Recently in Opinion Category

I've avoided poking the road rash on the rump of professional cycling that is the Floyd Landis case. Nobody has ever thanked the ninety-nine-millionth-and-one person who says "look you seem to have fallen off" while prodding the weeping flesh.

Instead I recommend you read the following articles:

"When Floyd Landis last week accused several top riders of doping, one thing was missing from the fallout: a flat-out, en masse denial of Landis's allegations." - Accusations Ring Loud, but Not the Denials - Juliet Macur, NY Times

Truth, Lies and Evidence - Joe Lindsey's Boulder Report - Bicycling.com

Floyd Landis confession emails may only be the first chapter - David Walsh - The Times

Another fine mess

I'll also avoid the Valverde case other than to highlight how long it has taken and why we have got to where we are. Podium Cafe has a very detailed timeline of the case

• The case began with the judicial investigation in Spain known as Operacion Puerto in 2004
• Operacion Puerto first came to public notice in 2006
• The UCI and WADA both ask the Spanish Federation (RFEC) to take action against Valverde either side of the Worlds in autumn 2007
• RFEC procrastinate into 2008, citing jurisdictional reasons they couldn't act, apparently unable to access the evidence
• In July 2008 Italian anti-doping authorities take a sample from Valverde when the Tour de France crosses into Italy
• In May 2009 Valverde is banned in Italy by CONI on the basis of DNA evidence linking him to bloodbag 18, indentifying him as "Valv Piti".
• Valverde does not contest that he has been correctly identified, rather that the Italians did not have the jurisdiction to sanction him
• In May 2010, after protracted appeals and foot-dragging, CAS ratifies the Italian ban and agrees with the UCI/WADA case that it should be extended worldwide
• Valverde is banned worldwide for two years, effective 01 January 2010
• CAS note that there is no direct evidence that Valverde has obtained results through doping
• Valverde continues to appeal, claiming he has been unfairly treated but still not contesting his identification by CONI as a party to Operacion Puerto

Time for cycling to find its Kerry Packer?

Instead, let's look at the third ring of this complete circus: the professional racing circuit.

Today, it was announced that the Tour of Ireland has been cancelled for 2010 joined the list of defunct races unable to find funding or favour.

Last week The Inner Ring flagged up leaked details of the revised UCI Protour which hinted at one possible future: pay-to-play where the ability to do double entry accounting for the value of your squad is more important than building a team from grassroots and moving up through the sport.

What I don't understand is why race organisers are so happy to leave the organisation of the sport to the UCI. Surely the combined weight and racebook of RCS (Giro and other Italian races) and ASO (Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix) covers almost all of the top flight events of note and has a future value which far outweigh anything the UCI holds?

The UCI has been instrumental in trying to broaden the global appeal of the sport but it strikes me that the races it has helped developed would be better served by experienced race organisers than the sport's administrator. It simply doesn't have the logistical expertise or financial imperative needed to make events in Africa or Asia as significant as their European counterparts.

In my view what cycling needs is someone with the balls of Kerry Packer. For those not familiar, Packer was the man who transformed the staid world of international cricket with his World Series Cricket (WSC).

He's quoted as having asked the Australian Cricket Board in 1976 "There is a little bit of the whore in all of us, gentlemen. What is your price?" while discussing television rights. He would have been perfectly at home in a sport as venal as cycling.

While history records that WSC didn't endure, it did force the sport to confront its failings and move forward in terms of professionalism and its appeal to the audience.

Currently professional cycling is stuck in an hopeless situation where fear of wholesale change leads to poisonous inactivity and decay as the remaining pool of assets withers. The longer it is left to those already with heavily vested interests, the less likely it becomes that cycling can change.

As has been said elsewhere what cycling needs is for someone to come in and re-invent the presentation and appeal. They'll have to think beyond the traditional at the same time as retaining the core that makes cycling so brilliant.

Here's a couple of things they could start with:

Women's racing is demented, unpredictable, attacking.

Bar the sexist pigs who can't appreciate great competition for what it is, does anyone think the sport wouldn't be better for a more richly rewarded profile for the women's scene?

Bring the crazy back

The races everyone talks about are never "sunny day, sunflowers and vineyards", it's the mud-splattered Tuscan battles, the chance escapes that beat the odds, the glorious epics.

Bring back motorpaced epics like Bordeaux-Paris with their night racing and fearsome endurance challenge. The "ultra" element of the sport has been left far too long as the preserve of the nostaligic amateur.

Find unique routes, don't always chase the smooth tarmac and mountain passes. The passing of climbs like Puy de Dome from the sport is a tragedy for that reason in the same way that the rediscovery of Tuscany's gravel roads is a joy.

So how can cycling make that move forward without someone to drive the change?

A quick mid-weeker to pick up on one of those quotes that guaranteed to infuriate me.

I was reading Richard Moore's latest piece on Team Sky in The Guardian Bradley Wiggins dismisses claim that pro cycling hates Team Sky.

It was this section about Marc Madiot's annoyance that infuriated:

"Other criticisms, such as those made this week by Marc Madiot, team manager of Française des Jeux, seem to owe more to the fact that Team Sky, through Facebook and Twitter are communicating with fans using all the means at their disposal. It irritated Madiot that Sky ­publicised work in a wind tunnel. 'We also put riders in wind tunnels,' said the former double winner of Paris‑Roubaix, 'but we don't put out a press release about it.'"

Well perhaps if you did put out a few more press releases then perhaps your team might be a bit more visible. Or perhaps if you paid attention you'd see one of your riders gaining a cult reputation on Facebook after the Tour Down Under: Arthur Vichot.

Cycling needs to sort out its PR, not just on the doping front but on the fan front. The most successful of the new teams in the last few years have realised that a few autographs by the team bus just doesn't cut it these days.

A successful online presence doesn't take much more than internet access, a copy of wordpress and a five quid a month hosting deal to get started. Yes that seems to be beyond the abilities of a lot of top flight teams.

Sky got their online media presence right by investing the same time, effort and thought that they claim in their race preparation. There's plenty that Madiot could learn from them off the road instead of playing the humpy French team card.

I'll set aside the issue of someone who is employed to write for the team site writing about the team. I'm not the only person out there who thinks there's something odd about the issues of conflict of interest when it comes to Sky's reporting on the Team. Moore is a great writer and journalism but he writes for their official website and so I'm also a bit uncomfortable with his reporting on the Team.

A lot of people have seen the signing of Oscar Pereiro Sio as simply an attempt to bolster the Astana squad with an experienced rider who can be there when it matters in the high mountains.

His ability to sacrifice his own interests in working for Alejandro Valverde over the last few years will have been a characteristic that appealed greatly to Contador. This isn't a guy who is going to give him grief or take off in search of a stage win while the real battle is happening behind.

That's pretty vital to a guy who has lost his trusty domestique Sergio Paulinho to Radioshack. Contador still faces having to ride on someone else's team with the return of Alexandre Vinokourov to "his" Astana team.

What is so brilliant about signing Pereiro is that it's a very astute political move given the situation.

We can assume that ASO are going to be asking questions about Astana's inclusion on the basis of Vinokourov's presence. They've not forgiven him for his actions in 2007 which essentially amounted to kicking them in the balls while they were out cold after the Floyd Landis debacle.

Now name the only team in cycling with two Tour de France winners on their roster.

The answer is Astana with Alberto Contador and Oscar Pereiro.

The former is the defending champion who was unable to defend his title in 2008 because of the repercussions for Astana of Vinokourov's ban.

The latter is the rider robbed of his moment of glory on the podium in Paris as a result of Floyd Landis' ban.

In pure political terms the weight of their achievements/history combined may be the necessary counter to Vinokourov's disgrace, which still drags like ten tonnes of shit behind Astana.

We know that being defending champion in 2008 wasn't enough on its own to swing the balance in Contador's favour, albeit the politics then included Johan Bruyneel on the scales.

Given the passing of time and their record, the two riders may be enough to convince ASO not to exclude Astana this year.

Women have the little black dress. Very few women have just the one.

This should tell the predominately male cycling population something. Sadly, far too many choose to ignore a simple truth: black is the most stylish of colours.

Rapha understand this, that's why their classic jersey is black. So did Henry Ford.

For nearly a hundred years cycling seems to have survived with shorts only really available in black. Some would argue this was out of necessity and lack of other viable options in the fabrics available. I'd argue that it was because it works and looks good.

You think Eddy Merckx and Jacques Anquetil wore black shorts for no good reason?

Or Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi?

The latter had jerseys handmade from silk for him by Castelli. If he'd wanted shorts other than black he would have had them.

Take any cycling jersey you own and pair it with any shorts you like. It will always look better with a plain black short.

The World Champion's jersey has always looked better with black shorts. That's not a matter of opinion, that's a matter of fact.

And the same goes for any of the famous jerseys. The trend for shorts matching leaders jerseys started in the 1990s and has never been as cool as some riders and fans would have you believe.

For every Mario Cippolini resplendent in head-to-toe white and rainbow, there's a multitude of Michael Rasmussen looking like a jaundiced famine victim at Le Tour...

(Note Alberto Contador sensibly opting out of white shorts with the Best Young Rider jersey. Remember: you win the jersey not the shorts and matching socks.)

Or like a smallpox outbreak on a bike...

So to recap: If you are serious about looking good on the bike, get some black shorts.

You may also be interested in reading Roadcycling UK's Cycling Style Guidance Notes by Richard Hallett

Dave Brailsford in a BBC interview says that the Team Sky project is all about inspiring participation.

But I keep on coming back to the same question I asked back at the Worlds in September: where are the women?

It's not like there aren't great squads that could do with a sponsor and come ready formed. Say, for example, Equipe NÜRNBERGER Versicherung who have just folded due to their new sponsor running away at the last moment.

Take a look at some of the riders on their 2009 team roster and factor in that Nicole Cooke was due to ride for them in 2010.

Actually, let's go back to the basics of a team with a British core: Lizzie Armitstead has moved teams this season, along with Sharon Laws, to join Emma Pooley at Cervelo.

Pooley's pretty happy where she is, but if you say the other two were on the market along with Cooke and all the riders in her now defunct Vision 1 Racing team, then it's not hard to assemble a race-winning roster of a dozen or so riders without having to look too hard.

Throw in a good handful of young British riders who could benefit from the development opportunity with 2012 in mind and it's looking pretty progressive.

But given that both Vision 1 and Nurnberger have gone under for want of a sponsor, perhaps women's cycling is still at an awkward chicken/egg stage where it needs a raised profile to attract committed sponsors but can't raise that profile without committed sponsors.

I've spent the last year or so trying to do something about the profile by writing about women's cycling where I can but it's tough to get race information without being at the races, something no one is currently willing to pay me to do.

One solution would be more races organised alongside the higher profile men's ones, like they do at the Tour of Flanders and Amstel Gold. Then there'd be no excuse for journalists not having access and the ability to cover the races.

So what are your thoughts on the lack of a Team Sky women's squad and how women's cycling can raise its profile?

Like ying and yang, for every list of bad news, there is good. So here's my predictions for good things that might happen this year. (I've updated this to correct a couple of errors and add a couple of links 04/10/2010)

• The arrival of significant new teams will increase interest in cycling outside of the specialist press

Like it or not, Team Radioshack and Team Sky will be the two teams that people will be interested in beyond cycling's core audience.

On the one hand you have the Armstrong factor: a sporting star who has transcended the boundaries of their sport and spilled into the wider public consciousness.

On the other a global corporation trying to push forward on the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) platform as well as looking to acquire a brand association with Britain's most successful Olympic sport.

Then there's BMC, who've signed a host of talent, including World Champion Cadel Evans and will be looking to be this season's Cervelo Test Team by making a big impact in the major races and raising the profile of a bike manufacturer.

The gulf between BMC and Team Sky, both cultural and budget, is striking. BMC are the modern evolution of the "trade team" model whereas Team Sky is the arrival of modern professional sport in cycling's parochial world.

Witness the way they used contract law to ensure that Bradley Wiggins was able to make his much-cherished move and their attitude to rider selection and media management. It has more in common with the management style of Manchester United than Astana.

• Sponsors and broadcasters will wake up to the growth potential of women's cycling

Someone will spot the low investment cost and figure out that Cervelo Test Team and Columbia-HTC have got a pretty good model to build on. I can't be the only person who thinks Team Sky have missed a trick by not having ambitions to put together a women's team around any one of Nicole Cooke, Lizzie Armitstead or Emma Pooley. Same goes for Radioshack with the pool of talent in North America.

• The professional peloton will start to get a little bit less white

Let's face it, for all the increasing internationalism of the top flight calendar, there is an alarming absence of non-white riders in the big teams. Fumy Beppu is one of the few and a favourite in our household.

Daniel Teklehaimanot from Eritrea could be in the vanguard of African riders to break through. He's got a great story - life and career threatened by heart condition - and sixth at this year's Tour de l'Avenir ahead of some highly-rated riders like Stetina and Gallopin say he's got the ability to step up.

It was the Rwandan Adrien Niyonshuti, riding for MTN who garnered particular press interest when he raced alongside Lance Armstrong at the Tour of Ireland and the story of Team Rwanda writes itself.

Eritrea is cycling mad, a legacy of Italian colonialism, and there could be no more fitting country to produce the breakthrough rider. Combined with projects like Kenyan Cyclist and Jock Boyer's marshalling of the Rwandan national team it represents the beginning of something important.

I've got other predictions but I'm always keen to get other people's in the hope that it will provoke debate and bring knowledge to the table.

After the highs of the Tour De France comes August's procession of minor races and exhibition criteriums. It's like a mid-season break before the Vuelta, Worlds and Lombardy.

So that made it the perfect excuse for a holiday. Two weeks in Italy, didn't even throw my leg over a bike but did work hard on the gelateria. Call it "the Contador method" of building up your fitness.

Didn't see many Italian cyclists until we were getting a taxi at 8am and saw loads out for a morning ride before the heat got up. So that's when they go out then, not in the 35 degree heat of mid-afternoon.

Came back about 3kg heavier - claimed as excess baggage/water weight - which promptly disappeared after last night's race. Bradley Wiggins eat your heart out.

Didn't have the legs for the sprint but didn't get dropped either and even had the energy to make a couple of decent digs, which came to naught due to the blasted headwind down the back straight again.

I've got loads of stuff to get through in my RSS reader including a quite emotional interview with Bradley Wiggins in the Guardian: Exhausted Bradley Wiggins now knows he can win the Tour de France which was flagged up by Tour De Ville.

And I've already signed up for my first Cyclocross race of the year which looks to be a bit different from the usual: The Rollapaluza Halloween Cyclo Cross

31.10.09, 17.00 - 22.00
Herne Hill Stadium, Burbage Road, London, SE24 9HE.

• £1000 cash prize list!
• Course to run through bar tent
• Youth events
• Apple Bobbing
• Mulled Cider
• Cheap beer
• Fancy dress with prizes
• BBQ, hot drinks and waffles!
• Separate event for Novice / Single speed mtb / fixed wheel riders.
• Free "have a go" Rollapaluza roller-racing.
• Full Moon guaranteed

Can't wait to see how riding through a beer tent pans out.

1. If you were expecting the GC to be exciting and to change hands like it did last year, then you were mistaken.

Once Cancellara bagged jaune in Monaco it was going to be tough to shift him until the mountains. Saxo Bank did work on the front protecting it and getting the sponsor plenty of talk time. Perhaps they've spent a little more time at the front than they would have liked but that's not their fault (see 2.)

2. The sprinters have decided that they're not going to waste their energy going wheel-to-wheel with Cavendish and Columbia.

Nobody seemed interested in helping them reel in breaks and yet they still couldn't beat them come the finish. In fact, Garmin blew their chances of putting a man into yellow when they got caught behind the gap when the wind changed.

Thor Hushovd showed enough savvy to be in the mix at the line so that he could pick off the green jersey with a strong ride on a hill stage to sweep up intermediate points. Cavendish may find he has to dig deep and do likewise if he harbours ambitions of reclaiming the jersey and holding it to Paris. And let's face it, much as he protests, he's a stubborn and driven blighter who is still in second place, a position he will never learn to live with.

So they're not going to beat Cavendish in a drag race but a sprint is as much about position as power. If they can limit the space Cav has to launch himself off Mark Renshaw's wheel then they have the opportunity to beat him. Easier said than done but if they don't then they'll never beat him. It worked for Petacchi at the Giro after all.

3. Not all opportunities are equal.

Service Course makes the following very good point:

"So, if Lance Armstrong (Astana) spots an opportunity to gain a little time on other GC contenders, teammates included, and spends a bit of his and the team's energy to exploit that opportunity, that's smart, heads up riding."

"If Alberto Contador (Astana) spots an opportunity to gain a little time on other GC contenders, teammates included, and spends a bit of his energy to exploit that opportunity, that's worth several interviews worth of indignant grumbling about how it assuredly wasn't "part of the plan."

Read the full post "Pyrenean Procrastination" on Service Course

4. Brad Wiggins can climb with the best.

Proof if ever any were needed that putting down the pork pie and pint can make a considerable difference. He's now 72kg instead of 78-80kg he was when he considered himself a track rider. At last he is a genuine road rider and a potential podium finisher in Grand Tours. Not quite a Grand Tour winner yet, but with a bit of experience, it's not an unrealistic goal is it?

I've lost about 5kg since Easter, although it fluctuates outrageously depending on "water weight" and I find going up hills easier. I'm currently stuck on around 75kg with an ambition to get down to 70kg which is frankly about as realistic a goal as me suddenly developing into a world-class rider.

We're into the first week of June and the clouds of war gather ever faster around the Tour De France. There's three stories that you should read to understand where cycling is heading between now and July.

1. Bernard Kohl's doping confession in L'Equipe and his claim "The first ten should have been positive"

via Cyclingfansanon's twitter. While we're on the subject: CFA, isn't it hypocritical to refuse to write your blog until the UCI deliver something from the blood passport scheme while berating others for their complicity in the omerta? Making a sound case isn't something you should rush into to please the gallery, just ask those who are familiar with miscarriages of justice.

Jonathan Vaughters counters Kohl on Cyclingnews

2. Antonio Colom positive for EPO being less than surprising to anyone.

Coupled with the dispute with some of their riders over what constitutes a fair and binding contract, it looks like there's trouble ahead for the Russian Katusha team. Robbie McEwen has denied there's a rift but it seems there is a sticking point. I've seen the suggestion that the management wants 5 years salary for "discrediting" the team, not necessarily testing positive. If that is the case then I fully understand where the riders are coming from.

3. Anne Gripper is alive and the blood passports are set to be tested. Conference today in Paris and the headline is "Riders face action over passport data - UCI".

We'll know names next week and then you can all start filling in your Panini sticker albums for July and marking which pages are going to have gaps in them. There are those who say it's taken too long, I am not one of them. Good investigation takes time, ask any journalist of note. People like John Ware and Peter Taylor don't come up with their work in a matter of months, it takes years of research, experience and blind alleys before they come to a conclusion.

Saturday's The Times declares that "Inspirational Olympic heroes turn cycling into a family favourite" and celebrates a 40% increase in cycling as a result of the track team's success.

Meanwhile The Sunday Times manages to lead its Sport In Brief section with Mark Cavendish taking Milan-San Remo at the first attempt and the first British rider to claim it since Tom Simpson in 1964. Some will say this is disgracefully little but, given past record, it feels like a minor triumph that it is mentioned at all.

Nobody, apart from Cycling Weekly seems to have seen fit to mention Emma Pooley solo-ing to victory in the GP Etrusca on Friday. Or Nicole Cooke coming 5th the next day.

So perhaps Cavendish should feel lucky to have been mentioned at all. Indeed he acknowledged as much in his interviews after the race when asked if it would push football off the back pages:

"No chance, it's only the Olympics and Tour de France in the national news."

Small steps but important ones if cycling is going to move into the mainstream. Participation builds expectation which can be developed into coverage with a little bit of application and perseverance.