Yes! It’s bike season again! Here’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, half of the Belgian season’s opening weekend, run in some unseasonably nice weather over various cobbles and bergs, and featuring an inordinately large number of mechanical problems. [right-click for iTunes-compatible download] Contains a photo from Jeff Jones’ Cyclingnews days, and footage from Sporza.be. Be sure to […]

This weekend’s races at Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne mark the beginning of the classics season in professional cycling. It also marks the renewal of the sport’s best rivalry, between QuickStep and Omega Pharma-Lotto. But what’s that? You’d like to know some of the backstory behind this grudge match? Well, have I got a chart for […]

Today, Alberto Contador broke away to win the mountainous third stage of what is turning into a particularly miserable Volta ao Algarve. In 2004, Armstrong issued a similarly strong statement in the Algarve TT. When asked about it in an interview with The Times of London, Armstrong said: I was thinking what would I do […]

Whew! A day of rich drama and intrigue such as seldom graces the cycling world in February—and remarkably, most of it is due to racing. It all started at the Tour of Oman, which was introduced to the peloton’s pre-season swing through the Persian Gulf presumably to counterbalance the relentless flatness of last week’s Tour […]

There’s nothing like like watching endurance sports covered by a glorified electric company to remind one how miserably people tend to perform when placed outside their sphere of expertise. Like a French judge ruling on cybercrime, for example. Judicial officials are already notoriously ignorant on matters of technology, and I sincerely doubt that having a […]

You know what I think it is? I think it’s the lack of top-flight competition. It’s not that Etoile de Besseges, Trofeo Mallorca or Tour of Qatar don’t feature some of the best riders in the world—Bozic isn’t exactly a flat iron, after all—it’s that too many of them are holding back in an effort […]

The American cycling fan has but one dream. It can be roughly summed up by the plot of the 2002 film The Rookie—reaching the pro ranks in middle age by finally getting a chance to develop your long-neglected (or in most cases, completely hidden) talent. And in case you’ve been stuck at the back of […]

I think I like the difficult ‘cross races best. They reward unflappability and positive mental attitude—good news for Zdenek Stybar, bad news for Jon Page, ten-exclamation-point tweet aside. And is there ever a bad day for Marianne Vos? Mountain Bikers and BMXers should count themselves lucky she doesn’t feel compelled to add some more rainbow […]