"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - Major Events Calendar

I've tried to follow the TdF for the last few years, and watched the Vuelta a Espana on the net. and now I'm wondering: What's the next big event?

Could someone supply me the rough dates/ order of the world's major road racing tours and events?

for example: The Giro, TdF, La Vuelta, World championships:- what order do they come in? what months? any other major tours?

And why the hell doesn't UK have a tour????:confused:

Stew

stewartp,

you can find out the racing calendar by going to www.cyclingnews.com, look down the left-hand column for 2001 racing calendar. as for what's next, the world champs start on the 9th october. the u.k used to have a national tour up until a couple of years ago, the 'prutour' sponsored by prudential. but as is usual with these 'we'll support cycling for the next 5 years' sponsorship deals, they pulled out.

cabledonut.

Stew,
Velonews.com also has a pretty decent schedule covering just about every event down to small regional races in most countries. They also have TV listings for Outdoor Life Network which I guess is primarily U.S.. If you do get OLN, their website, olntv.com, lists the cycling events they will be showing. They have a regular Thursday night lineup that airs some classics and world cup events 2-3 weeks after they are run. I can tell you the general times for the big three, all of which run for 3 weeks.
Giro d'Italia - starts about the last Saturday in May.
TDF - Starts the first or second Saturday in July.
Vuelt a Espana - starts about the second Saturday in September.

The Tour of Switzerland finishes a week or two before the TDF.
The Tour of Germany goes on during the same time period as the Giro. I think organizers were a little ticked that Ullrich rode the Giro to get in shape for the TDF rather than riding the Tour of Germany.

That's about the extent of my knowledge of it. I just hope OLN is very successful with their cycling coverage so they will contiue to expand it. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the big tours as they were being ridden.
Regards,
Raymond

I found out that the World Championships start next week in Lisbon, Portugal, but I can't find a web site that covers them . . .??

Stew