It sounds like a terrible joke from a book. What is 2.28km long, has 12 corners, and takes just 2:55?
The answer is the Tour de Romandie 's prologue , which took place on Tuesday in the Swiss town of Payerne. 161 of the world's best riders went round a course less than 1.5 miles long in order to claim the first yellow jersey of the race.
According to the race's press guide, the "spectacular" prologue was designed to show "the charm and history of the town of Queen Berthe, as well as its famed Abbey Church". It certainly was captivating, if a bit odd, to see riders start and finish so quickly.
The winner was Maikel Zijlaard of Tudor Pro Cycling , who went round the tight route at an average speed of 46.9km/h. Such was the weirdness of the course that the top-71 all completed the prologue within 10 seconds or less of each other, and the rider who finished 100th, Jesús Herrada (Cofidis) was just 14 seconds behind Zijlaard. It was not a normal time trial.
"I started quite early, and the last two hours have been the worst two hours of my life," the Dutchman said post-race.
"I'm quite good on this stuff, I was coming here with the goal of the prologue."
While it does seem a bit odd that riders came to Switzerland early for a five-stage race with this 2km sprint tacked onto the beginning of it, it is a tradition which has dated back to 1970. This was the shortest prologue since 1992, but far from the shortest overall, with 1978's being just 800m.
The race's press officer, Giovanni Sammali, explained to Cycling Weekly that the goal of the prologue is just to create a first classification and make sure that there is a race leader for the first stage proper, Wednesday's much more ordinary 165.7km effort to Fribourg.
The corner-heavy short course also gave teams a headache when deciding which bike to use. The squads do have TT bikes with them, for stage three's 15.1km individual time trial, but the majority of riders rode their road bikes, some with disc wheels, and many with time trial helmets.
"It's a beautiful course, not so dangerous," Maxime Monfort, the Lidl-Trek directeur sportif , said. "It's really technical so it might be dangerous at some points if they take too many risks. It's good, because there is a lot of discussion in every team before the start about the bike choice. It will be a combination, maybe 80% on road bikes, and 20% on TT bikes, because of how technical it is.
"The key is how the rider can handle their TT bike. The TT bike is still faster, but it's all about the cornering. Because the TT bike is so stiff, you have to be a specialist at cornering to have an advantage."
Second-placed Cameron Scott (Bahrain-Victorious) revealed that for him, "the shorter, the better".
"I was really looking forward to this actually, it's probably one of the better races of the year for me," he said. "I tried to keep my ride fast and smooth."
The whole thing might seem very odd to the majority of us, but the prologue fulfils the role of a team presentation, gets the riders moving, and gives the chance for another town to show off. It also means Maikel Zijlaard has a WorldTour victory, which is a precious prize. All done in under three minutes.
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