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Joined November 2012
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What does Italy do better than France? Coffee, gelati and grand tour bike races. It’s often asked which specific cycling event deserves the title…
This coming Friday is stage seven. My roughie for one of the best stages of the Giro. Only three stages in we can clearly…
It's Sunday morning in the bushy outskirts of Canberra. The sun is out, the temperature is on the rise and the wind is blowing.…
Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Miguel Indurain, Bradley Wiggins and now Richie Porte. One race, one winner, many implications. Richie Porte has well and truly…
Daily life is a cycle of repetition – groundhog day after repetitious groundhog day leaves most lamenting the dreaded rat race. We dream of…
An elite cyclist is a peculiar being. One must be fit. One must be committed. One must be willing to sacrifice. But above and…
If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me about Lance Armstrong I’d be living long and I'd be living strong. Now…
It’s 4:45 am. It’s dark. It’s cold. It’s starting to drizzle. The houses you pass are filled with people sleeping. In reality though, they…
Stand on the outside and what do you see? You see riders moving incredibly fast, riding incredibly close, it looks incredibly dangerous. Stand on…
In Australia, our domestic National Road Series (NRS) runs from April to October. The NRS has riders and teams competing for an overall title…
A lot goes into one road race. For the men’s road race on Sunday and the woman’s road race on Saturday each represents the…
The countdown has begun. There is less than a week now until cyclists from around Australia get to put up their fists and face…
Tradition tells us a tale of one race but two very different experiences. For the European professionals, it was the ‘Fun’ tour. The end…
The Australian cycling calendar is a far different beast when compared to its traditional European counterparts. In Europe, the season starts with smaller races…
Football players - from all codes - and cyclists, have a lot in common. Shaved legs? Yep. Tight shorts? Of course. End of season bender?…
Perhaps it will be Kittel who upstages Greipel today?
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
Also preferable for riders who race and train in muddy conditions. The Northern Europeans on the team are thankful as their Napi-San expenses have fallen threefold since the poo-brown introduction
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
We can see most (or perhaps all) of the Lotto riders wearing their extra aero helmets today. Every bit counts when going into a sprint at 70kph +
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
And we look to see the leadout trains of Greipel, Goss or Ferrari to go to the front towards the finish
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
An impressive sprint from an Euskatel rider though, didn’t know any of them had that level of speed!
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
Good to see a Vacansoleil rider going up the road, interestingly, the team sponsored by a European Camping holiday company have chosen not to camp whilst in Adelaide. Is this an affront to their sponsors??
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
Agostino may be good, but what are his home renovation credentials?
Ok, back on topic, his name is now commited to memory
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
Unfortunately the superb coverage is interupted by another promo for the Block.
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
Great save by George Bennet who nearly gives the spectators a hug by overheating it a bit into one of the corners
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
All the guys who were at the AIS camp in Adelaide in December where all testifying to the fact that Phelan is flying. Be great to see him get some air time.
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
Accidents do happen, just ask Zabel!
http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/photos/2004/mar04/msr04/5.jpg
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
Photo finish, and an unhappy bar bash from the Euskatel rider..
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
It would be hilarious to compare the average powers of Boassen Hagen with some of the sprinters!
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
This sprint is going to be flat out…. no easy roll for those looking to spin the legs after yesterdays hilly affair!
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog
The athletes who can remain truly focused through down time are pretty exceptional that’s for sure!
The psychology of a cycling crash
Nah it’s all good, and all my mates know, I love talking about that! Nothing like some good crash photos 😉
The psychology of a cycling crash
Yeah I’ve heard. No arse cheek left… looks like he copped a spanking from a dominatrix with a cheese grater…
David vs Goliath battle for the green(EDGE) and gold
I know everyone loves these kinds of story’s, so just quickly,
One of my mates who is a solid bike rider (at the top of A grade club leve) was telling tales of Hendy just demolishing him and a few others when they go out motorpacing. Just smashing up two bays rd in Mt Eliza in teh 53×11 and coming flying past them after starting 30 seconds down, at the end of a 6 hour motorpace. Love it.
Then you look at Melb Crit Champs, and then the first bay crit, you can see Hendy is monstering.
I can also give you the inside goss after a dinner a while back, he doesn’t shy away from the spicy food either, so with that he gets my vote. Top bloke.
Tour Down Under 2013: The Classic and The Gorilla
I guess I don’t see that as a concern simply because it doesn’t seem particularly congruous in terms of analyssing the incentives to dope. Not that doping isn’t a conern (it certainly is!) but as we are seeing out of Masters racing in the US, for example, doping can occur when the incentive to do so is very, very small. So perhaps there would be riders doing this regardless, and to hold back the future development of the entire domestic series over a quibble as such seems unnecessary .
More to the point, anyone can ring up the ASADA hotline and give tips or hints if they have seen or suspect something questionable . Similarly there would be testing at the TDU. So I don’t believe it would be of huge concern. Propose any rider ‘makes’ it out of some unethical performances at the TDU and is propelled into a World Tour level team, the contraints of the passport should soon have them back at their regular capabilities and they will soon fall back to reality. Not ideal, but the idea of some local rider doing the ol’ Donkey to Racehorse transformation is not my biggest concern.
Good point though!
Build the NRS from the Tour Down Under up
When it comes to competitiveness, one big thing in favour of whichever team would ride is simple that it is our summer and local riders generally have much better form than overseas riders. Run the race in July, hey, different story. In January, we can get away with it.
Similarly the length and difficulty of the race is not *that* high that differences between the riders would be made that evident. We aren’t talking 220k stages with three mountain passes so again that works in the favour of the local riders.
And finally if you ever wanted an incentive to get fit. knowing you were about to race the biggest race of your life, would surely provide a pretty tasty carrot to get chasing
Build the NRS from the Tour Down Under up
Good questions,’
As far as I am concerned, Tourism SA and the SA government deserve a lot of recognition for all the work they have done. That’s why in considering something like this there will always be trade offs and always be toes that get stepped on.
So in throwing the idea out there, it is certainly not my intention to disrespect, or to demean the great work that has gone with the UniSA team, CA and the SA government.
It’s more in the hope that we can start dialogue on a way to keep moving forward and to continue to intergrate growth of domestic cycling along with international cycling.
Change is the only way forward, so you’ve got to mix it some time. Why not sooner rather than later?
Build the NRS from the Tour Down Under up
Kerby kicks hard, Kohler straight on him. The battle for the most aggresive jersey is on
Tour Down Under 2013: Stage 6 Live blog