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.
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…
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.
All of the roads featured in the Roads to Ride series can now be located by map.
11 of the World Tour teams have linked up to create a company Velon. It’s the public launch of a private project that’s been on the go for at least 18 months under the label of Project Avignon.
We don’t have much to go on. Today has seen a co-ordinated media campaign to mark the launch, it’s gone from a project to corporate reality. Whether it now goes from a start-up to an established business will be the more interesting story to follow.
Play word association and many would link “Astana” to “positive test” rather than the capital of Kazakhstan or the Tour de France triumph. The Iglinskiy brothers and two riders few had heard of, Ilya Davidenok and Victor Okishev, riding for the Astana Continental team, a separate development, team have been caught recently.
It’s bad for the World Tour team and its reputation. The UCI has said the team’s licence application for 2015 is going to be looked at more closely. But what of the riders on the team? I’ve seen several saying Vincenzo Nibali should leave the team and readers have asked about this by email too. If only it was so easy.
Not a road but a track and not a place to ride but a venue to visit. Still this series is about exploring legendary locations so here is the chance to look at the most famous of six day races. Or alternatively one of the last few surviving winter track contests.
A two week Tour de France? Non. Or to use the phrase beloved of many a French hotelier, c’est pas possible. Still it’s good to question established ideas and tenets. There’s no rule that says the Tour de France must be three weeks long and if there were, we should question that too.
It’s a current topic since UCI President Brian Cookson was in Madrid to award Spain and Movistar their UCI World Tour prizes. He spoke to the media when asked about a shorter Vuelta and Tour de France implied nothing was off the table. Let’s explore why an abbreviated Tour won’t suit anyone.
For years cycling was the whipping boy of sports administration. Turf wars, doping problems and other concerns beset the sport and the UCI’s HQ in Switzerland had a siege mentality. Now it’s the turn of FIFA, soccer’s governing body. There are allegations of cronyism, whistleblowers being blasted, talk of breakaways and a bizarre President who seems impossible to eject. Cycling fans might feel like The Simpson’s Nelson Muntz as they point and laugh at FIFA’s self-inflicted woes. But any amusement is surely born from experience and a sense of nervous relief that another sport is humiliating itself?
The UCI and FIFA are both based in Switzerland, in fact well over half of the governing bodies for Olympic sports are based in Switzerland, a small country of just eight million people. Why? More importantly will they stay as Switzerland looks to place them under greater scrutiny and impose greater transparency?
The pro peloton’s existence is predicated on imitation. You can buy the same bike as the world champion, you can have the same clothing as the yellow jersey. “What the pros ride” is the sporting equivalent of “as seen on TV”.
There’s one aspect nobody should be copying: the practice of slinging used bottles, wrappers and other waste into the countryside. Time after time riders hurl their empty food packets away. This might change in 2015.