I enjoy cycling for the suspense, drama and action. But analysis sometimes means using cold numbers and hard data and often these confound what we think. Here’s a look back at 2012 via some numbers, from the most victorious rider of the year to the nation with the most pro wins as well as other stats from the season.
I have a mental picture of the cycling calendar where April is packed with racing and August is a sleepy month, the post-Tour de France blues set in and there’s not much going on. But after publishing the calendar of races on Tuesday I toyed with the numbers and the chart above shows the distribution of men’s pro racing throughout the year. It turns out April is a quiet month with just 51 days of racing and August has more days of racing than any other month of the year.
The cheerily-named French website cyclisme-dopage.com has been hosting research by engineer Frédéric Portoleau who estimates the power needed to ride with the leaders over the main mountain passes.
The estimates suggest the Vuelta saw some of the highest power-to-weight numbers of the year. Some will use this to draw conclusions but for me it’s more a tool to analyse the racing.
Whilst there are several races on right now it still feels like there’s a lull so it provides a moment to look at an updated version of the team victory rankings for this year and also to take stock of the transfer market which looks quieter than usual.
Will teams instead spend money on hiring staff in a bid to mimic Team Sky?
A double win yesterday for French squad Ag2r La Mondiale. First they won in the Circuit de Lorraine Professionel, a 2.1 stage race on France’s eastern borders thanks to Sébastien Hinault. Then Sylvain Georges doubled-up with a fine solo stage win in the Tour of California.
Until now they had yet to win a race this year and were a day away from “beating” the longest losing streak set by Saunier Duval who didn’t win a race until 19 May back in 2005. This time Ag2r won their two stages on 18 May, a day ahead. But 2012 is a leap year meaning the French squad might have won earlier in May but we’ve had an extra day in the year.
The UCI Pro Tour started in 2005 as a way of categorising the top teams in pro cycling and has since become the World Tour. Since this designation became many teams have enjoyed success and failure but we must go back to 2005 for the longest losing streak when Saunier Duval didn’t win a race of any kind until 19 May with Leonardo Piepoli taking a stage in the Tour of Catalonia.
But French squad Ag2r La Mondiale now surpass the second longest losing streak set by Euskaltel-Euskadi in 2005, when they didn’t win a race until 8 May. With no stage in the Giro and Europcar’s Matteo Pelucchi winning the final stage of the Four Days of Dunkirk, Ag2r now beat the Basque team to take second spot in the losing streak status race and now need to win a race in the next 10 days to avoid setting the “record” currently held by Saunier Duval.
| Rider | Team | Kilometres Raced in 2012 |
| Andrea Guardini | Farnese Vini – Selle Italia | 6,214km |
| Cristian Benenati | Farnese Vini – Selle Italia | 6,015km |
| Tom Boonen | Omega Pharma – Quick Step | 5,638km |
| Luis Leon Sanchez | Rabobank | 5,586km |
| David Arroyo | Movistar | 5,579km |
| Thomas Voeckler | Europcar | 5,484km |
| Kenny Van Hummel | Vacansoleil | 5,466km |
| André Greipel | Lotto – Belisol | 5,451km |
| Martin Kohler | BMC | 5,301km |
| Alessandro Ballan | BMC | 5,282km |
Today is International Workers’ Day and a good time to look at the hardest workers in pro cycling. Thanks to Cycling Quotient we can see who has raced the most this year.
That’s the prize list for yesterday’s Flèche Wallonne race with a first prize of €16,000 for the men’s race and just €1,128 for the women’s race.
It’s one of the most prestigious one day races on the calendar but many might see the cash prize as rather small. For comparison, last Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race offered €16,000, a sum similar to the prize for making the semi-finals of the Dutch Open tennis tournament, in other words coming fourth in a modest tennis tournament.Win the golf tournament in the Netherlands and you pocket €300,000.
But the value of a bike race probably isn’t reflected in the prize list. Instead there are other ways of judging the value of a win.
In the a piece for cyclingnews.com I look at how teams on a small budget can aim to get in the UCI’s World Tour. Inspired in part by the book/film “Moneyball” that looks at baseball and prompted by Ag2r La Mondiale’s position as the only top team yet to win this year I wanted to see if there ways to build a winning team on a shoestring budget.
| Wins | Team |
| 21 | Omega Pharma – Quickstep |
| 13 | Liquigas – Cannondale |
| 13 | Team Sky |
| 8 | Greenedge |
| 7 | FDJ – BigMat |
| 7 | Lotto – Belisol |
| 6 | Garmin – Barracuda |
| 6 | Movistar |
| 5 | Vacansoleil – DCM |
| 4 | Katusha |
| 3 | Rabobank |
| 2 | BMC Racing |
| 2 | Lampre – ISD |
| 2 | Radioshack – Nissan |
| 2 | Saxo Bank |
| 1 | Astana |
| 1 | Euskaltel – Euskadi |
| 0 | Ag2r – La Mondiale |
I won’t be doing a running commentary every Monday but this time last week I listed the World Tour teams by win and in the space of seven days several teams without a win finally got the result they needed.
Astana’s Janez Brajkovič won a stage in the Tour of Catalonia as did Samuel Sanchez for Euskaltel-Euskadi. Cadel Evans won Stage 2 and the overall in the Critérium International. Note these three riders are just who’d you’d expect to appear once the roads head for the mountains. In addition, promising all-rounder Diego Ulissi won two stages in the Semana Coppi e Bartali. This leaves Ag2r – La Mondiale as the World Tour gooseberry.