August 16, 2010

Utrecht, Dublin, Poland and La Vuelta

Cycling around Utrecht, here was a photo op in front of the Dutchest scene I could find.

Two things I learned in the past week:

  1. In Utrecht, cycling is an absolute pleasure.
  2. In Dublin, cycling is an absolute battle.

Prior to this week, Dublin has been the only city in which I have had the experience of cycling and having now had the pleasure of cycling in Utrecht, it is clear that Dublin is a complete disaster in comparison. While Utrecht has an infrastructure of proper two-way, unbroken cycle lanes with their own traffic light system, Dublin city council deem it sufficient to paint a red stripe on the side of roads, the refurbishment of which, apparently cost the government €800,000 last year. This is embarrassing. The cycle lanes in Dublin are just plain dangerous in plenty of places and are a result of irresponsible and uninformed planning. There is a Flickr account dedicated to documenting the appalling Irish cycle lanes, some of the photos up there are really quite disturbing.

~ Continue reading ~

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June 9, 2010

Prepare & prevent, don’t repair & repent

Christian Vande Velde after crashing and breaking his collar bone on Stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia

Recently I’ve found myself grumbling about the stories that appear on Sky Sports News every day. While the World Cup coverage on Sky is insufferable at best, as is their reporting on anything they don’t have live rights to, it is even worse when there isn’t even any match results to report yet. All they seem to be discussing this past week is injuries, as there have been a lot of them. As the World Cup is for international teams, Sky have shifted from interviewing any pleb who has played for both teams involved in the current match being discussed, to interviewing any pleb who has played in the Premier League and happens to hold a passport from the country currently being discussed. They ask about the player who has just been injured, the particular injury the player has sustained, the possible replacements that may be called up in place of the injured player, what affect the injured player’s absence will have on the squad etc. etc. all the while the interviewee, who is only present due to where he was born and who he played a few games for back in the early nineties, nods and agrees and seems to say nothing at all.

~ Continue reading ~

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April 16, 2010

The Irish in the Ardennes

Deignan

Coming up this Sunday is the first of the Ardennes classics, the Amstel Gold Race. Although it doesn’t quite take place in the Ardennes region of Belgium, it is still considered to be one of the Ardennes classics along with Fléche Wallonne and Liége-Bastogne-Liége. Amstel Gold is a hilly race with a total of 31 climbs to get over before the finish. The finish line itself is atop the Cauberg which has a leg aching average gradient of 12%.

The classics that have been raced already this year are usually the domain of sprinters, rouleurs and the so-called classics specialists. While there are also classics specialists present at the Ardennes races, due to their hilly nature, they also attract plenty of Grand Tour contenders. For instance, previous winners of Amstel Gold include Damiano Cunego, Frank Schleck, Danilo Di Luca and Bjarne Riis. In fact Riis is the last rider to have won a classic as reigning Tour champion (although he has since admitted to EPO use during this period). Even Lance Armstrong, notorious for focusing solely on the Tour de France, used to try and win the Amstel Gold race. During the first few years of his Tour reign, the Texan managed to finish 8th, 4th and 2nd twice.

~ Continue reading ~

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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.

~ Continue reading ~

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January 28, 2010

Deignan aims for first Tour de France

Philip Deignan celebrating after easily outsprinting Roman Kreuziger to win Stage 18 of the 2009 Vuelta a Espana.

Second up in the series of season preview posts is the Ulsterman Philip Deignan. He truly announced himself to the cycling world by winning Stage 18 of the Vuelta a Espana last September. It was Ireland’s first Grand Tour stage win since 1992 and first Vuelta stage win since 1988 when Seán Kelly won two stages on the way to winning the overall title. On top of this, Deignan also finished a fantastic 9th overall in the Spanish tour. This was the highest of any rider on his own team and higher than seasoned Grand Tour perfomers such as Juan José Cobo and Haimar Zubeldia. Last year he also rode the Giro d’Italia and acted as a domestique for team leader Carlos Sastre who won two stages and finished 3rd overall. His other notable performances last year were finishing 7th in the Vuelta Castilla y Leon, 10th in the Vuelta a Burgos and 12th in the Tour of Ireland. So how can Deignan improve on these results over the coming year?

~ Continue reading ~

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January 3, 2010

The Irish Renaissance

It’s been a great year for Irish cycling. There are three up and coming professionals at top teams who are getting stronger every year. Nicolas Roche at AG2R La Mondiale, Philip Deignan at Cervélo and Dan Martin at Garmin-Transitions can all look forward to racing in 2010 knowing that they’ve all played a part in the best year for Irish cycling professionals since the days of Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and Martin Earley.

There was an Irish rider in all three Grand Tours for the first time since 1987. Deignan completed both the Giro and Vuelta finishing a fantastic 9th in the latter taking a memorable stage win along the way. Roche was Ireland’s sole representative at the Tour de France finishing 2nd on one stage and taking a handful of other top 10 placings, he also finished 5th in the young rider competition. Dan Martin was unfortunate at times last year with illness, as such he was unable to make his Tour de France début. He did however make his Grand Tour bow at the Vuelta as a domestique for Tom Danielson. Martin also showed he is more than capable in one day races managing an 8th place in the Tour of Lombardy, Ireland’s first top 10 placing in a monument classic since Sean Kelly won Milan San Remo 18 years ago. Martin also finished 5th in the one day Pro Tour race the GP Ouest-France. In addition to his good performances in one day races and the Vuelta, Martin hinted at his potential in one week stage races in the Volta a Catalunya where he put on a great performance to finish 2nd behind Alejandro Valverde.

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