Damn, there's nothing that makes me angrier about today's cycling than the neglect of a vital specialty in the history of this sport: the time trial .

Someone, for whatever reason, has decided that time trials are no longer interesting. That they just get in the way of racing, that they're boring, and that people don't want them anymore. Someone has decided that it's almost inhumane to have a rider spend an hour alone against the wind. That it's too hard and, on top of that, it doesn't even put on a show.

What do you mean it's not a spectacle? The time trial isn't deceiving. It's the solitude of a team sport. It's you against the wind, with no help of any kind. Just you and your bike. There's nowhere to hide. No team to cling to. Not even the most cowardly of riders can avoid having to face the challenge that day. Don't you think this is necessary?

What is balance?

1. m. The state of a body when opposing forces acting on it compensate each other by destroying each other.

Although, of the definitions that the RAE dictionary leaves us, my favorite to illustrate this is the following:

4. m Counterweight, counterbalance or harmony between diverse things.

That's what makes cycling so beautiful. The harmony, the diversity. Diversity of races, landscapes, and settings, but above all, diversity of riders.

For me, a purist (not a pure-blood), what I like to see in a Grand Tour is the classic battle between the time trialist and the climber. The iron man who takes the hits, and the offensive climber. Each knows his territory and knows he can't let it go to waste.

But, as I said at the beginning of this article, someone decided that wasn't the beauty of it anymore. Someone decided that the Grand Tours had to be contested solely and exclusively between climbers. This new philosophical movement in cycling reached its peak in the 2015 Tour de France, where there were only 15 km of time trials.

Why does this happen?

Probably due to the emergence of cyclists who are the best on the climbs and the best at time trials. First, we had the dominant era of Alberto Contador, and then we had the dominant era of Chris Froome. Both were making a difference in both areas. A group of climbers appeared, led by Nairo Quintana, whom the Grand Tours (and especially the Tour de France) viewed as the "hope" for more evenly contested races.

Far from reality, those cyclists continued to win, and we spectators were the ones who lost out, with races that were almost "hijacked" and devoid of any excitement.

Why is the time trial necessary?

For one simple reason. Climbers need to lose time to have incentives to attack. There's no other way. A climber who loses 1 minute probably won't want to go crazy attacking from afar. A climber who's 1 minute behind might also be thinking that a second place or a podium finish isn't so bad either. On the other hand, a climber who finds himself 4 or 5 minutes behind and pushed out of the top 10 overall by a few time trialists needs to turn everything upside down if he doesn't want to go home unscathed. I'm not talking about putting 100 km of individual time trials on the road like in the past. Maybe that's even excessive. But I do see a 40-50 km time trial before the mountains as almost mandatory. Let's make things clear. Let the time trialist strike first so that the climber becomes a wounded lion with nothing to lose. Remember Pantani blasting Ullrich?

This Giro, the best example

This time I don't have to go far back in time to illustrate my ideas. Right now, we're witnessing a perfect example of this type of situation. A time trialist who has already made two mistakes. Who has left his rivals miles behind. The least, by 2 minutes. The most, by 5. The most pessimistic or conservative (I refuse to call them sensible) are already saying that the Giro belongs to Slovenia and that it's already won. NO. The Giro is about to explode. Almost all the contenders are miles away, at distances almost impossible to recover with attacks at the hurdles. Whoever wants to win the Giro will have to turn everything upside down . The race is full of people who have taken such massive blows that they have nothing to lose. Because finishing 5 minutes behind isn't worth it for Landa . Nor is it worth it for Miguel Ángel . Nor is 3 minutes worth it for Yates . And Vincenzo didn't come here to finish 2 minutes behind a Giro debutant.

When you have nothing to lose, you're not afraid to try crazy things and lose even your underwear.

I'm not here to sell you a bike. But I promise you the Giro will be one of the most exciting and spectacular races you've ever seen. Leader Roglic won't even know where the blows are coming from. It's going to be a hornets' nest. Every day. Yesterday (Thursday), we saw the first example. And it was nothing more than a lackluster mid-mountain stage. This time, Roglic had help from other teams who didn't want to get involved with Landa and López. López and Landa. What a Giro you're going to give us. And all thanks to the fact that you can't even use the goat to go get bread.

Blessed chrono!

Article by Fran Alarcón for Baggicase, the waterproof case for a cyclist's mobile phone and belongings .