Spot the Difference

Look closely at the two screengrabs from La Gazzetta dello Sport and see what’s different. Sure see one is more pink, the font is different and the picture changes. But the headlines about Michele Ferrari and a €30 million web of suspect payments and pro cyclist contracts are the same. So what is the big difference? Time.

The first image is from 2012 and the second is from Thursday. Having read both stories they’re almost the same, only the 2014 version has just a bit more detail on the payments and drops more names. Why has the same story come back again?

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Licensed to Ride

Astana team

Astana have got their World Tour licence for 2015 following a late review from the UCI. A shock? Not really because the rules don’t give the Licence Commission much room to exclude a team. It takes a smoking gun, or in the case of Team Europcar, denied a World Tour place, cold arithmetic.

It’s worth remembering a licence is primarily an administrative exercise. The team can exist on paper but it’s going to face headwinds in the coming weeks and months. In fact you wonder whether the sponsors will want to continue?

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Book Review: 101 Damnations

101 Damnations Ned Boulting book cover

101 Damnations – Dispatches from the 101st Tour de France by Ned Boulting

The Tour de France is more than a bike race. It’s a theatre with many plays, plots and stories. Spectators enjoy the countryside, business deals are done and a lot of people work hard to make the show happen. British broadcaster Ned Boulting is among the workers as he travels around France to put the race on television. In the wake of Leeds grand départ Boulting has written up his experiences of this year’s Tour along with other anecdotes and more.

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Roads to Ride: The Col de Turini

Col de Turini

The Col de la Madone is the climb used by many Monaco-based pros to test their form. If the top of the climb can be a finish line, it’s also a gateway, once over the pass a range of riding options open up. When riders want a longer and more Alpine style climb the Col de Turini is often the default choice.

Made famous by motorsport and picked by TV pundits Top Gear as one of the top-10 roads in the world it is also a superb place for cyclists.

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Friday Shorts

Astana have been made to wait a week in order to get their licence for 2015. You suspect Alexander Vinokourov wouldn’t sweat if you put him in a banya but even the granite-faced Astana team boss must be feeling embarrassed.

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Bicycle School

Maths, history, chemistry: how was school for you? What if you could have learned about pedalling, speed and balance? Well this is exactly what kids do in many of cycling’s heartlands. Right from the earliest age children learn cycling skills, start racing and join a club all thanks to a scuola di ciclismo, école de cyclisme or “cycling school”.

This is an essential part of the sport for many and the nursery for many a champion.

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10 Roadside Repairs

Jussi Veikkanen FDJ

It’s a big week month for pro cycling with the exposition of sweeping reforms by the UCI expected in the coming days. We will see what emerges but there’s talk of redesigning the calendar and revising the league system of the World Tour. If half of this appears it could amount to the most significant changes for a quarter of a century.

But ahead of radical reform, what about some quick fixes, administrative equivalents of a roadside repair? Here are ten tidy tips that could be done in days…

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Roads to Ride: Col du Béal

Col du Beal

The Col du Béal in central France isn’t a famous place for cycling history. But it’s on the map thanks to the duel between Chris Froome and Alberto Contador in the Dauphiné, one of the season’s best battles. It is a rewarding climb in a great, but often forgotten, part of France.

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