Twitter

A Missed Warning Signal

This was originally published on Velonews, continue reading it here. If you want to read more of our pieces, check out our full Velonews article library. The individual time trial at the Tour de France on the shores of Lac de Vassiviere, in 1995, suggests a simple way to effectively police the peloton and make the sport more exciting at the same time. The recent ESPN “30 For 30” documentary on Lance Armstrong may have been intended as a character study, but Director Marina Zenovich also provided some new and deeper insights into professional cycling’s doping culture – and how the sport ignored many warning signs and institutional failures. Pro cycling’s reputation remains shaky in the public eye as a result, even though it has arguably innovated and implemented more sweeping measures to control doping than most other sports. These new insights should not be overlooked as we...

Restarting the 2020 Racing Calendar — Many Questions, but a Few Emerging Answers

The Outer Line takes a look at how the remainder of the racing season could unfold. By making a few simple assumptions about potential restart dates, the remaining race schedule and current team parameters, some clear-cut if controversial conclusions can already be reached. There is no way the three grand tours can effectively be run in their entirety, many other races will either be lost or suffer from extremely thin fields and already stressed pro riders should get ready for extreme pressures to be placed on them. We have to hope that the UCI and key organizers are collectively evaluating all of these constantly changing factors, so that if and when racing continues, cycling can quickly and efficiently present a unified and equitable plan for the calendar. There are a number of perplexing questions around how the remainder of the 2020 racing calendar could potentially play out –...

The 2020 Tour De France Will Be Won in the ITT, Not the Climbs

The route for the 2020 Tour de France was recently unveiled. The initial takeaways seemed to be that it is a time trial-light affair that will tend to suit the pure climbers, and that its multiple mountain stages will somehow offer bite-sized, endless entertainment for the short-attention-span millennial audience. A closer look suggests that it probably won’t be that simple. The general consensus is that 2020 will be one for the climbers, as the race features a large number of mountain stages with a healthy dose of summit finishes, just one 36-kilometer individual time trial, and only a handful of stages for the sprinters. Also, as in 2019, there will be time bonuses at the finish and on select penultimate climbs. These characteristics seem likely to combine to create a race that will favor riders who can climb with the best, who can handle technical descents, and who can make...

Team Ineos Faces Leadership Question After Bernal’s Tour Victory

The performance of Team Ineos at this year’s Tour de France has already been scrutinized and dissected countless times in the media over the past few weeks – before, during and after the race. And after things finally wrapped up last Sunday, there stood Egan Bernal and Geraint Thomas on the top two steps of the podium just as many expected, netting the same 1 – 2 result the team achieved in 2012 with Wiggins and Froome. Clearly, winning seven of the last eight editions of the world’s preeminent bike race with four different racers is an extraordinary achievement, and it neatly encapsulates the team’s dominance over the sport during the past decade. But the paper results from this year’s Tour also mask some serious concerns and emerging cracks in the team’s edifice, and beg some questions about their direction and leadership in the future. Even though they ended up winning—and grabbing...

Remembering Greg LeMond’s thrilling victory 30 years later

America is a country rich in sporting tradition, and in the annals of American sports there have been many stories of amazing comebacks – by both individuals and teams. However, perhaps no story is bigger than Greg LeMond’s comeback to win the 1989 Tour de France – exactly 30 years ago today, on July 23, 1989. LeMond came back from nearly dying in a hunting accident, then doubling down to rally from a 50-second deficit to French great Laurent Fignon on the final day’s relatively short individual time trial, to barely eke out a win in one of world’s most challenging and grueling sporting events. To understand why Lemond’s win that year should be considered among the greatest comebacks in American sports history, one must reflect on the years leading up to his historic win in Paris that year. In 1983, as a 22-year-old, LeMond captured the World Championship of road cycling, the biggest...