After last week’s Riders to Watch for 2016, here is a selection of neo-pros to introduce. Previous picks have included several second year pros but this year’s intake seems so promising that all the names below are novices. Here’s a look at some promising riders with big results, fat contracts and some musical talents.
Here’s a selection of ten established riders to watch in the coming season. Some stand on the cusp of a big win, some face challenges on the road and others face new challenges like leadership and cohabitation with new team mates.
Who is the better rider, Peter Sagan or Alejandro Valverde? It’s topic for a café chat but they can and are ranked arithmetically by the UCI and Valverde topped the rankings for 2015. Now cycling’s governing body is launching a new rankings system f0r 2016. Released by stealth with a Christmas Eve press release it’s got little coverage since.
Still, points can be the currency of the pro cyclist’s jobs market and the ranking system often matters to teams and fans alike. With this in mind here’s an explainer along with tables listing all the points to scroll past. There’s also a warning about confusion because if the UCI is launching a new ranking it’s also keeping an old one and they’ll both have similar sounding names.
A Christmas quiz with 50 questions, some are obvious, some odd, most can’t be Googled and a few are fiendishly difficult. By all means have a go and there’s a prize for the winner but most will probably find fun in the answers that will appear here in the coming days.
1. Can you name the joyous Noël pictured above, he’s now a sports director with a large team?
Noël Dejonckheere who was world points champion on the track and now a DS at BMC Racing.
2. Jesus H! No, nothing blasphemous, just the first name and initial of two World Tour pros. Name them.
Jesus Herrada (Movistar) and Jesus Hernandez (Tinkoff-Saxo)
3. Which Danish pro has a name that sounds like Christmas?
Christopher Juul-Jensen, Jul being Christmas in Danish.
A Christmas quiz with 50 questions. Some are obvious, some odd, most can’t be Googled and a few are fiendishly. By all means have a go and there’s a prize for the winner but most will probably find fun in testing themselves and seeing the answers that will appear here in the coming days.
Festive Greetings
1. Can you name the joyous Noël pictured above? He’s now a sports director with a large team.
2. Jesus H! Nothing blasphemous, just the first name and initial of two World Tour pros. Name them.
3. Which Danish pro has a name that sounds like Christmas?
For fun at the start of the year there were 10 predictions for 2015. If you make predictions for the future it’s valuable to revisit them and see what happened… and what didn’t.
The UCI announced it had reached agreement with teams and race organisers for the upcoming World Tour reforms in a press release this week. Tomorrow’s World Tour will look a lot like today. A lack of vision or sensible stability?
There’s a pressing need for a rider union. In fact there is a union, so what’s needed is a strong one that’s visible, in regular contact with riders and demonstrably acting on their behalf. Take the topical tale of disc brakes, they’re coming and the CPA union has decided to poll its members about it… days after the UCI press release saying disc brakes trials will continue for 2016 “with a view to definitively allowing them to be used in professional road cycling from 2017”.
At the start of the year 10 riders were picked for 2015, some promised a breakthrough and others were trying to keep their career on the road. What happened?
Spain’s had a rough time of it recently with only Movistar in the World Tour and Caja Rural in the Pro Conti tier, not much given the rich culture of cycling, the extensive calendar and the sheer number of Iberian pros, almost a national export. So news of a third Spanish team on the up should be greeted with cheers. Only there’s a catch: it’s run by Manolo Saiz.