If all good things come to an end then the only choice left is to pick the moment to quit. Jens Voigt is ending his career with an attack on the Hour Record, Cadel Evans is planning antipodean swansong and others are leaving the peloton like Thor Hushovd or David Millar. Some get to choose when but most don’t.
Watching bike races in August feels like being in a seaside resort out of season because after the Tour everything feels slower, quieter, smaller. There’s also a lack of a story, riders are racing to win each day but it’s hard to judge their efforts against a wider criterion or a bigger upcoming goal. Even if the Vuelta might’s fast-approaching it’s hard to judge form levels and some riders aren’t racing before starting the third grand tour. But there’s one immediate event coming up and its qualification for the World Championships this week. Here’s a look at how various can qualify and which ones will send large squads to Spain.
Famous as one of the fastest men in sports Fernando Alonso is proving to be a pedestrian cycling manager. His team is struggling to get going.
Want to see the future? Well today is the day because it marks three futuristic events: rider transfers, team registrations and hiring stagiaires for the rest of the season.
The meeting above of Fernando Alonso and Peter Sagan seemed to represent the future but six months later things seem to be turning out quite differently.
As part of a series to explore the famous roads of cycling, here is the Planche des Belles Filles in France. The idea with this series is to discover the road and its place in the world, whether in cycling’s folklore or to explore what it is like on a normal day without a race.
The Planche des Belles Filles is a novelty that first appeared in the Tour de France in 2012 after the Tour de France boss Christian Prudhomme came across cyclists buzzing about the climb on a forum. It’s back for the 2014 Tour and could well feature again and again.
A big day of climbing but the route has the look of a decisive stage in reverse, a series of climbs followed by a flat run to the finish. Consequently it’s not as selective because the finish allows time for things to regroup. It’s a deliberate choice not to make the race too selective, instead it offers the certainty of a big breakaway. It’s all on tough roads where it will be hard to control and if a team or two wants to launch an ambush it can be done.
Denis Menchov has been given a two year ban and stripped of all results from the Tour de France in 2009, 2010 and 2012 following a successful anti-doping prosecution based on findings from his biological passport.
It’s the biggest catch so far by the UCI, a grand tour winner who is now thrown off the podium of the 2010 Tour de France. Only the news was discovered accidentally by a cycling fan browsing the UCI website earlier this afternoon. Later today the UCI issued a short press release to confirm this but explaining little else.
The first mountain stage of the Tour de France, today’s stage offers a lively finish with some sharp climbs saved for late including the first summit finish of the Tour. The first of the Vosges trilogy over the long weekend in France, today is a mountain hors d’oeuvre but promises an exiting finish.
Another day for the sprinters. Is a Marcel Kittel win inevitable?
The UCI is set to bring in new rules restricting the size of a team in a race to eight riders. Grand Tours could keep an exemption for nine riders but it means teams of no more than nine in a race. Everything is different this weekend with the strangest races on the pro calendar, the national championships and in France FDJ will field a team of 26 riders.