Tour de France on TV

Category: Vuelta a Espana

  • Little Chris Horner attacked on a corner

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    Alex
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    What were you doing in 1971? Chris Horner was being born. That was a long, long time ago and yet here he is, in 2013, beating the fittest athletes in the world on a mountain stage of the Vuelta a Espana to take the race lead. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on. In one…

  • Joaquim Rodriguez, Alejandro Valverde and the relationship between their wheels

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    Alex
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    It’s not like I haven’t written about Dan Moreno and uphill finishes before. He went up the final climb like a cockroach up a wall – which is intended to be descriptive, rather than insulting – and secured a second stage win as well as the race lead. Thus far, Moreno’s been doing what his…

  • Nicolas Roche just about leads the Vuelta

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    Alex
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    Nicolas Roche has actually got 17 seconds on Chris Horner in second place. It’s a reasonable buffer, but he was making faces like someone was tearing out clumps of pubic hair near the finish. Those 17 seconds might disappear in the blink of a watering eye. Roche came third. The good news for fans of…

  • The fat tyres of Zdenek Stybar

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    Alex
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    The finish of stage seven wasn’t quite as exciting as the finish of stage six. It wasn’t bad though. The world champion who can’t win a race, Phil Gilbert, and the two-time cyclocross world champion who can, Zdenek Stybar, hovered a few seconds in front of the peloton for the last 9km and thanks to…

  • Tony Martin’s solo break in the Vuelta

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    Alex
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    No, seriously. I don’t think you’re quite getting how great a ride this was. That man at the front, in the light blue jersey, gob hanging open, white socks pulled right up – do you realise how much effort he put in? Tony Martin rode 175km on his own and almost beat the entire peloton.…

  • Tony Martin v the peloton

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    Alex
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    I think I’ve said before that cycling isn’t about winning. It’s about losing. It’s about losing with panache. Tony Martin lost stage six of the Vuelta in the absolute finest style. When seventh outranks first The official result has Martin in seventh place and Michael Morkov first, but the official result can go to hell.…

  • Michael Matthew goes faster than Thibaut Pinot dares

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    Alex
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    Orica-GreenEDGE (stupid typography) have all but cornered the market in second tier sprinters. They’re a kind of lead-out production line. Fortunately, having a sprinter who is merely very, very good is sufficient at the Vuelta with Marcel Kittel, André Greipel and Mark Cavendish elsewhere. Michael Matthews therefore managed to win his first Grand Tour stage…

  • Dan Moreno and the uphill finish

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    Alex
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    Dan Moreno won stage four. That’s Dan Moreno, the Spanish cyclist who also won La Fleche Wallonne this year and not Dan Marino, literally the only American football player I can name – although I guess that should be obvious from the context really, what with this being a bike race and all. The stage…

  • Chris Horner wins one for the middle-aged

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    Alex
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    A lot of people resign themselves to poor physical condition by the time they’re 30, saying that they’re getting old and implying there’s little they can do about it. But they’re not paunchy because of their age; they’re paunchy because they spend all their time behind a desk, eating Frazzles. Look at Chris Horner. He’s…

  • Nicolas Roche wins one for all the Franco-Irish out there

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    Alex
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    A huge win for Ireland/France with Nicolas Roche taking stage two of the Vuelta. Ireland and France have rarely taken such a big win simultaneously. Why do I say this? Because Nicolas Roche, son of Stephen, is actually pretty French. UK cycling coverage somewhat glosses over this, but he really is. He went to school…