CyclingRevealed's 2006 Year in Review

One of the objectives of CyclingRevealed is to build an archive of material ‘available for all time'. Click through the front cover pictures shown below and relive 2006 as seen through the eyes of CyclingRevealed.

Monthly Features
[Click on any picture to be Educated and Entertained]

Grand Tours

[Re-visit the Grand Tours]

Know your sport – history and more

A unique feature of CyclingRevealed is our ongoing compilation cycling knowledge. A major project is our 100 Years of Cycling and World History. Here we are providing snapshots of every single year through the 20 th Century with major race results as well as major world history events. Check this feature often as we are adding to it all of the time.

Last June we completed our countdown in the Top 25 Tours of all Time (#1 logo below) . Read about these great Tours and see if you agree with our ranking.

Now in progress is our Top 20 Classics countdown. There are astounding stories from the great one-day races that deserve being retold. Follow our series and again let us know if you agree with our ranking.

[Visit CR's Knowledge Sections]

2006 – A Commentary

2006 has been a turbulent year where we seem to have read more about drugs and scandals than actual racing. At CyclingRevealed we have firmly kept our eye on the sport that we all love and tried to keep the negative rhetoric away from our pages. In this respect we have maintained a balanced view supported by proven facts . Our approach, combined with a deep knowledge and passion for the sport, has seen our readership grow dramatically all year.

Shortly after the Landis case broke there was a huge outpouring in the media with articles that often verged more on fantasy than fact. In August our feature article Rage captured the mood of the fans while clearly illustrating the inconsistencies and sometimes downright malicious reporting that was being leveled at our sport. This particular article received a tremendous response from appreciative readers who agreed with our clarification on fact versus fiction.

An objective look back at 2006 reveals a vintage year for professional racing. All season we were treated to magnificent races and tremendous individual exploits. The spring classics were greeted with great anticipation and electrified by rides worthy of the great one-day races. Tom Boonen dominated the Tour of Flanders and delivered the killer blow on the fearsome Koppenberg climb. Fabian Cancellara rode majestically to a lone win in the Paris-Roubaix and thus extinguished Belgian hopes that Boonen would repeat his 2005 double.

With Lance Armstrong retired there was great anticipation for this year's Tour de France. However on the eve of the great race the Operacion Puerto scandal burst and suddenly Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and a whole group of other riders were removed from the scene. The Tour looked to be lost. In actual fact we were treated to one of the best Tours in recent history. Unfortunately our joy after the victory celebrations was short lived when Tour winner Floyd Landis apparently failed a drug test. So as we moved to the Vuelta it was with ‘ Anticipation and Trepidation ' that we awaited the Spanish Grand Tour. After the Giro (Basso) and the Tour (Landis), the sport could surely not survive a third Grand Tour blighted by implications of drug use by the winner. Thankfully we were treated to a dynamic race and a wonderful winner in Alex Vinokourov. The good news continued when Paolo Bettini added the World Road Race Championship to his Olympic crown and his Italian National Champions jersey. The icing on the cake came at the very last race of the year when Bettini won the Tour of Lombardy in spectacular style.

As the road season wound down CyclingRevealed published a two part interview with Stu Thorne of Cyclocross World to give an interesting insight into this side of our sport. As we went live with this article Walter Godefroot's name once more hit the headlines as it was announced that he was to come out of retirement to become the technical director of Vinokourov's Astana team. Most remember Godefroot as the T-Mobile team manager so in October we published a two part feature that revealed Godefroot the rider who in his time was one of the very few able to beat Eddy Merckx when he was at his best.

Month by month we have woven contemporary race reports and commentary with fascinating stories from the past. Our approach has been greatly received by you our readers and this is reflected in our rapidly growing readership numbers. Take a trip back through 2006 by clicking on each of our monthly front covers illustrated above.

We look forward to seeing everyone in 2007. Until then stay with us through the off-season and check out our monthly feature articles.