Happy New Year? Who knows what 2019 will bring? Actually some things are predictable and here’s the pro cycling calendar for your organiser, phone or computer diary so you can at least know when the big races will happen. All of the major UCI men’s and women’s pro races around the world are included and below there’s a quick explainer on how to subscribe, the meaning of the UCI labels and more.
Here are the answers to the quiz. It was fun setting the questions, just to ask questions that don’t have answers one click away but also because several of them are what’s called hypophora, the act of asking a question just so you can give the answer and in this case to explore some of the odds and ends in the sport.
Friends over at cyclingtips have compiled lists of products they’ve liked during the year, eg tech editor James Huang, and so a bit of a copycat article with some things that have been useful for riding and stage previews.
A Christmas quiz with 40 questions. Some are obvious, some are odd, many can’t be Googled and a few are fiendish and sometimes it’s the answers that raise more questions.
Having picked five highlights of the sporting year, now a look a few things that weren’t so enjoyable, hopefully in a constructive light rather than a long whinge…
Back in January ten riders were picked out of interest to see how they’d fare. They were not picked as a forecast for the rankings, more that some could go onto great things and others have different challenges. As ever it’s always good to revisit things so here’s a look how they fared…
The fifth and final pick, not easy as to pick one means to exclude all the others but let’s go with John Degenkolb’s Tour de France win, a satisfying result on many levels.
Sky has announced it is pulling out of sponsorship of the pro team and 2019 will be the last year for the UK media firm in the peloton. Now the team faces a race to secure funding for 2020 with realistically only months to do this. It’s yours for £30 million a year.
In the fourth of five picks, here’s La Course which provided action, attacks and a twist in the final.
There’s a big UCI gathering in Montreux, Switzerland at the moment and the seminars are reviewing the state of pro cycling, yesterday was for women’s cycling, today it’s the men’s side. There’s little news so far, official or leaked but one item is the extension of the video commissaire to all World Tour races according to Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad who’ve spoken to Philippe Marien, a UCI commissaire who officiates at a lot of big races. Friday update:: it’ll be extended, but not to all races.