The cyclocross season has started and there’s been a few emails and tweets to say “looking forward to your cross coverage”. But as loyal readers know there is no cyclo-cross coverage. It’s also a chance to address why there’s little coverage of women’s racing here too.
There’s a fuss about George Hincapie’s gran fondo because it’s resembling a US Postal reunion. Lee Rodgers sets out the moral case on crankpunk.com. But whether your sympathetic to Hincapie or Armstrong or not doesn’t matter. The UCI rules are clear:
The route for the 2015 Tour de France is out. As usual a lot leaks out before, velowire.com sleuths the stages and yesterday race organiser ASO accidentally put a PDF online with the route yesterday. But it’s still a comforting ritual, a projection to the other side of winter.
This is a chance to see the map for real and to get more info on the route such as the intermediate climbs, the amount of time trialling and novelties such as the return of time bonuses. Plus race organisers can sell us a story, a theme for 2015.
New for the 2015 Tour, this is Hairpin Heaven. Alpe d’Huez might be famous for its 21 bends but here’s a road with 18 hairpins in short formation. One bend follows another, a helter-skelter for the road cyclist and just a short spin away from some of the famous climbs of the Tour de France. But is it as good as it looks?
After the World Tour last week now for a look at the full pro calendar. The World Tour might have retreated from China but there are 48 days of racing in the country, more than the USA, Britain and Australia… combined.
The season’s over for 2014. It’s been a great one for OPQS with 62 wins, half as much again as the nearest team. Mark Cavendish has been their best rider with 11 wins and it could have been more were it not for that crash at the finish of the Tour de France’s opening stage. But OPQS’s win rate is helped by 18 of their 30 riders winning.
Pra-Loup has only been used twice in the Tour de France. It is the the climb that defeated Eddy Merckx and on the route of the Tour de France and Dauphiné for 2015. Is it enough to make anyone nervous?
The UCI swung into action today following a third positive case involving a rider from Astana, promising special review of the team’s World Tour licence for 2015.
The rider involved is Ilya Davidenok, normally a rider on the subsidiary Astana Continental team but promoted to the main team as a stagiaire. It’s yet more awkward news for the Kazakh team but if it’s embarrassing their licence is probably safe for 2015.
There are less than 100 days until the season resumes with the Tour Down Under. 2015 will look a lot like 2014 but here is a closer look at the calendar.
Which countries have the most races? Where can you win the most World Tour points? What’s the busiest month of the year? And more.
The World Tour is over and Spain tops all the rankings: Alejandro Valverde leads the UCI rankings, Movistar win the best team and Spain finish well ahead of Italy for the best nation. A fiesta or a statistical quirk?
Spain’s best riders are ageing, the trio of Valverde, Alberto Contador and Joaquim Rodriguez have a combined age of over 100 years. Who are the young riders carrying the Spanish hopes for the future?