This year’s Strade Bianche races are expected to be fast and virtually dust-free after midweek rain compacted the gravel and dampened the dust, giving the climbers an edge over the best bike handlers and Classics specialists.
The first Strade Bianche reconnaissance rides were done under heavy rain on Wednesday, but the weather improved on Thursday and Friday, with forecasts of a sunny early spring day on Saturday and temperatures of 14°C in the afternoon.
Wind played a huge factor in last year’s men’s race, with Julian Alaphilippe and a host of other riders blown off the road on an exposed gravel section on the famous Crete Sienese clay hills.
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A 15kph north-easterly wind is expected on Saturday. It will blow across most of the race route south of Siena and could thus still play a factor in the races, with dropped groups of riders or those who suffer a puncture likely to struggle to get back up to the front.
The surface of the 63km of sections of ‘sterrato’ is gradually drying, but dust and loose gravel are unlikely to be a factor in the race. Riders will reach the finish in Siena covered just with a patina of light white dust and sweat.
“There wasn’t a lot of gravel due to the rain,” Mathieu van der Poel said after his recon ride on Thursday.
“The off-road sections were quite okay, normally they’re a bit more technical. But it’s still a super hard race.”
The weather in late winter and early spring in Tuscany can occasionally be cold and wet, but it is often dry and sunny. The last edition of Strade Bianche held in the rain was in 2018, when Tiesj Benoot won alone after a mud-covered Romain Bardet and a young Wout van Aert faltered on the final climb into central Siena.
This year, the riders seem to be fortunate, even if Quinn Simmons and other Classics riders would perhaps prefer a slugging match in the rain and on mud-soaked gravel roads.
“I think it’ll be a very fast race on Saturday. The rain on Wednesday has compacted the gravel and made it easier and so faster,” Elena Cecchini (SD Worx) told Bicipro.
“It’s also not that cold. It was a lot colder last weekend in Belgium. We’ll race in shorts and short sleeves if it's like this on Saturday.”
A dry race and compact gravel would favour the likes of Magnus Sheffield (Ineos Grenadiers), Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious), Sergio Higuita (Bora-Hansgrohe), Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) and Mauri Vansevenant (Soudal-QuickStep).
That said, Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep), Benoot, Quinn Simmons (Trek-Segafredo), local resident Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost) and Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) remain the favourites to win in Siena.
“It’s unfortunate that the best weather comes on race day. I wish it had been sunny for training and raining on Saturday,” Simmons told Cyclingnews this week.
“The slower the climbs are raced, the better it is for me. The climbers go so fast up them that they’re hard to control. Anything that is going to slow 'em down, like the cold and rain, is a help.
“It doesn’t look like it’s going to rain, so it’ll be a fast race. That’s okay too, I’ll still be riding to win, like everyone who lines up at the start.”
