Monday 30 December 2019

Music for Spinning: My recommendations

Music for Spinning: My recommendations

During Winter we usually have to do spinning or spend some time on our Tacx to be able to maintain our condition during cold times. Of course you can always use some mixes that you can find on internet but what about making your own playlist? I give you some songs that you could include.

1. Alexis Jordan - Hapiness


It's always good to start your training with some feel good music to start with good motivating. I guess there are not many better examples then this one. Optimistic lyrics and an upbeat tempo should give you a good start.

 

2. Duke Dumont ft. A*M*E - Need U (100 %)


Now that we started our session with a good mood, we continue on a higher tempo with Duke Dumont. He's an artist that I can recommend you in general for spinning sessions. 

3. Evanescence - Bring me to live


Time to include some guitars. This song should definitly make you pushing harder. In The End by Linkin Park could also be an alternative. 

4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads will rol (A-Trak remix)


Problably this is the song with the highest Beats per Minute that I can find and that is still pleasable to listen. This should also make your cadans rise one more time

5. Stardust - Music sounds better


It's time to slow down a bit now after the intensive build up you had. But not too much yet. This song has a slower tempo but not too slow yet. An alternative could be 'Lady, hear me tonight' by Modjo.

6. Triggerfinger - I follow rivers

 

It's time to switch to the guitars again, but this time we're not using the electric guitars of Evanescence anymore. We're going acoustic right now. This song could remind you of a nice ride on sunny day in Spring.

7. Lily Allen - Smile


Now, we're going for a complete cool down with 'Smile' by Lily Allen. It's a song that everyone likes to hear on a calm Sunday morning, problably the moment that most people make a bike ride. 

The end

This is a list of songs that you can listen for a session of about 30 mins. I've builded it up according to BMP, the tone of the music and the lyrics of the song. You can also replace some songs by alternatives that I wrote down or by other songs that you like with a similar BPM. Enjoy!

Sunday 29 December 2019

Cycling: a global sport?

Cycling: a global sport?

Cycling used  to be a sport mainly dominated by Frenchmen, Belgians and Italians. They divided the big races among themselves for many decades, but is this still true today? Let's have a look on how global cycling became today.

A look on the rankings

115 countries managed to gain points on the UCI World Ranking. Belgium finished on top while Macau finished as last country on the list. Other traditional cycling countries as Italy and France still finished second and fourth with Holland finishing in between them. In the top 10 do we find some other usual suspects such as Spain or Germany but also some suprises such as Slovenia and Denmark.

 

A matter of time

If we look at the the winners of Tour de France, the biggest race in cycling we notice that it would take till the 1950ies to have a winner that doesn't come from France, Italy or the Benelux. The Spaniard Frederico Bahamontes is the first who can break the dominance of the traditional nations. He would stay an exception together with his compatriot Luis Ocana. 

But in the 1980ies cycling becomes much bigger overseas when we see that the American Greg Lemond is the first winner from outside that Europe that can win in France. In this decade we also see Australians and Colombians competing for stage wins, but it would take till the 2010ies to see the first ever winner of Tour de France from these nations. 

We see similar trends on the worldchampionship where titles are often divided among the 'Big 3' with a few exceptions now and then. But we can see a big trend change in the period 2009-2019 when only one Belgian could win the world title and we see the first Australian, Norwegian, Slovak, Portugese, Polish and Danish worldchampion.

Conclusion

Cycling is stil dominated by Belgium, France and Italy in amount of riders, by world rankings and by victories in big races but we saw a big decrease of their dominance of these nations especially this decade. The grand tours & classics were divided among riders from Europe, the Americas and Oceania. Maybe we can see the first Africans and Asians competing for the podium spots of the grand tours in the 2020ies?


Saturday 28 December 2019

The New Merckx

The New Merckx

Eddy Merckx is globally seen as the best rider of all time. He won more then 500 races on all kind of parcours and levels, including all monuments, all grand tours and the worldchampionship. We didn't found a rider as good as him since then and in times that riders are more & more focusing on specific races during the season, it became highly unlikely that it will ever happen again. But let's have a look on riders that could be seen as a new Merckx today.

Definition

The defenition of a 'Merckx' today is a rider that won many different types of races and usually are competing on a high level all season long

 

Peter Sagan

Peter Sagan and Eddy Merckx have already one thing in common: they won both 3 world titles. Sagan usually also starts winning already stages in Australia, finished his season 3 times with a world title in September/October and won the Green Jersey 7 times in July. He won flat stages, cobble classics, hill stages and mountain stages, what makes him very all round like Merckx was too. But Sagan has been more of a Sprinter then Merckx while Merckx was better in the mountains and time trials

 

Julian Alaphilippe

Another rider that competes in all kind of races all years long. Alaphilippe has a strong sprint but instead of waiting for the sprint he often attacks from a longer distance. He did that when he won Strade Bianche and he also did the same when he took the yellow jersey in Tour de France. Waiting and defending is nothing for Alaphilippe. He instead went in the breakaway with Pinot to take his yellow jersey back ad expand his lead on his opponents. His yellow jersey. He also won the time trial, won a hill stage, stayed in the front group in the mountains and finished 4th overall what makes him maybe even more comparable to Merckx then Sagan. Next year Alaphilippe will take part in his first Tour of Flanders, maybe another milestone in the carrer of 'le nouveau canibale? He already won his first monument this year. Milan - Sanremo, a race that Merckx won 7 times.

Viscenzo Nibali

The last rider on my list problably is the most simmilar one to Merckx. The Sicilian won all grand tours, won 2 monumental classics and isn't affraid to attack from far distance. He's a rider that attacks on the Poggio of Sanremo, fights for the yellow in France, the rainbowjersey in September and winning the last monument of the year in October. Nibali won 52 races so far in his carreer and many of them were on a brave dominant Merckx way. The legend himself noticed it too when he was calling to Nibali to congragulate him for winning Sanremo. 


Friday 27 December 2019

Cycling continental circuit

Continental Grand Tours

Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, Vuelta a Espana, three big competitions where the best riders in the world take part and compete against each other. But what about the riders that don't reach this level yet or anymore? Don't they deserve their own little grand tour?

 

Locations

Continental and even procontinental teams doesn't have a lot of budget to make big travels for races arround the world. That's why we should look to spread them all around the world. We should also notice that the locaations where cycling  already is popular already have grand tours or big races so we should hit up countries where there is less budget for cycling races. That's why it would be more realistic to think about tours of 10-14 race days.  

I was thinking about the following locations:
South America: Colombia
Europe: Central Europe (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary)
North America: USA (Colorado, Utah, Navada, California) or Quebec
Asia/Oceania: Japan or Australia

I've choosen for these regions because cycling already has some popularity there and they have no major race yet.

 

Competitors

Currently we have a lot of riders that only take part in races on their continents in one day races or stage races of only a few days. But they don't have one major event where all the best of them can compete against each other as we have less or more globally for the World Tour riders in Tour de France for example. These grand tours would be  a good opportunity for the U23 riders that often ride in continental teams to compete against the best mature riders from the ProContentinal circuit. It would be simmilar to what American U23 riders did when they took part in Tour of Callifornia. 

It would be good for the development of U23 riders, good for talent scouts but also good for the older riders that are not able to ride the grand tours but still can compete against all other best riders from their level in a prestigious event like this.

 

Second tier

You could argue if their would even be interest for second tier grand tours but actually it was already quite succesfull in football where many people watch second tier continental competitions like the Europa League and the Copa Sudamericana. It unites fans from all over the continent and made teams able to improve by meeting the best teams from outside their domestic leagues. 

Cycling would also grow in popularity in the host countries and taking part in a major competitions would also become cheaper for those that didn't grew up in a country without many major races. 

Conclusion

My idea is problably not something that is going to be something that is going to be realized soon but problably it's something that could give inspiration to real organizations to make cycling more globalized and more accesible. 

Thursday 26 December 2019

Introduction

 Introduction

Welcome at the Blog of CyclingBottle. Here you can find a lot more then what I can only write in short Tweets. The goal is to write here big analysis, opinions and even interviews with pro riders or other people in the cycling world. Thanks for reading in the introduction. I hope that I can post a lot more soon.

Do you want to get all the news about cycling as fast as possible? Follow me on Twitter then on @Cyclingbottle