Lucy Garner destroyed the field in a bunch sprint to win the Junior Women’s Worlds Road Race.
Cycling News report here
Way to go girl.
Category Archives: Sport
Saddles (and soreness)
A story to start with, probably apocryphal;
Two people had decided to set of on a long cycle tour, round the world, or possibly round Europe. They met at Tower Bridge in London, as that seemed like a symbolic place to start the tour, and set off for Dover, to catch the ferry to the rest of the world. By the time they arrived in Canterbury they were both thinking of giving up. The pain inflicted on their backsides by their saddles was getting too much to bear.
They had a think about the situation over lunch. Abandoning the tour would lead to humiliation. Wandering in to the pub next Saturday night and greeted by their friends with comments such as ‘I’m not sure I could make it round the world that quickly in a 747 let alone a bike’ would have been too much to take. Besides, they had paid for their ferry tickets and wouldn’t get the money back.
They decided to try swapping saddles, and completed the rest of the tour completely free from pain in the posterior.
My Personal (South) London-Surrey Cycle Classic.
I spent last Sunday morning watching the professionals taking part in the pre-Olympic test event the London – Surrey Cycle Classic. This week I thought I would give it a try myself. I was in a mood for comfort and not for speed so I took my Touring Bike instead of my “racing” bike. I don’t race, I have never raced, but I call it my racing bike because it is lighter and faster than my touring bike. Bike choice made I headed out into the Surrey Hills.
Read on
London – Surrey Cycle Classic
The official test event for the Olympic games cycle road race took place last Sunday (Sunday 14th August). I decided that as the Box Hill circuit part of the course is only about an hours ¹ ride from home I would cycle out and watch the race.
A map of the route (pdf) can be found here
The entry wasn’t as strong as it will be for the real event. As well as the national teams, several British Pro teams, such as Rapha-Condor-Sharp, Endura Racing and Motorpoint, boosted the numbers. They are all reasonable enough riders but I do not expect any of them to make the Olympic team next year. There were plenty of Pro-Tour riders present, Mark Cavendish, Tom Boonen, Heinrich Haussler, Rodger Hammond and Tyler Farrar to name a few.
Tour de France: Last thoughts on the Tour
The Tour de France is over for another year. Cadel Evans is taking Le Maillot Jaune back to Australia The first time any one from the Southern Hemisphere has done that. Mark Cavendish is taking the Le Maillot Vert back the Isle of Man. The first time any British qualified rider has won The Green Jersey. I was going to say Rider from the British Isles, but then remembered that Sean Kelly won the thing four times back in the Eighties. “Cav”is also the first rider since Robert Millar won the Polka-dot Jersey in 1984, to win a Jersey in the tour de France.
But wait, there’s more
Tour de France: The Final Stage Cadel Evans Wins Overall Cavendish Takes Green
The last stage of any Tour de France follows more or less the same script and for the past two years the script has been this; A play in six acts:
- Much faffing about drinking champagne and having photos taken.
- Gentle ride to the centre of Paris, gradually picking up the pace as the race approaches the Champs-Élysées
- The Yellow Jersey’s team lead the race onto the Champs-Élysées
- A break of about half a dozen riders gets about 30 seconds to a minute
- HTC and/or the other sprinters teams decide to stop faffing and set about closing down the break
- Mark Cavendish wins the stage
It seemed likely that the script would be followed again, because if Cavendish won the stage he would win the Green Jersey.
Yesterday
With all of yesterday’s tragic news, the murder of ninety teenagers in Norway, the death of Amy Winehouse it seems strange that the thing that got me nearest to tears was this series if tweets from David Millar (@millarmind)
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
In team car being driven to hotel. Chatting to VdV & spot cyclist on autoroute ahead, dressed in full Europcar kit.
Looks oddly familiar.Chat stops, tell car to slow. As we pass have time to look into eyes of a tired and broken Voeckler. Tragic doesn’t come close to describe.
Sometimes the scale of the tragedy is too big for me to fully comprehend, as in the case of the Norwegian killings. Don’t misunderstand me, I am fully aware of the pain and sorrow that the families and friends of all those killed, indeed the Norwegian nation, are going through, it is just that I can’t take it in. Amy Winehouse had a fine voice, but I wasn’t a great fan of hers. Her death left me feeling that it was tragic, but somehow inevitable.
So why did this little vignette get to me. I don’t know any of the participants (David Millar, Christian VandeVelde or Thomas Voeckler), but every night for the past fortnight I have watched Thomas Voeckler ride his heart out to keep hold of the Yellow Jersey in the Tour de France. (You can read my posts about it here.) It just seemed unbearably sad, that after all his efforts he was riding on his own back to, I hope, his team hotel.
Tour de France: The Time Trial – Cadel Evans takes Yellow
The time trial, or contre la montre if you are feeling French, around Grenoble was the decisive stage as far as Le Maillot Jaune and le Maillot Blanc (for the best rider under 25). Le Maillot au Pois Rouge (polka dot jersey) has already been decided, as there are no more classified climbs between l’Alpe d’Huez and les Champs-Élysées. Barring a serious accident or illness, which is unlikely, Samuel Sánchez will wear that jersey on the final podium. The team competition was as good as in the bag for Garmin-Cérvelo, although disastrous rides by all their time trial specialists and brilliant rides by AG2R and/or Leopard-Trek could, in theory, have seen them lose. Nothing much was going to happen with Le Maillot Verte (points competition). The final sprint on the Champs-Élysées will decide the winner
Stage 20
Stage 20 was a 42.5 km loop starting and finishing in Grenoble. Today’s story was simple. Cadel Evans, who is one of the better time-trialists in the peleton had 4 seconds to make up on Frank Schleck and 57 seconds to make up on Frank’s Brother Andy if he was to win the Tour de France. Frank and Andy, historically, are comparatively weak against the clock. The stage was set for the dénouement.
Any tension there might have been was over by the first time check after 15 km. Evans was already 36 seconds ahead of Andy Schleck and by the second time check at 27.5 km it was officially game over as Evans was 1:49 ahead of Andy Schleck, or 52 seconds ahead overall. The only question left was could he win the stage as well as the Tour? He didn’t quite manage that he finished second.
There were a couple of minor sub-plots. Who, if any of the specialists against the clock, such as Fabian Cancellara, Tony Martin and David Millar still had enough left in their legs after nineteen stages of working for team-mates to put in a winning ride? The Young Riders competition was still up for grabs. Rein Taaramae trailed yesterdays hero Pierre Rolland by 1:33. This was a similar scenario the fight for Yellow. Taaramae is easily the better of the two against the clock, but could he make up the deficit?
Tony Martin took the stage by 7 seconds, but I don’t think Evans was too upset about that. The other contre la montre specialists didn’t feature. The weather when Fabian Cancellara and David Millar rode was not particularly favourable, but the real reason they failed was that after a long hard tour they just did not have enough left in their legs. Pierre Rolland kept his lead in the Young Riders Competition. Garmin-Cérvelo kept the lead in the Team Competition. Samuel Sánchez didn’t fall off, in fact he produced a surprisingly strong ride to finish the stage in seventh place, so keeping the Mountains Jersey.
Someone also took a very unusual photograph of Cadel Evans. (Evans is a complex, emotional, and often prickly character, hence his nickname, given by the cycling press, “Cuddles”) The photo shows him wearing Le Maillot Jaune and smiling. The relationship between these two things has not been proven, but should not be discounted.
The Finalé
After breakfast in Grenoble, the riders travel via TGV to the start of today’s 21st and final stage in the Parisian suburb of Créteil for the 95 km ride to the finish on les Champs-Élysées
The final stage is often described as ceremonial, and in some ways, especially as regards the General Classification, it is.The Points Competition is still up for grabs. Mark Cavendish has a lead over Jose Joaquin Rojas of 15 points. There are a maximum of 65 points available for won on todays stage. It will all come down to the final sprint. Cav has won on les Champs-Élysées for the past two years, his team are the best in the business at setting him up for the sprint. It is a forgone conclusion, no?
We will know by about four this afternoon.
My post for today’s stage and my overall thoughts on this year’s Tour will be up sometime after that.
Tour de France: L’Alpe d’Huez
I thought that the racing in the Pyrenees was a bit boring, and said so in a couple of my recent posts. The riders have more than made up for their apparent reluctance to race properly since Le Tour hit the Alps.@lancearmstrong agrees with me, he tweeted earlier;
If you thought the Pyrenees were boring (I admit, so did I) then the boys are making up for it yesterday and today!
Stage 19
Stage 19 was short (by Tour de France standards) 109.5 km trip from Modane Valfréjus to Alpe-d’Huez. That is the sort of distance that I might do on a Saturday ride. I probably wouldn’t take my route over the Col du Telégraph the Col du Galibier and finish it 1850m up on l’Alpe d’Huez. and I couldn’t even dream of trying to do that distance in just over three hours, even if it was pan flat.
The stage produced another fascinating afternoon of racing. This time with Alberto Contador animating the race. I was working at home today and I managed to resist going downstairs to watch it, just relying on cyclingnews.com’s live text report to keep up with what was happening. I cracked before Thomas Voeckler did for the second time, and went down and put the telly on to watch the final climb.
I’m not sure why Contador initially attacked on the Col du Telégraph, if he was only intending to win the stage, surely he would have been better to wait until the final climb? If it was to try to win the Tour, then it was a brave move, but the 45 km descent from the Galibier to Bourg d’Ossians was always likely to bring the race back together at the foot of the final climb. It might just have been a show of defiance.
Another thread in the narrative of this year’s race has been the failure of a French rider to win a stage. Norway has two riders in the race, France had forty-four at the start of the race. A the start of today’s stage the score was Norway 4 France 0 – slightly embarrassing. Thomas Voeckler salvaged a lot of national pride with his time in le Maillot Jaune, but as early as the Col du Telégraph, when he found himself stuck in no-man’s land after trying and failing to go with Contador’s first attack, it was obvious that today would be the day when he was going to finally lose the jersey. Pierre Roland, the rider who has been Voeckler’s bodyguard throughout his time in yellow was given his freedom to ride his own race. He grabbed it with both hands.
He attacked initially with Ryder Hesjedal at the bottom of the final climb. They were both caught by Alberto Contador after he had attacked the GC group. They dropped Hesjedal soon after that. Roland hung on for a while after before Contador gradually rode away from him. With about 5km to go Samuel Sánchez attacked the Schleck/Evans group and quickly bridged up to Pierre Roland, Roland took his wheel and allowed Sánchez to take them both up to Contador. By this time Contador was beginning to fade, not too much, but you could see that it was beginning to hurt seriously. Roland attacked and neither Sánchez or Contador could do anything to counter. He rode off to record the first French stage win of this Tour, and the first French win on Alpe d’Huez since Bernard Hinault won there in 1986.
About a minute further back the Schlecks and Cadel Evans were having a slightly bad-tempered stalemate. Andy Schleck wanted Evans to ride, Evans said no, there are two of you and only one of me. The all eventually finished in the same time, about a minute down on Roland.
Tomorrow
Three of the competitions are pretty well tied up. Samuel Sánchez, by finishing second on the stage today picked up enough mountain points to put him into the lead in the King of the Mountains competition, and since there are no more climbs he has won the Polka-dot Jersey. Garmin-Cérvelo have the team prize as good as won, and Mark Cavendish looks to have the Green Jersey tied up as well. Cav lost another twenty points for finishing outside the time limit (along with roughly half the peleton) but his nearest rival Jose Joaquin Rojas was also in the same group so he lost 20 points as well. The Green Jersey is now his to lose.
Le Maillot Jaune is still very much in the balance. Andy Schleck has 57 seconds lead over Cadel Evans (and 53 second over his brother Frank, but I am assuming that Frank won’t try to beat Andy). Evans is a better time trialist than either of the brothers. Andy Schleck’s time trialling has improved over the years, and in last years final time trial, he matched Alberto Contador for a long time before fading slightly towards the end.
A reporter asked him whether he would beat Andy Schleck by enough to win the Tour a very grouchy and monosyllabic “Cuddles” stated;
“I’ve had been is a similar position twice before, and both times I lost.”
We will find the answer about quarter past five tomorrow afternoon. For what it’s worth I think that he probably has enough of a time trial to take the required 57 seconds back, but it could be as close as 1989
The stage will be won by Fabian Cancellara, probably with Tony Martin second and possibly David Millar third.
Tour de France: The Galibier
I am glad to see that Andy Schleck reads my blog and takes my advice. Yesterday I suggested that it would be good if one of the favourites went for it on the Col d’Izoard and put 10 minutes into the race in the style of the great riders of the past. Andy Schleck, channelling the spirit of the great Luxembourgian climber of the fifties Charly Gaul, did just that. Well except for the ten minutes. He managed about two and a half, and didn’t quite manage to dislodge Thomas Voeckler from le Maillot Jaune.
Alberto Contador struggled and eventually failed to hold the group containing Cadel Evans (who did almost all the pace-making), Voeckler and Frank Schleck. He eventually finished fifteenth on the stage and lost 3:50 to Andy Schleck. His hopes of winning the Tour are probably over.
Tomorrow’s stage to L’Alpe d’Huez may decide the winner. If Andy Schleck can repeat what he did today then it is all over bar the shouting. However, today’s escapade may have taken a lot out of him, so he could be vulnerable to an attack. Voeckler continues to ride to his absolute limits to keep the Jersey. He had to be lifted off his bike at the finish today, and while I now think it is unlikely, I do not completely rule out his standing on the top step on the Champs Elyeese.
A Scotsman in Suburbia 