Category: Classics and day races
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Philippe Gilbert: the rider Bradley Wiggins perhaps wishes he could have been
Cycling’s a little like a giant volcano that rises from the seabed. Britons, in particular, see the obvious bit that pokes above the water – the Tour de France and Olympic track cycling – and don’t give much thought to all that lies beneath. If the other two Grand Tours, the Giro d’Italia and the…
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How many Italians have won the Tour of Flanders?
The cobbled classics started out normally enough. Zdenek Stybar – a man best known on this site for taking his false teeth out during the 2015 Tour of Flanders because they were rattling – won E3 Harelbeke. And then Alexander Kristoff, the jet-powered truck, won Gent Wevelgem. These are normal cobbled classics people and these…
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So that’s why Julian Alaphilippe was practising his sprint
I don’t tell you much useful on this website, but I did inadvertently drip-feed you a teaser of Julian Alaphilippe’s win in Milan-Sanremo. First, I told you he’d win a bunch of stuff this season. This was his seventh win and it’s not even April. Second, I told you that he won a bunch sprint…
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Julian Alaphilippe does some foreshadowing at Strade Bianche
Julian Alaphilippe, the Frenchman with the pain-in-the-arse surname, won Strade Bianche at his first attempt today. I guarantee you he’ll win a whole bunch of other stuff this season provided he doesn’t break anything important. Earlier in the day, Dutch rider Annemiek Van Vleuten won the women’s race. Van Vleuten won the Women’s WorldTour last…
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How are you supposed to feel about Alejandro Valverde being world champion?
After two silver medals and four bronze ones, Alejandro Valverde’s world championships bridesmaidery finally came to an end this weekend. A lot of people will say it’s nothing less than a spectacularly good rider deserves. A lot of people will say it’s more than a man who served a two-year doping ban deserves. There’s probably…
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Why I didn’t write about Bob Jungels winning Liege-Bastogne-Liege
This is not a race report. You can’t report on a race that took place over a week ago. This is more of an explanation tied up with a bit of record-keeping for when I need to check who won this year’s race at some distant point in the future. A day or so after…
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Paris-Roubaix Peter Sagan or Amstel Gold Peter Sagan? Which Peter Sagan did the better sprint?
Peter Sagan is the central figure in pretty much every race he rides, so let’s just write about Peter Sagan today. Sagan has appeared in two one-day classics in the last fortnight – Paris-Roubaix (which is also a Monument, so technically a bit bigger than your standard classic) and Amstel Gold (which is named after…
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All hail Niki Terpstra, the most Belgian man ever to have failed to be from Belgium
Niki Terpstra’s top result in a Grand Tour is 94th in the 2014 Tour de France. He also finished 95th in the 2010 Vuelta a Espana. Here are all of Niki Terpstra’s other Grand Tour results, in ascending order: 152nd in the 2009 Tour de France 149th in the 2013 Tour de France 142nd in…
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Vincenzo Nibali is slowly winning all of the things
Milan-Sanremo really is one of the finest races of the year. At 291km, it is very long, which is a very important quality as it means people can deploy the word ‘epic’ which is a thing that people very much like to do these days. It is also probably the most balanced race of the…
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Tiesj Benoot was the most Belgian Belgian at Strade Bianche
Strade Bianche is named after the white roads it uses. Presumably it should have been called Strade Bruno or Strade Merda or something this year. I have no idea. I don’t speak Italian. This is what it looked like. Springtime shit weather racing does of course mean only one thing – Belgians. The race was…