Leave a comment Posted on by entendered cycling, podcast, The Unofficial Unsanctioned Women's UCI Cycling Show, women's cycling

Podcast 2017 Episode 23 – The Humblebrag Episode

Look, we do understand that not all weeks can be huge weeks of racing, but honestly this week was definitely a HUGE week of racing. We had stage racing at the BeNe Ladies Tour in the Netherlands and Belgium. We also had the Lotto Thuringen Ladies Tour in East Germany. With races suiting different types of riders and different types of racing there was no shortage of surprises and feats of phenomenal prowess to be impressed by. All of that before we get into the high mountains for the Col d’Izoard and La Course by Le Tour de France. We also quickly cover some Canadian racing and talk about a couple of other news items from the week. (1:03:46 MIN / 58.39 MB)

You can get automated updates via our RSS feed here, or via the iTunes store here.

Don’t forget to watch the thing (not a stage two) – La Course Race! Details here.

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4 Comments Posted on by Sarah Connolly cycling, Live cycling, women's cycling

Watch the 2017 La Course by Le Tour de France LIVE!

Thursday 20th July

Saturday 22nd July

After the stage races, the Women’s WorldTour is back to day races, and not exactly a Classic, more of a hill climb, with La Course by Le Tour de France – and on Saturday, a Pursuit day for the winners of the WWT race, which is a whole new format.

The WorldTour race is on Thursday, and it starts at 10:00 European CEST (9am UK BST, 4am North American EDT and 6pm Australian AEST). It will be a fantastic showcase for the climbers, a short 67km run up the famous Col d’Izoard, before the men take it on later that day.

The top 20 finishers, or all those within 5 minutes, depending which number is smaller, will race the Pursuit, on the men’s TdF ITT course, on Saturday.  This will start at 13:00 CEST (midday UK BST, 7am EDT, 9pm AEST).  This doesn’t have any UCI points, but will be interesting as it’s a new format, with the riders starting at the same time intervals they finished on Izoard – so if a rider finished 1:30 behind winner Annemiek van Vleuten, she starts the Pursuit 1:30 after AvV – and the first rider across the finish line wins.  You can find the startlist here:

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5 Comments Posted on by Sarah Connolly cycling, podcast, Sarah Interviews..., women's cycling

Sarah interviews… Marianne Vos, on healing, 2017 goals and her most memorable Giro moments

Marianne Vos‘ life in cycling just keeps on as a roller coaster.  After a well documented bad couple of years with injury and recovery issues, she had a fantastic cyclocross season, but narrowly missed out on winning the 2017 CX World Championships, after an ill-timed chain slip, then had a frustrating Classics season.   She was back on top, winning Gooik in incredible style, and came second behind her team-mate Kasia Niewiadoma in Stage 1 of the OVO Energy Women’s Tour… but then crashed in Stage 3, breaking her collarbone, forcing her to miss some huge goals, the Dutch National Championships and the Giro Rosa.

This week she returns to racing at the BeNe Ladies Tour, and she told me all about how her recovery has gone, and what it was like, watching the team she owns, WM3 Procycling, win the OVO Energy Women’s Tour, and struggle in the Giro.

We also talked about some of her most memorable Giro Rosa moments, and what it’s like to deal with some of the race’s frustrations, with advice for wannabe Giro winners on how to approach it.  I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I did.

 

You can also get automated, free updates via our RSS feed here, or via our iTunes store page here.

You can find out more about Marianne Vos on her website, and follow her on her twitter, instagram and facebook.

The BeNe Ladies Tour runs from 13th-16th July, and there’s a lot of information on the race website, and facebook, and we can follow on their twitter and the #BNLT17 hashtag.

We talked about some incredible Giro Rosa moments – click through the stage links for lots more videos and links to how the stages went down.

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Leave a comment Posted on by entendered cycling, podcast, The Unofficial Unsanctioned Women's UCI Cycling Show, women's cycling

Podcast 2017 Episode 22 – Giro Rosa WrapUp – With Top Quality Evil

The Giro Rosa has finished for 2017 but we’re far from done with it. With great racing every day, it’s perhaps best summed up by Neal Rogers talking about Lucinda Brand when he said: “Only thing more badass than “no one in the photo”? No one in the photo with blood trickling down your arm”. Sarah and Dan recap the biggest stage race on the calendar and all of the highs and lows the second week of racing brought us. After that they continue with the overview on the Tour de Feminin in Poland before wrapping up with some quick results in other disciplines and a glimpse of the calendar ahead, and in 2018. (1:00:00 MIN / 54.94 MB)

You can also get automated, free updates via our RSS feed here, or via our iTunes store page here.

This week’s women’s cycling links and videos

The Giro Rosa

The biggest women’s cycling stage race, the only women’s Grand Tour. Catch up with our podcast about stages 1-6, including links to the posts of each stage’s videos, photos and media. And for the rest of the race:

If you want to find out a bit more about some of the people who make the media that help us follow the race, Sarah’s podcast interviews with Rose Manley, who makes the videos on the UCI YouTube, and with Vélofocus, aka Sean Robinson and Balint Hamvas, who take the amazing photos.

And here’s the Neal Rogers tweet about Lucinda Brand’s stage win:

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The Tour de Féminin

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Leave a comment Posted on by Sarah Connolly cycling, women's cycling

2017 Giro Rosa Stage 10 – the last chance! Videos, photos, media and more

The final stage of the 2017 Giro Rosa, and the last chance for General Classification hopefuls to take aim at Anna van der Breggen, and for everyone else to go for that final moment of glory.  Nine flat-ish laps, and a stage final going up then don Mount Vesuvius, before screaming into the finish.

It was pretty much non-stop attacks, especially from the sprinters, who hoped that if they could get enough room, they could hit the top of Vesuvius before the climbers overwhelmed them, and still be in with a chance.  And of course, all kinds of riders were making moves.  Boels-Dolmans were ready for everything the rest could throw at them…. but would it be enough?

As aways, I’ll add in more videos as I see them – and remember, I’ll be talking about the Giro at Look Mum No Hands! in London on 19th July – please do join me, if you can.

Ever wondered how the UCI highlights videos are made? Listen to Rose Manley talk about her amazing work, in this podcast-interview.

If you are in Italy, or have a VPN, please do watch the highlights on RAI – but if not….

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Leave a comment Posted on by Sarah Connolly cycling, women's cycling

2017 Giro Rosa Stage 9 – videos, media, more

With Anna van der Breggen holding the maglia rosa since Stage 2, the chances to take it from her were ticking down, and not only were Boels-Dolmans so strong, but Stage 9 looked pretty much a sprinters’ stage – if the sprinters could get up onto the plateau.

Those first climbs split everything up, with all the big sprinting names dropped, it seemed – and we never heard if they came back.  A trio of Lauren Kitchen, Anna Trevisi and Malgorzata Jasinska escaped but they didn’t have much of a lead – just over a minute at 10km, but the peloton were charging….

 

I’ll add in more videos as I see them – and remember, I’ll be talking about the Giro at Look Mum No Hands! in London on 19th July – please do join me, if you can.

Ever wondered how the UCI highlights videos are made? Listen to Rose Manley talk about her amazing work, in this podcast-interview.

If you are in Italy, or have a VPN, please do watch the highlights on RAI – but if not….

And of course, we’re all still thinking of Claudia Cretti, who crashed on Stage 7, and is still in a very serious condition.

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Leave a comment Posted on by Sarah Connolly cycling, women's cycling

2017 Giro Rosa Stage 8 – the Queen Stage – videos, photos, media, more

Stage 8 was called the Queen Stage of this year’s Giro Rosa, which might look odd, as it only had a Cat 2 climb.  But each year the Giro likes to vary the race, so we have editions full of Mountain Top Finishes, some with famous climbs followed by huge descents, and some, like this, without as many mountains.

But it was still a very tough stage, made harder by another day of burning heat.  Tatiana Riabchenko had attacked and was out solo, chased by Anouska Koster, who was joined by Janneke Ensing, and then Lucinda Brand.  Brand attacked towards the top, and set out to chase down Riabchenko, while behind these chasers, a group with the General Classification leaders attacked each other.

Brand is one of the best descenders in the peloton (remember her amazing descending to win Stage 7 of the 2017 race?) and she caught Riabchenko, but then, in the last 10km, she crashed…  would Riabchenko make it to the finish alone?  Would the chasers catch all the escapees?  It was drama right to the line.

I’ll add in more videos as I see them – and remember, I’ll be talking about the Giro at Look Mum No Hands! in London on 19th July – please do join me, if you can.

Ever wondered how the UCI highlights videos are made? Listen to Rose Manley talk about her amazing work, in this podcast-interview.

If you are in Italy, or have a VPN, please do watch the highlights on RAI – but if not….

Continue reading →