Welcome to Spoke Too Soon!
With each passing season, I’ve become increasingly entangled in the world of professional cycling. It’s a sport of competing and contrasting factors; brutal and beautiful, accessible and arcane, a sport which can be competed across weeks at a time, but ends in a high-speed blur.
I’ve called this Spoke Too Soon because the winner of a bike race is so often decided in the final millisecond, or through the final throngs of a week-long or three-week stage race. Whether the result of crashes, mechanical bad luck or individual brilliance, you are so often left surprised by the endings which the sport produces (just Google the 2020 Tour De France for a taster of what I mean).
As an introduction to the sport, take a look at the below tracking shot from Anna van der Breggen’s superb victory at the 2020 UCI Road World Championships in Imola, Italy. The Dutchwoman’s flash of excellence was plain to see in the midst of stunning scenery. Plus, it just looks cool, doesn’t it.
In short, it has a bit of everything, and Spoke Too Soon will provide sporadic thoughts on the pro peloton, as well as taking the time to decode some of the sport’s less accessible components. So - hopefully there will be something for everyone. Whether you’re a seasoned rouleur yourself, or you cautiously dip into the Grand Tours every year.
Disclaimer; cycling is also an undeniably strange sport, full of tradition and historical quirks, as well as an occasionally prickly fanbase.
Hope you enjoy!
Peloton: The main group of cyclists in any race. Also a nifty home-cycling solution.
Rouleur: A racing cyclist considered to be a stylish and effective all-rounder. They climb, they sprint, they do a bit of everything.
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