Fernando Gaviria Is Cycling's Next Superstar Sprinter

The best Colombian cyclists have long hewed to a single archetype, specializing in climbing high mountains and winning on the harshest and steepest slopes. There have been Colombian rouleurs and sprinters before, but the most successful riders have almost all been pure climbers. Lucho “El Jardinerito” Herrera brought…

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Cyclist Eventually Pulled From Tour Of California After Injuring Himself In Nasty Crash

Latvian pro cyclist Toms Skujiņš was in a breakaway during stage two of the Tour of California today when he crashed and appeared to hit his head. Clearly dazed and wobbly, he struggled to get back to get up and mount his bike. Skujiņš also narrowly missed getting hit by the cyclists behind him flying down the slope…

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21-Year-Old Pro Cyclist Chad Young Not Expected To Recover From Head Injury Sustained In Crash

Chad Young was racing the Tour of the Gila with Axeon-Hagens Berman last Sunday when he fell on a descent while chasing back onto a breakaway. Young was airlifted out to a hospital in Tucson, Ariz., and his team announced that he had suffered a severe head injury. As of Tuesday, Young was in critical condition.

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Pro Cyclist On A Training Ride Beaten Up By Baseball Bat And Knife-Wielding Maniac

Yoann Offredo is an experienced French cyclist, who has raced in the professional peloton since 2006. He spent a decade with FDJ, where he finished in the top ten of a handful of classics and served as a domestique for the team’s stars. He’s racing for Belgian team Wanty Groupe-Gobert and he wrapped up a very…

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Pro Cyclist Michele Scarponi Killed By Car Driver At Age 37

Michele Scarponi was perhaps the most seasoned rider in the professional peloton. The Italian had been racing as an amateur or a professional for almost 30 years, beginning as a domestique on some very good teams, working his way up to Grand Tour heavyweight, and then sacrificing his waning individual ambitions to…

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Cycling's Doping Rules Don't Help Anyone

Team Sky is struggling. The Murdoch-funded cycling behemoth has won three of the past four Tours de France and will probably win this year’s edition of the race as well. The team has started this season well, with Colombian pipsqueak Sergio Henao winning an all-time Paris Nice by two seconds and do-it-all Polish star…

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Cycling Team Derailed By Disintegrating Wheels

Team Sky have spent the past few weeks embroiled in one of the biggest doping controversies the sport has seen since Lance Armstrong, and this morning, their on-road fate has ominously aligned with the team’s image. Sky are usually one of the best team time trial squads out there and they’ve taken TTT’s at multiple…

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Team Sky Is Only Looking Shadier

Team Sky are one of the richest and most successful cycling teams in the world, and they’ve billed themselves as a completely clean cycling team—everybody on the team has to sign an agreement that they’ve never been involved in doping—the sort of squad that shows that riders can win without doping. Sky riders have…

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Glory Boy Cyclist Celebrates Too Early, Loses Race

Australian sprinting wunderkind Caleb Ewan appears to be the real deal, and he was in position to beat out all of the world’s best sprinters this morning at the Abu Dhabi Tour. Instead, he learned a tough lesson about celebrating after you cross the line, not before, when someone can still catch you.

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The Cycling World Is In An Uproar Over A Nasty, Mysterious Injury

The professional cycling peloton is currently wrapping up its preseason at the Abu Dhabi Tour, the last of the Middle East races. The first cobbled classic of the season takes place this weekend, but for now, the best sprinters in the world are enjoying the warm temperatures and flat roads of the United Arab Emirates…

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Good Dog Joins Bike Race, Smokes The Competition

There’s not much I can give in the way of context for this video. The excited announcer is commentating in Italian, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the race was in Italy. There are no races worth filming happening in Italy right now, and also it’s winter, so this grainy footage is probably old.

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Asshole Pro Cyclist Booted From Race After Punching Opponent In The Face

German superstar cyclist Marcel Kittel got his season started off perfectly, winning the first two stages at the Tour of Dubai. He destroyed everyone in the opener, then took Stage 2 with an late comeback. However, Kittel did not win Stage 3 this morning, partially because he got clocked in the face.

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Caleb Ewan Is Ready To Be A Star

The first race of the road cycling season, Australia’s Tour Down Under, tends to be an imprecise predictor of future form for climbers and all-rounders. A rider who is keyed in and prepared to tackle Old Wilunga Hill at the season-opening kangaroo fest (really) will not necessarily be able to carry that form into,…

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Cyclist Takes Nosedive Into A Ravine, Films The Whole Thing

Road cycling season started this week with the Tour Down Under (it’s in Australia, which, duh), and it began without Spanish superstar Joaquim Rodriguez for the first time in 16 years. Rodriguez was waffling on whether or not to ride for Bahrain-Merida, but ultimately decided not to.

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You Can't Fight The Mud Slip N' Slide And Win

The USA Cyclocross National Championships are this week and weekend in Hartford, CT. Hartford is a perfect place to host such an event, since cyclocross races are best when they’re muddy, chaotic messes. The temperature is not supposed to rise much above freezing while this week’s racing is going on, and the course…

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Cycling Mastermind Refuses To Reveal Contents Of Mystery Bag

David Brailsford is the general manager and coach of Team Sky, the British giant that is currently as dominant as the Lance Armstrong-era USPS teams were a decade ago, and he’s got some explaining to do. Team Sky has taken four of the last five Tours de France, all while maintaining a militant anti-doping posture. However, leaked records from cycling’s governing body (the UCI) this summer showed that their two winners, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, each received a series of therapeutic use exemptions that allowed them (primarily Wiggins) to legally use drugs that are normally banned. The practice is not outright illegal, but it’s discordant with Sky’s anti-doping posturing, and it’s led to larger questions about the pharmacological legitimacy of Bradley Wiggins’s time with the team.

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David Brailsford is the general manager and coach of Team Sky, the British giant that is currently as dominant as the Lance Armstrong-era USPS teams were a decade ago, and he’s got some explaining to do. Team Sky has taken four of the last five Tours de France, all while maintaining a militant anti-doping posture. However, leaked records from cycling’s governing body (the UCI) this summer showed that their two winners, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, each received a series of therapeutic use exemptions that allowed them (primarily Wiggins) to legally use drugs that are normally banned. The practice is not outright illegal, but it’s discordant with Sky’s anti-doping posturing, and it’s led to larger questions about the pharmacological legitimacy of Bradley Wiggins’s time with the team.

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