Riding a bike for 60 minutes doesn’t sound like the hardest thing in the world, but trying to cover 55km will push the Tour de France winner to the limit.
As Olympic cyclist Sarah Storey faces the greatest challenge of her career, she can draw on recent findings that the mental state for coping with extreme fatigue is more achievable than we thought.
Cyclists on the North Essendon Board Track, early 1950s.
Courtesy Leon Sims.
Australian cycling seems in great shape these days, with good crowd numbers at the elite races and championship events, and a new media broadcast deal by Cycling Australia set to boost coverage and public…
Paul Dimeo, University of Stirling and April Henning, National Development and Research Institutes
The Gran Fondo New York bicycle race is the biggest mass-participation event of its kind in the state, a 100-mile run between Manhattan and Bear Mountain. In May 2012 the organisers introduced drug testing…
First 5 winners of the Austral Wheel Race (1887-1891)
Cycling in Australia centres around the Austral Wheel Race, and no other wheeling event in the world is so rich in traditions. It is an oft-told tale now, this of the Austral, as it has been repeated each…
The dust has settled now on the 2014 Tour de France, with Vincenzo Nibali’s well-deserved win, the French resurgence and the other race jerseys and classifications awarded. The 2014 Tour should probably…
The final dash to the line in a Tour de France sprint finish may appear to the bystander to be a mess of bodies trying to cram into the width of a road, but there is a high degree of strategy involved…
The race remains world cycling’s crown jewel, despite the doping scandals.
EPA/ Kim Ludbrook
July in France means tourists, sunflowers, Bastille Day and the running of the national bicycle race. The Tour is one of the most recognisable symbols of France in the global imagination. But it is an…
Gearing up takes brains, brawn and tech.
EPA/Nicolas Bouvy
The Tour de France is one of the most iconic and physically demanding sporting events in the world. Held annually since 1903, it has evolved from a simple test of endurance and speed to a festival of technology…
We’ve heard about high-profile dopers, such as ex-pro cyclist Tyler Hamilton, but the cheating culture in cycling goes deeper.
Luis Tejido/AAP
“Integrity” is currently the buzzword around Australian sport policy-making. An integrity in sport forum, co-convened by the Sport Australia Hall of Fame (SOHAF) and Victoria University in Melbourne this…
Tour De France winner Cadel Evans is arguably Victoria’s best known cyclist – so why does the second smallest state in Australia produce so many champions?
AAP/Mal Fairclough
Victorian cyclists have achieved amazing success on the national and international stage, as I outlined last week. Victorian riders were the first Australians to compete in, win and wear the most prized…
Blink and you’ll miss the subtle changes we’ve made to bikes of late.
thelearningcurvedotca
Even though spoked wheels and pneumatic tyres were invented in the 1880s, bicycle design hasn’t really changed a great deal in the time since – at least, at face value. However, look closer and around…
Wherever we look there seems to be amazing feats of physical, mental and skilled endeavour in sport. Cycling is often cited as one of the most elite and the climax of the Tour of Britain yesterday saw…
For perfect pedalling, it’s important to do the rounds.
Nicolas Bouvy/EPA
Professional cyclists, such as those riding in this year’s Tour de France, have repeated the same circular pedalling action countless times. But does this mean they’ve developed a more effective pedalling…
Having legs with the right type of muscle fibre can make all the difference.
Yoan Valat/EPA
Cyclists in this year’s Tour de France – currently underway – will cover more than 3,300km over 21 stages in 23 days. Of course, due to the extreme physical exertion required to do this at speed, many…
Bradley Wiggins, Cadel Evans, Mark Cavendish, Philippe Gilbert, Tejay van Garderen, Chris Froome and Alberto Contador in front of the map for the ‘cleanest tour ever’. But have attitudes towards doping in cycling changed in the past year?
EPA
The historic 100th edition of the Tour de France, kicking off tomorrow in Porto-Vecchio, Corsica, is being heralded by many as the cleanest Tour ever. This year’s Tour favourite, Britain’s Chris Froome…
Confessed doper Matt White (second from right) has been reinstated as sports director of cycling ‘clean team’ Orica-GreenEdge. But is this a conflict of interest?
AAP
The official reinstatement of confessed doper Matt White as sports director of Australian World Tour pro-cycling team Orica-GreenEdge passed with surprisingly little media or public scrutiny last week…
Armstrong managed to “control the narrative” in the past … but what about now?
anonymousview
By using performance-enhancing drugs, even before he was diagnosed with cancer, it would appear Lance Armstrong was obsessed with becoming and staying a winner early on. Indeed, in his two-part interview…
Lance Armstrong should reveal the dirty business of being a professional athlete.
EPA/Elizabeth Kreutz
What I want from Lance Armstrong is the unabridged and brutal truth. It’s very simple. I want to know why he doped. Unlike other commentators, I am hoping Armstrong avoids mea culpa and throwing himself…
Doping allegations were made against Matt White before he started working for Cycling Australia.
AAP
It has become clear over the past two weeks that Lance Armstrong ran the most well-managed and professional doping system ever seen in professional sport. So how did he get away with it for so long? Questions…