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  • 2015 Road World Champs Courses Revealed

    2015 Road World Champs Courses Revealed

    RIchmondbyRiver

    The routes of the 2015 UCI Road World Championship races were announced yesterday. As someone who has lived almost his whole life within an hour or two of Richmond, Virginia, every piece of news involving the 2014 championships reignites my amazement that the first USA-hosted champs race in decades will be taking place in this small Southern city.

    The geography of central Virginia might not initially strike an observer as likely to provide an interesting race profile, but the wonderful thing about a circuit race is that it allows otherwise small challenges to become serious obstacles over repeated visits. Richmond is not in a mountainous region of the state. Its streets are not paved with an abundance of cobbles. But the few steep slopes and the few sections of cobbled roadway, taken on time after time over the course of a day’s racing: that can make for quite a demanding showdown. That’s what the Richmond road race promises to be, now that its course has been revealed.

    Another important aspect of this road race will be its technicality. The circuit contains one complete 180 around a skinny median, and a number of other very sharp turns as it cuts back and forth through city blocks. Richmond is not a massive city with miles of sprawl, but this race is taking place right at its urban center. It is going to be hotly contested and it could get hairy. The last four kilometers of each lap are going to include three steep inclines, basically guaranteeing an abundance of attacks to thrill everyone making the trip.

    And the best part? Virginia has a sizeable contingent of cyclists and cycling fans, but I’d expect the majority of people coming to these events are going to be new to live bike racing. This is a country that, especially in the last year or so, has simply not been a place where interest in the sport has run particularly high. Bringing this race to this place offers a chance to show a group of people who might never have tuned into NBC Sports just how thrilling bike racing can be. That’s what’s so exciting about the course unveiled today: I think the Richmond World Champs will offer an excellent opportunity for the sport to reach out to a new fanbase, and what I”m seeing with this new course looks like a great start.

    The time trial course looks like it will offer a nice challenge as well. 53 kilometers of road with a few small bumps and some twists and turns toward the finish line will provide a good balance; the technical challenges will be there, the elevation will change enough that it will at least mean a few seconds here and there, but overall it looks like a good old-fashioned race of truth.

    And American coverage being what it is, I am even more excited with both the location and the specific courses as they’ve been laid out: as much time as media outlets broadcasting in the home country will focus on local culture and history (and they will, because that’s how cycling coverage works in this country), Richmond, and these roads, will offer plenty for viewers to enjoy. Fans here and abroad will surely be treated to an abundance of riverside shots and a thorough rundown of the rich history of this place when the peloton comes to Virginia in 2015.

    For now, Omloop het Nieuwsblad awaits, with WorldTour stage races Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico right round the corner. Check back in soon for previews of both!

    -Dane Cash

    Photo by Bill Dickinson.

  • Coasting Through February

    1stFebruaryPicA

    Takeaways from the Early-year Interlude 

    We are two weeks into February and still, two long weeks remain until March, the month of Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, Milano-San Remo and Gent Wevelgem. Until then, a few notes about the past several weeks in the peloton. We may not have had any WorldTour contests to follow, but the gap between the Tour Down Under and the spring classics is not entirely without action, much of it offering a fine glimpse into early season form for some big names.

    Orica-GreenEdge followed up their Tour Down Under victory with an overall win at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour, with Simon Clarke nabbing GC honors. Teammate Simon Gerrans also found himself in the top 10; if he can maintain this sort of form into next month, he’ll be a strong contender to nab Monument number 2 in San Remo. Meanwhile, Avanti’s Jack Haig, winner of the young rider’s jersey at the Tour Down Under, nabbed the final spot on the Herald Sun Tour podium; the 20 year old is making a name for himself, taking his opportunities when they’ve come. Garmin-Sharp’s Nathan Haas (5th in the Tour Down Under) continued to show off his talent with another top 5 performance. He’s a pleasant surprise for Garmin early in 2014, and it’s likely we’ll see the squad continue to give him chances as the year goes on.

    The Asia Tour offered back to back races in the Arabian peninsula to start the month, both of them mostly flat affairs essentially decided in a single stage. Taylor Phinney’s time trial victory in the opening day of the Dubai Tour (an impressive win over Tony Martin, though perhaps less indicative of form than of changing windspeeds between their start times that day) gave him enough of a time gap to hold on for the overall through the end of the race; Marcel Kittel nabbed all three other stage victories with dominant sprints. It’s a good sign for the young German, who had a disappointing trip to Australia last month. In the subsequent Tour of Qatar, Niki Terpstra jumped ahead of the peloton on a crosswind-heavy first stage and hung on at the top for the rest of the week. His team dominated the Tour, with FIVE of their riders finishing in the top 10. The performance of one of those riders made a strong statement, especially after his frustrating, injury-riddled 2013: Tom Boonen nabbed two stage wins, 3rd overall, and the points classification in Qatar. It’s a good sign he’s back on track, though the Pro Continental level Tour of Qatar, in which main rival Fabian Cancellara was mostly just picking up some training miles, is not Paris-Roubaix. We’ll see if this form holds. Lotto-Belisol also had a fine Tour, with Andre Greipel nabbing a stage win and Jurgen Roelandts picking up 3rd overall. Arnaud Demare, looking to make a name for himself in the classics this year, took a fine stage victory on the final day. Perhaps a little more under-the-radar, Aidis Kruopis of Orica-GreenEdge and Sam Bennett of NetApp-Endura both had strong performances with a number of high placings at stage finishes.

    On the Europe Tour, the four races of Vuelta a Mallorca went to Sacha Modolo, Sacha Modolo again, Michal Kwiatkowski, and Gianni Meersman. Francisco Ventoso and Francesco Gavazzi also had nice visits to the Spanish island, which is always a good place for all-rounders with fast finishes to show their stuff.

    On a less positive note, Giacomo Nizzolo suffered a broken collarbone in a training crash this week and will likely be out for several weeks. Here’s hoping he makes a full recovery in time for some of the later classics of the year.

    In other news, it’s been ten years since the death of Il Pirata, Tour de France and Giro d’Italia winner Marco Pantani, who stood on multiple Grand Tour podiums and won over a dozen Grand Tour stages in his colorful career before his untimely death. So many riders at the top of today’s peloton were teenagers when Pantani won his yellow jersey, and his famously aggressive style made a big impact on many of them. His well-documented usage of various substances is a reminder of a low point for the sport, but while time can only tell whether those same problems still live on, watch many of today’s elite climbers vaunt out of the saddle on an all-out attack up an Alpine slope and you’ll see Pantani’s athletic influence alive and well.

    The Tour Mediterranean heads into the mountains this weekend. Not long after, the Tour of Oman kicks off in Suwayq and the Volta ao Algarve begins in Faro, Portugal. Only a few more weeks of Continental level racing remain before the spring’s biggest races. Keep an eye out for more at VeloHuman, and be ready for a March (and beyond) full of previews.

    -Dane Cash

    Photo by Mark Swallow.

  • Tour Down Under 2014 Post-race Impressions: Big Names Battle for the Year’s First Big Win

    BehindCadel

    Recapping 2014’s First WorldTour Race

    When the season is in high gear I’ll only be recapping the bigger races or the blocks of bigger races (ie., the Ardennes week), but there are over thirty WorldTour-less days ahead and the six day race that finished in Adelaide on Sunday is more than worthy of some analysis. As such, I’ve compiled a few takeaways from the big January event.

    Any sort of retrospective on the Tour Down Under that aims to draw conclusions with meaningful predictive power ought to make a clear disclaimer before offering any emphatic endorsements of this rider or that for the new year: due to its position on the calendar, more than a month before the next race at the highest level of the sport, the Tour Down Under is not always a reliable test of rider form for a new season. Cameron Meyer, who won the 2011 edition, and Tom-Jelte Slagter, winner of the 2013 TDU, proceeded to have anonymous seasons after their bright victories in Australia to start the season. Simon Gerrans, on the other hand, went on to nab his first career Monument classic victory after he won the 2012 edition of the race. In other words, perhaps the top form exhibited again by Gerrans this week is a sign of future success (and he is targeting Milano-San Remo again this year), or perhaps it is a poor indicator of probable form months from now: the point is simply that one ought to be careful drawing too many conclusions from this race.

    The Narrative, and Takeaways from the Race

    Caveats made, on with the analysis. The GC-leading quartet of Simon Gerrans, Cadel Evans, Diego Ulissi, and Richie Porte were all particularly impressive in their 2014 WorldTour debuts. Only one second separated 1st and 2nd place, and only ten seconds separated 1st and 4th; all four won stages. Gerrans was a big favorite coming into the race (tipped by yours truly to win), and the other three were also included in VeloHuman’s pre-race top 10, so it can’t be said that there was all that much surprising at the very top of the General Classification. For what it’s worth, Gerrans looked on top form and displayed his trademark versatility, climbing with the best and sprinting for every possible second; should he maintain that form into the spring, the rest of the peloton had better watch out. Said versatility nabbed him the bonus seconds necessary to get the tiniest of legs up on Cadel Evans for the overall victory. Evans and Richie Porte both put in strong performances showing their own high level of form. Both are targeting later season Grand Tour success, and this certainly looks to have been a fine start; Porte looks to be aiming for success at the Giro this year, and after seeing potential main Giro Nairo Quintana take an emphatic win in the Tour de San Luis this week, the Sky rider will be happy to have had some success of his own in the meantime.

    PorteWinning

    Of the foursome that quickly become the group of real contenders in this race, Diego Ulissi stands out to me as the rider whose performance is most worthy of a place in any analysis of this race’s “takeaways.” In 2011, the Italian put himself on the map with a Giro stage win, and he went on to pick up a number of smaller Italian races over the next year or so. Last year, he appeared to reach another level with a good showing in Paris-Nice and a stage win in the Tour of Poland before a hot October that saw him nab three Italian one-day race victories, including prestigious semi-classic Milano-Torino. However, so many of his successes have come either against weaker competition or at just one step below the highest level of the sport–and while his combination of explosive climbing and fast finishing have marked him out as one to watch, but he’s also disappeared on some of the larger stages. When he was not lighting up the Italian semi-classics, he was a DNF in the World Championship race and an also-ran at Il Lombardia. In the 2014 Tour Down Under, however, he went up against some of the sport’s very best and consistently performed at the elite level. He blew past Evans and Gerrans in Stage 2 after timing his sprint perfectly, and held onto his high place all the way through to the end, managing his podium spot with a total of four top 5 finishes in Australia, and it is that day-in, day-out consistency that he has been lacking. After this, I know I’ll be more confident tipping Ulissi to hold his own for more than a flash of brilliance in future races.

    24 year old Nathan Haas proved to be perhaps the biggest surprise of the race. Although he won the 2011 Japan Cup Cycle Road Race with his impressive finishing kick and claimed 2nd in the 2012 Tour of Britain to Jonathan Tiernan-Locke, Haas has not had many chances to shine at the WorldTour level against the biggest names around. Not until this past week, at least. When pain from a pre-race injury proved to be the end of GC hopes for Rohan Dennis, Garmin-Sharp didn’t miss a beat, and Nathan Haas stepped right up to the plate. While he’s obviously showed ability in the past, I think it’s safe to say that not many people expected him to finish in the top 20 of every stage in the Tour Down Under, including a second place finish at the head of the bunch sprint behind Cadel Evans on stage 3. His consistent performance landed him 5th overall in the Tour. It will be interesting to see if Garmin quickly gives him another opportunity to follow up on his stellar trip home to Australia. Hopefully, we will have a chance to watch Haas building on this week again soon.

    Geraint Thomas wasn’t really a surprise in the top 10, but it was nice to see him climbing at such a high level. As I said in the initial preview, I feel that much is said about Geraint Thomas despite a general lack of data, but his 8th place here, only a few seconds behind proven climber Robert Gesink, is another positive showing, especially given the fact the Sky was clearly riding for Richie Porte in this race. Daryl Impey, as well, wasn’t a big surprise in the top 10, but to land in that company while also riding in such successful support for Simon Gerrans is no small feat–Impey has really put together a fine last twelve months, and Orica-GreenEdge has surely taken note. Look to see Impey feature more as the main man for the Australian squad in races to come this year.

    Though his legend has grown as he has built an amazing streak of consecutive Grand Tour appearances, Adam Hansen has only claimed a few major successes in his career (most notably, a Giro stage last year). However, the Australian nabbed the King of the Mountains jersey and a spot in the top 10 overall in the Tour Down Under with a noteworthy combination of the aggressive style necessary to pick up mountain points in a break and the endurance necessary to hang on in the bunch after being swept back into the peloton. His Lotto-Belisol squad, so often a sprint-first team, has got to be pleased with the showing, and they must be looking forward to the next race knowing that Hansen has what it takes to stay out front for the long haul, proudly displaying the Lotto-Belisol logo.

    Speaking of Lotto-Belisol and sprints, there wasn’t really any question of competition in the two flat days at this year’s TDU. Andre Greipel blew away his opponents, and he did it largely thanks to his dominant leadout train. In stage 4, his leadout man Jurgen Roelandts was so strong that he finished 2nd behind Greipel himself and ahead of the designated sprinters of every other team in the race. Greipel’s stage 6 leadout was similarly impressive; from the moment he kicked it was clear the Gorilla would claim the day. Coming into the race, the sprints in this Tour looked to be a battle royale between Marcel Kittel and Andre Greipel, but Kittel was anonymous throughout the week, his only success in Australia a victory at the warm-up prelude, the People’s Choice Classic. At age 31, Greipel is still riding high, and his leadout only gets better with time.

    Astana and Movistar both failed to land any of their very talented squads in the top 10, which must be a letdown for both teams; Francesco Gavazzi and Javier Moreno both started well only to be left in the dust when Cadel Evans forced serious selection on stage 3. Trek’s Frank Schleck also had a rather forgettable trip to Adelaide, unable to hang on when the going got tough. That Katusha’s squad of unknowns could place a man in the top 10 (chapeau to Egor Silin, by the way!) must not sit well with any of those teams.

    Fortunately, everyone gets another shot at glory relatively soon, as, even with a fair bit of time until the next big race, the 2014 season is officially underway. The Tour Down Under gave us a first glimpse at many of the big names in the pro peloton and the early classics should be a good opportunity for guys like Simon Gerrans and Diego Ulissi to show of continued form. Don’t forget about races like the Volta ao Algarve and the Tour Méditerranéen Cycliste Professionnel during the month and a half long drought before the next WorldTour race, Paris-Nice.

    -Dane Cash

    Photos by Kym Della-Torre.

  • Tour Down Under 2014 Preview

    Nuriootpa

    Lifting the Curtain on the 2014 WorldTour

    The long offseason break is finally coming to an end. The WorldTour peloton is getting clipped back in at the 2014 Santos Tour Down Under this Tuesday in Nuriootpa (and a sizeable group is also gearing up for the Tour de San Luis in Argentina instead). While the cyclocross season draws to its conclusion in the frigid Northern Hemisphere, the WorldTour kicks off under the hot Australian sun. Since we last watched the biggest names in the sport hunting for success on the road, the cycling world has seen a few changes, as it does every year. Some big names have moved to new teams. A few new faces will make appearances at the highest level, where others have hung up the proverbial cleats. Vacansoleil and Euskaltel will be conspicuously absent from the roads Down Under, their long tenures in the pro ranks now complete. Meanwhile, Europcar has been elevated to the top level, guaranteeing that we’ll be seeing a lot more of the French squad. After so many dull days waiting for the next event, the ever popular Tour Down Under will finally offer the year’s first in-competition look at the 2014 WorldTour peloton.

    The six-stage race has gotten hillier and hillier over the past few years; there was a time when star sprinter Andre Greipel could win the General Classification (he did, twice), but that time is probably past. While there are no real mountains along the road to the finish line in Adelaide, there are several steep climbs that will force selection before the week is done.

    All-rounder Roundup

    With almost two months until the next race on the WorldTour calendar, the Tour Down Under is always a race full of uncertainty–it’s hard to tell who is on form this early in the season. Only a handful of competitions have been held thus far in the year, leaving little data worth utilizing for prediction. Fortunately, a number of the race’s biggest stars just engaged in a clash of Aussie Titans at the Australian National Championship title last week. The collection of high profile names didn’t disappoint: unsurprisingly, at the end of the day it was Simon Gerrans, Cadel Evans, and Richie Porte vying for the finish line. Gerrans, whose burst has nabbed him so many wins over his career, was easily the fastest man to the line, leaving elder statesman Cadel Evans to settle for runner-up and Porte in third. Fresh off their perfomances in Nationals, the trio of Aussie riders are all numbered among the favorites for this week’s Tour Down Under, with new champion Gerrans at the head of the line.

    Even had he not just shown his current condition, Gerrans would have the make up to be considered a major contender in this race. Not only has he won it twice already, in 2006 and 2012, but the race suits him more and more these days as short, steep climbs are injected to add excitement to the contest. The former Milan-San Remo winner has explosiveness in spades, and we’re sure to see it on Corkscrew Hill in stage 3 and Old Willunga Hill in stage 5. Having demonstrated his form, Gerrans is the man to beat in his home tour, and it doesn’t hurt that he’ll have some of Oz’s finest pros backing him. He can rely on the likes of Daryl Impey and Simon Clarke as stellar support (or second choices if need be) when the going gets tough.

    TDU2012S1

    Cadel Evans, for one, won’t be going down without a fight. He still feels he has a lot left in the tank and he’ll want to use this opportunity to prove it. He may not have the punch of Gerrans, but he’s no slouch for quick speed, he’s clearly in form, and he’ll have a nice supporting cast with last year’s 5th place finisher in this event, Ben Hermans, at his side. Richie Porte, meanwhile, heads into 2014 with the loftiest ambitions of his career, setting his sights on a Grand Tour victory and hoping to claim a spot among the sport’s top stage racers. Grand Tour season is a long way off, but Porte looked good at Nationals. He doesn’t have the explosiveness or finishing move of his aforementioned compatriots, but he’s a determined contender, and he’s also quite a bit younger. Sky also has Geraint Thomas, 3rd in last year’s edition, as a second card to play, though the bumps in the road may not quite suit his skillset; still he’s a multi-talented, aggressive rider who has shown a knack for success here,and his fast finish could be vital in a race for bonus seconds. Bernie Eisel and Ian Stannard are along for support as well.

    Rohan Dennis might have been another high finisher in last weeks Australian Nationals, but he caught a bit of misfortune in the run-up to the race, crashing while time trialing. The incident did not leave him seriously injured, but it did cause him a fair bit of pain from which he is still recovering. The young all-rounder from Garmin-Sharp pulled out of the champs race but has had more time to recover since then, and he showed a very versatile array of skills in 2013. Depending on how well he has healed up, Dennis could pose a major challenge to his more established countrymen in the GC competition–he was 5th in the 2012 edition when he was just 21 years old, and he’s shown serious improvement on all levels of his game since then.

    However, a second round of Australian Nationals this race is not; it’s a WorldTour competition, and it draws serious world-class, international talent. There will be plenty of challengers, familiar and not-so-familiar, hungry to pick up the first big race of the year far from home. Last year’s winner Tom-Jelte Slagter will be absent from the startline, so a repeat victory is not in the cards for him. His former team Belkin sends one of its top talents to pick up the slack in Robert Gesink. An up-and-down 2013 ended on a rather high note when Gesink redeemed his lackluster Giro d’Italia with a surprise win in Quebec, a top 10 in Lombardy and another top 10 in the Tour of Beijing. He showed a greatly improved finishing kick in his late season success, and with Jack Bobridge (the 5th place finisher in last week’s Nationals) and two other Aussies as well as workhorse Stef Clement for backup, Gesink could be a force to be reckoned with.

    Few teams are coming to this race as stacked as Movistar, which is probably a sentence that can apply to most of their races these days. The Tour Down Under squad, however, does not include the team’s two biggest names, Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde. Instead, the group is composed of a bevy of versatile riders hungry for a chance at glory while their more well-known teammates are elsewhere. For the rest of the year, Javier Moreno will likely ride in support of said teammates, but January in Australia is the time and place for Javier Moreno to make his mark on the WorldTour. He was runner-up and King of the Mountains in the 2013 edition and 8th the year before that, and he’ll have a powerful team backing him. I’m not sure I see him standing atop the podium, but another top 10 finish seems attainable. JJ Rojas may focus more on nabbing single stages, but it’s possible that he might aim for GC as well. Giovanni Visconti could have been another strong option in this race, but he unfortunately suffered a broken leg this weekend and will be sidelined for weeks while he recovers.

    I see Jan Bakelants, riding at the head of new team Omega Pharma-Quick Step, as one of the most dangerous challengers in this race. 6th here in 2012, Bakelants really came into his own in 2013, with a stage win in the Tour de France, top 10s in the Eneco Tour and the Tour of Beijing, and a one day victory at the Grand Prix de Wallonie. In all of these events, he earned his success with strong climbing ability and a fast finish, which, as has already been mentioned, will be necessary to challenge for GC here. Also boasting top-shelf climbing punch and a fast finish, and also coming off a career year, Lampre’s Diego Ulissi is the other non-Aussie I consider among the most likely contenders in this race. Ulissi does have a habit of disappearing in big races (late last year he was a non-factor through most of the Vuelta, in the World Championship Road Race, and in Il Lombardia, while claiming a string of fantastic victories in one-day Italian races during the very same time period), but he’s shown elite talent. Having proven himself as a force to be reckoned with last year, he’ll be the guy for Lampre in this and many other races this year, and it will be interesting to see how he handles the spotlight.

    Astana is another team full of talented riders who will have a rare chance to be more than domestiques. Enrico Gasparotto, Andriy Grivko, Francesco Gavazzi, and Lieuwe Westra are all capable contenders. Gasparotto in particular has quietly established himself as a rider to watch on the punchy climbs, and Grivko finished last year with high placings in the World Championship Race and the Eneco Tour thanks to a similar skillset. Only Orica-GreenEdge can rival Astana in terms of the number of viable GC contenders at the Tour Down Under.

    To name a few others: Saxo-Tinkoff’s Rory Sutherland, Lotto Belisol’s Jurgen Roelandts, Giant-Shimano’s Simon Geschke, AG2R’s Maxime Bouet, Cannondale’s up-and-comer from New Zealand George Bennett, FDJ’s Jussi Veikkanen and Kenny Elissonde, and, of course, Trek’s Frank Schleck, back to racing after his doping suspension–there’s no telling what sort of form he’s on, but the podium finisher in the 2011 Tour de France is obviously a strong candidate for GC if he has his legs. That’s the story behind most of these predictions really; fortunately, the wait to find out what state our contenders are in is almost over.

    Stagehunters

    The opportunities for sprinters may be lessened in recent editions of this race, but that hasn’t stopped two of the world’s big three pure sprinters from making the trip. Andre Greipel has had a great deal of success in his many trips Down Under, and his always-effective leadout train is with him, but they’ll have their hands full against Marcel Kittel and his own supporting cast. Stages 4 and 6, with flat run-ins to the finish, are the most likely to see their battle royale.

    Other fast men hoping to pick up stage wins include Elia Viviani of Cannondale, the JJs Rojas and Lobato of Movistar, the Van Poppel brothers on their new team, Trek Factory Racing, Michael Matthews and Matthew Goss of Orica-GreenEdge, Andrew Fenn and Mark Renshaw of OPQS, Garmin-Sharp’s Steele von Hoff, Lampre’s Roberto Ferrari, and Caleb Ewan of UniSA-Australia, to name a few. Given the importance of explosiveness in the Tour Down Under GC battle, many of those mentioned as ochre jersey hopefuls could just as easily vie for stage victories.

    Uncertainty is the name of the game in the Santos Tour Down Under, guaranteeing surprises every year (Tom-Jelte Slagter was certainly a surprise winner in 2013). As the curtain opens on the 2014 season, we can expect the unexpected in Australia–while the many big names in attendance are sure to deliver fireworks, this race tends to bring new names to the fore as well, and what better way to start a new year than with new faces looking to make their mark at the sport’s highest level.

    VeloHuman Predictions

    General Classification Winner

    Simon Gerrans

    GC Podium

    Richie Porte, Jan Bakelants

    GC Top 10

    Diego Ulissi, Cadel Evans, Javier Moreno, Robert Gesink, Enrico Gasparotto, Rohan Dennis, Geraint Thomas

    -Dane Cash

    Photos by Daniel Lang and Anthony Cramp.

  • The 2014 Season Has Arrived

    It’s been radio silence for a little while here at VeloHuman during the offseason as we got some recovery time in while the riders did the same. With the Tour Down Under (and a Tour de San Luis with a very impressive field) just days away, it’s time to get back into regular season mode. You can expect the WorldTour race outlooks to be coming strong as ever in 2014 to go with some changes to our look and even a foray into social media.

    Looking forward to seeing you more! Stay tuned for the imminent TDU preview and much more in 2014.

    -Dane Cash

  • 2012-2013 Rider Ranking Data

    Yesterday, I offered some perspective on riders I thought made strides this season (just scroll down a bit if you haven’t read my thoughts yet). Much of that analysis was driven by my own observations, but I did a fair bit of data work to add a level of comprehensiveness that I would not have otherwise achieved. I work a lot with data analysis at my day job, and I couldn’t help myself when I started thinking about tools I might use to analyze rider performance! I figured I might as well share that data with anyone who is interested.

    I took Cycling Quotient’s top 200 riders and gathered various ranking data on them, namely: rider name, birthdate, nationality, 2013 team, 2012 CQ rank and points, 2013 CQ rank and points, 2012 UCI rank and points, and 2013 UCI rank and points. I calculated the changes in rank and points for both systems, and also the absolute values of points changes for both systems, and ended up with a table that was sortable based on many different factors. For those of you who are also bored and starving for cycling info this offseason, I hope my work will offer some solace!

    Here is the file, for download at your convenience:

    2012-2013 CQ and WorldTour Ranking Data

    If you know your way around Excel, you can sort and filter this info to your heart’s content. Want to examine the top-ranked British riders under the age of 28? Open in Excel, go to the data tab and apply filters, filter date of birth and nationality as you like, sort on CQ rank (or WorldTour rank if that’s what you’re looking for) and voila! I found sorting on absolute value of points deltas to be quite enlightening in terms of visualizing which riders saw the most emphatic changes from 2012 to 2013. Here are the top 25 biggest swings in CQ points out of that list of 200 in a handy bar chart from Datawrapper:

    25 Biggest Swings in CQ Points out of Top 200

    You can visualize all kinds of info if you know what you’re doing. And no matter how you feel about the UCI WorldTour system, the WT points swings you’ll see in the file actually do a pretty darn good job of tracking rider performance at the highest level from one year to the next; one of Cycling Quotient’s most valuable features is that it assigns a meticulously plotted points value to every pro (and national/world championship) race on the calendar. Thusly, young up-and-comers who have a lot of success on lower circuits make their way onto the CQ radar well before they make their way onto the world stage. At the same time, this means that it can be a bit harder to use CQ ranking to visualize which riders made big statements with top-level victories, which is essentially the point of the WorldTour ranking system. However, don’t forget the Pro Continental riders do not score WT points, meaning that those who rode for Europcar in 2013 will be absent from the WT rankings, etc.

    Some interesting top-level tidbits: how amazing was Chris Froome’s 2013? Even after a very successful 2012, Froome raised the bar to an unprecedented degree with his 2013. Meanwhile, nobody came close to Froome’s compatriot Bradley Wiggins in terms of sheer dropoff in results. Joaquim Rodriguez is an interesting case: even with another Monument victory, 2nd place at the World Champs, a podium finish in the Tour, and a host of other successes leading to his second straight WT number 1, he saw a pretty steep points decline on both the CQ and WT scale. The data also remind us that despite a Tour filled with interview focused on his apparent demise, Mark Cavendish still had one heck of a season; don’t forget his 5 Giro victories on route to that race’s points classification victory. And for a final note, remember that this list includes those riders in Cycling Quotient’s top 200 for the year: that means that one of the biggest performance drop-offs of the season isn’t reflected anywhere, because Ryder Hesjedal is not one of CQ’s top 200 this year!

    I hope my data compiling allows you to crystalize your own opinions about rider performance trends. And don’t get too down if you’re an Edvald Boasson Hagen or Simon Gerrans fan: remember how big an impact injury can have on a rider’s performance in any given year. And with that, I’ll leave you to your analysis! Enjoy.

    -Dane Cash

    Rider data from cqranking.com and uciprotour.com, data visualization from datawrapper.de.