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.
There’s little to preview in the Tour of Qatar. The race doesn’t even bother with profiles as each stage profile is a horizontal line. Every finishing straight is wide enough to land an aircraft.
But at the same time this race matters. First as a tactical training ground, a literal sandbox to test skills and technique and if it’s not compulsive viewing, it’s the equivalent of watching a theatre troop in dress rehearsal as it is a practice session for the spring classics. But the race is also notable because Qatar is very influential in world sports, it is the world’s richest country on a per capita basis and recently won the right to the 2016 Cycling World Championships, deploying sums of money that nobody else could match.
Herbie Sykes promised never to write about Fausto Coppi. Visitors to Italy will find even village tobacconists sell magazines and books and these include often many cycling books, especially biographies of past Italian riders from the region. A resident of the Piemonte, the home of Coppi, Sykes had seen too many books about the man, a palimpsest of texts had obscured the past. But this is different.
This is a collection of photos accompanied by short accounts from 21 riders who were contemporaries of Coppi. The photography is excellent and surpasses the normal sports clichés. If there are one or two podium photos, there’s not one image of a victory salute.
Frank Schleck has got a one year ban after his positive test in the 2012 Tour de France when the rules say he should have got a two year ban. He’s got lucky after the Luxembourg Anti-Doping Agency appears to have dropped the strict WADA Code, preferring instead to speculate on the source of contamination as a reason to reduce the ban, something the Spanish tried to do with Contador after his 2010 Tour de France positive until the UCI and WADA teamed up to fix things.
So this is might not be the end of the story. WADA won’t enjoy seeing its Code applied selectively and there’s now every chance of an appeal and a longer ban.
Cycling’s embrace of Truth and Reconciliation did not last long. The ambitious but vague spirit of enquiry and investigation evaporated as the UCI and WADA traded angry press releases with words like “deceit” and “arrogance” being used. This is the public relations equivalent of a bar room brawl.
It’s all so disappointing as those running the sport seem preoccupied with attacking each other rather than confronting the ever-present spectre of doping. We’d all like to talk about the racing but the people at the top want to shout about themselves.
These two bodies appear unable to trust each other and resort to leaking private correspondence to win petty public relations battles. So how can anyone trust them to manage a broad and complex Truth and Reconciliation process?
Last week’s piece on narrow handlebars was a popular read as it highlighted the lengths – 38 centimetres in case you asked – some riders go to in the search for aerodynamic advantage.
I was going to make an observation about rider position over the years in that post too but deleted this as the narrow bars were the real story. But I promised to return to the subject and have been prompted by an article about Philippe Gilbert’s BMC bike on cyclingnews.com where bike reviewer James Huang mocks the low position and anyone who’d try to imitate the world champion:
Ever seen a car stuck in the sand? Each attempt by the driver to get going just makes the wheels spin and so digs the car in deeper. The engine revs, the wheels spin, dirt flies up but nobody is going anywhere. Inside the car the driver is sweating, frantically engaging first gear and then reverse but their desperation is only making things worse.
What’s this got to do with cycling? Well it reminds me of the UCI. President McQuaid seems stuck and frantic attempts to get the governing body on the move are stalling and leave the sport sunk in the past. Meanwhile WADA stands on the sidelines, holding a tow rope but preferring to criticise the immobile driver rather than helping.
In the latest instalment the UCI has just disbanded its Independent Commission, the panel set up to review the issues and allegations arising out the Armstrong/US Postal conspiracy case.
The thing’s hollow—it goes on forever—and—oh my God—it’s full of stars!
So says Dr David Bowman in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001 A Space Odyssey as he gazes into the mysterious black monolith. Spanish police must have had a similar feeling in 2006 as they reached into the special refrigerator humming in Madrid that belonged to Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes and found it full of bloodbags belonging to star names of sport.
Six years later the trial has finally started. What will happen?
What can we learn from the start of the season? We might have had only a few days of racing but there are a few observations to make and points to note from this race and the way it sits alongside the Tour de San Luis in Argentina.
As the fifth part of a series to explore the famous roads of cycling, here is the Col du Soulor in the French Pyrenees. 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.