Author: Alex
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The 2015 Tour de France route – who does it suit?
Former winner, Pedro Delgado, has called next year’s Grande Boucle ‘an anti-Froome Tour’. Chris Froome himself has gone all stroppy and said that he might not ride it and might try for a Giro-Vuelta double instead. What’s going on? Time trial kilometres The main thing that stands out when you look at next year’s Tour…
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Email subscription?
Whenever I write something, you can sign up to receive that article in an email the following day. This saves checking the site for updates – instead, they come to you. Email addresses will never be shared with anyone else, so this site’s content is all you will ever receive and you can unsubscribe at…
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Who won the classics and Grand Tours in 2014?
It occurs to me that I spend a lot more time looking forward on this website than looking back. It makes sense to look forward of course or you walk into things, but it can also be satisfying to turn your head through 180 degrees – like an owl – to take a brief look…
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The Schlecks become Frank Schleck
Because Andy Schleck has retired from cycling. The reason given is that he has no cartilage left in his knee, which causes it to swell up whenever he makes harder efforts. However, that’s really just the final straw, because in reality the last couple of years seem to have been written by an Eastenders scriptwriter.…
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Dan Martin remains upright round the final corner
Dan Martin has spent most of this season on the deck. He crashed out of the Giro on the first day, he crashed in the Tour any number of times and most memorably of all, he crashed on the final corner of Liege-Bastogne-Bastogne when he was in a position to win it for the second…
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A fairly brief preview of Sunday’s Tour of Lombardy
I’ll try and keep this fairly short, but these things always get away from me. The Tour of Lombardy, also known as Il Lombardia or the Race of the Falling Leaves, is our final formal appointment in 2014. It’s the autumn one-day race. Unlike most one-day races, which are either hilly or flat, the Tour…
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Team Sky flash the cash and buy in some riding talent
A lot of cycling teams shop at Aldi or Lidl. They look to pick up high quality European riders at surprisingly affordable prices. Team Sky aren’t bargain hunters. They park their SUV in the mother and child spot at Waitrose and then buy whatever the hell they feel like, regardless of cost. Who’s in? The…
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The buoyancy of Michal Kwiatkowski
It’s always good to know that a win isn’t a fluke and being as the World Championships finished with the same three riders on the podium as in this year’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege (albeit in a different order), we can reassure ourselves that the cream did indeed rise to the top. If it had been a sprint……
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A time for Cunis – a men’s world road race preview
That title’s a reference to 1960s New Zealand cricketer, Bob Cunis, about whom Test Match Special commentator Alan Gibson once said: “Cunis: a funny sort of name – neither one thing nor the other.” For that is what this year’s world road race circuit demands – a rider who is neither one thing nor the…
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The freakish box-ticking of Bradley Wiggins – a World Championships Time Trial review
Sit Bradley Wiggins down, hand him a form and a ballpoint pen and ask him to tick some boxes. He’ll look at you with a surly look on his face and probably flick the pen at you in a fit of pique. Then he’ll look at the form, spot something he likes the look of…