If you're really serious about being a bike racing fan, you have to go and see the five 'Monuments:' Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Tour of Lombardy. You can get Ryanair punishment flights to airports which are convenient for all of these races; use Care Hire 3000 and the Peter Venere website to get cheapo hotels.
We're pleased to be able to present our relaunched site, now renamed "VeloVeritas" (ie. the truth about cycle racing and racers). We aim to provide you with truthful, accurate, unique and informative articles about the sport we love, and we'll do that by covering all aspects of cycling by being there, in the mix: from the local "10" mile time trial to the world-famous professional "monuments" - classics like Milan-SanRemo and the Tour of Lombardy, to the World Championships, the winter Six-Days and the Grand Tours - the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España.
The stage today would have been earmarked as one for the break, and this it has turned out to be. Two of the popular heroes of the Tour battled it out for the stage win: Thomas Voeckler and Jens Voigt took each other, and three other escapees on, with Voeckler using his cunning and power to take the stage in a very funny looking slow motion sprint.
Kuurne Brussels Kuurne 2011 used to be the 'revenge match' for Gent-Gent (Het Nieuwsblad); after poor showings in Saturday's race, QuickStep usually rode on Sunday with great panache to salvage the weekend-they did this with Nuyens in '06, Boonen in '07 & '09 and brilliantly with de Jongh in '08.