Author: Harold Dalton

Pieter Weening, Dutch pro and 39-year-old role model for us older millennials who still dream of a career in sports, has announced his retirement. His palmares boasts 13 wins, including one Tour de France stage, two individual Giro d’Italia stages, two more TTT Giro stages, and victories in the Tour de Pologne and Tour of Norway. Want to feel old? That stage of the Tour de France in which he beat Andreas Kloden by less than half a centimeter–the closest stage finish ever in the Tour–was over 15 years ago. Yep, in 2005. Yep, 2005 was 15 years ago. Not…

Remember when we had the exclusive rights to broadcast the Tropicale Amissa Bongo, Gabon’s #1 bike race, for the first time ever on TV? (To be honest, we probably could still have those rights, since they’re not exactly expensive.) That was the best, because it’s a fun race. And it’s fun to say too. But here’s the bad news: it’s postponed due to Covid, like every other bike race on this planet. The UCI 2.1 race was originally scheduled for January 18-24, 2021, but now has no date assigned to it. Doesn’t bode well, but it’s still not officially canceled…

A week after announcing his Hour Record attempt, Alex Dowsett has had to postpone it. The 32 year old has tested positive for Covid-19. Oh, Alex. Really shouldn’t have headed back to the Septic Isle. The UCI has announced that Dowsett has been obliged to postpone his attempt to reconquer the UCI Hour Record as a result of him contracting Covid-19. Well, he probably wasn’t going to try for it while suffering from the virus, but I guess it’s good that they’ve clarified. The date of the new attempt by the British rider has not yet been decided. Alex Dowsett…

Tarra, Tour de Yorkshire. This year’s race was sensibly canceled due to COVID-19, and now the 2021 is also officially canceled due to uncertainty around the pandemic and what it holds for the future. Thankfully, the four-day race plans to return in 2022, likely in part due to being owned by ASO. Many a race of this stature would otherwise not survive two years off. Well, actually, money might be pretty tight over at the TdY, and that might partially be behind the decision to hold off running the race for another year, but let’s not dwell on it. And…

Cycling has a lot of great riders right now. So many, in fact, that narrowing them down proved extremely difficult. With young riders signaling a changing of the guard, discipline specialists, and more, we’ve had to leave off so many riders we’d love to talk about. So. Here are our five best riders of 2020. If you disagree, send us a message. We probably won’t read it though. Disclaimer: this list is all men. We had a longer statement here, but there’s not much more to do that hold our hands up and apologize for not covering women’s cycling enough…

Alex Dowsett has announced that he will attempt to break the UCI Hour Record on 12 December. He’ll be doing it at one of our favorite velodromes, the National Cycling Centre in Manchester, UK. Dowsett set an Hour Record in 2015, covering 52.937km at the National Cycling Center, before Bradley Wiggins stole his crown 36 days later. Now he’s BACK with a view to beating current holder Victor Campenaerts’s record of 55.089km. With a storied career behind him, including a Bronze medal in the Men’s Elite individual time trial at the 2015 UCI Road World Championships in Richmond, Dowsett stands…

Our friends at Movistar are putting a positive spin on their season. And why not? It’s been a solid season for the… for the… for the Telefonica-backed team. Sorry, we’re internalizing their messaging. Enric Mas is looking like he could be the future of Spanish cycling, winning the best young rider and fifth place at both the Tour and Vuelta. Young rider Alejandro Valverde continues to impress on the highest stage. And their women’s team is growing ever more powerful (seriously, thank you so much for that investment). So, we’ll let them have this. Here’s what they said when we…

Well, if ever there was a time to do it, it was November, as the season ended. Oh yeah, and a national COVID-19 lockdown. It’s probably more to do with the latter. New restrictions recently came into force in England, limiting movement, closing gyms and bars, and generally confining people to their homes. Oh, but schools and universities are still open, for some reason. Just to make the entire lockdown futile, probably. British Cycling attempted to appeal the restrictions, but failed. In response, the UK governing body has suspended all cycling activities and events in England. The suspension will last until…