Banned: A list of what the UCI loves to hate

Are there any governing bodies in world sport that get a good rep? FIFA's corruption is the subject of films and documentaries, the FIA run accused of fiddling their competitions for better Netflix drama, the RFU are suggested to be fiddling whilst the sport burns around them, with World Rugby ignoring massive concussion problems, and...

Monument Ages – Is Pogacar on track to conquer Merckx?

At the start of the Volta a Catalunya this year, a race he went on to dominate with the overall, four stage wins, the points and mountains competitions all coming home with the Slovenian, Tadej Pogacar was asked whether he was thinking about his place in cycling history. "Yeah," he replied, "Now I have arrived...

Pogacar’s One Week Stage Race Chase

Having already signalled his intent to, as borrowed from Philippe Gilbert, "Strive for Five" and win all five monuments across his career, Tadej Pogacar has signalled a new goal - triumphing in all seven of the top level week long stage races. He hasn't signalled his desire to win all three Grand Tours yet, but...

Who has spent the least time in the Tour de France malliot jaune?

We all know the big stats - that Eddy Merckx leads the way with having recorded 111 stages in the Tour de France leader's jersey, the malliot jaune. We know that Lance Armstrong would be second on 83 stages if he hadn't been expunged from the official records, and that his place is instead inhabited...

Loops and Transfers: The Increasing Fragmentation of the Grand Tours

Comparing the maps of the modern and early Tours de France show an impressive disparity. Those early 20th century routes are essentially full laps of France, taking in the edges of the hexagon and starting and finishing each of the mammoth stages in the same host cities. The Tour Started and finished in the capital Paris...

The Scrabble Test – are team names getting longer and more complex?

If you're a cycling commentator, things are about to get more complex in 2024. It's going to tricky enough remembering to call Jumbo-Visma Visma-Lease-a-bike, and then you've got to remember that the long time Arkea-Samsic are now Arkea-B&B Hotels. Then, when you've strained your gray matter not to mess those up, you've got to wrap...

Height and Weight – Changing Trends in the Pro/WorldTour

Rugby famously advertises itself as a "game for all sizes", which is fast becoming a desire rather than a reality. A few years ago, the RugbyPass website put together a "World under-85kg XV", which was notable for two reasons. Firstly, the subtitle indicating that this was the "lightest" team, and thus that 85kg was somewhat...

2023 – Which Records have been Achieved?

2023 has been quite an impressive year in terms of cycling history, so to confirm it, here's (probably not exhaustive) list of achievements that have been made this year, and whether they "stand-alone" as new, unprecedented feats, or are mere replicas of what has come before. Hopefully Cillian Kelly doesn't prove me wrong. One team...

Jumbo-Visma – Quick Step, or a Brief History of Mergers and why they’re (nearly) always rubbish

Having just gone through what was, in the most politest terms, a PR incident in having to effectively have crisis talks with riders to decide which one of them was allowed to win a Grand Tour, you would have thought the last thing Jumbo-Visma wanted to do was to create more controversy that might remove...

Putting the Jumbo-Visma Grand Tour Sweep into context

Jumbo Visma's clean sweep of the 2023 Vuelta podium has had people questioning just how dominant they are, as you'd rightly do after they were able to effectively able to choose the winner of the race, and maag. Surely they must have broken loads of records in becoming the first team to win all three...