In what is becoming a regular feature of the early and late season races, pro-teams have again suffered a number of large scale equipment thefts in the past weeks. After Garmin’s high profile withdrawal of the Tour Mediterranean in February last year following the loss of 17 bikes from a team truck, 3 World Tour teams have lost significant amounts of bikes, wheels and other items ... Read More
Latest Blog Entries
Desert Stormers – Dubai, Qatar & Oman Round-up
Dubai The inaugural Dubai Tour was deemed a success by many commentators and journalists attending the event, and if they meant a triumph of style over substance then they would be entirely correct. We saw many, many pictures of the Burj Khalifa – the worlds tallest building – and almost as many of the Dubai Police Force’s utterly ridiculous fleet of supercars, which include a Bugatti ... Read More
The Sky is Not the Limit – the other British riders in the pro peloton
Team Sky (or Sky Procycling as they were until the start of this season) have undoubtedly changed the way that cycling is perceived in this country. Although they were set up from the start as an internationally rostered team – albeit with a very clear aim of initially achieving success in the Tour de France for a British rider – they were often described as a de ... Read More
The Jersey Pocket Podiums – #4 – Cycling Nicknames
In a sport where written newspaper reports defined the action for the first six decades of it’s existence, nicknames were an important tool for sketching the rider profiles and bringing the faceless coureurs to life in the imagination of the readers. Many nicknames mocked the riders as much as they celebrated them – consider Elefantino, Dr.Teeth, The Dwarf and Clogface – but ... Read More
3D printing – cycling into the future, layer by layer by layer
The Future arrived last week. The postman delivered it to my house just as I was going out for a ride. It is, as far as I know, the first bit of 3D printing that has crossed our threshold but, given the way things are going, it’s unlikely to be the last. I delayed my departure a few moments to fix the new part ... Read More
Bonne Anniversaire – Henri Desgrange
Henri Desgrange – 31.01.1865 – 16.08.1940 Hour Record – 1893 Editor L’Auto newspaper - 1900 – 1940 Creator of Le Tour de France – 1903 Desgrange is rightly seen as the father of the Tour. Latching onto an idea of one of his correspondents – Geo. Lefevre – to help boost circulation, he set his newspaper firmly behind the creation of what quickly became Le Grand Boucle. Famously harsh on the riders of the ... Read More
“Another Fine Mesh” – Pro-cycling clothing debate hots up
Cyclists are often a bit funny about their tan-lines. Cultivating a set of razor-sharp transitions, which switch instantly from the deepest mahogany to a blinding alabaster white, half way along a thigh or bicep is seen as one of the heights of being ‘pro’. Tan-lines like these tell of days in the saddle, not days on the beach. They are worn with more than just ... Read More
Weekly Round Up – Tour Down Under & Tour De San Luis
It’s been a hard week to follow the start of the cycling season from the UK. Races in Australia and Argentina are not so easy to watch live; it either involves getting up at 4.30am and disturbing the rest of your non-cycling life with sleep deprivation to watch the Tour Down Under; or risking your eyesight squinting at a fuzzy web-cam whilst trying to ... Read More
Bonne Anniversaire – Jacques Anquetil
Jacques Anquetil – 08.01.1934 – 18.11.1987 TdF Winner - 1957, ’61, ’62, ’63, ’64 Giro D’Italia Winner – 1960, ’62 Vuelta A Espana – 1963 L-B-L – 1966; Ghent-Wevelgem – 1964 The Hour Record – 1956 The first 5-time winner of the Tour de France, and first winner of all three Grand Tours, Monsieur Chrono was famous (and often maligned) for his reliance on his time-trialling ability to win. He was widely decried as being boring in his professional career. The opposite could be ... Read More
Three is a Magic Number – The Trials of a Balanced Outlook on Life
“Somewhere in the ancient mystic Trinity, you get Three as a magic number” – Bob Dorough, Schoolhouse Rock! Trouble, they say, comes in threes. The way the back half of last year went personally I would have to add in a factor of at least 10 to that figure, but the notion of a Triad of Adversity seems to be a well held adage. Once a couple ... Read More