November 9, 2011

The perfect cyclist – A jack of all trades

One of the most interesting things about cycling compared to most other sports are the different disciplines that any given rider can take part in – road racing, time-trialling, mountain biking, track racing and cyclo-cross.

Stephen Roche once said that “maybe it is a view of a dreamer but I have always believed that a complete bike racer should be able to ride on the flat, in the mountains, in the time trials and on the track.”

Not long after Roche finished third in the 1985 Tour de France at the age of 25, he rode the Paris six-day race on the track with the British rider Tony Doyle. Roche crashed and hurt his knee, an injury which would plague him for the rest of his career.

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November 23, 2010

Cyclo-Cross is Great

Zdenek Stybar - Current cyclo-cross World Champion

(The following is as much an appeal for information as it is an imparting of knowledge. If I’ve made any glaring errors (or indeed, any minor errors) please let me know, as I’m on a steep learning curve at the moment and need all the help I can get).

Taking an interest in a new sport can be as daunting as it is exciting. Usually, it’s quite straight forward to learn the rules of a sport. There will always be obscure rules which only present themselves in very specific scenarios, but in general, following what’s going on is simple. What isn’t simple though is figuring out what events and competitions are important, which are the most prestigious, which are the ones everybody wants to win, where does each event fit in with the sport’s calendar as a whole?

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March 8, 2010

Time Trial to the Sun

Paris-Nice, the first major stage race of the season got underway yesterday with an 8 kilometre prologue time trial. It was won by the young Dutch rider Lars Boom who’s stock seems to be growing further after his transition to road racing from cyclo-cross last season. The main favourites needn’t be too worried as they all finished within 30 seconds of Boom. In fact only once in the past 10 years has the winner of the prologue of Paris-Nice gone on to take the overall prize, that was Jorg Jaksche in 2004.

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