62nd Royal Smilde Olympia ‘s Tour starts on May 12
The opening day of the 62nd edition of the Dutch oldest bike race, Royal Smilde Olympia ‘s Tour is fast approaching. On May 12 in North Holland Hoofddorp the prologue will be held. After spanning several regions and over 850 miles the stage race will finish on May 17, also in Hoofddorp [five days later]. The final field and track can be found below.
Roadmaps of the 62nd Royal Smilde Olympia’s Tour:
May 12: Prologue | Hoofddorp (Ind. Trial ) 3.3 miles
May 13 : Stage 1 | Ulft – Gendringen 114.0 km
May 13 : Stage 2 | Gendringen ( TTT ) 14.7 km
May 14 : Stage 3 | Horn – Horn 170.9 km
May 15: Stage 4 | Zoetermeer – Rijswijk 152.4 km
May 16 : Stage 5 | Reuver – Reuver 208.6 km
May 17 : Stage 5 | Hoofddorp – Hoofddorp 186.4 km The participating teams are:
Rabobank Continental Team ( NED )
National Team Australia ( AUS )
Cycling Team De Rijke ( NED )
Cycling Team Jo Piels ( NED )
Metec – . TKH Continental Cycling Team ( NED )
Koga Cycling Team ( NED )
Dump Baby Cycling Team ( NED )
ParkHotel CT Valkenburg ( NED )
WV Young Rider ( NED )
National Team USA (USA )
National Team Azerbaijan ( AZE )
Riwal Cycling Team ( DEN )
3M Team ( BEL )
An Post – Chain Reaction ( IRL )
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KTM Team ( GBR )
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Jutland Sealand ( DEN )
The organisation of Royal Smilde Olympia’s Tour is proud that this year already the 62nd edition of the round takes place. “After the great winners of the past four years, Taylor Phinney, Jetse Globe and Dylan van Baarle, we are excited by the interest that this unique historic cycling event in the Netherlands is still getting,” said Foundation President Olympia’s – Tour Lex van Drooge. “This year the focus of the field is the young talent. Olympia ‘s Tour is for many a springboard to a professional career and professional young nature of the course remains a priority for the organization. Olympia ‘s Tour would continue to be. Now and in the future for youth.”
During Royal Smilde Olympia’s Tour you can follow the race via the website www.olympiastour.com and on twitter @OlympiaTour . News, short updates and discussion will be posted after each stage.
OLYMPIA ‘S HISTORY TOUR
The first edition of Olympia ‘s Tour took place in 1909, with the start and finish in Amsterdam, and it is the oldest stage race in the Netherlands. Since 1955 the race has been held every year, making it impossible to imagine the Dutch cycling calendar without it. The race is invaluable to enable flow from youth and national riders into international cycling.
Last year’s winner Dylan van Baarle of the Rabobank Continental Team, is now a pro in the U.S. World Tour team Garmin – Sharp. Of the last ten winners eight were professional cyclists: Dylan van Baarle, Jetse Globe, Taylor Phinney, Lars Boom, Tom Veelers, Stef Clement, Thomas Dekker and Joost Posthuma.
Round 1 of the Scottish Cycling National Women’s Road Race Series heads for Glasgow
This Saturday (10th May) over 40 female cyclists will take to the roads of Eaglesham near Glasgow this for the first round of the new Scottish Cycling National Women’s Road Race, sponsored by Dales Cycles.
The historic town of Eaglesham, just to the South of Glasgow, will play host to the first of four rounds of the series with a further three taking place in Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen.
With a combination of new faces to the experienced cyclists such as Delhi Commonwealth Games athlete Jane Barr (Starley Primal Pro Cycling), the first round of the series organised by Glasgow Green Cycling Club (GGCC) is set to be a thrilling days racing.
Riders will complete 8 laps of the 4.25 mile course which has been described as challenging and fast for the first time rider but has an equal amount of ascent and descent for the more experienced racer to tackle.
The series sponsor; Dales Cycles will be in attendance at all events to offer both pre and post-race mechanical support to all entrants. The winners of each event will receive a fabulous custom designed “blue jersey” from Endura.
Lynne Munro, Scottish Cycling’s Head of Development said: “I am delighted to see so many entries for the first round of the Scottish Cycling National Women’s Road Race Series. I have no doubt the Series will help us support and develop women’s cycling in Scotland.”
“Scottish Cycling currently underpins and co-ordinates the organisation of over 644 events a year and we are delighted to be able to include a Women’s Road Racing Series. Scottish Cycling would like to thank Dales Cycles for their support in helping provide more opportunities for women to ride their bikes in a safe, friendly and accessible environment.”
Online entry for round one of the Series in Glasgow is now closed however you can still enter on the day!Also entering could not be easier, just follow the link below, fill in your details and off you go. It’s fast, uncomplicated & with instant email confirmation, you could be looking forward to racing on the road. Thrashing the opposition or simply testing your mettle in your first real race.
Well a farmer from Israel has done just that. Gilad Wolf was looking for a way to make the ride and manoeuvrability better for his wheelchair and decided the part of the chair that had been overlooked and makes the use of wheelchairs so frustrating were the wheels.
The SoftWheel has a rim containing three shock absorbing cylinders. They suspend the wheel’s hub, evenly distributing the weight along the chair giving the user the ability to easily ascend and descend individual steps, also giving a smooth and fast ride over bumps and reducing injuries caused by wheelchair vibration.
When the concept became reality Gilad marketed the SoftWheel Acrobat for wheelchair users but this got him thinking about other applications and it naturally led to looking at the comfort and efficiency of the ride for cyclists. The SoftWheel Fluent was created. Both types of wheels will go on sale at the end of the year, they won’t be cheap (around $2,000) but they will make a huge difference to wheelchair users and to cyclists. It’s said to be compatible with all frames including electric bikes and it can be retrofitted.
It looks like cyclists won’t have the loss of energy that traditional mountain bike suspension gives and the impact will be dampened for a full 360 degrees. It should be ideal for country roads with the traditional UK potholes. Cyclist’s who require a gentler ride for medical reasons might also benefit; for example older riders with arthritis, muscle weakness or reoccurring vibration injuries. It certainly looks an interesting design, we will aim to review it once it’s released.
Marco Pantani Biopic to Launch in UK Cinemas on Friday May 16th
PANTANI: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist, the much-anticipated feature documentary of the cyclist Marco Pantani’s tragic life, is to launch in UK cinemas on Friday 16th May 2014.
The film’s premiere will be held in London on May 13th at Cineworld Haymarket, with special guests in attendance including ITV cycling presenter Ned Boulting, who will be hosting a live question and answer session with the film’s director and producer James Erskine. 200 limited tickets for the premiere are being made available to the public and have been released online at www.pantanifilm.com/premiere today, costing £25.
A special preview screening will also be held in Belfast at the Queen’s Film Theatre on May 8th, the eve of the Giro d’Italia, which this year sets off from the Northern Irish city with a route set to celebrate some of Pantani’s greatest victories in the race, ten years on from his tragic death at the age of 34.
Launching in over 20 cities across the UK, including London, Belfast, Edinburgh, Leeds and Birmingham, PANTANI will be in cinemas from the 16th May – information on showings can be found on the Pantani Film website, and will be regularly updated with new venues. The film will also be released on DVD and Blu-ray on May 26th, and can be pre-ordered on Amazon.
A New Black Films and Media Squared Films production in association with 4 Rights, the work charts the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of Marco Pantani, the cyclist affectionately known as ‘Il Pirata’ for his diminutive, pirate-like image. Born in 1970 to a humble family in Cesanatico in northern Italy, by the late 1990’s Pantani had become the most successful, flamboyant and popular cyclist of his era.
In 1998, Pantani won both the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia – a titanic feat of physical and mental endurance that no rider has repeated since. He was a hero to millions; at the time, the saviour of cycling following the doping scandals, which threatened to destroy the sport. However, less than six years later, he died alone, in a cheap Italian hotel room.
Marco Pantani wearing the yellow jersey after winning the Tour de France in Paris, 1998 – Credit: SVEN SIMON/DPA/Press Association Images
PANTANI: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist explores the startling truth behind one man’s remarkable descent from being amongst the finest athletes on earth to his tragic end in a sport riven by intrigue. Based on two years extensive research and inspired by Matt Rendell’s The Death of Marco Pantani, the film combines scintillating race archive with contemporary news footage, stylised reconstructions, and interviews with Pantani’s friends, family, colleagues, and rivals, including Sir Bradley Wiggins, Evgeni Berzin and Greg LeMond.
PANTANI was made by the successful British partnership behind previous sporting documentaries One Night in Turin and The Battle of the Sexes. Multi-talented writer and director James Erskine also took on production duties together with Victoria Gregory, whose credits include the BAFTA Award-winning Senna and Academy Award-winning Man on Wire.
The Women’s Tour hits Britain for the first time this week, with some of the best international female riders racing for the first time in the UK since the 2012 Olympic Games.
There has been a large amount of media coverage in relation to this and for good reason.
However, anybody who believes that women’s domestic cycling has made a huge move forwards in the UK is sadly mistaken. Yes, there is a Women’s Tour, which offers parity on prize money and conditions with that of the Tour of Britain, but the reality is that, for the moment at least, any woman who races on the UK domestic scene and is not part of the Great Britain performance programme (which is a track-based programme), is highly unlikely to get the opportunity to ride in the likes of the Women’s Tour and La Course by the TDF.
Ultimately, women’s cycling in the UK is still a side show, an afterthought. Despite Brian Cookson setting up a women’s commission at the UCI, there is no such thing within the UK. Whilst some of the greatest female cyclists are arriving in the UK to take part in the inaugural Women’s Tour, the women who race on the domestic scene will quite often find themselves being put with the novice fourth category men, which is an experience that is unlikely to entice the women to come back the following week! There are a few committed people in the cycling scene who disproportionately hard to be inclusive towards women’s participation, however, these are few and far between, and lack key support.
Nobody can deny that the Breeze programme has been a success in so far as it encourages more women to ride bikes. But the Breeze programme is based on participation, not competition, and there is no real pathway to bridge between the two. The strategy as far as competition is concerned is practically non-existent, despite the numbers that British Cycling quote in relation to the increase in licences. Ultimately, women’s competitive cycling in the UK on the domestic scene is an amateur sport, which means that it is run by volunteers. There is no money for “competition” because despite what you read (which can seem like propaganda quite honestly), cycling is run by men ergo the sport will always be seen from a male perspective.
So, what is the way forward?
Well, it is true, there has been progress in the last 12 months, with many more road racing opportunities for women, but these forward-thinking organisers need our help and support. Domestic events are all run by volunteers and everybody who wants to race (whether they are male or female) has to understand that it costs money to put a race on – if a race can’t at a minimum break even, then why should an organiser make a loss?
One problem with the circuit races that seem to be prolific in the UK for women is that they cost very little to run – there is a levy per entry (approximately £4 per rider) and then you have the hire of the circuit (usually between £50 and £150 depending on how long you need the circuit for) and the expenses of the commissaires for attending (usually two at closed circuit) and the first aider, but nothing much besides. This means that you can have five riders in an event and potentially break even.
Road racing, on the other hand, can be expensive – not only do you have the levy per rider, but you then also have first aid, National Escort Group (motorbike marshals), petrol money for all officials who use their cars, for the lead car and neutral service (the cost of which increases the longer the race), as well as the hire of the headquarters. Before you know it, the cost of putting on an event is at £350 and that’s before you add in prize money. So that means that you need at least 25 to 30 riders before you even start to break even.
So please, ladies, if you want to have road races in your region, please give the organisers the support they deserve and enter in advance as often as you can afford to and don’t rely on the ability to turn up and enter on the day (the latter will hopefully become more difficult as racing gets more popular and races fill up in advance). There have been far too many races this season that have been cancelled or nearly cancelled due to lack of rider entries – you need to take some responsibility and enter in advance – our sport is run by volunteers who cannot afford to make a loss, so please enter in good time!
My final point reverts back to the fact that competitive cycling is run, for the most part, by men. Until such time that women start to volunteer in larger numbers, whether that be as race officials or race organisers, and start to make their voices heard by taking their place on the Regional British Cycling Boards, there will be no significant changes. I appreciate that for most people, offering to organise a race or becoming an official can be a daunting task, and I will have more news in the coming weeks for people who want to do just that.
Ultimately, women’s cycling is becoming more popular, we just need to ensure that it continues to grow in the correct way on a domestic level.
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