Roads to Ride: Mont Aigoual

Mont Aigoual

As the seventh part of a series to explore the famous roads of cycling, here is the Mont Aigoual in the French Cevennes. The idea is to discover the road and its place in the world, whether as part of cycling’s history or to look at the route on a day without racing and it is open to all.

Some climbs find notoriety because of famous races but Mont Aigoual is quite different. This is a climb that has been ridden in the imagination and literature more than competition because it’s the scene for The Rider, Tim Krabbé cycle-race novel.

Read more

Mont Faron Preview and Giveaway Competition

Mont Faron overlooking the city

Saturday’s Stage 4 of the Tour Méditerranéen features the classic summit finish on Mont Faron. A short and steep climb above the naval city of Toulon, this is a tough and selective point in the race that reveals the early season form.

It’s the first summit finish of the year in Europe and to celebrate this moment in the season here’s a look at the climb plus a chance to try your forecasting skills to win some goodies.

Read more

The MPCC Explained

MPCC cycling

The Mouvement Pour Un Cyclisme Crédible translates as the Movement for Credible Cycling and is a grouping of teams created in 2007. It’s getting headlines these days so here’s a look at what it’s about, who is behind it and more.

It’s a good idea that has quietly helped set the agenda for cleaning up cycling but as it grows I can’t help thinking of Groucho Marx and his joke about not wanting to belong to a club that would accept him. My concern is that any team can sign up but the real test comes when a team has to decide between its self-interest or the collective MPCC rules. As I’ll show below voluntary deals between teams typically fall apart faster than a prototype carbon rim on a cobbled road.

Read more

2013 Paris Nice Route

Paris Nice 2013 route

The route of the 2013 Paris-Nice race has been unveiled and it’s a classic affair with the now regular start in the Yveslines area to the west of Paris and the traditional final Col d’Eze time trial. Along the way the Montagne de Lure summit finish stands out, this the sister mountain of Mont Ventoux.

But as exciting as the course can be, this year’s edition risks being light on star riders with rival Italian race Tirreno-Adriatico attracting all the best riders. Plus since we’re looking at French cycling there’s a nod to a new spat between the French and the UCI plus a look at yesterday’s wild ideas for national teams in the Tour de France.

Read more

Pro Team Sponsors: What Do They Do?

There are 18 World Tour teams and 21 Pro Continental teams. One difference from other sports is that cycling teams come with naming rights and usually they are named after the sponsor. But who are these sponsors and what do they do?

You might know about Garmin or Cannondale but do you know what Qhubeka, Orica or Vacansoleil are about? What’s the link between Frano Pellizotti and Hello Kitty? Why do Ag2r ride in brown shorts? All this and more…

Read more

Doping in Sport, Lessons from Pro Cycling

Going by Twitter, yesterday’s story in AS, the Spanish newspaper, that Dr Fuentes was working for a Spanish soccer club seems to have delighted some cycling fans keen to see the scandal shared beyond our sport.

Twitter’s an imperfect judge of opinion at the best of times. Even if it’s a minority activity there’s something unnerving when cyclists point out other sports have doping problems: they might be right but there’s the sound of glasshouses shattering when calling for footballers and tennis players to be outed.

Still, with football being forced to confront some problems are there lessons other sports can learn from cycling’s dodgy past?

Read more

An Interview with Eurosport’s David Harmon

TV commentary is one of those jobs that everyone thinks is easy… until they try it. The next you watch a race try pressing mute and replacing the audio with your own commentary and see how you get on.

David Harmon is one of Eurosport’s commentators. If you watch cycling this year you’re bound to hear him at work, hopefully via full HD and clear audio but maybe via a pirate audio feed.

Here he talks about the job, how it’s changed, what it’s like to talk for six hours non-stop and more.

Read more

Sunday Shorts

Louisville world championships

Well done to the Louisville race crew who put on a great event. Cyclocross is booming in the US as a participatory sport and the crowds partied like Belgians on the day only, as the photo by cyclocosm shows, with added fancy dress. There was even a copycat Dirk Hofman sign spotted.

With all the talk of pro cycling going global cyclo-cross remains a specialist affair within Europe alone but you’d struggle to get the Louisville atmosphere if the worlds were awarded to France, Germany or even the brewery-rich Czech republic. It was made even better thanks to the UCI’s video stream on Youtube meaning it was available around the world for free without resorting to pirate feeds of dubious quality.

Read more

Bryan Coquard, The Green Knight

A 20 year old neo-pro with two stage wins in his first race? That’s quite a start for Europcar’s Bryan Coquard. For sure he’s got a long way to go as the opposition in the Etoile de Bessèges was not the best and this is only an early season race. Still, he’s the youngest rider in the race and his margin of victory was so big that when I put a photo on Twitter someone asked if he’d been in a breakaway because he was surely too far ahead of the bunch to have won the sprint.

Only he’s not a new name with Olympic, World, European and National medals across a range of disciplines to go with a long list of victories on the road and track alike.

Read more

Roads to Ride: The Stelvio

Stelvio Trafoi

As part of a series to explore the famous roads of cycling, here is the Passo dello Stelvio in the Italian Alps. The idea is to discover the road and its place in the world, whether as part of cycling’s history or to look at the route on a day without racing and it is open to all.

The Stelvio is Europe’s second highest paved mountain pass but superior in legend to the Col de l’Iseran thanks to history, pedigree and the sheer experience of climbing and descending this giant.

Read more

+ More