December 7, 2013 by Massif Studio - 0 comments

Dear Santa: Bike Books

Christmas is coming. Obviously we are all hoping for a big dump of snow around the 23rd to get us into the festive spirit, and then a week of glorious winter sun between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, so that we can get out on our bikes and feel like we have earned some of that mulled wine and chestnuts on our return. But, on the off chance that the weather is miserable for the whole week, it’s important to get some good books laid down in preparation.

I’ve been dropping fairly unsubtle hints about the cycling books I’d like to receive from friends and relatives for Christmas for a good couple of weeks. Items have been added to public wish-lists, printouts have been casually left lying around the house in prominent locations, and specific instructions have been sent to those excellent souls who know the score by now and have already emailed to ask, ‘Which one this this time?’

I did wade through a bumper crop last year and this year is likely to be no different; though there is not much room left on the heaving bookshelves of the Jersey Pocket HQ (AKA our compact Blackheath home). With that in mind this year’s first request will be a set of works that hopefully gives maximum bang for shelf-space buck.

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October 21, 2013 by Massif Studio - 3 Comments

The Off Season (or What the Hell Do We Do Now?)

The absence of competitive road cycling from mid October has not really been a big issue for me in the past. As a kid and then as a teenager I only followed the Tour de France and never even considered the fact that cycling had a wider season which waxed and waned around it. The Tour was everything and everything was the Tour. It was like going on holiday – something that only happened in the Summer and would not even be on the radar in April or September.

A good few years ago, when I finally became aware of the Giro, the Vuelta and the Spring Classics I realised that the Tour was part of something bigger but even then I paid little attention to it in truth. The stars of the day were increasingly focussing on specific races so it was natural that I did too. I consumed my cycling through Channel 4 and ITV rather than through Cycling Weekly or Eurosport so options were pretty limited. From August to May I followed football. In June I watched a bit of cricket. I really didn’t know what I was missing.

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October 17, 2013 by Massif Studio - 0 comments

Foreign Starts – Grand Tours on Tour

With both the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia set to start outside of their own borders next year it seems like a good time to have a look at this increasingly regular phenomenon. In 2014 the Giro will spend three days in Ireland during May, visiting both Belfast and Dublin, before Le Tour comes to Yorkshire, Cambridge and London in July. Whilst the Vuelta tends to be much more of an insular affair – having only started outside of Spain twice in it’s 60 year history – a fifth of all the Giro starts since it’s first foray to San Marino in 1965 have been foreign affairs.
The Tour is an even more international event with over 20 foreign starts dating back as early as 1954 in Amsterdam. This began a sequence of around three Tours each decade commencing in foreign parts up until the Millennium. After that they increased again and Tour De France race director Christian Prudhomme clearly stated his aims in 2007 when he said that 3 out of every 5 Tours should begin abroad. Talk during the Armstrong era of a start on American soil may have failed to materialise because of the very real logistical issues of transferring the entire race and it’s vast entourage across 5 time zones of Atlantic Ocean but the appetite to take the Tour ‘on tour’ is self evident.

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September 16, 2013 by Massif Studio - 1 Comment

The Mavericks – Adam Hansen – Seventh Heaven for Grand Tour Glutton

Lotto Bellisol’s Adam Hansen has just completed his seventh straight Grand Tour. Since late 2011 he has ridden the Giro and the Tour twice each and La Vuelta three times – all without a break. He has covered almost 24,000 Grand Tour kilometres in those 2 years and raced an incredible total of 16,059km over 106 days last year alone. In an era of ever increased targeting of races Hansen is a throwback to the classic years of cycling when even the top contenders rode vast seasons covering all events. In a sport renowned as being one of the toughest on the planet, his insatiable appetite for racing the biggest tests over and over again is earning him numerous fans and a reputation of being the hardest of the hard? The Jersey Pocket looked into what makes Hansen tick and found enough surprises to warrant him a place in ‘The Mavericks’.

Hansen has often been marked out as being a bit different. The fact that 32 year old Australian chooses to live in the Czech Republic rather than in one of the usual pro peloton hangouts like Girona or Nice is often used to highlight a non-conformist nature. Never shy in terms of doing things his way Hansen’s unique personality has been enlivening the peloton since 2007. Following spells at T-Mobile, HTC and Omega Pharma Lotto, ‘Croc-man’ (as he is known to his team mates) joined Lotto-Bellisol for the 2012 season, just after embarking on his Grand Tour Odyssey. He seems to be very settled with the Belgian squad and this contentment is showing in both the relaxed nature of his interviews and the increasingly successful nature of his racing. Whilst his commitment and focus at the sharp end of a race should not be questioned that doesn’t stop Hansen from occaisionally reminding us that he enjoys his job too.