Voting is open

Interesting to hear the lead sport piece on Radio 4's Today programme today was the vote for the next UCI president.
As you'll be aware, the cycling world is baying for change following Pat McQuaid's tenure which has seen the meteoric rise of our sport in the UK coincide with its greatest scandal.

Awkward handshake awards 2013

There's a sense that the UCI has become a hubristic untouchable clique with jobs for the boys. The white knight challenger is a straight-talking Lancastrian called Brian and he hates Pat, a lot.
Anyway, it won't be long until we know who's the next grande fromage and who's the croque monsieur.

Happy birthday to...

Well, can you believe it? Cycling has kept me in enough material to keep this blog going for a year. There's been thrills, a few spills, no pills, a few punctures and lots of great stories. 
Looking back it's been interesting to watch the status of  cycling in the UK ebb and flow. We've had amazing success at the Olympics, two Tour de France winners and many promises of government cash.
But with that, cycling's popularity has bred a strong reaction from the unwilling.
There's been sabotage, road rage and sadly accidents.
So where do I think cycling will end up in the next 12 months? Well, we should finally see some investment in Manchester into the riding infrastructure and hopefully more people will take to two wheels as a result. 
In the pro sport, we of course have the Yorkshire stages of le tour to look forward to next year. Pat 'Pat' Mcquaid might get the elbow from of of his UCI positions and replaced by Brian Cookson. Finally, the sport might be able to move on from the doping which nearly destroyed the sport.
I'd also expect the demands for a women's tour to keep getting louder too - quite right too. 
Commercially, the sport will continue to thrive and we should continue to support our local bike shops rather than solely relying on on-line outlets - you'll miss them when they're gone, you mark my words.

Any excuse...

Anyway, I'm planning on bringing in a few little innovations to this blog in the next year: some interviews and guest blogs - maybe even a video or two! If you have any suggestions or want to bang out a couple of hundred words on your view of the world on two wheels, then do drop me a note.
Until then, ride safe.

June: Manchester bike month

Quite what happened to the month of May, I don't know. Had some lovely days riding and got a good few miles in. 

All the grim weather was in Italy for the Giro where Wiggo bailed out ill.

Some UCI tool denied any wrong doing relating to Lance's doping - that's despite them having the hematocrit levels of all riders...

But, anyway, that was May. It's June now and there's loads to look forward to: the tour starts this month, it's national bike week (15th - 23rd) and its also Manchester bike month - yes, a whole month of cycling related events and wot not.

Check out the web site for more info and, of course, ride safe. 

Rough Ride with Paul Kimmage

Having just finished reading Paul Kimmage's 1990 book Rough Ride, I thought it was worth taking a moment to reflect on the main themes of the book.
While doping, and the breaking of cycling's code of silence toward doping feature heavily, for me, the central theme of the book is one of how professional cycling has broken the dreams and spirit of a thousand riders.
Those fortunate enough to make it, mainly face a career of obscurity and water carrying. If you're lucky, very lucky, one day they might let you win a stage or an event.  But for the majority, it's a story of toil, commercial pressures, shit hotels and racing against people who you once beat easily but now struggle to stay with on the flat.

Written 1990, read by me 2012. Slow reader

This is the context in which the doping flourished.  It should be no surprise that the doping became more sophisticated as winning became more lucrative and more telegenic.
The other maddening pressure which comes across in his book is the fear of what to do next.  What does a former professional cyclist do?  Open a bike shop? Write a book perhaps.  For the ones that remain in some way in the public eye, there are countless thousands who fade into obscurity and do what the rest of us would do: just get a job, any job.
The final chapter  'Andre' about former team-mate Andre Chappuis brings this fear into unnerving focus.
Kimmage has of course become something of a cycling cause celebre in recent months with UCI beginning legal proceedings against him.  They should put a statute up to him in my view - or, perhaps more appropriately, establish some kind of long-suffering cyclist award!  I jest of course.
In the book Kimmage hoped that the doping of his era would be tackled and ended: that the UCI would bare its teeth and intervene. We know that it didn't and the whiff of suspicion remains that that they actually became further embroiled.
It seems now that the leadership is being shown by the teams - specifically Team Sky and its 'if you doped your out' policy.
As Sky and others move to reassure sponsors, the commercial imperative remains but as a punter and a defender of cycling, I Just hope that the doping can be finally put to bed.

The truth will out

Well, it's happened.  The UCI didn't duck the only decision they could make.  Not massively convincing from Pat McQuaid but a new start none the less.  There could be more if Lance wants blow the whole thing wide open, but that would mean doing the one thing he's refused to do: acknowledge his own shortcomings and tell the truth.

Zero times Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong

Lance scandal is destroying cycling

The UCI must be absolutely shi**ing themselves this morning as the Lance case claims its first real victim which will hit the sport where it hurts - in the pocket.
Despite, Nike, Trek and that beer brand all disowning Lance, the various doping bans which were handed out and Johann Bruyneel getting the bullet from Nissan Trek, Rabbobank's decision to end its association with the sport after 17 years, really brings home how tainted the sport of cycling has become for sponsors.
The UCI need to act and need to act fast.  
The 21 day window it has to respond to the USADA's reasoned decision still has over a week to run and so far, the silence has been deafening.  Their defensive statements in the run up to the report's production add to the impression that the UCI is intent on looking for wriggle room in the USDA's case.
However, while they do noting, the world is still turning and they are rapidly being painted into a corner by the series of event which is unfolding before their eyes.
Whatever the UCI does next, needs to be decisive, show leadership and show a way forward for the sport.

We're out

Failing to bottom out the crisis at this stage will be a critical failure of leadership which would have severe ramifications for the sport.  By far the most sensible suggestion I've heard so far in how to achieve this is Jonathan Vaughters' idea of a truth and reconciliation commission.  It would be fun to watch the UCI having to swallow this one too!

Can Lance rebuild his battered reputation?

Oh dear, dear me.  Lance.  What can you say? Having read some of the USADA's evidence against Lance, it's impossible not to come to the conclusion that he did it.  They've pretty much got him bang to rights.  
Of all the testimony, it's George Hincape's which is most damning.
While Lance and his team of lawyers have tried to swat away allegations from those they considered untrustworthy, having your chief lieutenant point the finger too, demolishes any shred of doubt there may have been.
Rather than analyse the quotes and testimony from the Reasoned Decision of the USADA - principally because other people have already done it and done it better than I would elsewhere - I'm going to explore what it could mean for Lance now.
Lance's moves thus far have been true to form: abrasive, dismissive and acerbic.  But now he's played those cards and its all blown up in his face, what options does he have to salvage a reputation which has fallen further than Jimmy Saville's - admittedly from a higher starting point.
Let's just imagine that I'm advising Lance on his reputation, what would I advise he do now?
Well, presuming he is as guilty as the evidence suggests, my advice would be to simply come clean.

Top half of Team Battenburg 

Lance's story remains a fascinating one and he can actually use the doping to his advantage by building the next stage of his life around it. As well as being driven to win, Lance could well point out pressures from sponsors like Nike and Trek and the requirement of the UCI to have a global figure for the sport which would build on the foundations set by Greg Lemond and sell the sport to the biggest market in the world.
These pressures, Lance could say, led him into a spiral of doping which had to be maintained to prevent the whole façade from crumbling. With each race, each transfusion and each denial, he was painting himself into a corner from which there was no escape but only denial.
An 'I did it and I'm sorry' followed with a pledge to continue raising money for his cancer charity, would be the first step toward his public rehabilitation.
The next steps from the UCI and Lance himself will be fascinating to watch. Whether he digs his heels in or comes clean, Lance will remain a divisive figure in the sport and while his record is still recognised by the UCI, he continues to cast a long shadow over it.

Broadening the appeal

Back in March 2011, the outspoken president of the Association International des Groupes Cyclistes Professionels (AIGCP) and Garmin Sharp general manager Jonathan Vaughters threw a gauntlet down to cycling claiming that the sport should be as big as Premiership football or Formula 1.
To achieve this, he argued that a ten point plan be implemented which would launch the sport into the global stratosphere.
Leaving aside any power grab which he may be manoeuvring the pro teams to make against the UCI, Vaughters' plan - such as it was - had, in my view, a coherence and energy that would broaden the appeal of the sport; particularly as a TV event.
Don't get me wrong, I'd be happy watching an entire day's racing from signing on to the broom wagon making it home, but not everyone is the same.
But why does this matter now?

Looking good: AG2R in 2009

Well, the 5th idea of Vaughters' ten point plan was to introduce more team time trials.  Although he doesn't really expand on the idea, you can understand that the team time trial is a photogenic and dramatic looking event and ideal for TV.
And so it will be later today when the teams line up in Pamplona for the start of the Vuelta. 
In the last couple of years the Vuelta and Giro have started with team time trials but the Tour de France hasn't. It should be interesting to see how it goes and the response from the media the race receives in the UK.
With Froome leading the Sky team and Bertie back in the saddle, it should provide a fascinating glimpse into next year's Tour de France.