Tour de San Luis

Tour de San Luis is 7 stages with lots of climbing.

It seems incredibly tough so early in the season.

Last year Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) won. This year Liquigas is sending Ivan Basso.

But most of the big name teams and most of the normal cycling news outlets don’t seem to want to touch it.

I’d really expect Jonathan Vaughters, who has expressed his interest in supporting more than merely European races, to send a squad from Garmin. But the Garmin Cervelo site doesn’t mention it.

HTC’s calendar doesn’t begin till the Tour Down Under.

And Steephill, which carries races many newer fans will never have heard of, also doesn’t even start its event calendar until the Tour Down Under.

Ditto Team RadioSkank.

I know going head to head vs the Tour Down Under hurts it, but to not even send your #2 squad seems needlessly disrespectful.

Now maybe some of those teams ARE sending squads. But if that’s so, they haven’t promoted it and that still sucks.

This Cycling News article pins the greatest hopes for overall victory on Movistar’s Mauricio Soler (who says he’s set his sights on winning — yes, WINNING — the Tour de France this year). But Soler admits in the interview that he’s undertrained coming into this race.

You’d think that’d leave it wide open for Basso (who’s insanely gorgeous sister Elisa may just be there!). But in my mind this race is all about the ProContinental teams.

So I’m gonna go with UnitedHealthcare and pick Christian Meier as my GC (general classification) favorite.