It wasn't on at 8.00 today so I haven't seen it........I was going to give up on it to be honest as per my previous post

I see there's the 2 hour highlight show at noon on SS3.....I suppose I coold 'flick' to the racing and football during the 10 filler sequences.......

Yes I thought it had the makings of a good finish, I stayed up and watched it live.

Luckily I found the satellite feed for it, so didnt have to suffer the ridiculous amount of ad breaks/talking heads Sky put in it

Just to keep the thread ticking over and for reference I thought it might be an idea to 'record' the world tour races, post the winners and updated standings.....

We've just had the first event - the Tour Down Under - a 6 day stage race

Podium

1 Simon Gerrans
2 Cadel Evans
3 Diego Ulissi


UCI Standings after 1 event

1 Simon Gerrans - 114 points
2 Cadel Evans - 88 points
3 Diego Ulissi - 83 points


Team standings after 1 event

1 Orica Greenedge - 145 points
2 BMC - 88 points
3 Sky - 86 points


Next 3 races.....

Paris-Nice - March 9th to 16th
Tirreno-Adriatico - March 12th to 18th
Milan-San Remo - March 23rd

Seems a long way off until the next race, hope I don't forget this !......

This year the Aussies certainly stepped up their game in their home Tour - four of the top five places. Last year there was just Gerrans on the Old Willunga Hill.

Quintana showed he is picking up where he left off last season by just winning the Tour san Luis. Poor budget TV coverage of the race on the web though it attracted bigger names than the TDU. Looking good for the Giro if he and Porte, as expected, ride as team leaders.

Two non-WT races in the dunes next month: Dubai and Qatar.

The 4 wild card teams for the Tour have been announced....

Cofidis, IAM Cycling, Bretagne-Séché Environnement and NetApp-Endura

Cofidis have been in the Tour every year since 1997.

The Breton team have taken the wild card that's been awarded to Europcar for the last few years. Europcar are promoted to World Tour status this year and get an automatic slot, leaving the organisers free to invite another French Pro-Continental team

IAM signed Sylvan Chavanal amongst others (Rolande?) last season to make a wild card invitation a bit of a formality

NetApp-Enduro have acquitted themselves well in the Giro and Vuelta in the last couple of years. The Enduro part was a British team. At first it appeared that they merged with NetApp, but increasingly it looks like they were gobbled up and spat out as there appears to be very little Enduro in the merged set up

Just seen that it's the inaugural running of the Dubai Tour

That means there are now 3 Desert stage races in February with Qatar and Oman following Dubai

The Dubai race is a Time trial and 3 stages.....amongst those taking part are Tony Martin, Cancellara, Dowsett, Cav, Kittel, Sagan, Hushovd

The race is live on Eurosport

Part 4 of the Revolution series at Manchester this Saturday, highlights on BT Sport on Tuesday.

And the French have just opened a new Olympic standard velodrome in Paris, as a national centre for excellence. There are a lot of velodromes in France, but most are those ghastly concrete outdoor ones, like the one where they finish the Paris-Roubaix.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/201...-great-britain

Tour of Dubai starts tomorrow 10:00 Eurosport.

Coverage just starting now......stage one is a 10K time trial in the city

I suppose whoever wins the TT must have a good chance of winning overall ......guess it depends on whether there are bonuses in the sprint finishes

Taylor Phinney won the time trial and wears the leaders blue jersey

Should be a bunch sprint today which could be portentous as I think this probably the season that Cav hands over the baton of 'Top Sprinter' to Kittel ( some would say that happened last season !).....and they face each other for the first time of the year today

Part 4 of the Revolution series, BT Sport 2, 19:30 tonight.

Kittel wins, Cav nowhere.......

One of the commentators mentioned in passing that the Tour of Britain has been upgraded from the 3rd tier to the 2nd tier of races. Maybe they'll get more world tour teams taking part now.

Anyone seen the Alex Gibney film The Armstrong Lie yet? Released last week.

Ignoring the central Story watching the actual cycling close up on the big screen is spectacular.

Not sure this will happen quite yet, i think Cav will prove people wrong again.

He has Renshaw back, thats massive for him, Petaccchi will be very handy for him to, his train was real cack compared to Lotto and Argos last year.

He rode the whole of the Giro last year, that wont be happening this year, he was also on antbiotics for a the first week of the tour which couldn't of helped.


Not trying to make excuses for Cav but these are genuine issues, if he can get to July fit and fresh with a functioning train he will still be the man to beat, no doubt Kittel is a beast though.

Kittel wins all 3 road stages with Cav nowhere to be seen

I know it's early season but it's looking an uphill climb for Cav this season.........

Cavendish and Sagan apparently crashed out in separate incidents before the finale. Not likely they would have made much difference to the outcome by the way Kittel and his team are performing. Will Renshaw and Petacchi's roles be getting Cav on the back of the right train rather than leading him out?

I didn't see Cav crash but Sagan definitely did....he Wiggo'd his bike in disgust...

Not as elegant as Wiggo :http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net...gif?1391863332

Qatar live now - 23km to go: http://bliner.tv/jwstream/bein.html

Wiggins' season is mapped out: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/201...ana?CMP=twt_gu

Cav had some bad luck in this race.. on day 2 he was totally boxed in and had no where to go so had no choice but to sit up
the day after he had a puncture about 600mtrs from the line when he again sat up having no other choice

make no mistake Cav will win his fair share of sprints this season

Had a to go a bit back on the forum to find this !

Just noticed that Eurosport are showing the Tour of Andalucia this week ......it started today with a prologue (I missed it but there's a repeat at 10.15)

There are 4 road stages starting tomorrow and finishing on Sunday

Sky have sent a strong team with Wiggo, porte, kennaugh, Boassen-Hagan. Kiryenka, Thomas and Xandio


Valverde has won the overall for the last 2 years....as far as I know it's not a race that ES have covered before but maybe they've got it to make up for losing the Tour of Oman. I think I'd rather watch the Spanish race.....

todays highlights have moved to 11pm

World Track Cycling Championship next week in Colombia, 26th of feb to 2nd March.

Looks like BBC only showing it live on red button with highlights shows next weekend.

Here's a PDF from the UCI site showing coverage by country:

UCI TV coverage info

Not seen any mention of TV coverage on BBC or British Cycling website unless it's hidden. Shouldn't be surprised, it's like they're not actually that bothered about the mainstream public watching it, I always have to go digging to find info that should be clearly visible or linked to from the home page. Muppets.

Looks like Eurosport are carrying on from where they left off last season with this afternoon's live coverage of 'Andalucia' being dumped in favour of some showjumping.....