Twisted Spoke Homepage2019-03-13T12:18:57-07:00
  • Winter riding in the mountains. Thoughts, workarounds.

    For thirty years I’ve been extremely fortunate to live in the San Francisco Bay Area where, thanks to the mild weather, I could bike year round.  That ended, like almost everything in this currently crazy world, in 2020. I’m now a full time resident of Truckee, up in the Sierra mountains of Northern California.  It was a fabulous Summer of [...]

  • Chris Froome, Tour de France underdog?

    Should Chris Froome, a man who has won four Tour de France and two Vuelta a Espana titles and one Giro d’Italia, be considered an underdog? That’s the curious assessment made by Kjell Carlström, who is the general manager of Froome’s new squad Israel Startup Nation. “We're underdogs and that's fine,” he said during an interview with the Cyclingnews podcast. [...]

  • Is it Patrick Lefevere or Patrick LeFever?

    Deceuninck-Quickstep manager Patrick Lefevere is many things.  He’s bombastic, loud, indignant, provocative, outraged, dismissive, hot-headed, funny — and always good for a quotable nugget. In short, we propose a new nickname for Lefevere that captures his social media persona: Patrick LeFever. You know when LeFever’s fingers tap open the twitter app on his phone, that sparks are going to fly. [...]

Roglic survives scary attack by Carapaz to win Vuelta

Terror on the Covatilla.  Primoz Roglic had a major scare on stage 17 of the Vuelta a Espana when Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) rode away from him on the upper slopes of the Alto de la Covatilla.  The Slovenien’s 45 second buffer was disappearing rapidly as Carapaz made his bid to arrive in Madrid in red. He opened a large [...]

November 7th, 2020|

Emotional favorites for final GC victory in Vuelta.

The legs will decide, as the cycling chestnut goes. That's physiological truth but for a moment let's indulge the heart -- who on an emotional level would we like to see win this year's Vuelta a Espana? First up, the man in the red jersey, Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma). Tomorrow's final mountain stage up to the summit of the Alto de La [...]

November 6th, 2020|

Team love-fest as Philipsen wins Vuelta stage.

Jasper Philipsen (UAE Team Emirates) won a wet, uphill finish into Puebla de Sanabria and then the exuberant celebrations kicked off. Philipsen was immediately hugged by soigneurs and teammates. There were hand shakes, fist bumps, double hugs, body-shaking embraces, shoulder pats, playful head taps and a kiss or two on the cheek. Then the whole fiesta hit round two with [...]

November 5th, 2020|

Wellens outwits rivals to win Vuelta stage 14

Race situation: Six high-powered guys in the break and only one of them will take out this grand tour stage. Tim Wellens (Lotto-Soudal), Marc Soler (Movistar) and Michael Woods (EF Pro Cycling) already have a victory in this Vuelta a Espana. Zdenek Stybar (Deceuninck-Quick Step) has won classics and tour stages and is just plain bad-ass. Dylan Van Baarle (Ineos [...]

November 4th, 2020|

Roglic back in red after Vuelta time trial

Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) said he did “a nice time trial.” Bit of an understatement there — it was an extremely freaking excellent time trial.  The Slovenian won his fourth stage of this Vuelta a Espana, erased a ten second deficit to race leader Richard Carapaz (Ineos-Grenadier) and then gained an additional 39 seconds to put himself back in the red [...]

November 3rd, 2020|

Kuss rescues Roglic from deep trouble on Angliru.

Steph Curry, the 3-point mad bomber of the Golden State Warriors, is nicknamed the Baby-Faced Assassin. After watching young Sepp Kuss on the fearsome Angliru, you'd have to call him the baby-faced assassin on a bike. He's a rock star climber and stage 12 of the Vuelta a Espana was yet another demonstration of just how valuable he is to [...]

November 1st, 2020|
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