Can the Leopards change their spots?

What is going on inside Radioshack-Nissan? There’s been some bizarre debate in public between riders and management over who gets to be the directeur sportif during the Tour de France. But this seems to be about more than just picking a manager for one month.

Let’s go back to 2010 when the Schleck brothers were riding for Team Saxo Bank under Bjarne Riis. During the course of the season there were rumours the brothers were working on a project for a new team. These were denied but in time Leopard-Trek was created. Fränk Schleck in particular was one of the driving forces behind this.

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Cycling and Politics

Cycling and coffee often seem to go together; but what about politics and cycling?

First here’s a bizarre brew of Colombian cycling and Italian politics. Then there’s a more general look at those who have tried to swap pedal power for political power.

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Tour de Romandie Preview

The Tour de Romandie starts today. The spring classics are done and the focus of the sport now shifts to stage racing.

If races were ranked by their websites, it’s the best race of the year. But Romandie is a great race in its own right with some big names on a good course and it’s all taking part just before the Giro d’Italia. Here’s a quick preview.

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Bringing Le Tour to your TV

You probably haven’t heard of Jean-Maurice Ooghe. But the man in the striped shirt above is responsible for the TV images of the Tour de France and several other races, including the Tour of California.

Whilst the cycling world might be thinking about the upcoming Giro d’Italia, Ooghe is currently doing his own Tour de France ahead of the race in July, visiting all the stage towns en route. Last week he was in the Pyrenees and on Sunday morning he was in Brive, the finish of Stage 18.

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Liège-Bastogne-Liège: The Moment The Race Was Won

For a while it looked like Vincenzo Nibali was going win Liège-Bastogne-Liège but he was reeled in with one kilometre to go by Maxim Iglinskiy and the Astana rider sailed past and soloed to the line, look carefully and you can spot the losing shade of lime green above. But perhaps this time there was no single winning moment and today’s race was instead defined by attrition and endurance?

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Liège-Bastogne-Liège Preview

The oldest one day race of the year. Liège-Bastogne-Liège might be in Belgium but it has over 4,000 vertical metres of climbing, comparable to an Alpine stage of the Tour de France. Steep climbs and twisting descents make this a supreme physical contest where there’s rarely a surprise win.

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The hidden climbs of Liège-Bastogne-Liège

Liège-Bastogne-Liège is the hilliest of the one day classics. Glance at the race profile and you’ll note 11 climbs on the route, plus the climb to the finish. These are described as côtes répertoriées, or “catalogued climbs”.

Only the race has many climbs that aren’t catalogued. One in particular is crucial as it is climbed with less than 20km to go.

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Saturday shorts

Track racing has a big debt to the USA and in particular New York. The sport was so popular a century ago with urban audiences that today’s Madison race, where pairs of riders take it in turn to compete in a sort of relay race got its name from the Madison Square Garden. The original venue has now gone but a wealthy benefactor has donated $40 million to help build a indoor velodrome again in New York. There’s talk of a Harlem velodrome but I think one reader via Twitter had a better suggestion:

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Book Review: The Jersey Project

The Jersey Project by Bill Humphreys and Jerry Dunn

The cycling jersey has changed so much over the years. From a simple piece of clothing made out of wool, today’s jerseys deploy modern fabrics, reflect corporate sponsors and are cut to suit a racer bent low on the bike. This book traces the evolution of cycling jerseys, cataloguing all the changes via a series of photos.

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How much is a race worth?

That’s the prize list for yesterday’s Flèche Wallonne race with a first prize of €16,000 for the men’s race and just €1,128 for the women’s race.

It’s one of the most prestigious one day races on the calendar but many might see the cash prize as rather small. For comparison, last Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race offered €16,000, a sum similar to the prize for making the semi-finals of the Dutch Open tennis tournament, in other words coming fourth in a modest tennis tournament.Win the golf tournament in the Netherlands and you pocket €300,000.

But the value of a bike race probably isn’t reflected in the prize list. Instead there are other ways of judging the value of a win.

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