Category: Stage races
-
Richie Porte wins first WorldTour event of the year – but what the hell is the WorldTour?
The French film Belleville Rendez-vous does a cracking job of expressing the sheer irrepressible joyful exuberance of cycling at this time of year. It looks something like this: You’re slower and heavier; it’s darker and colder outside; and your bike seems to require cleaning even when you haven’t actually used it. Yet the season is…
-
Autumn round-up: from Belgium to Qatar
I’ve rather permitted the season to peter out and for that I apologise. Last time I wrote about actual racing, Steve Cummings had won the Tour of Britain. What’s happened since then? Eneco Tour I rather like the Eneco Tour, but didn’t really get chance to follow it too closely this year. It’s rough and…
-
How did Steve Cummings win the Tour of Britain?
It’s slightly annoying for me that two of my favourite races should clash. The Tour of Britain has little in common with the Vuelta a Espana, but does tend to offer scrappy, broken racing which is a great deal more entertaining that the formulaic nature of bigger stage races. Some of you may have watched…
-
Rounding up The Dolphin
Chris Froome won the Criterium du Dolphin. He won it on stage five. Team-mate Mikel Landa attacked on the final climb and Froome followed as his rivals chased the Spaniard down. The moment they caught him, whoosh, Froome was off. Richie Porte was the only one able to follow and the Tasmanian had nothing left…
-
Alberto Contador gets out of the saddle
There was a period, not so long ago, when every time Alberto Contador raced the Tour de France, he won it. He won in 2007, he won in 2009 and he won in 2010. The last of those was later stripped from him after what with hindsight feels like the first of the modern doping…
-
Highlights of the 2016 Criterium du Dauphiné are on ITV4
The Criterium du Dauphiné starts today (Sunday). ITV4 are doing a daily highlights programme, same as they do for the Tour de France. It’ll also appear on the ITV Player, which is available via all sorts of modern technology. It’s still worth recording if you’ve got the facility though as from experience programmes can sometimes…
-
Tommy Voeckler masks my foolishness at the Tour de Yorkshire
One of the challenges when writing about bike racing is that there are shitloads of riders. You look ahead to a cricket or football match and you’ve got at most 22 people to write about. This makes it easier for less-than-ardent fans reading your work to get a grip on proceedings. In contrast, your average…
-
Who to support in the 2016 Tour de Yorkshire
The Tour de Yorkshire promises to be a great celebration of all that isn’t wonderful about British cycling at this exact minute. All sorts of high profile riders are taking part, but they aren’t going to be asked about bike racing. They’re going to be asked whether anyone else at British Cycling refers to the…
-
Another of Steve Cummings’ patented stage wins
When I wrote about Steve Cummings’ Tirreno-Adriatico stage win a few weeks ago, I said of his modus operandi that he “just cycles past everyone on the flat.” This was based on his magnificent 2015 Tour de France stage win being delivered in much the same manner. Exhibit three: the third stage of this year’s…
-
Peter Sagan wins a bike race
It shouldn’t really be headline news. I mean he is the world champion. The Slovak quickly put Friday’s disappointment aside by winning Gent-Wevelgem, the Belgian one-day race that doesn’t visit Gent. The Belgians really aren’t slaves to logic when it comes to naming their races. Perhaps it’s all that 12% beer. Sagan won a crappy…