In
cycling, a
road race run over several stages, each of which constitutes a race in itself, by contrast with a single-day, one-off
classic. Most stages are generic massed-start road races, but some may be run as individual or team
time trials.
Overall placings (usually referred to as the General Classification or GC, calqued from the French classement général) are generally determined by a rider's total elapsed time on all the stages, so flat stages (where the field usually stays together and are often all awarded the same finishing time) are less important than hilly or mountainous ones where the time gaps are significant. There are generally secondary classifications calculated on points awarded for placings instead of time and for points awarded on major climbs during the race. Interim leaders of the various classifications are often awarded distinctive coloured jerseys along the model of the maillot jaune.
The archetypical men's stage races are the three Great Tours: the
Tour de France, the
Giro d'Italia and the
Vuelta a España, each run over three weeks, but there are many shorter events, including the
Tour de Suisse,
Paris-Nice,
Tirreno-Adriatico,
Volta a Catalunya, the six day long
Quatre Jours de Dunkerque, the
Tour de Romandie, the
Midi Libre, the
Dauphiné Libéré and the Tour of the
Basque Country. For women the hardest are the
Hewlett Packard International Women's Challenge, the
Giro Femminile and the
Grande Boucle Féminin, which was formerly the Tour de France féminin.