October 21, 2011 by Irish Peloton

The best cycling website in the world

So the 2011 cycling season is over and inevitably, the countdown has begun to the 2012 Tour Down Under in January.

Well, actually the 2011 season isn’t quite done yet. There’s a race called the Tour of Hainan currently taking place in China, where Ireland’s David McCann finished in 12th place on yesterday’s opening stage riding for the Giant Kenda cycling team. McCann actually finished second overall in this nine-stage race back in 2008.

There’s also the Japan Cup which takes place this coming Sunday. This is a hilly one-day race which has been won in the past by prominent riders such as Claudio Chiappucci, Gilberto Simoni and Damiano Cunego.

Dan Martin crossing the line as the winner of the 2010 Japan Cup (via cyclingnews.com)

Last year’s winner was Daniel Martin who unfortunately won’t be on the startline to defend his crown. However, there are some big names due to participate on Sunday. Ivan Basso, Roman Kreuziger and Richie Porte should all be

there, as will Cunego who will be aiming to win the race for a record-equalling third time.

But admittedly, these are minor races and all the big races are done and dusted for the year. But if, like me, you’re a cycling nerd and you just can’t get enough of it, the off-season is a great time to spend watching old races and cycling DVDs.

In the past I have spent a lot of time and a lot of money hunting down old DVDs on eBay. But last year, and I may be a bit late to the party here, I discovered the most amazing website – cyclingtorrents.

It is a truly remarkable collection of races and documentaries. Any race you can think of from pretty much any year is up there available for download for free.

The videos that are available mostly consist of races which have never even been released on DVD. Cycling enthusiasts use their spare time to capture races from live internet streams and convert their old recorded-off-the-telly VHS tapes into digital formats.

Most races are also available in a variety of languages. There’s road racing, track racing, cyclo-cross, women’s racing and documentaries – you name it, it’s up there.

If it sounds like I’m affiliated with this website and I’m plugging it, I can assure you I have no connection with cyclingtorrents. I just think it’s an incredible resource, and the more people that get on board and download and share the videos the better the website becomes. As far as I know, nobody makes any money from it anyway. It’s simply fans sharing with other fans.

So if you find yourself yearning for the spring classics over the coming winter, why not go to cyclingtorrents and download the 1995 Tour of Flanders or the 1992 Milan San Remo.

If Grand Tours are more your cup of tea, why not download highlights of this year’s Tour? You can download just particular stages or you can grab the whole lot. There’s one file up there which contains full highlights of every Giro d’Italia from 1993-2000.

Fancy a documentary? There’s 236 of them available, and that’s just in English.

Happy downloading!

#Chiappucci#Cunego#Martin#McCann#Simoni