I could write a long piece saying how great today’s race was, examining the form of the riders, the relative strength of each team and the impact of racing without radios. But that’s not the point. Instead it was simply a fantastic race to watch. The 2011 Het Nieuwsblad was a 203km held in foul … Read more
The cold European winter is finally beginning to lose its grip. Whilst it can still return with a snow flurry or icy rain, there are signs that spring is on its way. The tree buds are beginning to swell, some woodland flowers are beginning to emerge and for cyclists, the unmistakable colour of spring: the … Read more
Here’s a post to satisfy fans of BigRingRiding.com. The latest edition of Vélo magazine has an interesting take on track cycling, reporting on the gears used over the years by the sprinters. 1970 Daniel Morelon 48×14 7.32 metres 1999 Florian Rousseau 49×14 7.47 metres 2001 Arnaud Tournant 50×14 7.62 metres 2011 Kévin Sireau 52×13 8.54 … Read more
I’m only just getting used to seeing Cavendish, Greipel and Farrar get the jump on Freire, Petacchi and McEwen. But several neo-pros have got off to a winning start already. You could say they are raring to go whilst big name sprinters are waiting for bigger objectives. But that doesn’t discount nor really explain their … Read more
I like Carlos Sastre. Not just as a rider, although his endurance and stamina are something, but the man too. He does a fair amount of charity work and tries to make a difference. He’s coming to the end of his career now and facing the possibility of never riding the Tour de France again. … Read more
As a user of Twitter I follow plenty of pros. In the last couple of days several of them have been posting near-identical excitable messages about the SRAM Red groupset. There’s a new version coming out in black. As far as I can tell it’s merely a change of powder-coating or anodisation. There is no … Read more
There was some interesting comment from Joe Lindsey’s Boulder Report blog on bicycling.com. Essentially his point was that the US media struggles to report cycling. Taking the example of a report from the Tour of Algarve, one American report said: “Tony Martin of Germany won the Tour of the Algarve in Portugal with a strong … Read more
Having covered the bikes ridden by the pros and the subtle geometric differences on Monday comes the news from the UCI that it is pushing ahead with its approval scheme for bikes. It was first announced, then put on hold, the reviewed and now we have the third version. Third time lucky? To summarise, every … Read more
It’s not easy being Jonathan Vaughters. The manager of Garmin-Cervélo has a lot on his plate given Matt White got ejected from the team. But in between managing one of the biggest squads around, he’s happy to chat via twitter and even visits the cyclingnews.com forum where often the loudest rage can drown out more … Read more
Thomas Voeckler won the Tour du Haut Var two-day stage race in the south of France this weekend. Cofidis’ Samuel Dumoulin won the stage on Saturday and held a one second lead over Voeckler. But during the second stage to Draguignan the French champion slipped away on a descent and worked hard with Julien Antomarchi … Read more