AG2R La Mondiale, Bretagne-Schuller, Cofidis, Europcar, FDJ, Garmin-Cervélo and Skil-Shimano are the seven teams that belong to a grouping known as the MPCC, the Mouvement pour un Cyclisme Crédible. They are now calling for teams involved in doping scandals to be involved in any punishment. Normally it is only the rider who is sanctioned but … Read more
Hip It was great to see an attacking rider win from a breakaway. The move looked doomed but the chase behind didn’t appear too organised. At one point Rabobank were chasing, a sign that they wanted to keep a lid on De Gendt’s advantage but not to bring the race back, since they don’t have … Read more
Jimmy Casper races a trotting horse over 500m in Amiens. This time the horse wins but it seems course played a big part with Casper struggling to get full traction. Note a typical trotting rig can have as much carbon technology as race bike. French manufacturer Corima makes both carbon bike wheels and disc wheels … Read more
Franco Pellizotti had more than a bad hair day yesterday. The Italian rider, nicknamed il delfino, the Dolphin, got a two year ban plus his results from May 2009 onwards were annulled. His podium place in the 2009 Giro and the Tour de France King of the Mountains title are now erased from the record … Read more
Many riders are marketable sports stars and like many a celebrity they have their dedicated websites. Some of these aren’t very exciting, often just a repository for images and results. Not to single him out, but Fabian Cancellara’s website isn’t a must read corner of the web. For me it’s the personal tone that interests … Read more
A little reminder to update your bookmarks. Many people are still visiting from http://theinnerring.blogspot.com/ and whilst you get automatically forwarded, you can gain precious seconds by updating your bookmark to https://inrng.com.
I wrote something last year about Garmin’s “no needles” policy and promised to ask every team what their policy was regarding the use of needles with a view to seeing who is doing what. The results were frankly boring and not worth following up, the standard reply was “we comply with WADA guidelines” over and … Read more
The image is from yesterday’s Paris-Nice. With 1.7km to go, the HTC-Highroad sprint train is trying to set the pace and race leader Thomas de Gendt interrupts things with an impulsive late attack. In less than 90 seconds’ time Sky’s Greg Henderson will win the stage. But look closely and HTC-Highroad’s Matt Goss is having … Read more
You might already have heard of Jérôme Coppel. If not, then maybe you’ll be hearing a lot more about him. Twice a medallist in the U-23 World Time Trial Championships, the Frenchman turned pro with FDJ and after two years moved to Saur-Sojasun for 2010. Although he was relatively discreet results-wise, FDJ’s Marc Madiot was … Read more
The Giro will invite Acqua et Sapone, Androni Giocatelli, Farnese Vini, Colnago-CSF Inox and Geox. It was hard to leave any of these teams out, given the presence of Garzelli, Serpa, Visconti, Modolo and Belleti, Menchov and Sastre respectively. Indeed normally only four wildcards would be announced as the race is capped at 200 riders … Read more