ANALYSIS: FIRST TO THE SUMMIT
Alto da Fóia was one of the first summit finishes of the 2018 season. The 15km climb concluded stage 2 of the Volta ao Algarve, and got many GC riders’ seasons underway. Procycling looks back at its significance
How significant was one of Europe’s first summit finishes at the Volta ao Algarve?
The blue bar of the Atlantic Ocean is just visible in the distance from the top of Alto da Fóia, the highest peak in Portugal’s Algarve. It’s early February, and under the clear, cloudless sky, through the hazy sunshine and past the red and white telecommunication masts scattered around the mountaintop, you can see for miles across the region. At 900m high, Fóia stands above neighbouring climbs in the Serra de Monchique range. The slopes are exposed and open, part of the reason why the view is so spectacular and far-reaching.
A few hundred people are huddled around the final 300m of road. Some sit patiently on the outcrops of granite that make up the volcanic climb, and today double as temporary stadium seating. Some are still wearing helmets after riding up; many have red Cofidis caps that were handed out courtesy of the Volta ao Algarve’s race sponsor; lots are wearing sunglasses; almost all are wrapped up in jumpers and coats against the chilly wind. It may be sunny, but it’s still February.
Despite the sizeable crowds up here, the Algarve is quiet at this time of year. The tourists who flood the area during the summer to enjoy the miles of sandy beaches and multitude of pristine green golf courses are nowhere to be seen yet – they’ll arrive when the temperature goes up in a few months’ time. For now, the rows of white holiday chalets are eerily empty, their windows dark and hollow. Many of the restaurants and cafés are closed. The roads are practically trafficfree. It as though a state of slumber has descended across the region.
Yet on the road to Fóia a peloton of riders is slowly waking from its sleep. Today is stage 2 of the Volta ao Algarve, and it finishes at the top of the mountain. For the past three years, Fóia has been one of the first real European summit finishes of the new season. Geraint Thomas, Dan Martin, Bob Jungels and Richie Porte are among the increasing number of GC riders getting their seasons moving here. The pleasant temperature, central hotel base and mix of rolling terrain, climbing and time trialling make the five-stage race an attractive season opener. Fóia isn’t the trickiest climb. Its 15km length averages a relatively mild seven per cent, and the steepest ramp of 9.5 per cent arrives almost exactly in the middle. It’s enough to hurt after a winter without racing.
The beauty of these early season races, and the significance of this climb is the unknown. None of the riders will have come here blind – the nature of modern-day training and sports science means their data over the off-season will have been recorded, measured and closely monitored. All have a strong inkling where their form is.
But training and racing are different. No one can be sure for certain how the riders will fare.
Before the stage, at Trek-Segafredo, the plan revolves around setting up Bauke Mollema. Although they want to win, they admit the climb will be a tester ahead of bigger challenges in the season. “It’s interesting to see how everybody will be, because there, you cannot hide it if you are good or not. Based on that, you can go further to see where you need to be to get better – for example towards Paris-Nice or to Tirreno,” the team’s directeur sportif, Dirk Demol, tells Procycling.
“If it goes well, it gives you confidence. If it’s not going as you were hoping, then you have doubts. It’s an interesting test, physically and mentally. If it goes well it gives you a mental boost, if not, then you go home with questions: ‘What should
I do? What did I do wrong?’”
At BMC, it’s a similar outlook. Their leader, Porte, is here to get acclimatised to European terrain and weather. A year ago, Porte went straight from the Tour Down Under into Paris-Nice and struggled. This time around, Algarve was added as a stepping stone. “It’s not that we really came here with the plan, with the big form to go for the win,” says directeur sportif Fabio Baldato. “I also want to see how the
team works together… There’s no [big] drama if they are not there at the top.”
On the climb, Sky takes control, which is unsurprising considering they are the race favourites, with the strongest team and two previous overall winners in Thomas and Micha¯ Kwiatkowski. Vasil Kiryienka is among a group of four who attack on the steepest section, but with 7km to go, he takes off alone, a sign that his leaders are feeling strong. Kiryienka is finally caught by the peloton, now down to 19 riders, under the flamme rouge. Michal Golas, another Sky rider, takes over on the front. With 250m left, the riders start the uphill sprint. Kwiatkowski swings out to the right, opens a gap and leads the group up the final right-hand bend to the line. Martin, Thomas and Mollema finish just behind, and the rest of the peloton rolls shortly afterwards.
THE AFTERMATH
The Quick-Step Floors team bus is parked next to the mountaintop’s solemn café, where a few people sit outside on white plastic chairs. On the rollers, his Luxembourg champion’s jersey open, sweat still pouring down his face, is Jungels. He finished seventh, three seconds behind Kwiatkowski. “You’re always a little bit nervous, at least I am,” he tells Procycling, once he catches his breath, about racing the first mountain of the year. “You never know how the condition is, but like I say, if you know that you have been training seriously and you are a little bit lucky in the race, then the final is what it is.”
Dan Martin is also gasping for breath. He doesn’t even make it back to where his UAE Emirates team cars are parked before he pulls up in the middle of the road. “Day two of 2018 and it really hurts. You can definitely feel the lack of racing, but that’s what this race is for,” he says. “The sprinting legs aren’t really there yet. It’s not really about seeing where your form is, it’s about getting that race speed. You can’t train that. You can’t ride at 60km/h on your own… It’s training all the senses, all the natural reactions, the instinct in the peloton, it’s training everything to move towards the next big races in March.”
Thomas, who finished third, is happy the race confirms what he already knew in training – that he was feeling good. “I’m used to going into the big targets and you know exactly where you’re at. You’ve done some big racing, you’ve done all your training, it’s all measured and you know exactly where you are and kind of... if everything goes well, it’s the outcome you can expect. Whereas something like that, the first day of it all, you’re like, ‘I don’t know.’ It could go really well, it could go really bad. It’s always nice when it goes alright,” he says, sitting in the hotel lobby a couple of days after the stage.
Fóia also gives teams the chance to take a peek at how their competition is going. After a winter off, and a period where riders transfer and have to embed into a new team, the first significant climb of the year also gives teams a chance to see how their rivals have fared over the break – whether there’s anyone who looks strong and they need to be wary of. Though it’s still very early in the year and Fóia isn’t the toughest of climbs, who finishes at the front and who struggles with the pace could be significant down the line.
Kwiatkowski, who won the stage and went on to win the race overall, ended the year as Team Sky’s most prolific winner - his nine victories included the overall at Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour of Poland. Meanwhile, Porte finished 10th on Fóia and went on to have a difficult spring, including missing Paris-Nice with illness.
Perhaps most strikingly, the rider who took the race lead atop Fóia that day was Geraint Thomas. The Welshman went on to have the season of his life, winning the Critérium du Dauphiné and then the Tour de France. He also told Procycling while in the Algarve that his favourite climb was Alpe d’Huez, the mountain he would win on in stage 12, on his way to Tour victory. Maybe we should keep a closer eye on what happens on Fóia in the future.
“Day two of 2018, it really hurts. You can de initely feel the lack of racing, but that’s what this race is for” Dan Mar t in, UAE Emirates