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?
The Race Aganst The Stasi by Herbie Sykes
This is the tale of a cyclist called Dieter Wiedemann. His career as an international racing cyclist takes off at the same time as the Berlin Wall gos up. Wiedemann was on the wrong side.
When was the race won? In the final sprint for the literal explanation but Thomas Voeckler was easily beaten. He went into the finish with no theatrics, stunts or even facial expressions. The image above shows the Europcar rider and Jelle Wallays of Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise racing with less than 10km to go. Voeckler is hunched low and straining to produce the power and the the closer the finish got, the more a win would become elusive.
Autumn’s here and with it, the last televised race of the year. Labelled “the sprinters’ classic”, Paris-Tours might have a flat route but most of the winners in recent years have come from breakaways thanks to attacks launched late in the race.
Last year’s race was an exception of sorts with a bunch sprint but the top three riders had been on the attack in the last 20km, infiltrating a move instead of waiting for a sprint only to get caught and still find the energy to surge in final moments. It offered a thrilling finish. Can this Sunday’s race deliver?
Once a prestigious race, Paris-Tours has slipped in status still provides a thrill worth watching. More so because it’s the last classic until the 2015 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. That’s 140 days away.
The Giro’s route for 2015 was announced earlier this week and one highlight is the Colle delle Finestre, the highest point of the 2015 Giro and unpaved too. What’s it like to ride?
Andy Shleck is alive and well. A lot of the coverage of his retirement has resembled an obituary, with sorrow at his sudden departure, talk of a promising career that stopped too early and people sharing fond memories. Apart from a knee that can’t take the demands of pro cycling – the doctors said if he kept riding he’d need a knee transplant before he’s 40 – he’s in rude health, has a young family and he’s a millionaire too. He’ll be ok.
The supporter caps are back in stock and now available in black or white and in two sizes.
To get your hands on one visit the prendas.co.uk shop.
Oleg Tinkov’s offer of a million Euros to ride all three grand tours has grabbed a lot of attention. It sounds good but anyone brave enough to take up the challenge could well finish the year out of pocket. It’s madness… but he does have a point.
It’s official: 17 Teams are chasing 18 World Tour Places as the likes of IAM Cycling and MTN-Qhubeka prefer, for now, to stay in cycling’s second division knowing they’ll collect plenty of wildcard invitations. No surprises but several reader questions by email and Twitter following today’s announcement. Here’s a Q&A on the teams, timing and more.
“Our image is tarnished because of these isolated incidents”
– Dimitri Fonfonov, Astana DS in L’Equipe
Two doping cases are dreadful news for a team but to make matters worse the Astana team now misses the final races of the year. This self-suspension is itself risks being tarnished if the team management has been orchestrating events to ensure they sit out the race of their choice.