Ed’s Letter

Frankly, it’s a miracle that the 2020 race season happened at all, but now it’s over I can’t help thinking: wasn’t it brilliant? Here are my four reasons why this year was one of the best ever…

Attacking, unpredictable racing

Remember how it used to be? Sky would suffocate the Tour, Chris Froome would win by four minutes and Peter Sagan would nail another green jersey to the wall of his Slovakian mansion. Not any more!

All of this year’s Grand Tours were won by less than a minute, with each race going to the wire. Scripts were ripped up, crowns were relinquished, Carlton Kirby ran out of superlatives and we all had to memorise a host of new names…

The rise of the new guard

Froome, Nibali, Valverde, Quintana, Dumoulin – all still riding but nowhere to be seen other than in supporting roles. There hasn’t been such a rush of new blood since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Now all eyes are on Pogačar, Hirschi, Hindley, Kuss, Almeida, Carthy, Geoghegan Hart, and of course…

Wout van Aert

He out-sprints sprinters, out-climbs climbers, out-time-trials time-triallists. He does Classics and Grand Tours. He’s got great hair. He probably cooks a mean soufflé. The new Merckx is risen! And he’s part of the super-duperest pro team on the planet – Jumbo-visma. Not that that matters, because this year we saw a new phenomenon…

Leaderless teams kicking ass

With Tom Dumoulin gone, Team Sunweb looked a spent force at the beginning of the season. Instead, without the anchor of a big name star, they went ballistic, lighting up races and hoovering up stages.

The same went for Ineos Grenadiers. When their big names fell by the wayside the rest of the team went out and had fun, scoring stage wins and even scooping the Giro with Tao Geoghegan Hart.

What’s not to love? I can’t wait for next year.

Pete Muir, Editor