Author: Alex
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The Tour de Yorkshire will be on ITV4 – both live and highlights
It appears to be TV broadcasting week on this website. More info about the Giro to follow, but today I’m here to inform you that ITV4 will be showing the Tour de Yorkshire – both live and highlights. It’s also on Eurosport. The race starts on Friday and there’s live coverage on both channels. The…
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Alejandro Valverde is no panda
When Dan Martin won Liege-Bastogne-Liege in 2013, he was chased up the final drag by a panda. It was a memorable backdrop to a race-winning, perhaps even career-defining, attack. Look at him (Dan Martin) go! Today, on almost exactly the same patch of road, Martin again found himself at the head of the race having…
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Alejandro Valverde, La Fleche Wallonne, the Mur de Huy, etc, etc
Last year, I wrote: “La Fleche Wallonne pretty much always amounts to a hill climb after a 200km warm-up. Alejandro Valverde is still the fastest hill climber, just as he was last year and the year before.” This year, I’ll write: La Fleche Wallonne pretty much always amounts to a hill climb after a 200km…
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Philippe Gilbert has a colourful time at Amstel Gold
Ardennes Week (which is actually eight days long) is when we segue from one-day racing to stage racing. Amstel Gold, La Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege involve much of the hurly burly of the cobbled classics – including that peculiar phenomenon where riders actually race to win, rather than conserving energy for the following day. However,…
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Greg Van Avermaet is King of Spring
If you’re accustomed to the cautious watchfulness of the Tour de France, the relentless violence of Paris-Roubaix can be a bit of an eye-opener. In July, commentators can spend three weeks discussing which mountain stage will see an attack from one of the favourites and some years the answer turns out to be ‘none of…
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Paris-Roubaix has cobbles and the plot from Wipeout
Barses of granite or barses of some sort of hi-tech vibration-dampening material with a made-up pseudo-scientific name? Who’s to say how the riders get through Paris-Roubaix without sustaining permanent damage to their perineums (perinea?). There’s also that whole riding-really-quickly-for-bloody-hours aspect to contend with. As races go, Paris-Roubaix is one on its own. Essentially one long…
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Philippe Gilbert passes his Tour of Flanders interview
The short version is that Philippe Gilbert pushed away from everyone on the Oude Kwaremont with 55km to and was never seen again. That really doesn’t do his Tour of Flanders winning ride justice though. The attack – the surging sustained power that saw the gap created – was really just passing the interview. It…
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Greg Van Avermaet cobbles together a decent start to the spring
Welcome to the next exciting instalment of Greg Van Avermaet’s Fighting Talk. After winning E3 Harelbeke on Friday, the Olympic champion was effusive, offering, “I’m happy things are not so bad,” as his verdict on the race. The Belgian followed that up with victory in Gent-Wevelgem too. Having also won Omloop Het Nieuwsblad a few…
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Michal Kwiatkowski again surprised to beat Peter Sagan – even though he does it all the time
Peter Sagan is such a colossal figure in cycling that it’s odd to thing he doesn’t necessarily have more of a claim to greatness than Michal Kwiatkowski. Sagan does wheelies and snarfs Gold Bears like some sort of Haribo-vacuum. Michal Kwiatkowski is a Polish guy with sticky-out ears. But performance-wise, what’s in it? Sagan is…
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Springtime stage races from one place to a different place – a round-up
You may have noticed that my approach to race reports this year has been to deliver them almost pointlessly late. You may think that this temporal delay removes my responsibility to look at the ins and outs of how each race was decided. You’d be right. I’m also lazy. And busy. These ingredients are not…