen and former World Road Race Champions Alessandro Ballan, Laurent Brochard and Maurizio Fondriest.

Martin came close to winning a Pro Tour stage race last year in the Volta a Catalunya where he finished in 2nd place overall. On that occasion he was only beaten by the now suspended Alejandro Valverde. When the Spaniard’s suspension was finalised recently for his involvement in Operacion Puerto, it was decided that he would be allowed to keep all his results which were obtained before 1st January 2010, which meant sadly, that Martin remains in 2nd place in the 2009 Volta a Catalunya. His victory in the 2010 Tour of Poland is the first victory for an Irishman in a top level stage race since his uncle Stephen Roche won the 1991 Criterium International. It is also the first Irish victory in a national Tour since Seán Kelly won the 1990 Tour de Suisse.

Martin will not be racing the Vuelta a Espana which starts at the end of this month, instead his program will be focused on the remaining classic races of the season. He will be targetting the GP Ouest-France (where he finished 5th last year), and the Tour of Lombardy (where he finished 8th last year).

But fear not, for there will be an Irish presence at the third Grand Tour of the year. Nicolas Roche will be aiming to carry his great form in the Tour de France through to September. Roche last rode the Vuelta in 2008 where he narrowly missed out on a stage win, coming off second best in a two man sprint against Imanol Erviti. Roche went on to take 13th place overall in what was then only his second Grand Tour. Since then, Roche has ridden and finished two Tours de France. He is getting stronger and stronger, and if he has managed his training and form well, he could well be in contention for a stage win and another solid G.C. performance.

Roche may be joined in Spain by Philip Deignan who has made it on to Cervelo’s eleven man shortlist, from which nine riders will be picked for the race. Last year Deignan famously won Stage 18 of the Vuelta powering away from Roman Kreuziger in Avila. The 10 minutes that Deignan was allowed to gain on that stage moved him up from 18th up to 9th on the G.C., a position he would defend all the way to Madrid. This year, Deignan will be riding the Vuelta for the third time having also ridden and finished the race in 2007 when he took 71st overall. In fact, the Irish trio of Deignan, Roche and Martin have now ridden ten Grand Tours between them, and an each of those occasions they have all finished the race. Roche and Deignan, both a couple of years older than Martin, have both ridden four Grand Tours, but unusually this year’s Vuelta will be the first one that they have both ridden together.

The lineup for the Vuelta in general seems very strong. A large reason for this is the presence of the Schleck brothers who have announced they will be riding with the goal of overall victory for Frank. Their presence here is due to the fact that Frank crashed out of the Tour, otherwise the pair probably would not have signed up. In addition to the two Luxembourg riders, also expected on the startline on August 28th are former Grand Tour winners Carlos Sastre, who will be riding his third Grand Tour of the year, and Denis Menchov. With a former Tour winner in Sastre and the Giro and Vuelta previously won by Menchov, there will be previous winners of all three Grand Tours present in this year’s Vuelta. This has only occurred twice in the last 10 years. In 2007, Damiano Cunego (Giro 2004), Oscar Periero (Tour 2006) and Denis Menchov (Vuelta 2005) were all present, and in 2001, Marco Pantani (Tour & Giro 1998) and Roberto Heras (Vuelta 2000) were both there for the Vuelta.

There are plenty of other riders who are set to participate in this year’s race who have performed well  in the Vuelta before and will add plenty of intrigue to the fight for the overall. Egoi Martinez finished 9th in 2008 and won the King of the Mountains crown in 2006. Recent Tour stage winner Joaquim Rodriguez finished 6th in 2008 and 7th last year. Ezequiel Mosquera has finished in the top five in each of the past three years. Andrey Kashechkin will be something of unknown quantity as he returns from suspension and will ride for Lampre. He hasn’t raced since 2007 but he’s still only 30 and the last time he rode the Vuelta he won a stage on the way to finishing 3rd while helping his team mate and compatriot Alexander Vinokourov to the overall victory. There will also be the Liquigas pair of Roman Kreuziger, who has finished in the top 10 of the Tour in the past two years, and Vincenzo Nibai, podium finisher at this year’s Giro.

But it’s not all about the G.C. men. The fact that the World Road Race Circuit is considered sprinter-friendly this year means there are many speed merchants looking to hone their form at the Vuelta in the hopes of landing a rainbow jersey later on. The sprinting heavyweights Thor Hushovd, Tyler Farrar, Alessandro Petacchi, Daniele Bennati, Oscar Freire and Mark Cavendish should all be battling it out for stage wins although it remains to be seen how many will go on to complete the three weeks. Sadly, rider’s who are targetting the Worlds usually call it a day at the Vuelta before the third week. But, the fact that it is a relatively flat Worlds course, means the G.C. men should see the race out till the end. In addition, this could see the race with a distinct lack of sprinters in the final week which may leave the door open for stage hunters and some more unlikely stage winners. It’s set to be an exciting race, and fortunately for the Irish it is now the 7th Grand Tour in succession in which we’ll have a rider or two to be rooting for.

This week Bjarne Riis announced that in the coming years Alberto Contador will attempt to win all three of cycling’s three week Grand Tours in the one season, the ‘Grand Tour Grand Slam’. Also this week, Alberto Contador announced that this is not a goal of his and Riis’s words must have been lost in translation. In addition, Contador’s agent has also played down these reports, claiming that the Tour de France champion will continue to focus solely on the Tour de France. Perhaps the language excuse is valid, or perhaps Riis is getting a bit over enthusiastic with his new signing. Either way, the idea of one cyclist attempting to win the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana in the same year is most certainly a far fetched one.

To win all three Grand Tours, a rider would have to hit a considerable peak of form on three separate and not too distant occasions. I have written before about the likes of Hushovd and Cavendish peaking for Milan San Remo, the Tour and finally for the Worlds as a distinct possibility. There is a six and a half month gap between Milan San Remo and the World Road Race Championships. In contrast, there is less than four and a half months between the start of the Giro d’Italia in May and the end of the Vuelta a Espana in September, considerably less time to hit three form peaks.

In addition to the personal challenge of hitting three separate peaks in form in such a short space of time, there is also the factor that one would be competing against riders who are aiming to peak just once in the year, as Contador did this year for the Tour de France. If Contador was to attempt to stretch out his form two months either side of July, his form for the Tour de France would suffer. It’s not as if Contador had minutes to play with this year in terms of his winning margin. A gap of 39 seconds is not sufficient to be compromising one’s form by attempting to win another two Grand Tours. To illustrate, I give you a hand drawn graph of the form of a rider aiming to peak solely for the Tour de France, versus a rider aiming to peak for each of the three Grand Tours:

The form of a rider aiming to peak solely for the Tour de France (blue), versus the form of a rider aiming to peak for all three Grand Tours (red).

A rider aiming to win all three Grand Tours will be considerably handicapped when racing against riders who are concentrating on the Tour. There will also be riders who are focused solely on the Giro or the Vuelta also.

Obviously, winning three Grand Tours in one season has never been achieved before. Although many riders, including Alberto Contador have done a double of one form or another. As a result of his Astana team being banned from the Tour de France, Contador achieved the Giro/Vuelta double in 2008. As well as Contador, a Grand Tour double, be it Giro/Tour, Giro/Vuelta or Tour/Vuelta, has been achieved by eight other riders. However, all nine of these riders didn’t take to the start line of the third Grand Tour in the year they won the other two.

Even finishing three Grand Tours in one season is a feat which has only ever been achieved by 29 riders. King among them is Marino Lejarreta, who I seem to be referring to a lot lately. He started and finished three Grand Tours in one year on four separate occasions. Remarkably, he did it three times in a row in 1989, 1990 and 1991. His best performance came in 1989 when he finished in the top 20 in all three races, 5th in the Tour de France, 10th in the Giro d’Italia and 20th in the Vuelta a Espana.

However, Lejarreta’s performance in 1989 is not the best performance from a rider to have completed all three Grand Tours in one year. That honour belongs to Gastone Nencini who won the Giro in 1957 and also finished 6th in the Tour and 9th in the Vuelta in the same year. He remains the only rider to have won one of the Grand Tours in a year when he finished the other two. He also won two stages and the mountians classification in the Tour de France that year. However, if we were to add up the final positions in the G.C. of riders who have completed all three Grand Tours in one year, the rider with the lowest score would be the Frenchman Raphael Geminiani who impressively finished 3rd, 4th and 6th in the Vuelta, Giro and Tour respectively in 1955.

While Nencini is the only rider to have won a Grand Tour on his way to completing all three in one year, three other riders have won the mountains classification of a Grand Tour having completed all three. Triple Grand Tour finisher Inaki Gaston won the mountains classification in the Giro d’Italia in 1991, Manuel Fuente did the same in 1971, his first of four mountains jerseys in a row at the Giro. Finally, Federico Bahamontes won the mountains jersey in both the Tour and the Vuelta in 1958 while also finishing 17th in the Giro d’Italia. Bahamontes is the only rider to have won a classification in two separate Grand Tours, having completed three in one year.

Achieving success in all three Grand Tours in one year is clearly a monumental task. Winning all of them is seemingly impossible. However there is another, never been done before, achievable goal which Contador could conceivably aim for, and that is completing all three Grand Tour doubles in his career. Three men, each of whom are five time winners of the Tour, have achieved two of the Grand Tour doubles. Both Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil have done the Tour/Vuelta and the Tour/Giro doubles, while Eddy Merckx is the only rider to have achieved the Tour/Giro and the Giro/Vuelta double. Alberto Contador has already won the Giro and the Vuelta in the one year, he has two doubles left to go, both of which include his major goal of each season, the Tour de France. Three Grand Tours in one season is beyond any man, but a Tour/Giro or Tour/Vuelta double could be within reach of the best Grand Tour rider in the current peloton.

In the Clásica de San Sebastián last Saturday, Luis León Sánchez won a three man sprint to take top spot ahead of Alexander Vinokourov and Carlos Sastre. Sánchez’s victory means Spanish riders have now claimed six of the last seven editions of their biggest one day race of the year. It was an attack from Vinokourov, who was capitalising on good Tour de France form, about 30km from the finish which proved decisive as only ten riders managed to make the selection. These ten riders would end up populating the first ten places at the finish but it wasn’t only Vinokourov who was coming off the Tour on good form. Of the ten, eight had ridden the Tour (the exceptions were Haimar Zubeldia and Richie Porte), and all eight of them had finished the Tour in the top 20 places overall.

Nicolas Roche was one of the riders strong enough to stay with the front group when the Kazakh attacked. The 26 year old Irishman ended up in 8th place which is his best ever finish in a classic. It isn’t however the best ever placing by an Irishman in the Clásica de San Sebastián. Unsurprisingly, this was achieved by Sean Kelly in 1990 when he came third. In second place was a 21 year old Laurent Jalabert who was riding towards his best result so far in a major race. The winner that day was Miguel Indurain who soloed home almost two and a half minutes ahead of Jalabert and Kelly, completing a one day race podium full of past/future winners of Grand Tours.

Luis León Sánchez - Winner of this year's Clásica de San Sebastián

It is surprising that this classic was never won by Kelly. His calendar tended to revolve around the classics along with Spanish races like the Vuelta a Espana, Volta a Catalunya and the Tour of Pays Basque (making sure to pronounce the ’s’ at the end of ‘Pays’ like the man himself!). So one would have thought that a Spanish classic would have been right up his alley. As it happens, Kelly never even rode the race until 1989 when it became part of the inaugural UCI Road World Cup (which he won). Perhaps it is because the Clásica de San Sebastián tended to clash with two other races which Kelly was partial to, the Tour of Britain and the Tour de Limousin.

Getting back to this year’s race, the leading group of ten was shortly to become three when Sánchez attacked and only Sastre and Vinokourov could follow. Vinokourov paid for his efforts in pulling the breakaway and Sastre was never likely to win a sprint from a small group, which left Sánchez to power home for the first one-day race win of his career. Sánchez, along with his compatriot Sastre ensured a Spanish presence on the podium, a presence which has been felt since 2004.  However, Spain have also had to endure long droughts of success in their home race in the past. In the ten years between 1992 and 2001, not a single Spanish rider finished on the podium.

Even though this race is known traditionally as a race where Tour de France riders do well, there is evidence that gives hope to those who take part without having ridden the Tour. With podiums full of riders who completed the Tour, the past two editions seem to be the exceptions. Before 2009, it’s been 17 years since the Clásica de San Sebastián podium was made up entirely of riders who finished the Tour de France. In the thirty editions of this race, it has happened on only six occasions. Along with 2010, the only other year the podium was made up of riders who finished in the top 20 of the Tour was 1991 when Gianni Bugno (2nd in the Tour), Pedro Delgado (9th in the Tour), and Maurizio Fondreist (15th in the Tour) made up the top three.

Two of this year’s Tour podium finishers Alberto Contador and Denis Menchov decided to give the race a miss but runner up and white jersey winner Andy Schleck took to the startline aiming to become only the third man to finish on the podium of both the Tour and the Clásica de San Sebastián. Unfortunately, Schleck mysteriously abandoned after 120km, leaving Claudio Chiapucci who finished 2nd in both races in 1992, and the aforementioned Gianni Bugno, as the only two riders to have achieved this feat.

Marino Lejarreta - A triple winner of the Clásica de San Sebastián and the only rider to win it along with a Grand Tour in the same season.

Despite this race not going to plan, Andy Schleck has stated his intentions to ride the Vuelta in support of his brother Frank, who will be aiming to win the race overall. Plenty of the top performers in San Sebastián at the weekend are also expected to ride the third and final Grand Tour of the year. Marino Lejarreta remains the only rider to have won the Clásica de San Sebastián and the Vuelta (or indeed any Grand Tour) in the same year when he won both in 1982. Miguel Indurain managed to spread his form even further than this in 1990 when he became one of two riders to have finished on the podium in San Sebastián and managed to finish in the top 10 of both the Tour (10th) and the Vuelta (7th). In 2008, Alejandro Valverde did slightly better than Indurain when he won the Spanish classic, finished the Tour in 8th (and wore the Maillot Jaune) and took 5th place at the Vuelta.

Since 1995, when the Vuelta a Espana was moved from its traditional date in April to its current location in September, it has taken a while for riders to use the Clasicá de San Sebastián as a launch pad to extend their form over to the Vuelta. In the first ten years since the Vuelta was moved, only five of the 30 riders who finished on the podium in San Sebastián went on to race in the Tour of Spain, and only three of these riders finished. Conversely, in the subsequent five years, which brings us up to 2009, all but three riders did start the Vuelta a Espana. The best Vuelta performances by San Sebastián podium finishers in recent years have been Alejandro Valverde in 2008 (5th) and Andrey Kashechkin in 2006 (3rd).

The startlist for the Vuelta a Espana is far from clear, but Nicolas Roche confirmed today that he will definitely be riding his second Grand Tour of the season. Samuel Sánchez, Carlos Sastre, Luis León Sánchez, Joaquim Rodriguez and Robert Gesink are riders who are also very likely to partake in the Vuelta in an attempt to achieve the tricky feat of extending their form from the Tour de France and the Clásica de San sebastián over to the Vuelta.