Cycling Weekly

Today should, I believe, be known in the UK as Champion’s Day. And while it might be too much to ask for an extra bank holiday, it should at least be a day when sport, healthy living and physical activity is promoted and encouraged across the country. Why 23 March you might ask? You just have to take a look at whose birthday it is today. Check out this list, it is mind blowing: Sir Chris Hoy, Jason Kenny, Sir Mo Farah, Sir Steve Redgrave, Sir Roger Bannister, Michael Atherton (cricketer) and Shelley Rudman (a winter Olympian) were all born on 23 March. It’s a fact that has been reported many times in recent years, but it’s worth bringing up again this year as the 23rd is a Thursday, CW’s on-sale…

Fittingly for the longest race on the professional calendar Mathieu van der Poel’s victory at Milan-San Remo on Saturday was a story best told by the numbers. There were personal numbers like 62, the number of years since the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider’s grandfather, French legend Raymond Poulidor, won the same race. There were patriotic numbers like 38, the number of years since another Dutchman, Hennie Kuiper had won La Primavera. There were also numbers summing up the ferocity and power of the race itself, from the average speed of 45.773 kph, the second fastest edition, to the finale itself. According to Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport’s analysis of video footage van der Poel averaged 39.18kph up the Poggio climb for a time of 3-40, the fastest it has been raced. But in the…

For Filippo Ganna, second place at Milan-San Remo made him, according to the man himself, “the first loser” on the Italian coast on Saturday evening. But more importantly it made him something else too, a bona fide Classics contender. La Primavera is probably not the race most ideally suited to the Hour record holder’s skillset and yet there he was, able to hold arguably the best climber in the world’s (Tadej Pogačar) wheel uphill, and able to outfox the best all-round rider in the world (Wout van Aert) at the line. Until Saturday Ganna had never made it inside the top 10 of a Monument; now he’s stepped onto the podium. To date his record in races outside of his favoured time trials has been patchy. He won a memorable stage of…

Shirin van Anrooij led home a Trek-Segafredo 1-2 at the Trofeo Alfredo Binda in Italy on Sunday. The Dutchwoman broke away with 24km left to race and hung off the front of the peloton by little more than 10 seconds for several kilometres. But as the race hit the penultimate climbs, she extended her lead further and was out of sight on the tight, twisty roads. It seemed like her hopes might have been dashed when an errant police motorbike forced her to brake heavily but she would increase her lead in the final ascent of the finishing circuit’s Orino climb, while behind, attacks started to disrupt the rhythm of the chasing group. An untroubled descent to the line then led the U23 cyclo-cross world champion to her first WorldTour win. Behind, the winner…

It’s one of cycling’s most famous, and feared, cobbled sectors, but right now Paris-Roubaix’s iconic Forest of Arenberg is but a calm idyll for grazing animals. With names like Ginette and Caouette, a herd of goats, around 40 in size, has descended on the road, tasked with trimming back the grass in time for the race on 9 April. “This is the first time we’ve used this method,” ASO’s race designer Thierry Gouvenou told Cycling Weekly. “During Covid, we realised that the grass in the Forest of Arenberg was growing back really quickly, so we said we needed to find solutions. Why not eco-grazing?” If you’re not familiar with ecograzing, the concept is simple. Rather than using weedkiller or industrial-sized lawn mowers, a drove of duty-bound herbivores are employed to maintain large green…

Riders and team staff were left aghast last Friday when out of the blue, “funding issues” and an “uncertain banking and finance sector” led to the sudden collapse of AT85 Pro Cycling, formerly known as Wiv-SunGod. Team owner Tim Elverson had previously spoken of his hopes to move to the ProTeam level for 2024 but then last week “bombshell” news hit the squad, whose headline sponsor is an investment fund, that a financial shortfall was going to force it to close. Speaking to Cycling Weekly, sports director Colin Sturgess said: “I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say it’s with absolute regret and a heavy heart that all of us have learned about this. I don’t think any of us could have foreseen the timing of it.” Being hit just weeks into the new…