What you need to know about the new Hammer Series
Velon's new event, which starts Friday in Limburg, could shake up traditional road racing
by Mark Cohen
The Hammer Series, a new cycling race format by Velon, is set to start Friday in the Netherlands Limburg region. Yes, another race in an already full road race season. The Hammer Series format, however, stands not only to be popular with Dutch fans, but it could better showcase the sport of road cycling.
Graham Bartlett, the CEO of Velon—the association of 10 UCI WorldTour teams trying to create a sustainable future for the sport—believes the team-friendly format is exactly what’s needed. “There are many great races in cycling. Teams, however, felt there was room for a new emphasis, something that distilled the core disciplines of the sport and spoke to its powerful team ethic. One of the riders who worked on the concept called it ‘impact racing.’ I think that sums it up,” he explains.
Friday’s launch in Limburg—a city with a rich cycling history that has hosted six world championship races—will see 16 teams take part, introducing a format to the pro peloton and fans have not seen elsewhere.
The Hammer Series in a nutshell
The Hammer Series are three-day cycling events. The first (and only for 2017) will run in Limburg (best known in cycling as the provincial heartland of Amstel Gold), in the Netherlands, from June 2–4. Racing starts with the Hammer Climb, followed by the Sprint and Chase formats on each subsequent day. Teams will run five riders in each of the three races. The Climb event is on a 7-km that team ride 11 times. The Sprint features eight laps on a 12.4-km circuit.
While traditional cycling races have individual riders as stage and classification winners, the Hammer Series focuses entirely on teams. The climb and sprint events are points races in which riders attempt to win points for their team. Each team’s finishing positions from Days 1 and 2 are then combined to determine their starting place on Day 3’s Hammer Chase—a staggered team time trial in which the first team over the line will be crowned Hammer Series champions.
Who is competing in the first Hammer Series event?
Sixteen teams will contest the first ever Hammer Series event: 12 UCI WorldTour teams and four pro continental teams. Tom Dumoulin will ride for Sunweb; Fernando Gaviria, Philippe Gilbert, (both Quick-Step Floors) André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal), Caleb Ewan (Orica-Scott) and Samuel Sánchez (BMC Racing Team) will also be racing for their respective teams. Others team participating include Bahrain Merida, Cannondale-Drapac, Movistar Team, Lotto NL-Jumbo, Sky, Trek-Segafredo, UAE Team Emirates, Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, Israel Cycling Academy, Nippo-Vini Fantini and Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij.
Ben Perry racing for the Israel Cycling Academy is the lone Canadian set to start.
Over time, Velon expects to develop the series with as many as four races in 2018 and potentially more in years to follow. Time will tell if formats long run by ASO (Tour de France and many more) and RCS (Giro d’Italia) will be disrupted by more fan- and team-friendly formats like this one.
You can watch the Hammer Series via the organization’s Facebook page.
Mark Cohen has held strong opinions about style and sport since the start of his writing career. This has only worsened over time. Connect with him on Instagram @mcohensays.
