THE GIRO - WHEN BOOTS WENT GOTHIC 

 

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Eurosport TV’s top cycling presenter Orla ‘Boots’ Chennaoui dressed in all black for the final day of the Giro d’Italia.

But she was far from sad, she was her usual  smiling cheerful self. This was her latest outfit for her daily appearance on Breakaway, which follows each day’s stage. It has become a cycling commentator’s fashion show.

In our house we have become as keen to see who wins the stage as we are to see what she has plucked from her extensive wardrobe.

She dazzled us with a different colourful outfit for each stage of the three week race – wearing pinks, reds, green, blue; trainers, crazy high heels or boots. Then on the final day of reckoning – she cracked and dressed head to toe in Gothic black! It was a complete and shocking contrast. She may even have been wearing black lipstick.

Clearly, she’s an attention seeker. I enjoy her commentary – she’s very knowledgeable on cycle racing, sitting comfortably with her fellow pundits on the sofa, the former pros Robbie McEwan, Dan Lloyd and Adam Blythe who provide fascinating insight into the racing – but Orla’s outfits can be a tad distracting.

It’s not about you, Boots!

Boots! That’s what a friend has taken to calling Orla, impressed by her choice of chunky footwear one day.

When I think of the Giro that’s what I see now,   Orla’s blackout for Eurosport’s

final wrap of this season’s marvellous Giro. And what a great outcome it was for Jai Hindley who became the first Aussie to win the pink jersey as victor of the Giro d’Italia, taking the lead on the penultimate very tough mountain stage from Richard Carapaz.

Italy's Vincenzo Nibali, winner of all three Grand Tours, 

                                             finished fourth overall in his final appearance in the 2022 Giro.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the Ride London Classic was back on the roads at the weekend, after an absence of two years due to Covid.

But not in Surrey where it has been based since 2013, but in Essex.

Surrey decided they no longer wished to host what had become a huge annual event in the county. I don’t why, exactly, for the event drew huge crowds and was a big draw in my home town.  But I do know that the lengthy road closures for both the charity event and pro race were considered by some to be an inconvenience.

Pity, for I’ll miss seeing the top pros rocket past the end of my road on the Surrey circular out and back to London.

Be interesting to see how well the three events held over three days were received by Essex.

They consisted of the  RideLondon-Essex charity ride, the RideLondon Classique UCI Women’s World Tour road race held over three days, and FreeCycle, a short route for people of all ages.

 

On the campaigning front I turn to a feature written by Laura Laker in Cycle, the magazine of Cycling UK.

In this Laker acknowledges that the UK is decades behind the Dutch in providing for cycling. She looks back on the local elections last month and asks if “A new golden age for cycling is realistic”.

She turns to cycling figureheads from the UKs four nations and asks can we really transform transport cycling’s fortunes?

I gleaned from this that the battle of minds has been won but the pace of change remains slow. Cycling UK's aim to get election candidates to commit to supporting Active Travel was successful in that a great many councillors agreed to back cycling as transport. But we've been here before. The question now is, will we see some practical action?

Which takes me back perhaps 30 years when the CTC, as Cycling UK was back then, declared the very same thing; the battle of minds had been won!

This slow pace of change is crazy, given the rising levels of traffic pollution contributing to climate change and the vital role cycling can play to address this. We do need to reduce the need to drive everywhere, especially the local trips which make up some 70 percent of journeys made.

This should be declared a national emergency.

We need the government to take charge and order local authorities to get to grips with this. Currently the local authorities can decide for themselves and government can only advise.

This needs to change. If the Prime Minister can rewrite the rules concerning the ministerial code of conduct, to suit him, as he did recently, they can take over local authorities to prioritise cycling as transport.

The fuckers won’t, of  course.

And finally, the cover story of Cycle gives us heart – announcing the Cantii Way, inviting us to experience Kent’s new 145-mile route, the UK’s latest long-distance cycling route.

It begins in Wye, a village in the Kent Downs. It meanders alongside the River Stour, past Canterbury to Whitstable and circles the coast all the way down to Dungeness.

It “dips a toe” into East Sussex, tempting you to pop into medieval town of Rye, and then the Cantii Way heads inland, away from the sea.

The Cantii Way is named after the Iron Age Celtic tribe that lived in the area.

Further information: cyclinguk.org/cantii-way

 

 

 

Two British winners in Hungarian Giro start

The Giro stage two time trial passed in front of The Parliament Building in Budapest

 

It’s Grand Tour time again, and the Giro d’Italia made a spectacular start from Hungary at the weekend, presenting us with two British winners.

Mind you, if the tele listings on screen were to be believed, only the first hour of Sunday’s stage was to be televised on Eurosport, before both Euro 1 and 2 switched to blanket coverage of some motor sport event.

But the bodge didn’t end there, there was final stage of the Dunkirk 4-day being shown that evening. But instead, the listings had the British Bennett’s motor something or other.

Which was another lie, because the motor event was in fact the Dunkirk race?

Are you still with me?

As it happened, this was a glitch. Wrong write up.  We did indeed get the full coverage of stage three.

But boring, wasn’t it. Even former pro Robbie McEwan on the sofa said so, until those final electrifying kilometres and that dazzling sprint win by Cav.

Terrible thing to say, but earlier in the afternoon I had switched to watch the Badminton Horse trials for a few minutes before going back to the race rolling along, in chat mode.

There was nothing to tempt the GC contenders, no hills or difficulties to make an attack stick, and the sprinters teams were only interested in the finish. It was just a case of staying safe and getting it done.

That’s not to take anything away from the three breakaways that went from the start of this 201 kilometre stage, gaining some five minutes before being reeled in inside the final25km.

During which time Matthia Boiis, Filippo Tagliani and Sam Rivi enjoyed the limelight, with Rivi  attacking the other two to take a sprint, drawing Boois with him.

 

 

 

 

And so, while the first stage fell to Dutch star Van de Poel in his maiden Giro, the next two went to Brits: Simon Yates winning the short time trial through the streets of beautiful Budapest.  Thousands of spectators to see the spectacle.  It was his fifth stage in the Giro, and his first time trial victory in a grand tour.

Completing the Hungarian festival of speed none other than ace sprinter Mark Cavendish was in scintillating sprinting form to win a long scary gallop to take the third stage – his 16^th victory in the Italian Tour,   nine years after his last appearance.

 

Meanwhile, we also had a stellar line up of former pros providing expert analysis on Breakaway on the Eurosport Television sofa, hosted by Orla Chennaoui. She was wowing viewers yet again with the first of many colourful  outfits – one for each stage - more suitable for the Oscars than a bike race, if you ask me and you won’t.

But we’ll let her off cos she knows her bike race onions, as do

her fellow pundits on the sofa including former Tour de France point’s winner Aussie Robbie McEwan, Dan Lloyd and Adam Blyth wearing a cardigan that might have belonged to his grandmother.

Orla – have a word.

Day three ended with what surely was the longest transfer ever, over 1,300 miles by road from Hungary to Sicily! The riders went by air.

The longest transfer I did when covering Le Tour was 400 miles across Northern France, and that was quite far enough.

The riders endured one hiccup, when one of the two planes to fly them from Lille to Brittany was withdrawn from service at the last moment.

No problem. This was Le Tour, and another plane was conjured up pronto.

I remember we speculated on how another plane was found so quickly.   and wondered if the airline had simply snatched it from another service, telling passengers that regrettably their flight was cancelled! Very likely!

But we never found out.

Vive le Grand Tours.