It’s the big one! The 2021 Étoile de Bessèges – Tour du Gard. And the latent sarcasm in those opening two sentence is feeling increasingly misplaced, as some of the world’s best riders have converged on the five-day race following a wave of early-season race cancelations. There will be no less than three Tour de France winners at the start line on Wednesday. So, in fact, this is easily the biggest race this year so far. And it might remain so for a while if all the Covid-19 variants have timed their fitness peaks right. But we shouldn’t be glib…
Author: Harold Dalton
Harold Dalton
Cycling industry professional with two decades of experience in professional journalism, television, and industry writing.
Women Under 23 1Fem van Empel (Netherlands)0:36:592Aniek van Alphen (Netherlands)0:00:033Kata Blanka Vas (Hungary)0:00:094Inge van der Heijden (Netherlands)0:00:275Francesca Baroni (Italy)0:00:546Puck Pieterse (Netherlands)0:00:567Manon Bakker (Netherlands)0:01:048Anna Kay (Great Britain)0:01:109Marthe Truyen (Belgium)0:01:5310Marion Norbert Riberolle (France)0:02:11 Elite Men 1Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands)0:58:572Wout van Aert (Belgium)0:00:373Toon Aerts (Belgium)0:01:244Thomas Pidcock (Great Britain)0:01:375Laurens Sweeck (Belgium)0:02:056Michael Vanthourenhout (Belgium)0:02:147Eli Iserbyt (Belgium)0:02:188Quinten Hermans (Belgium)0:02:239Lars van der Haar (Netherlands)0:02:4110Joris Nieuwenhuis (Netherlands)0:03:15
Men Under 23 1Pim Ronhaar (Netherlands)0:49:472Ryan Kamp (Netherlands)0:00:083Timo Kielich (Belgium)0:00:144Emiel Verstrynge (Belgium)0:00:195Toon Vandebosch (Belgium)0:00:316Mees Hendrikx (Netherlands)0:00:337Anton Ferdinande (Belgium)0:00:558Niels Vandeputte (Belgium)0:01:019Ben Turner (Great Britain)0:01:2010Tim Van Dijke (Netherlands)0:01:21 Elite Women 1Lucinda Brand (Netherlands)0:46:532Annemarie Worst (Netherlands)0:00:083Denise Betsema (Netherlands)0:00:194Clara Honsinger (United States Of America)0:00:525Yara Kastelijn (Netherlands)0:01:046Ceylin Del Carmen Alvarado (Netherlands)0:01:127Evie Richards (Great Britain)0:01:138Sanne Cant (Belgium)0:01:439Elisabeth Brandau (Germany)0:02:0710Christine Majerus (Luxembourg)0:02:08
Ostend is about to host the 2021 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships (January 30-31), an event that promises to be a spectacular first at the Belgian ‘Queen of Beaches’. The current coronavirus pandemic has led to the cancellation of the Junior races but four rainbow jerseys will be up for grabs across the weekend as women and men from the Elite and Under 23 categories get ready for battle. They will face a 2,900m circuit connecting the beach and the Wellington hippodrome. The two sectors will be linked by an impressive bridge which features a 21% gradient. This unique course is…
Well Phil. A precursor to Derailed, or at least that’s what one of our readers said when they dropped a batch of Well Phil zines off with us to prove that… um… maybe to prove that what we were doing wasn’t new. Well Phil was one of the best indie zines of its era. Period. It was voted eighth best in the country despite its rather niche subject matter, and rightly so. It had cartoons, humor, and long form articles. Sure beats what Cycling Weekly had to offer, and coincidentally the comic apparently didn’t like Well Phil very much. We…
We met the UAE Tour with our usual brand of jaded nihilism healthy skepticism when they announced that the race was going ahead but couldn’t share the route or any more details. And we were probably justified: this race was the first to be disrupted by Covid-19 last year, and easily the most nightmarish in the way it played out. Well, now they’ve revealed the route. Plus the sponsors and jerseys, but nobody cares about those. The race will take place between February 21 and 27, with all the WorldTeams in attendance, including 2020 Tour de France winner Tadej Pogacar.…
We were just going to mention this in the race preview, but even Cycling Weekly have covered it now. Plus it’s nice to have a “race not canceled” update to counteract the endless stream of postponements. So: the UCI has confirmed that the 2021 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships, scheduled for 30 and 31 January and taking place in Ostend (Belgium), remains on the race calendar “following the introduction of additional measures.” Those measures are a reduction of the number of accredited persons and “toughening of sanitary regulations.” That last one sounds like they’re making people flush the toilet after they…
Chute! Chute des… uh, actually a lot of races. But the GP Denain and Vuelta Ciclista a la Región de Murcia are the two latest to fall by the wayside. Both are, optimistically, anticipating a slot later in the calendar. That’s not too likely to work out for them, but let’s cross our fingers and hope. First here’s what Vuelta a Murcia has to say: You probably don’t need Google Translate for this one. “La situación sanitaria … Covid 19 … posponer la organización de la Vuelta Ciclista a la Región de Murcia” In honesty, we don’t expect this race…