London has pulled out of the Grand Depart of the 2017 TdF: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/34385718

Welcome to Yorkshire apparently lost a million despite the huge success of last year's start with tourists,fans and organisers. They hope to balance the books later this year: http://m.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/...kshire_losses/

Team Sky have finalised their 2016 line-up:
http://www.teamsky.com/teamsky/home/...hgvSPEbi9Gw.97

A third UK Grand Depart in 11 years would have been too much, but for TfL to pull out after winning the damn bid is disgraceful. They shouldn't have bid for it in the first place.

Probably puts the kaibosh on any other British bids until they've forgotten about this, maybe 10 or 15 years tme

MTN-Qhubeka wll become Team Dimension Data next year. Furthermore, Deloitte have signed up as a sponsor, which cleared the way for the team to sign Cav up (yes, it's official now).

........and Renshaw and Eisel !

I suppose they're bound to get Grand Tour invites but I wonder if they intend to look for a world tour spot if one becomes available, which seems to happen most years

hopefully Cav will come back, but maybe not.

Having been "the man" for so many years, he found KIttel and Greipel just a bit too hot in the last 2 years.

This happened to all the top sprinters - Zabel, McEwan etc 2 of the most recent.

They'd need a much bigger team and budget, to be a World Tour team you basically have to be able to field three different teams at once.

EQS have reportedly signed Cavendish's sprint replacement: Marcel Kittel.

Also, they have gained a new sponsor, the German budget supermarket giant, Lidl : http://velonews.competitor.com/2015/...h-etixx_386833

Hopefully, we will see more of him next season than this.

Dimension Data are applying for a WorldTour licence. If the UCI award one to them for next year, then it means Cav will remain a WT rider for the tenth season in succession.

There is a spare spot on the World Tour as there were only 17 teams this year and I haven't heard of any other teams wanting to step up so I guess it's a formality if they apply and meet the conditions

Plus I imagine the UCI is desperate to get an African based team in the top echelon in pursuance of their aim of making it a world sport

Meanwhile......

Women's road racing hikes up a gear next season with the inaugural Women's World Tour comprising 17 events. Two of them will be in Britain - the Aviva Women's Tour of Britain and the RideLondon one day race

Multiple paralympic medallist Dame Sarah Storey is putting together a British professional team based around her current semi-pro team. The team, to be called Podium Ambition will be almost 100% British......Katie Archibald and Joanna Rowsell have already signed up and Story will continue to ride. With doubts over the future of some current women's teams, including Laura Trott's, there should be a possibility of signing some other big names

As far as I'm concerned the whole women's sport depends on getting some live coverage on TV.........if it's not on TV it might as well not be happening and those 30 minute highlights a month after the event are a waste of time. I don't know how they solve this one as nobody wants to show live women's cycling

It's a strong field for the Milan-Turin one day race which is on Eurosport this afternoon

Aru, Landa, Bardet, Pozzovivo, Pinot, Modolo, Cunego, Martin, Moreno, Majka, Schleck amongst others

Sky are sending a strong team with Kiryienka, Porte, 2 x Henao, Konig, Nieve, Poels and Boswell

Re-drawn route again this year fot the last classic. The Ghisallo and Sormano are back in Il Lombardia profile.

The good news is they are back-to-back (c. 1200m ascent). The bad news is the race schedule shows the 50 mins of climbing starting between 1:30-1:50pm on Sunday: Eurosport coverage starts 2:30pm (probably opening with a few minutes of race depart highlights). If the decisive selection is on the biggest climb... . But there are fifty lumpy kilometres to the finish line to chase down any break.

There were problems with Sormano in the previous years where the narrow, tree covered climb had to rely upon a couple of fixed camera points. The road up is not wide enough for support cars (or motorbike overtaking as per the San Sebastian final climb).

The official website is a little ropey with broken links and no updates from 2014.
http://www.gazzetta.it/Speciali/Giro.../?lang=en&t=01
https://twitter.com/Il_Lombardia

Confirmation of the early release of Kittel from Giant Alpecin: http://teamgiantalpecin.com/team-gia...marcel-kittel/


http://www.marcelkittel.de/en/

Presumably the impact of Tom Dumoulin's La Vuelta success on the team's ambitions.

But what does this mean for his hair?

Presumably obliged to use Lidl's caffiene-free own brand from now on. Would his sprint dominance end if Cavendish's daughter crops it in retaliation?

Good to see German sponsors and teams growing in the peloton. With domestic TV coverage restarting and a proposed TdF grand depart in Dusseldorf (now London has withdrawn) it looks like they have finally gotten over Jan Ulrich's deceit.

I don't think that's ttrue. Certainly events in this country get good coverage, though the Tour of Britain isn't shown live. What they need to do with the Tour of Britain is make it a tour of the whole country and not just one part of it.

Having womens races before the final stages of grand tours works well for TV coverage too. Womens races seem to be more open and that creates excitement. One thing I don't agree with about the format this season, is that many of the races were treated as if they were stage races on a grand tour. Cyclists didn't have to win to improve their position for the season.

Lombardia is on the Ghisallo/Sornamo climbs. Small group of notable riders off the front. Astana setting the pace for the pack. Coverage on ES scheduled at 2:30pm after Almaty highlights.

Vincenzo Nibali claims victory and joins an elite club of riders to have won all three Grand Tours and a Monument. After a poor Tour and getting himself disqualified from the Vuelta, he has ended his WorldTour season in the best way possible.

Despite a podium finish by Pinot, Belgium holds on to 5th place in the WT and earns 5 berths for the men's Olympic road race.

A full list of berths for the Olympic cycling disciplines is available on Wiki.

Interesting course, complete change from last year that went through the old walled citadel with a fast descent into the finish. ES coverage started early and showed the whole of the steep narrow half of the Sornamo. Will the organisers stick with the same route next year?

Kwiatkowski again did not last the distance but Wellens was not the best partner and Astana, especially Landa, were fully committed for Nibali. Two of Sky's future riders animating a large part of the televised race. The support motobikes still have not changed their ways, pushing through narrow gaps and getting in the way.

Final WT table has 35 & 36 year old Spaniards at the top. Rodriguez pulled out of today's race after clipping his leg on a roadside post during a training ride yesterday. Valverde finished just off the podium: http://www.procyclingstats.com/ranki...0_04_WorldTour

oh..........that's good.

Adam and Simon Yates in 35th and 36th places with only Froome and Thomas above them amongst the British riders

Given that they're around 7 years younger it bodes well for a couple of British stars going forwards.........

The UCI say eight of the seventeen races will have live TV coverage http://www.uci.ch/womens-cycling/uci...ampaign=buffer

thanks.........that's interesting

hopefully some of it will be on Eurosport as opposed to just national broadcasters .............they did cover the Women's races La Course and the Madrid one

It would be good if there was live coverage of one of the stage races

Team GB sending pretty much the full A team to the Track Euros in Switzerland next week. With all the World Cups being in far-flung places, this will be an important Olympics qualifying opportunity. It's all going to be live on Eurosport for the first time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/34444322