Tour de France on TV

Author: Alex

  • Michal Kwiatkowski comes from somewhere

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    I was going to entitle this ‘Michal Kwiatkowski comes from nowhere’ but then I realised that was completely inaccurate. He came from somewhere to win stage four of the Tour of Britain, I just don’t know exactly how he managed it. The TV coverage was utterly focused on the two leaders for the final kilometre…

  • Edoardo Zardini leads the Tour of Britain

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    ‘Who?’ you may be thinking. And yes, it is a bit like that, but you may have been thinking much the same thing when Simon Yates won a stage last year. Good young riders often make themselves known in these slightly smaller races. Zardini got away on the Tumble and if my tip, Nicolas Roche,…

  • Alberto Contador lands a seemingly decisive punch

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    Stage 16 of this year’s Vuelta a Espana will forever be remembered for the feeble pattycake slapfest that took place between Gianluca Brambilla and Ivan Rovny, who were riding in the break. I still don’t know what they were arguing about – Brambilla may have grown sick of Rovny not taking turns on the front…

  • Mark Renshaw wins one for the pilot fish

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    I probably should have done some sort of ‘riders to watch’ post for the Tour of Britain. Fortunately, the end of stage two did it for me with many of the strongest names taking turns to lead down the descent of the Great Orme where they could be seen from a faintly disconcerting side-on camera…

  • Przemysław Niemiec troubles the commentators

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    There can’t be many riders whose names offer as many phonetic pitfalls as Przemyslaw Niemiec. Phil Liggett long ago settled on ‘Yakim’ for ‘Joaquim’ and so generally doesn’t even bother with Niemiec’s first name. In this case, I can’t say I blame him. It isn’t exactly great fun to type either. The Polish rider was…

  • Ryder Hesjedal motors up final climb

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    Ryder Hesjedal got in the break, stayed away and paced himself well up the steep final climb to take victory on stage 14. The odd thing is that this is his first win since 2012 when he won… the Giro d’Italia. It’s easy to forget that Hesjedal has a Grand Tour to his name. He’s…

  • Awareness of Daniel Navarro becomes slightly less dim

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    If I had to categorise Daniel Navarro, I’d class him as being ‘a cyclist whose name I know’. If a Cofidis rider ever attacks on a climb, I reflexively think: “That’ll be Daniel Navarro,” because that’s invariably the line of commentary that follows. However, he wasn’t a rider I ever really thought about;  just someone…

  • John Degenkolb doesn’t have a knackered leg

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    Or maybe he does. After all, bust limbs seem to be performance enhancing if Alberto Contador’s form is anything to go by. Before the stage, Degenkolb was bandaged from a crash and saying he couldn’t produce much power. After the stage, he was standing on the podium getting kissed on the cheeks by raven-haired Spanish…

  • Fabio Aru turns up

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    I’d predicted that the final climb on stage 11 would deliver an ‘every man for himself’ scenario. As it turned out, it was Chris Froome for himself and then everyone else together. Fabio Aru was the one man to successfully detach himself from the leaders’ group. The young Italian, who came third in the Giro,…

  • Alberto Contador steals Tony Martin’s headlines

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    I think I’ve said this before, but the problem with being Tony Martin is that everyone expects you to win time trials, so when you do, it’s literally unremarkable. What’s newsworthy is when you lose. Tony Martin won the stage 10 time trial, so let’s move on. Over the handlebars The most dramatic moment of…