London Fixed-gear and Single-speed

The teams for the 2013 WorldTour as awarded by the UCI today. (via @TourDeJose)

UCI #1's Joaquim Rodriguez Oliver's team Katusha’s application was denied. They were also denied a ProContinental license. That request goes back to licensing committee (!)

The WT-peloton 2013 is:

The Netherlands
Rabo/white label Blanco pro cycling team
Vacansoleil-DCM
Argos-Shimano

USA
BMC Racing Team
Garmin-Sharp

Belgium
Omega Pharma-Quick Step
Lotto-Belisol

France
FDJ
Ag2R-la Mondiale

Spain
Team Movistar
Euskaltel

Italy
Lampre-Merida
Cannondale

Australia
Orica-Greenedge

Kazachstan
Astana

Denmark
Saxo-Tinkoff

Great Britain
Team SKY

Luxembourg
Radioshack-Nissan-Trek

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/how-...vent-the-sport

"An awful lot of people out there who have heard of Bradley Wiggins, who have heard of Mark Cavendish but if you asked them to provide you with a lucid explanation of who's the best at what they struggled to explain it to you. The whole sport needs to simplify itself. The message is too complicated right now. "

Really?

so what's up with Katusha not making the cut?

UCI has still to explain, no reason given. They judge all teams by sportive, financial, administrative en ethical criteria. Curious as to which one they failed to meet and how.

no europcar, its not the same without tiny tommy voeckler

europcar were a pro conti team. hopefully they still get an invite for the tdf, or have they folded? tommy v is a legend.

I reckon Katusha failed the ethical part, with their recent drug results.

Remains to be seen whether Rodriguez will jump ship. He finished top of the UCI rankings and made the podium in 2 GTs, now he has to rely on wild card entries to ride the Giro et al.

[editLooks like Purito will jump ship, although who can afford him/have space left on their rosters for him. Cannondale? There seems to be a gap there with the departure of Nibali

good piece on inrng about turning professional cycling into a format all non-interested people will understand: http://inrng.com/2012/12/world-series-cycling-plans/

Subbed.
Can't wait for things to kick off, bored.

I think they just weren't put in.

Katusha out but Saxobank in?

Fucked up, surely?

Katusha are kicking off big time: top rider for the year and second in the team ranking, and they're outside the top 15? They may not score very highly on the 'ethical' factor but they're no worse than say Astana or Saxo. Must be politically motivated, or financially (Saxo greased the right palm) and it will go to the Court of Arbitration

Riis has got nine lives all right. Admitted to doping during his riding career, Hamilton accused Riis of introducing him to Fuentes, his top rider failing a drugs test and Saxo failing to acrew any/many UCI ranking points. Yet he still escapes sanction, has no trouble attracting sponsors and gets a World Tour license.

I'd imagine Katusha's non-invite has got something to do with Makarov being a rival to McQuaid/Verbruggen ?

Anyone seeing shades of Hinault Lemond in 86, when The Badger was supposed to be helping Lemond win the Tour, after Lemond had rode himself into the ground the year previously, but he put him through the wringer whilst doing so, in Wiggins statement that he wants to defend his tour title next year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012...de-france-2013

Will it be a case of Wiggins helping Froome, if he's good/strong enough? Rather than the unqualified help of an experienced 2nd in command?

Football fans will give you the incomes of every player on their team, how many minutes before each goal was scored, the number of hookers their team's manager bedded last season, the torque delivered by their star striker's sportscar and any number of other pointless figures.

I really think cycling fans are doing ok.

Good to see Wiggle as a title sponsor for the Honda ladies team with Laura Trott et al. on board.

As I understand it, Sky agree objectives for each rider at the start of the season and stick with that plan as much as they can.

Personally, if I was Dave Brailsford, I'd tell Froome he needs to win some stage races before I was confident in his ability to win the Tour as he needs to show the team that he can cope with the pressure of leadership and expectation.

Good shout. Although he would have been faigued at the Vuelta I thought he and Sky made a right pig's ear of it tactically, certainly compared to the execution at the Tour. Obviously Froome isn't solely to blame, but I do remember that idiotic stage that ended on a race circuit when he did multiple turns at the front to deliver Swift to the line. They almost split the field but didn't manage and got swamped at the end, and Degenkolb took the win. It was amateur hour really. Froome needs to show he can lead a team and make good decisions on the road.

I think a very strong showing in Tour de Suisse or Dauphine would show if Froome is a top 3 for Tour!

Froome was def fatigued, but even fresher doubt he could of done much about Contador who was on fire!

On fire, or on the good shit?

hope the tests will prove it was only fire, because I enjoyed that kind of racing very much...

further discussion on other things than fire >> doping thread?

meanwhile, everything cosy at team Sky? I'm getting the feeling their two top guns absolutely hate each other...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/oth...de-France.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/oth...is-Froome.html

Wasn't discussing it, just making a joke/insinuation about it.

And that's the problem with dopers: they're great to watch

Perhaps that should be in the doping thread....

All good in the hood I think. Not the first time a team has had two leaders, and if one of them crashes out early Sky have a plan B, unlike they did in 2011. The fact there's some needle between them is just added spice, more interesting then watching their missus' exchange blows on Twitter anyway. Lemond/Hinault, Roche/Visentini anyone?

^ OK!

'The Stork' presenting Blanco-Giant's team kit:

not bad at all, considering it must have been knocked up on someone's lunchtime

In no particular order.

Contador won by being the cleverest not the strongest.

The Blanco team bike is sweet, but the kit is awful.

Jonathan Price is a fat prick who seems to know nothing about cycling.

Wiggins and Froome hate each other, which should give us some good stories this year.

I quite like a strip, reminds me of Inter Milan in the 90s

Swifty just tweeted this pic. That's a whole mess of Pinarellos

Meh. Grupetto rip off.

https://twitter.com/swiftybswift/sta...33081947295744

In other Sky news: Wiggins describes his challenge for the season, wants to win both the TdF & Gd'I

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/13...ur-double.aspx

I think I am right in saying Wiggins did not mention Froome at all last night on SPOTY. Admittedly he did not mention any team mate by name but the fact that it was a British one-two might have been worth noting. Not that Froome is any more British than Zola Budd, of course.

I would prefer to see Aon, AIG, Samsung, Siemens or another globab corporation with huge resources bunging big money at the spoprt and women's racing in particular.

No disrespect to Wiggle, who are doing something others are not, but for women's cycling to catch up and potentially overtake men's, big money sponsors should be being courted.

Cue objections to multi nationals.

management put the spoty back into his cage

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/oth...o-dItalia.html

Ballan fucked up and Nissan run not walk away from RSNT

UCI... Gerard Vroomen spot on again; "This makes no sense"

http://gerard.cc/2012/12/21/second-tier-ethics/

No IAM Cycling either.

Kimmage gets stuck into Wigginss and Sky now.. Oh dear..

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/kimm...ky-and-wiggins

Cav in new attire, http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/cave...-quickstep-kit
looking forward to seeing how they manage with Cav and Boonen...

Like that it's got his twitter account on it.
Cool that.

World champ bands are spoiled by sponsor though

Also Sky:
http://road.cc/content/news/72596-fi...y-jersey-video
bit bland IMO, wanted to see some pink in there.

Surely he's missing the point that although the tactics are the same, the numbers they're putting out are much lower.

Looking back to his chunky best. He's going to suffer in the Tour de San Luis.

Well RCS can certainly do transparency; press officer tweets pic of Giro wildcard voting results

Love that. The writing seems to be on the wall for Katusha. Wonder if they'll make it to any GT. Presumably Rodriguez will jump ship as well

Can't see them getting into a GC. Inrng is usually pretty spot-on with these things and seems to think they're fucked.

J-Rod will be off elsewhere hopefully. He can't win the Tour because there are no time bonuses but he will make summit finishes more exciting and pick up a stage or three.

11 summit finishes in the Vuelta this year! That will suit him

Strong comments from Nicole Cooke. I wonder who she was talking about?