If Hollywood had its way, his career would finish there – arms aloft, freeze frame and fade. But bike racing isn’t Hollywood. The fates have mockingly decreed his Tour de France career will instead end largely unobserved in a hilly final day time trial between Monaco and Nice.

I was going to try and be all journalistic about the second greatest British road cyclist I’ve watched in the last 20 years. But Cav is a passion play, a compulsive figure on a bike that refuses due impartiality.

Much like Nicole Cooke – the greatest British road cyclist of the modern era – his achievements and talent are in defiance of obstacles and received wisdom. His ability to make the impossible possible and then explain every metre of it is impossible to anyone else.

Take his 2011 World Championship win: Great Britain rode a 256km team time trial against the rest of the field only for his lead out man to lose him at the last corner, leaving Cav to use brute determination to win the uphill sprint.

Long before Wiggins became shorthand for British cycling success, it was Cavendish who drew British fans in to the big mens races.

My first memory of Mark Cavendish is a fury in hot pink, on The Mall in London. A stagiare with T-Mobile at the Tour of Britain 2006, he’d come third in the sprint behind World Champion Tom Boonen and was on his way to be interviewed by the BBC.

Even in the years leading up to Wiggins unmatchable glory of 2012, the headlines and focus of ITV’s Tour de France coverage were about Cavendish. It was Cav who was the first big storyline of London 2012 – a rare occasion on which the seemingly improbably remained beyond him.

There’s also something about the way Cav rides a bike that makes him more than just a figure in the crowd.

In the final kilometres it’s that pungnacious crouch over the bike, bristling intent and imposing itself in the line. The head extended high, terrapin-like, surveying the position and opponents, poised for the moment.

Then when the moment comes, the almost imperceptible rolling down of the shoulders, the head coming low between them. The balletic flourish of the handlebar roll as in one continuous movement he rises out of the saddle and accelerates out of the wheel into his final effort.

I’ve watched this up close on the cobbles in Paris. The telly lies – the bike bucks like a bee stung bronco under him, but he floats in a parallel plane.

Gosh, I’m going to miss spending my Julys with that gobby little Manx kid.

The post No fairytale finish for Mark Cavendish first appeared on Chasing Wheels Cycling Blog.

This innovative approach to giving rising stars the opportunity to shine – by potentially crossing the line bathed in confusing midpack glory – was greeted with the enthusiasm it deserved by riders when it was announced in 2021:

Sadabh O’Shea of Velonews asks “…does the integrated U23/elite women’s road race at the worlds cause more problems than it solves?” Surely an issue that the sport’s governing body might have considered before deciding to run it for three years before giving its own place in the schedule in 2025 at Rwanda 2025, the first Worlds to be held in Africa?

When the UCI chose to introduce the professional Team Time Trial discipline to the nation-based World Championships, it didn’t slide it down the back of existing Elite Time Trial events.

Instead it had its own slot, despite its manifest issues with attracting and retaining a deep and competitive field.

More recently, the Mixed Relay discpline arrived with much fanfare and a similarly limited level of participation. But it too was given its own slot in the schedule.

So if the concern here is that initial fields might of limited size and variable ability, it certainly isn’t one the UCI has had an issue with in recent expansions of the competition schedule.

Indeed a small entry list is exactly the sort of situation a talented rider from a smaller nation might regard as an idea opportunity.

Tactically, “sit in on Belgium/Netherlands/France/Italy/etc then pick your moment” and “go early and hope they under-estimate your ability to hold off a charging bunch” are not without merit or results.

Equally “small teams, chaos” and “that got attritionally quickly” are both valid race formats that fans love to see.

When it is due to become a standlone event the Worlds is hosted in a country with limited experience of hosting a major event. The course for Rwanda 2025 is likely to be rather selective – it’s not dubbed “land of a thousand hills” in error. Would Wollongong, Glasgow and Zurich not be chances to iron out issues and grow participation?

Fundamentally it seems the UCI has put things in the wrong order. It’s much easier to scale participation in a clear opportunity than it is than it is to untangle participation from an existing event.

The post Women’s U23 World Titles: create the slot, scale participation first appeared on Chasing Wheels Cycling Blog.

I’m going to cut straight in: the value to the sport of accessing markets where cycling is a ingrained activity is vital for its survival. A solvent, well-financed UCI is equally important to cycling’s future.

There is a qualification: the UCI dipping the pockets of the World Tour teams to fund Beijing through Global Cycling Promotions (GCP) is not the proper behaviour of a governing body. There needs to be a proper separation, a chinese wall, between the financial interests and governance functions of the UCI.

Why the UCI making money is not bad

Distasteful as some of the current behaviour of the UCI may be, it needs to increase income if it is to govern effectively. At present we have a situation where the UCI is robbing Peter to pay Paul by taking funds from teams and organisers for the privilege of seeing their name in lights in the calendar and access to some races.

Take anti-doping as a case study of what would happen if the UCI developed its revenue streams significantly.

Inner Ring says the 2010 accounts showing the teams contribute 60% of the antidoping budget. If the UCI were to increase revenues to the point where it could fund the programme without the considerable investment of the teams then this has direct benefits to the sport.

It would allow teams to return this investment into development of women’s teams and u23 squads. Both of these are areas which at present many struggle to fund properly, if at all.

It would allow the establishment of a single, independent body to oversee all testing in the sport. Ultimately this is the right direction for antidoping to take if it wishes to be effective.

To a sponsor looking at the sport in terms of investment and return, spending on talent and exposure would be far more enticing than having to lob a chunk at what is effectively admin.

Cyclismas details the costs of paying fees to the UCI for organisers alongside their anti-doping commitment. Now if the UCI generates significant new revenues to reduce licence costs, then that is money that organisers can pour back into prize funds, sustainable growth of new races and even reducing the cost of events.

Cycling goes where the money is

The central point is this: the history of professional cycling is racing bikes wherever it has been economic to do so, be it velodromes, roads or dirt tracks.

Road racing is a bit of a stick in the mud. Perhaps as befits the oldest form of racing, it clings to its heritage like lycra to a fat lad. There was a time when it had a broader public resonance.

As The Washing Machine Post points out about the rise of mountain biking

“It is no secret that the mountain bike craze of the eighties and nineties more or less single-handedly saved the bicycle industry, creating a number of new manufacturers in the process, while letting the italians continue their blinkered approach to road bike production.”

This same logic applies to the professional tier of road racing, where the blinkered attitude to preserving the “european heritage” scene as it dies on its arse comes at the expense of developing racing in the other two thirds of the world.

At the same time track has waned as one of the dominant forms of mass entertainment, a function

At the same time cycling has always had a global aspect of which “globalisation” is a function. This goes back almost as far as the sport has been practiced.

In 1902, the legendary American rider Marshall “Major” Taylor toured Europe and Oceania. This came a few years after international fields had raced in Madison Square Gardens in the hugely popular Six-Day Races.

In a period when far fewer people had experienced life much beyond their locality, the names of the top cyclists travelled across the oceans.  So far that Fausto Coppi could be found in Colombia in 1957.

The post Why the UCI needs to make more money first appeared on Chasing Wheels Cycling Blog.

Coming this weekend exclusively on #marr – @OfficialWIGGINS tells @AndrewMarr9 why he took triamcinolone. BBC1 9am, Sunday. pic.twitter.com/pjdqmYuqdg

— Rob Burley (@RobBurl) September 23, 2016

I could have misjudged XIX Management’s strategy on this, but their game now is re-positioning Wiggins as a mainstream “inspirational” lifestyle brand. That’s why they’ve chosen Marr and not a sports outlet or journalist. I didn’t see this coming.

So here’s some things that seem to me obvious lines that you’ll hear in the interview (which is a pre-record anyway):

• They were within a strict framework that all agencies agree, we didn’t bend the law, we stuck to it
• They were medically necessary, I followed doctor’s orders
• Dr Freeman has been British Cycling doctor and has spotless record
• Leinders played no role in my TUEs
• We’d done lots of data and the inhalers were ineffective in managing the condition over 3 weeks
• In shorter races my respiratory condition was manageable with inhalers
• While others have abused TUEs we had absolutely no intention in our use
• We didn’t have any fat to burn, I would have got sick if I lost more fat
• I know it looks bad, but we’re not in the cheating game
• I love this sport
• I couldn’t cheat and live with myself, my wife, my children
• Here’s my numbers, they were as strong before use as after use

Eyes down for a full house, Sunday 0900BST on BBC One

The post Some of the things Sir Bradley Wiggins might say to Andrew Marr about Grand Tour TUEs first appeared on Chasing Wheels Cycling Blog.

70-80% was the figure I was told by Bob Stapleton, owner of High Road Sports in 2011 – HTC-Colombia – on the process of searching for new sponsors.

You don’t believe me? Try Bridget Brennan writing in Forbes:

Women drive 70-80% of all consumer purchasing, through a combination of their buying power and influence.

Because Sky Italia

So if Italy’s Giro Donne is the biggest race in women’s cycling and you have a commercial satellite television business in that country, you’d want to find some way to get traction in that market with the people who drive purchase decisions.

Why do you think the men’s team keeps on hiring young Italian riders and persuading some of their best riders to schlep round the old boot in May, when the goal is to win a race in France in July?

Sky Italia’s contribution to the Team Sky budget probably could have kept a very well-appointed women’s team running for every year they’ve been running.

Because it cost less than buying out Bradley Wiggins contract

Depending on who you believe, the price of getting him out of Garmin-Slipsteam was £2m or as high as £4m.

For that, you could have had an Olympic and World Champion, one of the top climbers in the world and a TT goddess, one of the best young riders, a top domestique. And control over the development of one the strongest teams anywhere in cycling – the women’s track endurance squad.

Because they’d already done it once with incredible success

It was called Team Halfords-Bikehut. It resulted in Nicole Cooke becoming the first and only professional cyclist to win the Olympic and World Road Race titles in the same year, 2008.

There’s five riders on that squad who have gone on to win World or Olympic titles. That’s quite some strength in depth given the small squad. You might recognise some of the names – Lizzie Armitstead, Jo Rowsell, Wendy Houvenagel.

Was it a hard slog for the likes of Brailsford and Fran Millar with limited rewards? Undoubtedly, but so was finding something for Wiggins to do after 2012, but they stuck at that as well.

Working in a publicly funded organisation isn’t meant to be easy or without struggle. Trust me, I’ve worked for one for the last decade.

So you can go away and make excuses, or tell people to get over themselves.

Those four things, that’s a better business case that there was to launch a men’s team during the second Armstrong era, then hiring riders and staff who everyone else knew had skeletons on the mantelpiece, let alone closet.

The post Here’s why Sky should have invested in a British Women’s team first appeared on Chasing Wheels Cycling Blog.

Hard for British Cycling to ignore views of both @v_pendleton & @NicoleCooke2012 (https://t.co/xle9oKLTN2) https://t.co/81SHvVhyyz

— Alex Murray (@leguape) April 26, 2016

Nicole’s article contains a more analytical and well-evidenced case. That GB’s women did not have access to the ultra-aero UKSI bikes for London 2012 road races, what can you say?

Look at the gold medal potential in that women’s squad  – Cooke, Pooley, Armistead – versus the men – Cavendish.

Now there is a case that until 2012, British Cycling’s progress was hampered in previous cycles by inequality in events on the track.

If you look at the depth and breadth of support offered to Bradley Wiggins over his career, you can see this illustrated

https://twitter.com/martinpmcevoy/status/724868948227952640

We’re now two full Olympic cycles on from Beijing 2008, eight years in which to effect change.

And we’re still hearing the same criticisms from female athletes and an absence of a visible female presence in senior leadership roles within the organisation.

British Cycling vs UCI

But discussing British Cycling in isolation is rather like worrying about a puncture while ignoring a buckled wheel.

There’s a long and deeply entrenched sexism in cycling as a whole. It’s going to take a while to equal things out.

So establishing a Women’s World Tour is a step in the right direction on the road.

But the absence of a clear plan to phase in minimum wage equality as part of that project represents a massive missed opportunity.

Effective change is rarely comfortable for existing stakeholders – it shouldn’t be – but it demands a degree of ambition and disruptiveness that goes beyond what we’ve seen so far.

For me, Cookson’s new UCI, lacks the willingness to be disruptive in a meaningful way for cycling. Bradley Wiggins argues this in a recent Procycling interview.

And that ripples all the way down the sport.

Diversify for Tokyo

We’re too far in to the current Olympic cycle for Rio to really do anything meaningful. So we have to look to Tokyo 2020 as the point at which we can deliver something substantive.

Quotas are ugly tools, but in small workforce populations, they can even up the odds and create the environment for transformation. Elite sport is one such environment.

To reach a goal of 50% of women’s Olympic Podium Programmes (OPP) on the track – endurance and sprint – being run by women would require one appointment over four years.

Does anyone this is unrealistic?

You can run all the Breeze rides you like, but if women don’t see a place for themselves at the top of the sport, then you will never fix the problem.

The post Does British cycling have a problem with women? first appeared on Chasing Wheels Cycling Blog.

Gary Imlach in Chartres, July 2012. By MikeEye on Flickr

A carrier bag for a hat

The image of him defying the elements – a thunderous storm in Northern Spain – with a carrier bag for a hat is burned into my memories as much as anything else from the Wild West before Texas – or the 1990s as it is also known.

I think the occasion was Indurain riding into Spain towards the end of his Tour de France career with nothing going according to the scripted glory. If anyone has this image or video somewhere, I’d love to see it again.

Perhaps that image is a stronger metaphor for reporting on that period in the sport than I’d thought before. Imlach’s was a thankless task trying to retain a degree of journalistic dignity in terrible conditions. He’s always been that to me: a journalist with integrity and honesty.

Discussing the Chris Froome data leak he alluded to the classic loaded question “when did you stop beating your wife?” to the consternation of his ITV colleagues – it was the sort of allusion any journalist would get.

Even in the Armstrong years, he keep a degree of journalistic distance which is difficult to maintain when presenting an event your employer is paying money for.

This stuff is too important to take seriously

One of the hallmarks of Gary’s coverage is his sense of perspective. Bike racing, like many other things in life is too important to take seriously.

His beautifully crafted links almost always involve playfulness, humour and a sense of the absurd circus that is the Tour.

When Tour coverage switched from Channel Four to ITV at short notice, his opening gambit was “No, you’re not watching the wrong channel” – a familiar yet dry way to cover the changes in one line and never need mention it again.

I’m sure you all have your favourite Imlach lines and moments, including the pedalo incident.

The post The joy of Gary Imlach’s Tour de France coverage first appeared on Chasing Wheels Cycling Blog.

You can read the full report here as a PDF file . Here’s the equivalent summary for London 2007 which is worth re-reading as a comparison.

Over the first two days

• Yorkshire had 2.3m unique spectators across the two Yorkshire stages (although it claims 3.3m if you count people who viewed in more than one place)
• London and Kent 2007 had 2.5m spectators across the two stages (although estimates go as wide as 2 million and 3 million)

Day visitor spend

• Day visitors to Tour de France in London in 2007 spent £26.15 per person (these are people from outside the host region)
• Day visitors to Yorkshire spent on average £27.13

Where were they from

• 57% of people who watched in Yorkshire in 2014 were from Yorkshire
• 69% of people who watched 2014’s Cambridge to London stage 3 were from Cambridge, London or Essex
• 45% of people who watched in London in 2007 were from London
• 61% of people who watched in Kent in 2007 were from Kent

Cost of staying

• In London 2007, visitors staying in commercial accommodation spent £116.33 per person
• In Yorkshire 2014, visitors staying in commercial accommodation spent £107.25  (£49.54 on accommodation, £57.71 in other expenditure)
• People staying with friends/family spent £45.48 per person in 2007
• People staying with family/friends in Yorkshire spent £45.26

The post London 2007 v Yorkshire 2014 – Tour de France compared first appeared on Chasing Wheels Cycling Blog.

It’s the colours of IDRD-Bogotá Humana-San Mateo-Solgar, who the Colombian Federation proudly announced would be competing in the Giro Del Toscana

2. It’s not flesh or nude, it’s gold

There are numerous tweets to this effect from people who have been paying attention. Lycra done as gold effect never photographs well. It’s unfortunate, but there you are. It’s not “unacceptable by any standard of decency” as the UCI boss Brian Cookson seems to suggest.

3. They’ve apparently been wearing it for up to 9 months

Here’s a picture of it being raced to victory in Colombia in August in the Carrera de la Mujer in Bogota. The rider with the bottle in her mouth is wearing it and wins the race. Here’s the report from Las Bielas

Jono Coulter tweeted this picture of the kit in El Salvador earlier this year.

@SSbike @leguape @Velocentric in El Salvador earlier this year pic.twitter.com/gOpB8kEDmJ

— Jono Coulter (@JonoCoulter) September 15, 2014

4. It seems to have been designed by one of the riders on the team

ABC.es quotes several Colombia sources in its report on the kerfuffle (via Frontier Sports)

5. There is still no minimum wage for women in professional cycling

Events deemed “Women’s Elite” – like the Giro del Toscana at which they were competing –  are roughly equivalent to the top two tiers of the men’s sport.

In 2011, second tier men’s teams were required to pay a minimum around 32,000 euro, according to the Inner Ring. A woman who wins every event in their top tier World Cup Series probably would fall short of that sum in prize money.

Most women in the top tier of professional cycling aren’t even making what most countries would describe as a minimum wage.

So you can be outraged by an unflattering photo.

Or you can be outraged by the fact that the people running the sport still haven’t bought forward meaningful change to ensure that women are not on the end of enduring sexism in the sport where their right to a fair wage for a professional job is still considered less important than the design of their kit.

There were an estimated 70,000 pedestrians injured in crashes in 2015, compared to 61,000 in 2006 — a nearly 15 percent increase over ten years. Furthermore, we know from research into hospital records that only a fraction of pedestrian crashes that cause injury are ever recorded by the police. The raw numbers hide many trends, truths, and lessons, and they present a wide range of questions: Is walking more dangerous than other modes of travel? Is walking getting safer? Who is getting killed in pedestrian crashes, where, when, and why? Ladah Law Firm works with folks who’ve been injured in bicycle accidents in the Vegas area.

The post 5 things you should know about that Colombian cycling kit first appeared on Chasing Wheels Cycling Blog.

Big scoop for Sarah Connolly to get Emma Pooley’s retirement story for Rouleur.

I interviewed Emma a few times back in 2009, when I had time to write about women’s cycling. On one occasion she called me back from a train in Switzerland, apologised for missing my call – she was in the lab doing PhD work after training – then proceeded to give a wonderful interview that was honest and engaging.

Most importantly for the time-pressed journalist, she always gave interviews that made the story easy to write – strong quotes, clear responses, thoughtful views.

I’ll miss that. But not as much as I’ll miss her brilliant riding.

The post Farewell the mighty Emma Pooley first appeared on Chasing Wheels Cycling Blog.