Patrick Lefevere brutal on tougher Strade Bianche route: "This has nothing to do with Strade Bianche for me anymore"

Patrick Lefevere is not known for hiding his opinion and this weekend, despite the health issues he encountered, he put his mind to work and wrote about Strade Bianche. What he had to say was not good at all for the Italian classic, whom he believes has effectively forced out many of the classics specialists by changing the route.

"Sorry, this has nothing to do with Strade Bianche for me anymore. They're completely missing the point," Lefevere stated full-on in his weekly Het Nieuwsblad column. "The Strade in its original form is so well put together: beautiful images of dusty riders between the cypresses, on a course that gave classic types and cobblestone riders more or less equal chances."

The route used to be just over 180 kilometers long but in 2024 the change was made to add another lap before entering Siena for the final time, adding around 30 kilometers and 700 climbing meters to the route - including another ascent of brutal climbs such as the Colle Pinzuto and Le Tolfe. It's become more of a race for climbers, in a way, but it's added difficulty put some off from racing in it again.

Specially when several of those classics riders have their eyes on the cobbled classics, and are looking to train or race elsewhere at this time, instead of doing a brutal event that will take days to recover from.

"Why try to fix something that isn't broken? Okay, you can aim for the status of monument. But a monument is less about distance than about the field of participants," he argues, for a race that has had legendary figures battling each other in recent years. "What you win on one side, you lose on the other. Van der Poel, Van Aert and co. are not participating. Do you find it strange in a race with almost four thousand meters of elevation?"

Lefevere points out the addition of the gravel section to the Planche des Belles Filles climb, and how that final steep ramp ultimately encouraged riders to neutralize attacks earlier in the climb.

"When it made its entrance, we all thought 'wow'. But then it suddenly became Super Planche des Belles Filles, with an additional two hundred meter gravel strip. Result: no racing all day, with only a few skirmishes on that last strip. That was also perfectly predictable."