Month: September 2013
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Bradley Wiggins wins a 10-mile time trial
Because road racing used to be banned in Britain, time trialling became a big thing because it allowed covert competition. Even though road racing has been legal for many years now, modern culture still reflects this history. You can see it in the distances. Road races are measured in kilometres; time trials are measured in…
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Using Honister Pass and the Lake District in the Tour of Britain
If you use Britain’s geography properly, you will get good bike racing and spectacular scenery. They really got it right with stage two of the Tour of Britain. Apart from the weather, it was the ideal advert for road cycling in this country. Cycling’s not about sprinting down the Mall. It’s about having the freedom…
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Elia Viviani won stage one of the Tour of Britain
I thought he’d done a piss-taking pinky-fingers-out reference to us being a nation of effete tea-drinkers as he crossed the finish line, but it turned out that the website we were reading had used a photograph from a completely different race. Mark Cavendish? Sort of boxed in. Didn’t really compete for the sprint. Bradley Wiggins?…
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Michael Matthews was the sprinter who was glad he turned up for the 2013 Vuelta
No-one else was. Two sprint finishes. Two Michael Matthews wins. The Chris Horner post-Vuelta interview on ITV4 Was one of the most extraordinary slabs of gibberish I’ve ever heard. It was a bizarre collage of amazings and beautifuls. UK readers can see and hear it here. The gibberishiest gibberish comes from around 39 minutes in.…
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Chris Horner’s standing climbing style wins him the Vuelta
There’s a phrase in cycling: ‘dancing on the pedals’. It’s used when a rider gets out of the saddle on a steep slope. The finest exponents sway sinuously, the bike flicking from side-to-side beneath them. Several times during this Vuelta, commentators have said that Chris Horner has been dancing on the pedals. If Chris Horner…
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Joaquim Rodriguez would like a bit more Vuelta
Perhaps irritated by Chris Horner’s habit of making him sound like he’s from Turkey or somewhere, “Hakim” Rodriguez finally found the zip he seems to have been lacking for most of the Vuelta and won stage 19 with one of his vertical sprints. Just as in the Tour, Purito appears to be coming into his…
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It’s a good job Vincenzo Nibali has tooth skin
Because that’s the amount by which he’s retained the lead in this year’s Vuelta. It’s not looking good for Vince Nibbles. He tried to follow Chris Horner on stage 18’s final climb, the Pena Cabarga, but couldn’t. Nor could any of the other main contenders and the middle-aged American now hovers just three seconds away…
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Domenico Pozzovivo doesn’t like abanicos – add them to the list
You can always count on crosswinds to make a race pleasingly scrappy. While stage 17 with its abanicos wasn’t anywhere near as compelling as the Echelons! stage of this year’s Tour, it still did some damage. Not entirely unsurprisingly, the day’s biggest loser was Domenico Pozzovivo. I mean that he was the biggest loser in…
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Looking forward to the Tour of Britain?
I certainly have been doing. If that sounds like weird grammar, it’s meant to reflect the fact that I’ve spent quite some time producing an unexpectedly comprehensive preview of the Tour of Britain. It kind of got away from me a little bit, so I’ve spread it over several pages. I’ve covered TV coverage, the…