The Cycle Seen: Watching the Wheels

Welcome to the Cycle Seen: A look at the world of cycling via the eyes of one man, who rides and races for fun and who also spends time indulging in armchair analysis of the pros who do it best. Hence The Cycle Seen is my own cycle, or the wider cycling scene, as seen by me.

I became a cycling fan somewhere in and around the year 1990. My dad had taken up the sport a few years before and that spring, aged eight years, I was entered into my first mountain bike race. I won, and so the dream of stardom and the love of riding the bike began. The following year I went on a trip with our cycling club to France to watch two stages of the Tour de France, cheering for Greg LeMond but watching the rise of Indurain, and so began a lifetime love with that race.

As the years went by I would race my bike, mostly mountain bike, occasionally road, and I would spend hours following the Tour de France. In time, like almost all kids aspiring to be a sports star, I began to realise I was never going to race in the Tour, but I always remained a fan with that support growing beyond just that of the Tour and into all the races. Professional road cycling hasn't always had it easy in the years I've been watching, but I've always stuck by it for good or ill. I've been critical but I've always respected the difficulty of the sport and in recent years I've seen the changes the sport has began to make and the corner it is trying to turn.

There were times when I got away from riding my bikes, and even summers spent away from home in my early 20s that I wouldn't follow the Tour with the same closeness as usual, but to paraphrase something I once heard: 'It may let you down sometimes, cycling, but it will never leave you,' and I always found my way back to it. After those summers spent working aboard and travelling I returned and found myself buying a new road bike and getting out again for fitness and fun. In 2008 I immigrated to Canada and a few years after that bought a new mountain bike for the first time in 12 years and began racing again. And with every passing year I'm not only cycling more, but I'm watching it more.

So The Cycle Seen will be a view of cycling as seen through my own eyes: Me watching the wheels, not just on television as they turn at speeds on terrains that I could only dream about doing, but of them turning below me, rolling along the ground of a country road or down some single track in a quiet forest somewhere. I'll look at the professional scene both present and past, giving thoughts on current races, stories about the great athletes and the scandals that often lie below the surface, and I'll look back at famous, and infamous, cycling moments that made me the fan I am. Beyond that I will tell stories of my own road or mountain bike experiences, either for pleasure or from the pain of competing, again both present and past. I'll review old touring trips I've completed, write about races I enter, dabble in nostalgia, share pictures and video and do the odd book review. Generally I'll just enjoy writing about the sport in a similar, if smaller, way that I enjoy watching it or indeed taking part in it.

So without further ado, let's get on with this...