by Anna Magrath | Jul 8, 2013
As the riders have a well earned day off after a tough week and the two gruelling days in the Pyrenees we take a look at some interesting figures compiled by our partners at RoadCyclingUK.
Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas fractured his hip on the first stage of the 2013 Tour de France but has refused to quit.
Such displays of courage are the norm for professional cycling, despite the unimaginable challenge of racing for three weeks.
Do the stars of other sports have it easy by comparison, and reap greater rewards?
When Andy Murray stepped on to Centre Court at Wimbledon, he was playing for a £1.6m pay cheque. If Chris Froome wins the Tour de France, he will collect €450,000.
Thomas tweeted recently on the £23,000 prize money given to players who exit Wimbledon after the first round, joking that his girlfriend should attend the local tennis court.
We compare the prize money offered to the riders of the Tour de France and the players at Wimbledon, it’s certainly an eye opener.
by Anna Magrath | Jul 4, 2013
The Tour de France has a long and colourful history dating back to the first race in 1903.
The 2013 race is the 100th edition of La Grande Boucle and, by the time the peloton reaches Paris on Sunday July 21, the Tour will have covered 383,053km in total.
That’s just one of the facts plucked from the latest infographic: the history of the Tour de France in numbers, created for Cycling Shorts by RoadCyclingUK.
by Anna Magrath | Jul 2, 2013
Our friends at RoadCyclingUK are partnering with Cycling Shorts during the Tour de France to bring you a series of infographics about the legendary race. Today we are looking at race favourite Chris Froome of Team Sky.
by Anna Magrath | Jul 1, 2013
Our friends at RoadCyclingUK are partnering with Cycling Shorts during the Tour de France to bring you a series of infographics about the legendary race. Here’s number 2 in the series.
by Anna Magrath | Jun 29, 2013
Our partners at RoadCyclingUK are bringing Cycling Shorts a series of infographics to provide you with stats and morsels of facts throughout the 100th edition of the Tour de France.
Here’s the first in the series looking at the tour stage by stage:
by Anna Magrath | May 13, 2013
To coincide with the early mountain stages, Multipower Sportsfood, the sports nutrition partner of the Giro d’Italia, have provided Cycling Shorts with a series of four technical, nutritional and physiological infographics depicting the challenges undertaken when competing in the mountains.
This is the forth and final in the series of four.
Rest days have been a part of the Giro since its inaugural edition in 1909. Back then, riders would ride one stage and then have two, sometimes three, days between the next stage. It’s not hard to see why: in 1909, the average length of the eight stages was 306 kilometres, as opposed to 162 kilometres across 21 stages in 2013.
This year’s Giro will have two rest days – the first after stage nine, the second follows stage 15. Two rest days have been customary in the race since 2002, although as recently as 1998, the Giro was held without a single day off across the three weeks.
Although riders will not be racing on the rest days, they will still ride their bikes for one or two hours. This prevents muscle stiffness and will help flesh out metabolic waste from the previous day’s stage. In recent years, some teams have opted to ride on their turbo trainers as opposed to heading out onto the road.
Riders will continue to eat foods high in carbohydrates and proteins on rest days, although some teams in the past have been known to give their riders a treat if the final rest day falls after the last decisive stage on the general classification. Burger and chips is a favourite within the Garmin-Sharp team.
Throughout the three weeks of competition (3-26 May) Multipower Sportsfood, is also offering cycle fans the chance to get their hands on a variety of prizes in an easy to enter daily prediction competition. Prizes include signed race jerseys, Giro d’Italia drinks bottles and the ultimate prize of a Cannondale Pro Cycling Super Six EVO Team Edition professional race bike worth £6,499.
To take part in the competition entrants simply need to visit the Multipower website, www.multipower.com/uk/giro , and vote for their stage favourite before the 10km to go marker.
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