Author: Alex
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Bradley Wiggins’ gurning on The Jump – a real dignity-stripper with which to commence retirement
Bradley Wiggins has retired from cycling. I would have written something about it sooner, but he voiced so many contradictory plans that it wasn’t until I saw the last 25 seconds of The Jump last night that I honestly believed it had happened. Those 25 seconds were… painful. I wouldn’t call myself a Wiggins ‘fan’…
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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…
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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…
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All the unsatisfying equivocal answers about Bradley Wiggins’ asthma TUEs
There are things I write about because I want to and there are things I write about because I think it’ll look weird if I don’t. This is the latter. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t want to write about this. I’ll write about any old shit. The background You’ll most likely…
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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…
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A good Vuelta for Froome’s reputation but a better one for Quintana’s
For a race so profoundly sprint-unfriendly, the final stage seems bizarre – almost irrelevant. Supposedly a reward for sprinters who’ve lasted the course, the truth is that few turned up in the first place, so this just seems a weird, out-of-character, tacked on extra. Best of the dregs was Magnus Cort Nielsen, who also won…
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Nairo Quintana not inclined to budge from race lead
In the end, the task of gaining over a minute on Nairo Quintana on a mountain stage proved as impossible as might realistically have been expected. If the Colombian has a weakness, it is not uphill. The final 5km of the stage were mostly just Chris Froome attacking and Quintana following him with a face…
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Chris Froome minces his rivals in the time trial
He minced everyone, in fact; minced them as if he had some sort of grinder hooked up to his oval chain ring and a hunger for mince that could not be sated. Only Movistar’s time trial specialist Jonathan Castroviejo got within a minute of Chris Froome, finishing 44 seconds down in second place, but the…
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Is Magnus Cort Nielsen really a sex symbol?
It took a while, but we finally got a fairly normal sprint stage. Danish rider Magnus Cort Nielsen – whose nickname is purportedly ‘Sex Symbol’ – took the win. If we’re to categorise this year’s Vuelta stage winners, he probably goes down as ‘up and coming’ rather than ‘low profile domestique having his day in…
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Chris Froome looks on his last legs
Maybe it’s all that running he did earlier in the season – efforts which have reportedly earned him an invite to take part in a 10km run in Barcelona. The final climb of stage 17 was a proper almost-come-to-a-standstill Vuelta climb. The overall contenders maintained an impressive pace up there and while the main four…