Tabla de contenidos para January 2019 en Procycling

Everything I do, I’m hands-on. I do my own social media, and I never pretend to be somebody I’m not. So when the editorial team of Procycling got in touch to invite me to be guest editor, I didn’t want to just have my face on the cover and then let them get on with it. I wanted to edit the magazine. The first thing I did was red-ink the feature ideas I was sent and come up with my own list. I wanted to talk about the riders, races and issues I’m interested in. One rider I really wanted to be in the mag was Marianne Vos. She’s the epitome of what empowerment is, and why you shouldn’t have limitations because of your sex. She was dominating the women’s…

Cycling is often filled with doom and gloom when it comes to sponsors, or the lack thereof, in the sport. When Drops’s owners confirmed it was in a fight for survival after a potential new backer pulled the plug, the team looked destined to join the long list of squads who lost sponsors and subsequently folded. But if ever you need a bit of faith in cycling reinstated, the fact a crowd-funding campaign and outpouring of support from the public helped secure Drops’s future should do it. Like EF-Drapac a year ago, when the traditional sponsors pulled out, Drops turned to their fans. In six weeks, £25,000 had been pledged by 199 backers – not enough to run a team, but, like EF, it generated enough buzz that other partners…

BARNABÁS PEÁK The Hungarian U23 champion finished ninth at the 1.HC-ranked Gran Piemonte during a stint with Quick-Step. He joins U23 team SEG Racing in 2019. ALESSANDRO COVI The 20-year-old Tour de l’Avenir stage winner and top-10 finisher at the Baby Giro has already signed a deal with UAE Emirates to join them in 2020. CONNOR SWIFT The 23-year-old British champ had a stint with Dimension Data and his best result was fifth at Polynormande. He remains with Madison-Genesis in 2019.…

When I found out Mr Mark Cavendish was the guest editor this month, it brought back certain memories. I have a huge amount of respect for Cav, but my memories stretch further back than most, as I have known him for 15 years. That’s terrifying. As a junior, I raced the British road race scene and it’s far from a secret I was British. Cav is one year older than me and though we would never be close to being rivals for a win today, back then it was a free-for-all – though I don’t remember ever beating him in a sprint. Our first real interaction was riding for Team South West as a pseudo-Team GB at the junior World Cup Tour de Lorraine in May, 2003: Matt Brammeier, Bruce…

2007 STAGE WINS: 0 Cavendish makes his Tour debut at the age of 22 for T-Mobile. He finds the going rough, and early crashes thwart his ambitions. He pulls out on stage 8, his best placing ninth. 2008 STAGE WINS: 4 Takes a few days to get up and running but takes four stages, starting on stage 5. He gets through the Pyrenees but pulls out before the Alps, to prepare for the Beijing Olympics. 2009 STAGE WINS: 6 His best-ever Tour. Starts winning early, on stage 2, then adds five more wins. The highlight is the middle mountain stage to Aubenas, capped by a one-two with Mark Renshaw in Paris. 2010 STAGE WINS: 5 A slow start has tongues wagging among Tour followers, but he takes an emotional first…

1 2009 WINNER: MARK CAVENDISH CAV: 1ST AT 6:42:31 Brilliantly shepherded to the front of the peloton at the foot of the Cipressa, Cavendish crested the summit only a few seconds in arrears, bridged the gap and never looked flustered on the Poggio. His sprint has its place in the annals - a breathtaking rimonta to catch Haussler and win by one of the smallest margins in the race’s history, 11cm or “the length of a mobile-phone” as Luca Gialanella put in La Gazzetta dello Sport. Cavendish says: If I had to pick out one decisive factor, only one, it would be George Hincapie. No one drops back on the descent of the Poggio to find and position a team-mate, but that’s what he did. Then the lead-out he gave…

Salamanca. At the start line of a stage of the Vuelta a España, Cristián Rodríguez fidgets while trying to set up the cycling computer on his bike. “Oh boy, I can’t see anything properly on this screen,” mutters the Caja Rural-Seguros RGA rider. Rodríguez is a highly-regarded young rider from Spain, a promising all-rounder who some think could become a grand tour contender. He has been training on watts since his junior years, following the advice of former rider Michele Bartoli. Do riders use power meters so much in training that they depend on them in racing? “It is not only about the watts,” Rodríguez says. “I like to look at the profile during the stage to know which climbs are coming. And also, do you know how much of…

The story began and ended at the Velòdrom d’Horta in Barcelona, at the time of a midsummer early evening where the light starts to soften and bathe everything in a glow, after the hard, bright light of the day. Heat radiated from every surface, making it shorts and t-shirt weather right through the night. On the track: two men, one on each side. Britain’s Chris Boardman versus Germany’s Jens Lehmann in the final of the 1992 Olympic Games individual pursuit. Boardman was aiming – get this, recent British fans with little knowledge of the sport before the 2000s – for Britain’s first cycling gold medal in 72 years. Lehmann was the reigning world champion. On the day of the final, 29 July, Britain had yet to win any gold medals.…

Maybe some of you folks remember the old story of me on the yellow kids’ bike during the 2010 Tour on that really hard mountain stage in the Pyrenees. I had a very bad crash, my bike was trashed, I was really beaten up, and there was no team support so I had to borrow a tiny yellow bike to ride part of the climb until the team car could bring me a spare. If you think that’s a good story then let me tell that an even better one unfolded right after. While trying to finish within the time limit I caught up with Mark Cavendish. There are two things about Mark – he is super, super fast, and he hates the mountains. Back then he rode for HTC…

This year was a bit new. It was all a little bit difficult in the first year on a new team. You see other riders struggling, but I feel the team took good care of me. I like it a lot, the atmosphere is good, but for sure we hoped for better results, including myself. The team in general…we maybe didn’t perform as good as we hoped, for me especially. The win on the Champs-Elysées was my season’s best result. My best results came when I had a full lead-out train with Katusha in 2014 and 2015. I had a lot of riders around in the sprints. For sure I have the potential to win more if I have more back-up in the final, but I won this year on…

What’s your favourite place to ride? My favourite place to ride is at home in Stribo, in the Czech Republic, simply because I was born there and it’s where my family lives now. Unfortunately, we’re not there that often because we split our time between Belgium and Mallorca. What race would you most like to win if you could? I’ll take three: Flanders, Roubaix and the Worlds. It would be cool to add a rainbow jersey to my titles from cyclo-cross and BMX [true: Stybar was the under-8 BMX world champion]. The other two are just great races together with Strade Bianche, which I have won. Tell me about your hardest regular training session. That depends. It depends on how fit I am at the time. I really love to…

Being on the Tour de France with a team is a bit like being on the road with a band. The non-stop travel, the routine, living out of a suitcase, and countless nights in hotels, all punctuated with moments of excitement. It can break you and at the very least test you. Each day you average 16 to 18 hours of working. It’s beautiful, challenging, bonkers, horrible and at times even rather wonderful. For a photographer it’s one of the most difficult races on the calendar to shoot due to the logistics of its sheer size. But it’s the pinnacle of our sport. It’s our Glastonbury. I’ve completed seven Tours now, having first started at the race as Bradley Wiggins’s photographer in 2010. Back then, I was completely clueless but…

Marianne Vos hardly has to pause to think of an answer. “It was just for the love of the sport,” she replies instantly, when Procycling calls and asks what her motivation was when she first started in cycling, as our guest editor instructed. “As a kid I started cycling; my dad was in cycling, my older brother, and I continued doing so. As a junior, I found out I was probably quite talented, more talented than average…well, I wanted to make the most of it. I just wanted to enjoy racing and try my best. There has never been a motivation or objective to make it my occupation or to make money or whatever with the sport. Of course, that came as a result later on, and that was a…

Team Dimension Data might have an advantage over other WorldTour teams in that their naming sponsor works in the field of data analytics and digital technology. Dimension Data’s group executive for digital business solutions, Scott Gibson, who sits on the executive board of the cycling team, told Procycling that they are looking at how they can not only gain publicity from sponsorship, but help the team race better. In turn, that helps the marketing of the company, which is after all the main point of sponsorship. “It’s early days, but we’re saying, ‘Let’s figure out how we can apply technology to the team,’” he said. “We’re incrementally adding new things.” One early benefit they have brought is that they developed an app for the riders to input various feedback about…

At midday on the Sunday, the finale of the U23 AVS Cup was held. In recent years Britons have thrived at the amateur Gent Six. Recent winners include Matt Gibson and Chris Lawless in 2014 and Simon Yates and Owain Doull in 2011. In 2007, Peter Kennaugh and Adam Blythe won when they were the youngest pair in the U25 field. This year, British Cycling sent two teams. The U23s crashed out, but the juniors, 17-year-olds Zach Bridges and Sam Watson, got stronger. BC coach Stuart Blunt said: “We’re keen to use this event because of this track and its uniqueness. It’s mainly the shortness, so everything happens quickly… There are more changes and as soon as you’ve thrown your partner in, you’ve got to get ready for the next…

May 21 2019 will be Mark Cavendish’s 34th birthday. The number 34 is looming large over his life and career from the perspective of early 2019. A decade or two ago, turning 34 might have meant retirement, but 34 is only getting towards the upper end of mid-life for cyclists these days. Alejandro Valverde, the current world champion, is 38; the current Giro d’Italia champion Chris Froome is a day older than Cavendish and reigning Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas will be 33 when he makes his defence of the 2018 yellow jersey. But 34 is also the single number that will define the life and career of Mark Cavendish between now, its end and far beyond. It’s the number of stage wins taken by Eddy Merckx at the…

Rod Ellingworth is a rider turned coach, who launched the British Cycling Academy for U23 riders in 2004, in which a young Mark Cavendish was one of his first students. He helped launch Team Sky in 2010 and is today its head of performance Mark Cavendish: We’ve known each other for a long time and we’re mates, though it didn’t start like that. You’re one of the most influential characters in British Cycling. You’re one of the hardest working, but one of the least recognised and publicly applauded. Is that something you want? What drives you to put everything in that you do? Rod Ellingworth: A little example. We’re here on a camp in Mallorca. The riders don’t get here until Monday; I’ve been here since Wednesday. We’ve got staff…

The German footballer Christoph Kramer cannot remember 14 minutes of the biggest game in his life. He took a blow to the head when he collided with an Argentinian opponent not long into the 2014 World Cup final, but was allowed to carry on. He then approached the referee and asked: “Ref, is this the final?” The stunned official told the German captain but Kramer was allowed to play on for 14 minutes – of which he has no recollection - before he slumped to the ground and was helped off the pitch. This sort of thing will sound familiar to anyone who follows professional cycling. Remember Chris Horner crossing the finish line of stage 7 of the 2011 Tour de France babbling incoherently and Toms Skujinš dizzily dodging the…