Category: Stage races
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Domenico Pozzovivo rises up hillside and general classification
You can’t claim ignorance of the major protagonist from yesterday’s stage, for it was Domenico Pozzovivo, the object of infatuation for this website. The stars aligned for our Domenico. It was dry, it was uphill and he could ride on his own. As ever, he picked the steepest section of the final climb to attack.…
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Bradley Wiggins performs on the rest day
That kind of sounds like he gathered all the riders together and did a stand-up routine or sang I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor for them. But no, he’s actually elsewhere, racing on his bicycle. Specifically, he’s at the Tour of California, an eight-day stage race which isn’t quite as important as it thinks it…
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Form, fitness, fatigue and Froome – what we’ve learnt from the Tour of Romandy
As expected, Chris Froome beat Simon Spilak by some margin in the time trial which rounded off the Tour of Romandy. This gave him the overall win and resulted in exactly the same podium as last year, with world champion, Rui Costa, in third. But as with so many stage races, the result itself seems…
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Who needs team-mates?
Every pro cyclist actually. But at the same time, there’s little meaning in being team leader if you only ever finish right alongside your garishly-attired brethren. On stage three of the Tour of Romandy, Chris Froome made light of Team Sky’s relative weakness of late and did his thing alone. His thing? Vincenzo Nibali attacked…
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Whither Team Sky?
The first stage of the Tour of Romandy was a 5.6km prologue. Michal Kwiatkowski’s continued omnipresence meant that he won, with Chris Froome nine seconds back in 13th place. Stage one was then shortened to 88km due to snow and Swiss rider Michael Albasini won, Chris Froome finishing safely in the main front group. So…
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Meanwhile, in the land of the skinny…
I’ve still got both eyes firmly fixed on the cobbles, but let’s just take a very quick glance back at the Tour of Catalonia, which hoved into my peripheral vision last week. It was what the stage racers were doing to keep themselves occupied while all the Belgians were hammering around in the wind and…
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A cursory dissection of Alberto Contador’s Tirreno-Adriatico win
Alberto Contador held his lead to the end of Tirreno-Adriatico. He lost three seconds to Nairo Quintana in the final time trial, but being as he was already a couple of minutes ahead, this was of no real significance. The result did however surprise many pundits who are for some reason convinced that Quintana can’t…
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Alberto Contador’s weight
Most bike races are decided on the hills or in the mountains and the speed you can cycle uphill is dictated by the power you can produce relative to your weight. This means there are two main things a racer will look to control. They want more watts, but fewer kilograms, which means more training…
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Fat Betancur and fit Contador
Have you ever had two books on the go? A friend of mine was once reading two books from the same series at the same time – one at work and one at home. He’d started the seventh book in the series and quite liked it, so he then started the first one. I feel…
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Cavendish v Kittel v Greipel v Sagan
There was a high profile Tour de France preview yesterday with the four main contenders for this year’s green jersey going head-to-head-to-head-to-head in a Tirreno-Adriatico sprint finish. Who would emerge victorious? Er, well it was Matteo Pelucchi actually. Greipel managed third; Sagan ran out of steam a bit and finished fifth; Cavendish never really got…