Who Will Win The Green Jersey?

Peter Sagan? Casual followers of the sport who tune in for the Tour de France rather than the whole season can be forgiven for thinking Sagan’s team kit is green given spends he spends most of July in the maillot vert and he’s won it five times in a row.

So another verdant victory? Probably but this year’s route offers more stages to the pure sprinters than usual allowing a dominant sprinter to rack up points ahead of a consistent Sagan. Here’s a look at the competition, the points scale, the stages and the likely challengers for the green jersey and the sprint stages.

Read more

Tour Guide

Here’s the 2017 Tour de France guide. There’s a profile of every stage with a quick take on the day as well as details on the points and mountains competitions, the suggested unmissable stages and more.

Read more

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.

Read more

Widening The Gap

The UCI has announced several changes for the World Tour in 2018 including smaller team sizes for the grand tours, a topic covered late last year. Another novelty is going to be tested in the Tour de France starting next week, where the time gap to classify a group of riders, versus a split in the field, goes from one second to three seconds. It’s to help safety in the finish but will require a perceptual adjustment from inside the peloton and the outside.

Read more

More is Less

There are hours and hours of the Giro d’Italia on TV and some of the upcoming stages will be shown live from start to finish, a novelty for 2017. The Tour de France will have every single stage live on TV from start to finish too. It’s great but is it too much?

Read more

Roger Pingeon Obituary

Roger Pingeon, an early advocate of marginal gains and a fighter of adversity who often came off worse, has died aged 76, a few months short of the 50th anniversary of his 1967 Tour de France win.

Read more

The Rise of Nationalism, The Demise of Races

Nationalism, nativism and populism are on the rise across Europe and beyond. Some like it, some don’t but put your take on this aside for a moment if possible because there’s sporting connection to it. Or at least there used to be. Many bike races have a long history of nationalist association, whether as expressions of patriotism or symbolic illustrations of occupying the terrain. Will today’s politics bring new bike races.

Read more

Roger Walkowiak Obituary

Roger Walkowiak

Roger Walkowiak has died aged 89. “Winning à la Walkowiak” is a term used today for an easy win or an unexpected triumph. It’s used in cycling and beyond, a French politician can get elected à la Walko too. Walkowiak felt wronged by this label, his triumph in the 1956 Tour de France was mocked and this turned into a sadness that weighed on him for years.

Read more

Tame Wildcards

The Tour de France has issued its four invitations and as predicted they go to Cofidis, Direct Energie, Fortuneo-Vital Concept and Wanty-Groupe Gobert.

The Giro recently caused controversy by snubbing two Italian teams in order to invite teams from Poland and Russia. In both cases these wildcard picks are too tame, there are 22 teams to chose from yet only a few look capable of finishing a grand tour intact. This is a sign of a structural problem in the sport.

Read more

Highlights of 2016 – Part V

How to choose a fifth highlight from the year? Easy, pick several instead. There are plenty of exciting moments during the year and if it feels reductive to limit it to five, then even sticking with 10 means leaving out plenty of good times. We might find overlapping races incongruous but this can mean twice the action. Here are some more of the joyous moments from 2016.

Read more