Author: Alex
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The big sprint head-to-head that wasn’t
Greipel wins. Take that, pedals! Andre Greipel won stage four of the Tour Down Under after 95km, even though it was a 148.5km stage. This is when the race hit the Reservoir Road climb in Myponga. He made it to the top in the main group. Marcel Kittel didn’t. It wasn’t so much the climb…
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The corrupted logic of the breakaway rider
Jens Voigt got in the break on stage three of the Tour Down Under. “I picked today’s stage to break away because nobody else did, but I knew that it was close to impossible to go for the stage win.” But he did it anyway. That’s a key aspect of the near-universal appeal of the…
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Diego Ulissi might be worth watching this season
Stage two didn’t thin out as I’d expected – 97 riders finished in the front group. In the grand scheme of things, they were racing for bonus seconds really. Simon Gerrans got a handful for finishing second. Diego Ulissi, however, jumped into second place overall after taking the win. Who’s Diego Ulissi? He doesn’t have…
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Simon Gerrans wins a wearied sprint to take the lead in the Tour Down Under
Simon Gerrans leads the Tour Down Under after stage one. I said he was a contender and he’ll be looking to hold the ochre jersey right the way to the finish now. That’s right – ochre. More races should consult the Dulux charts before settling on a leader’s jersey. The Tour of Britain should go…
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Grand Tour contenders – who’s racing what in 2014
It’s a common misconception among casual followers of cycling that all the best riders compete in the Tour de France. This is, patently, bollocks. If the route doesn’t suit them, many riders will instead centre their efforts on the Giro or the Vuelta – often both (albeit with greater emphasis on the Italian race, which…
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Tour Down Under – what’s that all about then?
Sunday sees the first UCI World Tour race of the season, the Tour Down Under. You could consider it the Tour of Australia, except that it doesn’t really venture far from Adelaide. That’s fair though. Le Tour d’Australie would be pretty bloody time consuming, what with it being 5,000-and-odd kilometres from Perth to Cairns by…
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My highlights of the 2013 pro cycling season
The 2014 season starts on Sunday with the Tour Down Under, so here’s a somewhat overdue list of my highlights from 2013. It absolutely isn’t that I saved this as a draft months ago and kind of thought that I’d published it, but hadn’t. In no particular order… Adam Hansen’s Giro stage win I’m a…
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Four British riders for the Spring Classics
I make no apologies for the Brit-centric nature of this website. I have milk in my tea and it’s a .co.uk domain name. You can’t argue with unshakeable truths such as those. Today’s article therefore takes a look at the handful of riders who will be carrying Britain’s fairly slim hopes in the 2014 Spring…
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They’ve changed the route of the Ronde van Vlaanderen
Bringing you all autumnal news of the Spring Classics, whether you’re interested or not. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go into this in any depth. I can’t be bothered. For the last couple of years cobbled classic the Ronde van Vlaanderen, has finished with laps of a circuit. This would be rubbish even it…