Author: Alex
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Tom Dumoulin isn’t planning on winning the Giro despite being in the lead
That’s what he says anyway. He’s all: “Ooh no, I’m all about the Olympics this year. I haven’t even been to an altitude training camp or anything. No-one needs to worry about me. I’m just here to race the time trials.” This may be true, but it may also be bullshit. Either way, Dumoulin won…
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Top contenders for the 2016 Giro d’Italia
Who are the favourites? To judge that, we first have to look at what cycling they’re going to have to do in the next three weeks. The route On paper, the race is easier than in recent years. However, that perception would only stand up to scrutiny if you were riding it on your own,…
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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…
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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…
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Is Shane Sutton a sexist foul-mouthed bigot?
Well, he is Australian (badoom-tish). If you don’t know Shane Sutton, he’s in charge of British Cycling’s Olympic track cyclists. He is the kind of guy people will often describe as “plain speaking”. Of late, Sutton’s speech hasn’t actually seemed all that plain. Jessica Varnish, a track sprinter who has recently lost her contract, claims…
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Wout Poels gets Team Sky its Monument – will probably celebrate with pneumonia
That’s Monument with an upper-case M. A Team Sky monument would be some sort of sleek branded laboratory which was all glass, chrome and empty spaces. A Team Sky Monument is the 2016 Liege-Bastogne-Liege, which for all its Grand Tour sucess is the team’s first absolutely top level one-day race win. I’ve mentioned this before,…
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Enrico Gasporotto – don’t worry about remembering the name
Enrico Gasparotto is a rider who shows up during the Ardennes Classics and at pretty much no other time. He won Amstel Gold in 2012 and has just won it again with an attack on the final climb. For that 2012 win, he edged out Jelle Vanendert who falls into the same category. It’s almost…
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Dan McLay looks like he can sprint
Let’s first deal with the inevitable ‘who?’ Dan McLay is a young British rider. Born in New Zealand and brought up in Leicester, he’s been plugging away in Belgium for the last few years, trying to get a pro contract. Bretagne-Séché Environnement gave him one (a pro contract) and he’s just won Grand Prix de…
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Mat Hayman has the biggest balls, apparently
“Sometimes you don’t need a plan, you just need big balls,” said Tom Boonen ahead of this weekend’s racing. I’d have thought that larger balls would be more susceptible to damage on Paris-Roubaix’s famously irregular road surfaces – but then I haven’t won the race four times and Tom has. Boonen came second this year.…
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Peter Sagan drinking two Duvels at the same time
Over on the continent, they’ve never truly mastered the finer points of loutishness. Either that or they’re REALLY good at it. Here’s a video of Peter Sagan celebrating his Tour of Flanders win by drinking two 8.5% Duvels at the same time. And what’s the guy front of shot doing? Is he quaffing red from…