all words by Mike Franchetti
Welcome back to the warped world of What Won’t Happen at the Giro d’Italia. If any of the following events unfold, it’s definitely time to stop watching pro cycling. May 6th – Stage 1: Budapest to Visegrád (195km) | Flat/Hilly 50-year-old Davide Rebellin negotiates his way to a place on Drone Hopper-Androni Giocattoli after offering
Here we go! I haven’t felt Giro fever this much since May 2019. The calendar was chopped up beyond recognition during the COVID-19 pandemic and – possibly due to the comparatively short turnaround – last year’s race just didn’t hit me. Egan Bernal was a brilliant winner. Damiano Caruso and Giacomo Nizzolo were hugely popular
The last few weeks have roared past and we’re already at the Old Lady, Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The Ardennes have been in a losing fight with our favourite cobbled races for as long as I can remember, and the shuffling of both Amstel Gold and Paris-Roubaix only made things harder for the rolling climbs of Wallonia to
It’s 2022, so we know better than to try and predict the spring weather or put our faith in the early official startlists. At the time of writing, we know Flanders is going to be cold. Possibly not as cold as earlier in the week – but still pretty chilly. The wind should be moderate
Ahead of the 2016 season, I named Strade Bianche as one of “the best races you might not be watching” alongside De Branbantse Pijl (still always awesome) and, erm, the Arctic Race of Norway (can’t win them all). In the years that have followed, Strade Bianche has undisputedly become a blockbuster day on the calendar.
Nine years ago I became a cycling super-superfan, and shortly after Just Pro Cycling was born. I had been a pro cycling fan for much longer, but it was around 2013 that things got a little silly. Two-thousand word Tour of Qatar reviews kind-of-silly. I remember pausing a Qatar sprint to see the exact moment
In an Olympic year, the most awkwardly placed race on the pro calendar gets a little more awkward. This isn’t necessarily a problem; San Sebastián is well-equipped to attract a smorgasbord of riders with fresh legs, tired legs, and quite possibly oh-dear-what-happened-to-my-legs. But do you really want to have thousands of Tour miles in
The 2021 Tour de France was so good that it was actually pretty dull. Some moments were so perfect that they were actually almost boring. There were so many heroes that we began hoping to unearth a villain. The best four riders in the world all won at least one stage. All four of them
Just Pro Cycling 