I bet you’ve never heard of the Colle del Nivolet. The Giro has not visited and soon after the pass the tarmac ends, a road to nowhere. So what’s this place got going for it? If the photo above by Flickr’s Muneaki isn’t enough it’s in the top-10 of Europe’s highest paved roads.
Amid the famous climbs of the Tour de France and Giro in this series, here is the opposite: a road without celebrity status but which is one of Europe’s best, almost road you must ride.
With the presentation of the 2014 Tour de France now a week behind us, what to make of the 2014 route? With some perspective we can see more.
The race might stick to the east but it will visit a lot of people and by accident it’s also a tour of Europe’s rust-belt cities from Sheffield to St Etienne. Plus some thoughts on where to visit and the darker side of Tour founder Henri Desgrange.
The UCI’s plans for pro cycling in 2015 and 2017 as the plans for reform appear in full thanks to a leaked document on Cicloweb.it
We got a glimpse of this earlier this month with the details buried in a technical bulletin but now a copy of the whole presentation has emerged.
The takeaway is that if the reforms are expected to be completed by 2020, radical change will be coming as soon as 2015. Within the next few years races like the Eneco Tour and Tour de Pologne will get downgraded. Germany’s Bayern Rundfahrt gets promoted. Meanwhile Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico, the Dauphiné and Tour de Suisse all shrink. Other races vanish.
Brian Cookson could be forgiven for the distractions. As the vineyards around Aigle see the leaves turn and the autumn sun illuminates the Alpine peaks, the temptation to head outdoors and explore his new roads around the UCI’s Swiss HQ must be real.
But it seems the new UCI President’s been busy or at least giving the impression of activity. One basic rule of corporate communications is to say what you’re going to do, tell people when you’re doing it and once you’ve done it let everyone know you’ve finished the job. In this spirit this blog post will look at the UCI’s announcement yesterday and see what its doing and where it’s going.
Team Belkin won all nine stages of the Tour of Hainan with Moreno Hofland winning the overall. It’s an impressive feat to win all stages and the overall. Perhaps it’s been done before. Certainly the 1977 Vuelta a España saw Freddy Maertens winning 13 stages on his way to the overall and in 1984 Laurent Fignon won the Tour de France whilst his Renault-Elf team won 10 stages.
Away from the podium ceremony It’s also an interesting strategy for a World Tour team, they get publicity of course but also points in this Chinese race.
Who had the biggest year in 2013? Certainly in qualitative terms Chris Froome is the obvious choice and winning awards and exhibition races alike. But what about Adam Hansen’s Giro-Tour-Vuelta grand tour trinity? All valid but in terms of pure numbers it’s Albert Timmer (Argos-Shimano) who’s had the biggest season.
As part of a series to explore the famous roads of cycling, here is the Col du Lautaret in the French Alps. The idea with this series is to discover the road and its place in the world, whether in cycling’s folklore or to explore what it is like on a normal day without a race.
The 2014 Tour de France route was unveiled and Stage 14 looks to like the Queen Stage, it’s certainly got alpine aristocracy with the climbs of the Lautaret before the Izoard and the final climb to Risoul. The Lautaret is a long climb by itself but also one of two ways to reach the start of the mighty Col du Galibier. It’s a climb that’s perfect for the Tour de France but unpleasant for others. A road not to ride?
Every year millions of French people have the Tour de France riding through their town or village. Many are indifferent, plenty will enjoy the day and some will fume with rage at the traffic chaos caused by road closures. But on the whole hosting the Tour de France is seen as a good thing and towns pay for the privilege. How much does it cost?
It’s official we can see the map for real, watch the excellent video montages and crucially learn more about the roads between the start and finish towns.
One year ago the UCI gave its response to USADA’s reasoned decision and the ban imposed on Lance Armstrong. The media was convened to a hotel in Switzerland where Pat McQuaid announced the UCI accepted USADA’s verdict and it would ban Armstrong and strip him of almost all his results.
For a moment it prised open the UCI and its decision-making process but in the weeks and months that followed the UCI seemed to regress back towards obstruction and bizarre press releases. What’s happened since?