Author: Harold Dalton

Can we say “blue balls” here? Apologies for making you read it twice if we can’t. The UCI 2.2 Dookola Mazowsza was the first real race back after the entire sport, and the world, came to an abrupt halt earlier this year. But stage one also came to its own abrupt halt, called off with 30km remaining. Thankfully (?!), Covid-19 was not the cause. A non-race motorcycle entered the course at an intersection, crashing before the peloton arrived. Police and firefighters rushed to the scene, and the riders came to a halt, looked confused, then headed back to their hotels…

With the news that a Jan Ullrich documentary might be in the works, confidentially told to us by someone you’d never believe we’d have ever worked with, we’re revisiting one of Derailed’s worst ever recurring features: Script Extracts. We can’t remember where the inspiration originally came from, but we’d often share silly scenarios featuring pro cyclists, written up as though they were part of movie scripts. Probably because we were writing for TV at the time. That’s hard to tell from this output though. Jan Ullrich used to get fat over the winter. For some reason we decided to make…

The world’s leading gravel event, Dirty Kanza, has become embattled of late. First there were calls to change its name, then COVID-19 forced a reschedule. After a comparatively quiet period, its founder was fired for racially-charged comments, and the question of changing the event’s name to something more culturally sensitive resurfaced in the aftermath. And now it’s canceled. You can throw a dart blindfolded at a dartboard to decide which of those factors it was. Or we can just tell you. It was… *drumroll* COVID-19! The continuing resurgence of COVID-19 in the US has laid waste to the organizers’ plans…

Sticker albums. Got, got, need. Isn’t it. Hmm. Jumpers for goalposts. Panini’s Tour de France sticker album will return this year. Sticker albums were a staple when we were growing up, collecting pictures of footballers we’d never heard of. We would’ve killed for a Tour de France version. Maybe. We were only collecting them because everyone else was, so it would’ve been a lonely existence being the only kid on the playground asking if anybody needed Evgeni Berzin. Sticker albums are still great fun though. We completed the 2018 World Cup one in the May of that year, running into…

Ask anybody to name their top five favorite climbers, and you’re sure to get a thoughtful list of their favorites. The man on the street will give a considered response featuring terms like “grimpeur,” “scalatore,” and “Froomey, mate, innit.” But one thing these lists will all have in common is that they’ll include Marco Pantani. The diminutive climber is widely considered one of the greatest climbers ever to grace the sport, with a distinctive riding style, a predilection for all-out gung-ho attacks whenever the road went uphill, and a cultivated styling as Il Pirata. And also a tragic story of…

Happy Fourth of July to the Americans! Cycling is celebrating America’s contributions to the sport (?!) in a variety of ways, all of which largely amount to “please stay home and don’t bother racing.” The USA’s commitment to making its stock market line go up has had the unforeseen consequence of also making another line go up: COVID-19 cases. By, er, quite a lot actually. And now a travel ban is in place across large parts of Europe, preventing US cyclists from returning to the continent for racing. One of our favorite interviewees from the old days, Larry Warbasse, says…

No free lunch for us: Sea Otter is officially canceled. The event was due to be held in April, and was postponed until October due to COVID-19 kicking everyone’s ass. The celebration of cycling is traditionally the site of racing, product launches, and us having to talk to people who have their names on a lanyard around their necks. Following the untimely demise of our favorite Las Vegas sleepless hell, Interbike, Sea Otter has rapidly become the biggest event on the US calendar. So big, in fact, that it’s expanded to Europe, Canada, and Australia. And now it’s reached the…

Those comments? That the shooting of Rayshard Brooks by police officers was justified. Hmm. Jim Cummins has now been removed from his made-up job position as Chief Gravel Officer. And beyond just firing a dude with the job title equivalent of a baseball cap that says Big Boy on it, Life Time are moving to change the name of the Dirty Kanza event out of respect for the Kaw Nation and its people. This was an issue raised earlier in the year, and Cummins did the equivalent of grabbing his ball sack and sneering in a press statement that essentially…