Well, only once, and with the same riders as in the glory days between 1984 and 1992 but it'll still be pretty cool to see Phil Anderson, Allan Peiper, Theo de Rooij, Urs Freuler, Didi Thurau, Eddy & Walther Planckaert, Eric Vanderaerden, Guy Nulens, Eric van Lancker, Ludo de Keulenaer, Jean-Paul van Poppel, Johan van der Velde, Erik Breukink, Henk Baars, John Talen, Louis de Koning, Michel Cornelisse, Peter Harings, Jos Lammertink, Peter Winnen and Henk Lubberding hit the road again.

via www.n-ex-t.nl

The occasion is the Teun van Vliet Classic organised by Topsport for life to raise money for brain tumor research.

via www.n-ex-t.nl

Over here in cold and wet Holland the Rotterdam Sixday just opened its doors. And it has live coverage again this year on http://www.sport.nl/!!!! I hope it is not geo-restricted. No way for me to tell.

I won't join the fun here anyway because I have tickets to go see the show live. I have to hurry now.

STAND UP FOR THE CHAMPIONS! FOR THE CHAMPIONS!

 FOR THE CHAMPIONS!

FOR THE CHAMPIONS!

STAND UP!!!!

Edit: Let's keep the thread and see if more people get the stream working today. On for today, the last goodbye of Koos Moerenhout, derny races and Frans "Do you have a minute for me" Bauer.

The presentation of the 2011 team, Menchov saying goodbye and a new kit! More than enough reason to watch the Rabo team presentation live stream starting 13.45 CEST.

www.rabosport.nl/ploegenpresentatie

It's all taking place in the palace of theme park De Efteling in Kaatsheuvel. It will be quite a sight with snow all around. The riders will also hit the new rollercoaster Joris and the Dragon I've heard. If you'll promise you'll watch I'll promise to give you a wave ;-)

Right after the end of the road cycling season Amsterdam will be the home of the first sixday of this winter. Starting monday 18th the organization has brought together all the elements for a memorable kick-off of the track season. Last year's edition winners Kluge and Bartko will come face to face with a number of strong (partly) Dutch teams Dutch road champ Niki Terpstra will team up with Marvulli, grizzled veterans van Bon and Stam will use all tricks in the book and last but not least Bos-Schep will give everybody a tough time in the sprints while the same holds for the Stroetinga-Lampater duo. The real sprinting will be done by world champion on the 1km TT Teun Mulder against young Dutch hopefulls Yondi Schmidt, Hugo Haak, Matthijs Buchli and American challengers Andy Lakatosh, Dean Tracy, Giddeon Massie.

And there is more. During a prof DERNY gala Lars Boom will get a taste of track life together with Koos Moerenhout, Sebastiaan Langeveld, Dirk Bellemakers, Lieuwe Westra, Stefan van Dijk, Reinier Honig and Roy Curvers.

http://www.zesdaagseamsterdam.nl/

It's the week after the Tour and that means the riders can beef up their bank accounts by riding criterium races. Mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium but there are also show races like this in other countries. It is a public secret that these races aren't real races (anymore), if you have to pay the TdF-stars tens of thousands of euro's you do not want them to finish anonimously in the pack. I don't know if the actual finish order is arranged pre-race or they just say to the tour-stars to battle for it among each other. I guess the approach differs between places.

In an interview Gerry van Gerwen who coordinates the distribution of riders among the Dutch races Contador can ask €100.000 for an appearance. That's where (part of the) true financial gain of winning the Tour is made!  

For fun's sake: let's track the results of the different races. Last year there even was an overall classification among the Dutch criteriums. Laurens ten Dam won in 2009. He will focus on preparing for the Vuelta this year I think.

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The sport of cycling has rapidly become more international in the past three decades says a special report by Rabobank’s Economic Research Department. No longer is it dominated by the traditional top six European cycling countries. Ambitious newcomers from all over the world claimed their time in cycling’s spotlights and are definitely there to stay.

Read all about it here.

This is the promised sequal to the earlier report I linked to previously. Nice to see it made www.rabobank.com front page.

Hi gang,

As the NC's are fully upon us and I'm still looking for ways to identify traditional cycling countries I made a list of the year in which different countries hosted their first men's NC road race. I couldn't find a year for all countries in my selection and I got all my information from (French) Wikipedia so I thought I'd throw it out here to see if you guys can help me fill in the gaps.

List and some musings on it after the flip.

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Rabobank Economists charted the history of Dutch cycling

The Netherlands has a rich history in road racing. Rabobank economists delved into a huge amount of race results and produced a historic overview. During the 70’s and the 80’s Dutch riders rubbed shoulders with the best of the world. The Dutch performance has been less successful since, but with the rising of a new wave of talent the outlook is definitely positive.

Read the Special Report here.

Hi Crew,

Partly inspired by Chris' great Coming Dutch Hegemony stories I'm currently combining work and hobby in some research that merges economics and cycling. Whereas other sports feature more regularly in this kind of popular-scientific endeavours cycling seems to be getting less atention.

What I plan to do is to get an indicator of cycling performance of different countries using a score system and results of around 30 of the top races (sounds familiar doesn't it?). Than I'll need some creative and fun methods to try and explain differences between countries. Prime suspects will be population size and level of income. But some indicator seperating the traditional cycling countries from the newcomers would be needed too. For example the distance of the capital to Paris, or the average scorings of countries in the 1970's.

As you can see I have some ideas already. But I thougth it would be fun and interesting to tap into the creativity and knowledge of PdC to see if somebody could give me some more input. I'd like some feedback on two issues. First, what other indicators can you think of that (a) have some explaining power and (b) have data available for a large set of countries in at least one year. And second, do you know of any similar research?

I'm looking forward to your response. Don't be scared, the only bad response is a non-response...

[Edit: A few more rec's would be nice to keep this inquiry in the attention area!]

Last year I wrote:

Today will see the third edition of the Eneco Ronde van het Groene Hart (Round of the Green Heart). This race wants to show the world how beautiful Holland's so-called green heart is. This is the more or less rural/agricultural area right in between the ring of cities that form the Randstad. Since this race passes right through my home town I think it deserves some PdC love, even though it’s not a VDS race.

Guess what. This year it is a VDS race. Cat 6 but it will only go up from now on of course.

Start will be 11.40 AM local time with a ticker starting right away. Live feed will be available on the website from 15.00 to 17.00 hours. Hopefully not geo-restricted. More about the race on the flip. Start list.

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