- Posted by Richard Abraham
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Holding a cycle race in Azerbaijan, away from cycling's traditional European heartland, is typical of the sport's globalisation, both natural and engineered.
Azerbaijan is a country with money to spend and a point to prove. Yet for all the brand new roads and veloparks, there is one thing that money can't buy: a cycling heritage.
In a place where some of the assumptions and things we take for granted about bike racing in Europe are less obvious, one man who knows about the challenges of working in a brand new bike race is Marty McDonald. Here in Azerbaijan to address the crowds at the start and finish line, explaining bike racing to a new audience can be an unusual task.
"You're literally trying to educate them about bike racing, so you have to take yourself completely out of where you are normally as a commentator," he says. "If you're working now in the UK the crowds know who Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish are, they've seen the Olympics. Here they have never seen a bike race, so you have to explain what it is.
"You can see their eyes light up as they build that atmosphere and build the race. It's quite a special experience."
Although you might not have heard the name, McDonald will sounds familiar to fans of cycling in the UK. His older brother, Anthony McCrossan, is a regular commentator on British TV and at races across the world and the pair's voices sound almost identical.
"I dropped my surname and work as Marty McDonald," he explains. "It gives me my own identity in a way, but people that know me and my brother know that we're very different people. I'm the middle one, and younger than Anthony, so I was a born show-off I think!"
McDonald has built up a CV of covering exotic bike races, having this year commentated and addressed at the Tour of Langkawi (in Malaysia) and the Tour of Turkey before arriving in Azerbaijan.
"I like to work on new and emerging races," he says. "You're developing something new rather than being compared to something that someone else has done. For me to come and work at races like this is really interesting."
In many respects the Tour of Azerbaijan like a typical European bike race. It takes a five-day format with a mix of stages over asphalt roads. There is a finish gantry and barriers along the final straight, and riders are presented with jerseys on a podium at the end of each stage. There is a real sense the people behind it want their race to look and feel like a bike race should.
Yet the organisation isn't quite at 100%. Moments before the race rolled out of Baku's new velo park on Thursday morning, officials hastily applied a large ‘Tour d'Azerbaidjan' sticker to the road in front of the race. Later at the finish line, 45 minutes after the podium presentation had finished, a man arrived with his arms full of flowers for the winners.
All the while the landscape through which the race travels is unlike anything in Europe. Local singers emerge out onto the finish line as the race approaches, looking around in bemusement and expectation. Riders from exotic sounding teams sponsored by exotic sounding companies are happy to mill around, without team buses, before a helicopter from the days of the USSR hovers so low over the race that they have to lean on their bikes against its down-draft.
The race may be 90% of what a typical bike race should be but, heritage or no heritage, that missing 10% is what makes it unique. And fun.
"I've never been here before but it's amazing," McDonald adds. "I want to get into travel presenting now. I'm absolutely hooked on these countries!"
Organisers hastily apply a sticker just minutes before the start of stage two
Teams wait in the shade at the Baku velo park
The mountain bike trails at Baku's new velo park
Marty McDonald (aka Martin McCrossan) whips up the crowd in Ismayilli
Local singers in Ismayilli out to see the race. Even if they're not sure how it works
Richard Abraham on Twitter: @rabrahamlincoln
- Posted by Martin Ayres
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Giro d'Italia? What's that? I hear you say. Well, for anyone who has thumbed past page one in the cycling-for-dummies handbook (no, that does not exist) it is the second most famous race in the world, only beaten by a certain Tour de France. But don't tell the Italians that. For Italy, the Giro is the big deal in Pro Cycling. When young Italians are still racing around the garden on stabilizers, it is not the Tour de France they dream of winning.
The first of the Grand Tours each year, the Giro is often as tough, if not tougher than the Tour de France. The sheer peaks of the Dolomites in Northern Italy are the proving ground of the victors of this race, combined with a collection of tough sprint stages where the racing ends up in ‘warp speed', according to the cyclist David Millar. The 2011 version of the race was viewed as one of the toughest Grand Tours ever, thanks to the sheer volume and ferocity of climbing in the mountains.
‘La Corsa Rosa' (literally translated as ‘Pink Route') is held in such high regard that cyclists are often not considered great champions until they are able to add the Giro's very sizeable trophy to their cabinet.
The race's history is similar to that of the Tour de France - 95 editions of the Giro have been held, and the race was originally started, and is still owned, by RCS - owner of La Gazzetta Dello Sport, Italy's leading sports newspaper (much like L'Equipe in France). The pink colour of the leader's jersey reflects the colour of La Gazzetta's paper. I was on the race last year with the team before I started this blog, and I'm looking forward to every second.
Rewind to earlier this year. When asked back to join the team on the road again, excitable was an understatement. Plus, it was rumored that a certain newly appointed knight of the realm was going to contest it. We're going to split the time up a bit this year, so I'll be on the Giro, and then handing over to my best friend, and long time colleague Neil - who was with Team Sky all the way back in 2011, so they'll be in safe hands. I'll be back for the Tour of Britain though!
After counting down the months, weeks, and days, the Giro is finally here. I'm writing this in Naples where the race starts after the small matter of a two thousand-kilometre drive to get here with my equipment for the team's race cars.
It's funny; as soon as I arrived I felt like I had never been away. The mechanics were all in the truck making clinking noises and solemnly nodding with satisfaction every now and then, the rider carer team were buzzing around doing endless kit checks, and Claudio the bus driver was looking very pleased to be in his home country.
The Team Sky camp this morning as riders prepare to go out on a training ride before the first stage of the Giro d'Italia starts in Naples on May 4
I look forward to history lessons about the many Giri that Claudio will have watched over the years, which will be delivered whether I like it or not, I am sure! I just got straight in to checking over the cars before the race after a few smiles and handshakes with some of the team who had been on the races last year. The owner of the hotel even had a classic Jaguar, so I gave that a quick once over too.
Then something quite special happened; a pat on the back, a smile and a nod from our Sir Bradley. "Great to see you again mate!" he exclaimed. I wasn't really sure what to say, or whether I should bring up the fact that since we last saw each other, he had won an Olympic gold medal (his fourth), been knighted, made sports personality of the year, and rocketed to become one of the nation's most loved characters. I figured he was pretty tired of people congratulating him, so we just had a chat about the race ahead and it being nice to be back with the team.
Not a bad place to work, this.
Follow Martin on Twitter: @teamsky_jaguar
Martin Ayres has worked at Jaguar for over twelve years, and once again joins Team Sky as their performance engineer during the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta á Éspaña in 2013. Having not ridden a bike for over 20 years, Martin is a recent convert to the sport after his experiences with the Team in 2012 - including during their historic winning campaign for the Tour de France.
- Posted by James Golding
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Hi, my name is James Golding, you may know me, you may of heard of me, you may of ridden with me or you might not know me at all but on November 13th 2008 my life changed for ever.
Since then I've had cancer, septicemia, peritonitis, dropped from 14 to 6 stone had less than 5% chance of survival, I've had to relearn how to walk & ride a bike, I've been hit by a truck, ridden 3500 miles across America (averaging 145miles a day), been diagnosed with cancer again, had more chemotherapy, radiotherapy & surgery, had a little boy that I was told would never happen (Well my fiancé, Louise did) and we've raised nearly £2,000,000.00 for charity. Now I'm planning and training to break two cycling world records over the next 18 months.
The first is the Seven Day Cycling record of 1546 miles in seven days that's officially stood since 1940, the second is the Round The World record of 18,000 miles (around the world) in under 100 days which currently stands at 105 days.
I've got so much that I'd love to talk about and could go on for ever but I've been told to keep it short. So for the first blog I thought I'd introduce myself and try to save the rest for later or we could be here a while.
As this is the first one I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone that has supported me in so many ways over the last few years and for the comments following some of the recent press since our launch, all that we have achieved wouldn't have been possible without you and we wouldn't be making the plans we are now.
I'm going to be blogging on a regular basis, sharing the progress, the stuff on my mind, training, nutrition, the people, the team and maybe some of the kit we're using. But for now it's about spending the next 10 days riding the roads of Portugal (which aren't to be under estimated) to see where we're at, we know where we've been and we know where we want to get to.
Ride For A Reason - One Step At A Time.
Thanks again, James.
>>>>Read about James's story here>>>>
Read Cycling Weekly magazine on the day of release where ever you are in the world International digital edition, UK digital edition. And if you like us, rate us!
- Posted by Robert Garbutt, Editor
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As much as I hate to tempt fate, 2013 is already shaping up to be Sky's best ever season.
Classics campaign aside, the boys in black (and blue) haven't put a pedal wrong, with Chris Froome and Richie Porte sweeping all before them in stage races.
Well almost. There's the small matter of Froome's second place in Tirreno-Adriatico, but with victories in the Tour of Oman, Critérium International and now the Tour of Romandy, he's already matched Bradley Wiggins's pre-Tour de France success rate from last year.
With the Dauphiné still on Froome's 2013 schedule, who's going to bet against him matching Wiggins's achievements of the last couple of seasons to make it a hat-trick for Brits in this prestigious French race?
In any other team Froome would be the undisputed Tour de France leader but on the eve of the Giro d'Italia there's increasing speculation of Sir Bradley going for the double. He's always said he'll ride both, but will he really be going to the Tour to support Froome? Quite possibly not.
Racing wise, Wiggins has had a particularly quiet build-up to the Giro, an indication that he wants to save something back for the Tour and not ride as a glorified domestique. We're heading for a big bust-up, but having two Brits going head-to-head for Tour glory isn't a bad problem for UK fans.
This article was first published in the May 2 issue of Cycling Weekly. Read Cycling Weekly magazine on the day of release where ever you are in the world International digital edition, UK digital edition. And if you like us, rate us!
- Posted by Richard Abraham
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Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, can be a difficult city to get your head around. Look one way and facing you will be a tall, Parisian style boulevard. Look over your shoulder and you'll see a cluster of Soviet era apartment blocks. To your left will be a crumbling town house from the time of the Russian Empire, and on the right will be an ultra-modern swooping building of glass and steel.
One of the last things you expect to see, standing on the finish line of the first stage of the Tour of Azerbaijan outside Baku's imposing brand new cultural centre, is a Dulwich Paragon jersey.
"I've raced at Hillingdon and Redbridge and the Gravesend CycloPark: lots of crit races," explains Elnur Mammadli, who moved back to his hometown of Baku five months ago from a job in a bike shop in London. "Now I work for the Azerbaijan Cycling Federation. I'm the head of the tech and my job is to supply race ready bikes to the junior riders here."
The Tour of Azerbaijan continues for four more days, heading west into the country before returning to the capital on the shores of the Caspian on Sunday. Mammadli was at the race to help the new Synergy-Baku team which, much like the capital of the country in which it is registered, is an unexpected mix.
Managing the project is David McQuaid (son of Pat) while the team's directeur sportif and mentor to the team's young Azerbaijani riders is recently retired British pro, Jeremy Hunt. The team also sports British rider Dave Clarke, Namibian journeyman Dan Craven, and Irish riders young and old, David McCann and Connor McConvey.
The goal of the team is to put an Azerbaijani on the start line of the 2016 Olympic Games road race. It got a small step closer to that goal on Wednesday, where it won the opening stage of its home race, a 157km circuit race around Baku, thanks to its young German sprinter Christoph Schweizer. "It all worked out perfectly," said a taciturn Hunt after the race.
The Azerbaijan government, backed up by vast oil wealth, is spending heavily on sport and spectacle. Its two bids for the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games may have failed, but Baku hosted the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest and will stage the inaugural European Games in 2015.
"This race is very good for Azerbaijan internationally," summarised a young fan, playing truant from school to watch the race. "But it's not very good for the traffic."
Riders roll out from the start of the opening stage at the Tour of Azerbaijan
Dulwich Paragon, Baku Branch. Elmur Mammadli in front of the imposing cultural centre, start and finish of the opening stage
The race podium and the Baku skyline
Stage winner Christoph Schweizer meets one of his Azerbaijani fans
- 30 April 13:
- Dr. Hutch: love cycling
- 26 April 13:
- Motivating yourself to train hard: Dame Sarah Storey blog
- Dr. Hutch: the fitness regime
- 25 April 13:
- Blown away by the Cyclone
- 17 April 13:
- Dr Hutch: Impressing non-cyclists