Roads to Ride: the Alto de Arrate

In recent years the Alto de Arrate above the town of Eibar has been the final climb of the Tour of the Basque Country. It’s not so famous beyond the Basque Country but it must be infamous inside the World Tour peloton as it’s a brute.

You may have seen it on television but to ride it is a lesson in how TV coverage struggles to reveal the severity of some climbs.

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Tour de France Teams Part I

22 Teams will start the Tour de France and in advance of previews for the yellow and green jerseys here’s a wider look at the other teams and riders in the race, this time on a team by team basis.

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Tour de France iCal

Here’s a downloadable calendar of the Tour de France for your electronic diary or phone with brief details of each stage. There’s also a look at the TV coverage ahead for July.

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UCI to Introduce Cortisol Testing and Ban Tramadol

Don’t jump for joy yet, don’t open the champagne but all the same the news yesterday from the UCI that the Management Committee, its board, has announced it plans to test cortisol levels and ban Tramadol for 2019 and this is welcome news.

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Wednesday Shorts

The Adriatica Ionica stage race starts today, a 2.1 race in Italy. Normally with Halle-Ingooigem yesterday that’s it for pro racing beside the national championships until the Tour de France. Now there’s a new race to supply some more more race days and it takes place in north-eastern Italy with a finish in Trieste on Sunday after a team time trial today and a summit finish on the Passo Giau this Friday.

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2018 Tour de France Stage Guide

A quick look at each of the Tour de France stages. If there’s a theme to this year’s route it’s variety with short stages, long ones, sprints, cobbles, new summit finishes and more.

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Roads to Ride: Col de Peyresourde

Regularly used, rarely celebrated. The Col de Peyresourde is often a hyphen, linking different places during a stage of the Tour de France and that’s its charm, a crossing point with a useful halt at the top.

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Thursday Shorts

The Tour de France will use a starting grid to place riders ahead of Stage 17, the ultra short stage of 65km from Bagnères-de-Luchon to Saint-Lary-Soulan. It’s been in the rulebook of the race for some time but seems to have caught attention recently.

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Yvette Hornère Obituary

Yvette Horner was at the intersection of French popular culture in the 1950s and 60s when she played the accordion at the Tour de France, a publicity stunt that made her famous and jump-started a career that took her from the bars and cafés of Tarbes to Nashville, the big stage and prime time television.

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The Moment The Critérium du Dauphiné Was Won

Geraint Thomas, La Rosière

A winning moment? The team time trial gave Geraint Thomas a big cushion of a lead, almost a hammock to swing in but he confirmed as soon as the race reached the mountains that he could rival the pure climbers, including at Valmorel where he jumped away once the road flattened out take time on Adam Yates and Romain Bardet, his principal rivals and again at La Rosière, taking time and time bonuses.

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