Author: Alex
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Why Peter Sagan is favourite for Milan-San Remo
The first big race of the year, Milan-San Remo, is coming up on Sunday. Peter Sagan is the favourite and it’s a good time to look at why he is such a special cyclist as the nature of this race helps explain why that’s the case. Sagan’s niche Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France…
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Team Sky support riders can’t control everything
How much support do you need, if that isn’t too personal a question? This week we saw one of Sky’s support riders win Paris-Nice, largely because of the efforts of HIS support team, while a parallel Sky team has provided the same high level of service to Chris Froome in Tirreno-Adriatico. Where does it end?…
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Tom Boonen and Paris-Nice
Very few people seem to be riding Paris-Nice this year. Compare the starting line-ups for the two World Tour stage races taking place at the minute – Tirreno-Adriatico and Paris-Nice – and the former features pretty much everyone you’ve heard of, while the latter is being led by Andrew Talansky, a hugely promising American cyclist,…
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What races is Jonathan Tiernan-Locke appearing in?
There’s a lot of scene-setting at this time of year. Next week, textbook scheduling sees two clashing World Tour stage races – Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico – and these serve as form indicators for both the Spring Classics and the Grand Tours, as well as being decent races in their own right. Normally, Paris-Nice is slightly…
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Spring Classics and the start of the cycling season
It’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad tomorrow (or today if you’re reading our email, or a couple of days ago if you’ve signed up to our email via your work account). This might seem insignificant and impossible to pronounce, but Omloop Het Nieuwsblad heralds the start of rather more serious racing. We’re in Europe now and things…
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Joaquim Rodriguez – meet Froome and Wiggins
Chris Froome has won his first stage race, the Tour of Oman, and a mighty impressive win it was too. He took the lead on stage four on Green Mountain, putting time into Cadel Evans, Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali, and then won the following day to extend his lead by a few seconds thanks…
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Peter Sagan, Oman, oh man
A new year, but little has changed. Peter Sagan is still mincing professional cyclists as if they were horsemeat at a Findus beef lasagne factory. He’s won two stages in a row at the Tour of Oman and has looked ludicrously powerful. What odds on a win in one (or several) of the Spring Classics?…
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Tom Boonen’s arm
What’s significant about Tom Boonen’s arm, you might ask. What’s significant is that it’s still there. Now that might not seem newsworthy, but you may have correctly inferred from my even mentioning this that it was at one point in grave danger. Apparently Tom got what I myself have diagnosed as ‘some sort of skeggy…
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La Plagne climb in the Tour de France
I was in La Plagne last week. I had a great time thank you very much. I even enjoyed the airport transfer. Not many skiers enjoy sitting in a bus, grinding up a mountain, but I couldn’t help but try and imagine what the road must have been like for Stephen Roche on his memorable…
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What DIDN’T Lance Armstrong do
Lance Armstrong is not a bad guy. He really isn’t. How do we know this? Because he never called Betsy Andreu fat. “I did call her crazy and I did call her a bitch, but I didn’t call her fat.” Betsy Andreu is really thin, so the only reason anyone would call her fat would…