Racing
Pro road and mountain bike racing, as well as slopestyle and other bike competition
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on July 16, 2009
Followup to yesterday’s note on James Raia’s excellent coverage of Wenatchee’s Tyler Farrar in the Tour for the Wenatchee World. Today Washington State’s largest newspaper, The Seattle Times, ran a Raia story on yesterday’s stage as its lead Sports section story. That’s quite an acknowledgment of Raia’s insightful reporting, and Tyler Farrar’s growing prominence in [...]
Posted in Racing | Tagged James Raia, seattle times, Tour de France, tyler farrar
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on July 15, 2009
Tyler Farrar is giving us all in the Northwest a real champion to root for. In the world’s biggest bike race, the lad from Wenatchee keeps coming up big, challenging the unbeatable Mark Cavendish time and again, only to fall inches short. Today a heartbeat separated Farrar from Cavendish, who benefits from having a stronger [...]
Posted in Racing | Tagged Mark Cavendish, Tour de France, tyler farrar
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on July 13, 2009
On this the first rest day of the Tour de France 2009 edition, we pause to pay tribute to the one cyclist who has managed to once again galvanize worldwide attention on himself while suffocating any competitive fire in this year’s peloton. We speak, of course, of Lance Armstrong, author of the celebrated biography, “It’s [...]
Posted in Racing | Tagged lance armstrong, Tour de France
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on July 12, 2009
With Lance out of the picture after 2005, I’d almost forgotten how boring the Tour de France can be. Year after year in his historic run-up of wins, Lance assembled the strongest team and then “controlled” the race, to yawningly predictable outcomes. The past few Lanceless Tours got back to real racing, with no single [...]
Posted in Racing | Tagged Cadel Evans, lance armstrong, Team Astana, Tour de France
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on July 9, 2009
I spent yesterday exploring Marin trails with a couple of locals. The Marin that gets depicted on the maps and in the guide books is a mere appetizer to the feast of Marin mountain biking that actually exists. The “public” mountain-biking Marin naturally shunts riders onto the well-trammeled routes, mostly on Mount Tamalpais, in the [...]
Posted in Advocacy, Mountain Biking, Obama Bikes, Trail Access | Tagged Camp Tamarancho, China Camp State Park, Marin County mountain biking, Mount Tamalpais
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on July 9, 2009
Update: A bit of a letdown that Schleck never made a move…or anyone else for that matter. If the pack continues to let Astana dictate the race it will be another boring Lance ride to Paris (conceding that Alberto will take Yellow). The Tour hits the mountains tomorrow, and Lance is serving notice that Contador [...]
Posted in Culture, Racing | Tagged alberto contador, Andy Schleck, lance armstrong, Tour de France
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on July 9, 2009
New York Times: Germany’s new cycling star hopes to put Germany’s doping troubles behind Germany. The question being: Since when are doping problems restricted or disproportionate to Germany? Statistically, does Germany even surpass other countries in doping problems? As a friend put it recently, doping in pro cycling is big news as long as it [...]
Posted in Culture, Racing, This Day in Doping | Tagged doping, lance armstrong, synacthene, Tour de France
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on July 8, 2009
Cyclelicious reports on lunch with Paul Andrews…wait a minute, that’s me! Actually it is I who should be reporting on lunch with Richard Masoner, founder of Cyclelicio.us and one of the pioneers of bike-news blogging. As the estimable Jonathan Maus of BikePortland.org put it in an interview with Bicycle Times: “One of the first blogs [...]
Posted in Advocacy, Culture, Mountain Biking | Tagged BikePortland.org, Cyclelicious, Jonathan Maus, Richard Masoner
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on July 7, 2009
The cycling world was poised for Lance Armstrong to return to the yellow jersey after a 4-year hiatus today, but he missed by .18 of a second. You have to wonder if Alberto Contador didn’t quite give 100 percent, knowing a TT win would put Lance in the center of the cycling universe. Lance and [...]
Posted in Culture, Racing | Tagged Fabian Cancellara, lance armstrong, Tour de France
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on July 7, 2009
OK, something big may be going on here. Now Jan Ullrich, 1997 Tour winner and perennial runnerup to Lance during the glory years, is under investigation by Swiss authorities for doping. Ullrich has been previously implicated, of course, but the fact these guys are being dredged up from the past may be a signal that [...]
Posted in Racing, This Day in Doping | Tagged doping scandal, Jan UIlrich, Tour de France
