NED BOULTING!
NED PREDICTS WHAT 2017 WILL HOLD FOR CYCLING
Chris Froome is handed victory, and gets Quintana in a ‘playful’ headlock
To spare you all the hours trawling the interweb in search of cycling stories over the next 12 months, and scouring the darker recesses of the online twilight world to root out dodgy links to live feeds of Belgian semi classics, I’ve saved us all the trouble, and furnished the great cycling public with a wildly accurate and reliable preview: 2017 – The Year in Review.
January
An Australian track specialist wins the Tour Down Under. This is the only time you’ll ever read his name. Cadel Evans fails once again to win the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race. When questioned about his serial failure to win his own bike race, he threatens to ‘chop the ears off’ ITV reporter Matt Rendell.
February
Sandblasting crosswinds are blamed for the near total absence of spectators at the Tour of Qatar. “It’s no good,” said one of Qatar’s seven cycling fans. “There’s only room for five of us on the pavement, before someone’s in the gutter.”
March
Peter Sagan opts to ride both Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, a double that is generally considered impossible, given that the races happen at the same time. “But I am Peter Sagan,” comments the back-to-back World Champ, before anyone can think of anything else to say in a packed press conference.
April
The Tour of Flanders is raced against a turbulent political backdrop, coming just a day after Flanders declares itself independent of both France and Belgium. ‘Flexit’ as it becomes known, gains further momentum, when the race’s winner, Peter Sagan, changes his nationality to Flandrian. Paris-Roubaix, meanwhile, is a subdued affair, since the peloton is forced to stop at the newly declared border with The Republic of Flanders, to hand over passports and fill in complex customs declarations, in Flemish.
May
The Giro d’Italia fails to attract the top stars, and is won by former Labour MP, Ed Balls. He claims that, “winning the Giro is up there” with his crowdpleasing Gangnam Style salsa routine in 2016’s Strictly Come Dancing.
June
Bradley Wiggins returns to racing “for one last time” in the Criterium du Dauphiné, stopping en route to pick up the parcel Simon Cope left at the team hotel in 2011. The Tour de Suisse is criticised for its lack of any hills, corners, or finish lines. As a result, the peloton simply went for a bike ride for a week, taking Swiss neutrality to its ultimate conclusion.
July
In an effort to enliven another rather predictable Tour de France, race organiser ASO introduces a game of British Bulldogs on the Place de la Concorde to determine first and second. Movistar slips Nairo Quintana through Sky’s defence, but he’s caught just before the line when Ian Stannard sits on him. Chris Froome is handed victory, and gets Quintana in a ‘playful’ headlock on the podium.
August
The Vuelta a España is reduced to a single, brutal stage designed by recently retired Purito Rodriguez. It starts in Andorra, takes in 63 mountain passes, before a lap of Madrid and a return to Andorra. Juan José Cobo wins, by hiding in a bush near Girona.
September
Bradley Wiggins races the Tour of Britain, in what is described as “one of his last bike races in Daventry”.
October
Peter Sagan wins the World Road Race Championship, the Women’s World Road Race Championship and The Ryder Cup.
November
In China, a series of uninteresting bicycle races are raced. The results are probably available online.
December
Cadel Evans does a series of interviews ahead of the 2018 Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, in which he declares to be “confident, and in the form of his life”.