With a pink jersey and lean shaven legs pro cycling might not seem the most macho sport. But look again and it venerates suffering and elevates masculinity to religious levels.
Bike races aren’t run in isolation. They cross countries, visiting villages and capital cities alike but somehow the pro peloton doesn’t always resemble the societies it rides through, it excludes women and there’s not one openly gay rider. Men’s pro cycling is a man’s world.
Project Rainbow: How British Cycling Reached the Top of the World by Rod Ellingworth
You’ll know Mark Cavendish won the 2011 World Championships road race in Copenhagen. The book’s cover features a graphic of Cavendish in the rainbow jersey and the book opens with an account of being in the team car at the worlds. So why read a book with such an obvious literary spoiler?
Because the book is so much more than the road to Copenhagen, the rainbow jersey and one superstar rider. Instead it’s about the systems in place, the ways of working and an unsung hero behind all the processes and performances.
That’s Trek Factory Racing’s new recruits putting the camp into their team’s pre-season training camp. You might think they’ve stolen Andy Schleck’s pyjamas but, no, this is an initiation ceremony, a scene normally kept secret but inevitably public thanks to smartphones and social media.
It’s back to work for most pro cyclists as the off-season’s over. Several teams are holding training camps with a variety of activities with the emphasis on team building more than fitness.
Congratulations to Flanders Classics for changing the route for the Tour of Flanders. De Ronde had adopted a finishing circuit that included the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg climbs but crucially a large open section in between that seemed to encourage riders to huddle together in a bunch. For me the jury was out on this, it hadn’t worked so far but a change of weather could alter things. But the race hasn’t bothered to wait and see, it’s scrapped it to bring in a more lively finish where the cobbled climbs will come thick and fast in the final hour. Here’s a comparison of the profiles:
Sometimes you can look at big topics like calendar reform or concepts like “truth and reconciliation”. But here’s a small practical problem that can be easily fixed.
Rider contracts run from 1 January to 31 December and the timing has some absurd consequences.
The Tour de France is first geography lesson, second a bicycle race. Before a pedal has been turned we check maps and look at elevation profiles to parse the route. Mountains, valleys, plains and coastlines matter.
But just as a teacher gives the same lesson to a different class every year, the Tour tends to repeat the same climbs over the years as the riders come and go. Only 2014 has a new climb, the Col de Palaquit. Almost one thousand metres in vertical gain and with double-digit gradients it looks hard on paper. What is it like to ride?
WADA’s adopted a new code that will apply from 2015 onwards. It includes a four year ban for serious doping offences. Will this change anything?
Land of Second Chances by Tim Lewis
Enjoy bike racing? Like coffee? Here’s a story that combines both and much more. It’s a true story rather than a fairy tale which makes it a compelling read as it ranges from development and discovery but also failure and frustration.
Pro cycling is beautiful sport but follow some of the sponsors behind the teams and they’re not always as clean as the riders are supposed to be. Look at the pro peloton today and you’ll find teams representing despotic governments, accident-prone chemical companies and a range of other questionable sponsors.
One by one each of these sponsors might have its place but does their collective presence say something about pro cycling?
The Vuelta is French now, at least in the sense that the race is now 100% owned by ASO, the owners of the Tour de France and other races. ASO bought 49% of Unipublic, the company that runs the Vuelta back in 2008 and now bought the remaining 51% from Atresmedia Televisión.
Now there’s talk of a two week race. Loyal readers will have seen this back in August but for now it seems an exploratory idea. If anything the race could explore a four week format just to get one over the Tour de France and Giro…