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…
Tag: Analysis
Contador's Opening Salvo
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…
Out of Your Element
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…
The Death of the Pure Climber
Cycling isn’t a sport that lends itself to idle boasting. The most flamboyant and outspoken rider in recent memory was Mario Cipollini, who managed to put together a small collection of Giro stages—among other prizes—to back up his chatter. So it seems highly out of place when a guy like Jose Rujano says “I’m the…
1987 Tour de Suisse
While I could do without the music, and the grainy VHS-to-flash video quality, this Team 7-Eleven classic is definitely worth watch. It’s not often a 10-day stage race comes down to an intermediate sprint… (via velogogo) You’ve got to wonder at the behind-the-scenes machinations preceding this final stage. It strains credulity that Panasonic, after 10…
Versus' War on Contador
Is January too early to talk about the Tour de France? Of course not—at least, not when the Tour is the only cycling event your employer bothers to cover live, and especially not when that employer is the Network formerly known as “Only Lance” and you’re bashing the chief rival of a certain well-known Texan….
The Worst of Cycling 2009
If you’ve noticed the distinct, sharp-edge whiff of bile around the cycling world at the moment, don’t attribute it entirely to an excess of cheer at various holiday gatherings. Headlines at the end of the year—and the end of a decade, especially—always seem to reek more of regurgitation than perspiration. It’s not that I’m above…
Not According To My Denomination
Found this in my Tumblr feed this morning, courtesy of VeloGogo (which, as an aside, would have been a far better candidate for Blog of the Year if Competitive Cyclist actually gave a rip about the criteria it claimed to advance): My only objection stems from the picture caption, which labels these videos as the…
The Brad Wiggins Bubble
A week has passed since the worst-kept-secret in cycling officially became a done deal. It’s been spun, analyzed, broken-down and overblown in all ways imaginable, but from my point of view, Toto’s cheekily delivered analysis hits closest to the mark—Brad Wiggins was “flipped”. After the 2008 season, Wiggins was an also-ran in the world of…
The Wiggins Paradox
The biggest confusion of the off-season, rendered as a Venn diagram for simplified analysis. (click-through for massive, better-branded version.)