First ever women’s Paris-Roubaix was a cracker, and a long awaited step in the right direction.

First ever women’s Paris Roubaix winner, Lizzie Deignan. From here

It’s been an historic week for cycling.  This weekend just gone saw the 118^th running of the men’s Paris-Roubaix and – and this is the truly historic and awesome bit – the first ever running of the women’s Paris-Roubaix.  Yep, a race that has been running since 1896 has for the first time allowed for a women’s race.  But park your outrage about that for just a minute (we’ll get back to it later…) and revel in what was one of the greatest editions of the greatest bike races of all time.

I have a bit of sympathy for the UCI, but sometimes they just seem like the fun police.

From the sidelines it’s easy to pick on administrators, managers, and people that run things. Especially in sports. They need to make up, arbitrate, and enforce the rules of the game – literally and figuratively – and sometimes those rules can seem to have little to do with actual sports, and more to do with politics. So it is with Cycling’s governing body – the UCI.

And we’re back! The New Zealand summer is a fickle thing, but lucky the racing’s been great!

Finn Fisher-Black, in the final stage of the NZ Cycle Classic

The long process of getting back home and set up in Aoteroa New Zealand is just about done. We’re back up and running with work, and the new school year is well under way. The only thing missing is our furniture, which we’re told isn’t too far off. Lucky I managed to squeeze my bike into our airfreight, so I’ve been able to hit the roads and reacquaint myself with the ‘delights’ of cycling in Wellington. It’s blimmin’ windy here, and even though we’re in the height of summer we’d be lucky to get a couple of days in a row with temperatures higher than about 22 degrees. The sun here is blisteringly intense and it’ll grill you to a crisp if you’re not careful. So summer is like some weird quantum state where you can be both too hot and too cold all the same time.

WWGD?* Win things. Keep it real. Wear a mask.

*What would George Bennett do?

George Bennett is rapidly becoming a bit of a kiwi legend. Within the last few weeks he’s won a World Tour bike race and backed that up by doing something that no other kiwi has done. He’s finished on the podium of one of the legendary “monuments” of cycling. These tough one-day races are pillars of our sport, and success in just one of them can be a career-defining moment. He did it at the end of a stellar week for our kiwi riders in Europe as just a week earlier we all watched Dion Smith take a top-10 finish in another epic monument. ‘Our boys’ are flying, and with the Tour starting in just a couple of days it’s time to put the beers in the fridge and order up a load of popcorn. Because things are getting interesting.

A new Elite National Road Series?

The iconic Tour of Southland.  Image borrowed from here. 

A few weeks ago, inspired by some fantastic historic photos of cycle races in New Zealand (and a small amount of Covid-lockdown daydreaming) I floated the idea that New Zealand might be ready for a new elite men’s and women’s National Road Series.  I set out some of my thinking in a blog post, and shared it quietly around.  As I’d more-or-less hoped, it sparked a bit of interest, and so a small group of us have started to kick a few ideas around to see if we can’t make it work.  We could do with a hand though, so I thought it would be worth posting an update, and see if we can get a bit of momentum behind it.

With pro-cycling on hold is New Zealand ready for a new National Series? History says “Yes. Yes we are.”

Timaru to Christchurch, sometime in the early ’80s. Old School.  Credit: Tony Fuller, from Facebook.

During the Covid-19 lockdown back home a New Zealand cycling Facebook group that I’ve somehow managed to get let into has been sharing a fantastic array of photos and memories from New Zealand cycling from the last 50 years or so.  It’s a closed group so you’ll just have to trust me that it’s awesome.  People post old newpaper clippings, and Technicolor-hued photos that evoke That Scene at the start of A Sunday in Hell when Eddy Merckx rocks up to the start of Paris-Roubaix like some kind of cycling Elvis. It’s wonderful stuff, and it’s got me thinking.  For a while there we had a very lively national road racing scene, with events that could attract some of the best riders in the world to come and race in New Zealand.  Is it time to re-ignite a blast from the past, and kick-start an elite men’s and women’s National Racing Calendar in New Zealand?