Tag: Richie Porte
-
Chris Froome still intact | First Rest Day Wrap
The Rest Day Wrap is my attempt to give an overview of where things stand in the Tour de France. It’s less about stage wins and focuses instead on the general classification, which is the overall race. Preview First Week Wrap Second Week Wrap Final Week Wrap The first week of this year’s Tour de…
-
Richie Porte is stronger than everybody individually (but not everybody combined) | The 2017 Criterium du Dauphine wrap
It was a classic edition of the eight-stage race I like to call The Dolphin – but as ever, the main point of interest is what events told us about the form of the main contenders for the Tour de France, which starts in three weeks. The strongest rider An oddly worded subheading in that…
-
Richie Porte wins first WorldTour event of the year – but what the hell is the WorldTour?
The French film Belleville Rendez-vous does a cracking job of expressing the sheer irrepressible joyful exuberance of cycling at this time of year. It looks something like this: You’re slower and heavier; it’s darker and colder outside; and your bike seems to require cleaning even when you haven’t actually used it. Yet the season is…
-
Chris Froome running towards the finish line halfway up Mont Ventoux
Crowd knobheads have given us many memorable moments in the Tour de France, but surely few can rival the sight of Chris Froome, in the yellow jersey, running up Mont Ventoux with no bike anywhere in shot. Someone – or more likely a great many people – got in the way of one of the…
-
Peter Sagan’s luxury wardrobe
Peter Sagan is some kind of deluxe onion. Peel back his layers and his appearance will barely diminish. His stage two victory has put him into the yellow jersey, but when someone overhauls his lead and pulls that off his back, he’ll still be wearing the green jersey as he’s also leading the points competition.…
-
Yellow jersey contenders in 2016
Who’s going to win the Tour de France? Probably not Bartosz Huzarski or Tsgabo Grmay unless an awfully large number of people abandon the race injured. Maybe one of these guys though. Chris Froome Both times he’s won the Tour, Froome’s ceded ground to Nairo Quintana in the mountains in the final week. He says…
-
Will the real 2015 Giro podium contenders please stand up
If Saturday’s time trial saw a bunch of charlatans ejected from the top ten, the following day’s mountain stage promised further rationalisation, which is why I held off doing a proper overview of where the race stands. It was the right decision. As we go into the second rest day, everything’s now much clearer. For…
-
Vasil Kiryienka is the man to maintain an impossible-to-maintain pace
French team FDJ have a scooter they train behind. It’s named ‘Vasil’ after Sky rider Vasil Kiryienka because of the relentlessly punishing pace it delivers. It seems that riding along behind it is almost – but not quite – as uncomfortable as trying to stay in a peloton that’s being driven along by the man…
-
Richie Porte realises the perils of ‘mateship’
A puncture with 5km to go and the racing in full swing was not what Richie Porte wanted. Where were his team-mates and where was the team car? No matter, here’s Porte’s fellow countryman, Simon Clarke, to lend him his wheel. If that's not Aussie mate ship them what is? Punctured and clarkey gave me…
-
Richie Porte always has at least one bad day
After Chris Froome abandoned, the situation was presented by Sky as being an opportunity for Richie Porte to show what he can do. What Porte can do is have at least one really bad day during every Grand Tour. This seems to be a theme with Porte: un jour sans – a day without. Yesterday’s…