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.
We have a contest. David Lappartient has announced he will stand for election as UCI President, challenging the incumbent Brian Cookson. There’s now three months of campaigning before the UCI Congress in late September.
With David Lappartient announcing he’s standing for election to be the President of the UCI, to challenge the incumbent Brian Cookson, here’s a primer on how the election works.
No? Probably not? Why not? Apologies for the title which evokes Betteridge’s Law that states “any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no” but it’s a way to explore questions about Simon Špilak, the calendar and more.
After the Critérium du Dauphiné the talk was all what it meant for the Tour de France. One week later and the day after another selective Alpine stage race and all there’s none of this talk.
Domenico Pozzovivo leads the Tour de Suisse after winning Stage 6. This was Ag2r La Mondiale’s first win in the World Tour. Much had been made of Cannondale-Drapac not winning in the World Tour for two years until Andrew Talansky’s win in the Tour of California. This passed the longest “losing streak” onto Astana but they ended this in the Dauphiné with Jacob Fuglsang which in turn saw Ag2r La Mondiale inherit this label… ironically on a day when the stage finish was just minutes up the road from their service course HQ.
Henricus “Hein” Verbruggen, a businessman and the archetypal powerful sports administrator, had died aged 75.
The t-shirts have arrived and are in stock for now and you can order direct from the Prendas Ciclismo website: prendas.co.uk
The last time the collection tin was rattled here several readers started asking about t-shirts instead of cycling kit. Well the guys at Prendas got to work and within weeks it went from suggestion to reality.
The last metres of the last stage. Jacob Fuglsang has attacked on the final climb, dropped Daniel Martin and the stage win is his. Behind Richie Porte has been chasing alone for the best part of 35km to defend his yellow jersey, first from an attack by Fabio Aru and Alejandro Valverde, then to contain Chris Froome and finally to try and prevent Fuglsang. But the Dane won the stage, took the time bonus and with it the overall classification.
The final stage, 115km with four major climbs packed into the route before the tough summit finish to the Plateau de Solaison.
How many times have you driven somewhere, or been sat in a train, and looked out to see a road and thought “I have to ride that“. The Plateau de Solaison is one such place, visible from the autoroute between France and Italy as a balcony road cut into high cliffs. It’s also the final climb of the last stage of this year’s Critérium du Dauphiné, a discovery for the pro peloton and a very tough climb.