Tour de France on TV

Month: July 2013

  • Resting and recovering between Grand Tours

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    Alex
    in

    One of the basic principles of cycling training is that you don’t improve while you ride – you improve while you rest. Following a tough block of writing, I’m going to ease off a bit in the hope of being in good form come the Vuelta a Espana, which will start on the 24th of…

  • How did Chris Froome win the 2013 Tour de France?

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    Alex
    in

    By cycling slightly more quickly than everyone else, you might answer, if for some unexplained reason you wanted to be profoundly irritating. Let’s not go down that route. Let’s instead review the race. Now we’ve got a complete picture, we can look back and identify the bits that matter. Artists and photographers will tell you…

  • Best of the 2013 Tour de France

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    Alex
    in

    Ben: What’s your favourite Beatles album then? Alan Partridge: Tough one. I think I’d have to say The Best of The Beatles. Everyone likes a ‘best of’. Best moment – Sir Jan Bakelants The second yellow jersey of this year’s Tour tried to claim a knighthood for himself after his stage win. Personally, I think…

  • Chris Froome’s position on the bike (and in cycling)

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    Alex
    in

    For much of this year’s Tour de France, I’ve been trying to work out whether Chris Froome looks more like a stick insect or a grasshopper when he’s on a bike. I was just settling on grasshopper when I saw this. Turns out he looks more like a praying mantis. A scuttling riding style It’s…

  • Marcel Kittel proves himself the best sprinter at the 2013 Tour de France

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    Alex
    in

    The points competition is geared towards the sprinters, but it isn’t the sprint competition. If it were, Marcel Kittel would have been the one with the green beard, not Peter Sagan. Kittel won four stages in all, including the biggest sprint of all on the Champs Élysées, breaking Mark Cavendish’s winning run there. I’m a…

  • Nairo Quintana wins stage, runner-up spot, mountains competition and white jersey

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    Alex
    in

    What an excellent finish to the general classification. The final climb of the 2013 Tour saw the peloton whittled down to pretty much the top 10 riders and this then became the eventual podium – Chris Froome, Nairo Quintana and the better-late-than-never Joaquim Rodriguez. It was almost as if the top three riders were leading…

  • Rui Costa shows even more fight

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    Alex
    in

    Rui Costa took a second win of this year’s Tour on stage 19 in much the same style as he’d won his first. He got in the break and eventually left everyone behind, cycling alone for the final 60-odd kilometres. 38-year-old Andreas Kloden came second which is probably as close as we’ll get to a…

  • Christophe Riblon triumphs on Alpe Twoez

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    Alex
    in

    There were two races on Alpe d’Huez (scaled twice – Alpe Twoez?). I’m therefore going to separate this update into the stage and the general classification, because each half was complicated enough in its own right without having to link the two together. The stage Quite a few riders broke from the pack, but the…

  • Saxo-Tinkoff invade the podium

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    Alex
    in

    You probably think that podiums (podia?) are there to be clambered onto. You’re wrong. They’re there to be invaded. Just ask Team Saxo-Tinkoff directeur sportif, Fabrizio Guidi, now that the team has riders in second and third place. “I’m very happy to see that both Roman Kreuziger and Alberto Contador are doing such a stunning…

  • Rui Costa records a real win

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    Alex
    in

    Every stage is important in the Tour de France, even if it doesn’t affect the overall race. Rui Costa won stage 16 after spending the day in the break and many would argue it was a more significant victory than his two Tour de Suisse titles. I would be one of those people. In the…