Pushing the Limits – Team Sky’s approach to training Sports Directors

When you’re growing up, everyone wants to be the hero –PM, astronaut, fighter pilot, racing driver – but nothing achieved in any of those roles ever happens without a vast latticework of support. Cycling is not immune; indeed, when Wiggo thrust cycling into the faces of an otherwise unknowing public last July, the nuances of [...]

The Rawlinson Bracket

Competitiveness, an urge to do your best, is within human nature, a part of all of us. But in the drive to further yourself, there are steps that you need to take – only the very few are born with a natural ability at any sport, and even for them there’s time to be spent [...]

Revolution Series from a first-timer’s viewpoint

  Revolution from a first-timer’s viewpoint   Revolution 39 There’s a cliché about velodromes that, if you’re like me and have never been to one before, you’ll have heard a time or two on telly – it’s that the camera cannot show just how steep those banks are. You hear these things and you nod [...]

Lance before the soap Oprah starts

Now this brief interlude – musings on Lance before the soap Oprah starts I’ve been a staunch and vigorous supporter of Lance Armstrong since It’s Not About The Bike came out – I remember hearing sports stars raving about this must-read book, so I read it, and I raved about it too, and I made [...]

Viva La Revolution! – British National Madison Championship & Revolution 39

National Madison Championships and Revolution 39 report. Revolution 39 landed at the National Velodrome at Manchester on Saturday – the National Madison championships made an understated start to proceedings, run during the afternoon before the main event, with a surprisingly sparse crowd privileged to be present to witness some absolutely corking race action, the stadium [...]

Santa’s Little Cycling Helpers 2012

Cycling Shorts unleashes Santa’s (last minute) Little Helpers. We’re up to our eyes in bicycle shaped packages badly wrapped and covered in sticky tape, it’s all got a bit manic, so much to get organised and so little time, so we’ve got together to give you a list of gift ideas that won’t disappoint even [...]

Stranger in the Night – Dipping a Toe into the Dark

Stranger in the night – dipping a toe into the dark There’s a lot of buzz about night riding at the minute – what with the massive national increase in cycling since the summer of Wiggo and the Olympics, participation has skyrocketed both on and off road. With our balmy, breezy summer evenings, cycling through [...]

Bristol Oktoberfest – Better than Munich…

Bristol Oktoberfest – Better than Munich… Aaa, summer. How beautiful while it fleetingly lasts, and how sad to see it go. Still, if there’s one thing to look forward to when the nights grow shorter and the ambient temperature drops, it’s the approach of October, because when the tenth month starts, that means Oktoberfest is [...]

Douze heures de Brizzel

I’ve been on the periphery of groups of people doing endurance mountain bike racing for a few years now, always on the outside looking in. But I finally got the chance to pop my endurance cherry at the Bristol Bikefest in June as part of a 4 man team going for 12 hour glory. Quite [...]

Book Review – Slaying The Badger

  Slaying The Badger LeMond, Hinault and the Greatest Ever Tour de France by Richard Moore I love sport – I love the grand tournament, the big match, the great race. What makes sport great for me is how it exposes personality – not just the obvious, like the braggadocio of a Muhammad Ali, the [...]