The cycling world is abuzz with transfer rumour and speculation on the future of the sport’s biggest stars. The three podium finishers at the recent Tour de France are all set to move teams in what will be the biggest transfer shakeup for a number of years. Frank and Andy Schleck are starting their own team based in Luxembourg, Alberto Contador has announced that he will definitely not be at Astana next year but has not agreed terms with a new team as yet and Denis Menchov is reportedly making a move to join Astana, or his compatriots at Katusha. Other riders such as Stijn Devolder, Jussi Veikkanen and Francesco Chicchi have also announced that they will be riding for new teams next year.

All this and we’re still in the month of July. Whatever happened to the UCI’s rule that no transfers should be announced before the 1st September? Well, in actual fact, that date has been changed. On the 1st July this year, the UCI amended their rules so that transfers can now be negotiated and announced any time after the 1st August. Article 2.15.120 of the UCI Cycling Regulations on Road Races states:

A transfer period extends from 1 August to 20 October

A UCI ProTeam or licence applicant may only recruit riders during the transfer period.

The regulations go on to state in Article 2.15.125:

Riders and UCI ProTeams may not reveal that they are in negotiations about renewal of their contracts or transfers outside the transfer period.

So even though the gag order on rider transfers has been pushed back a full month, all the announcements that have been made regarding team rosters for next year have still been in breach of the UCI regulations and all involved parties can be subjected to a fine between 300 and 2000 Swiss Francs.

Perhaps everyone is getting quietly fined and we just don’t hear about it. But ultimately, a directeur sportif’s announcement of a new rider for next season can only help in the search for sponsors. Therefore, teams are probably unconcerned with fines of hundreds of euro, when the exposure gained from announcing a new rider signing may help them land millions of euro from potential sponsors.

I’ve expressed my concerns before about rider transfers being announced so early in the season. The Tour de France may be over but there’s a huge amount of racing left. Announcing changes to the makeup of teams affects the mentality and the loyalty of riders. Why should a domestique feel satisfied sacrificing himself for a leader who intends to jump ship in a few months? Will a rider who is moving on to a new team, find himself working (consciously or subconsciously) for his new team rather than (or as well as) his current team?

The first test of allegiance for the stars of the Tour de France will come this Saturday in the Clásica de San Sebastián, a one day race in Spain. Previous winners of the race include former Tour champions Lance Armstrong and Miguel Indurain. This race was one of only two classics won by the Texan (along with Fléche Wallonne) and it also stands out on the palmarés of Indurain as the only major one day race he ever won. San Sebastián is very close to Indurain’s home town of Villava, the Spaniard also won a time trial of the Tour de France here in 1992. With a course more Tour of Lombardy than Paris-Tours the race has also been won by hilly classics specialists Laurent Jalabert, Paolo Bettini and Alejandro Valverde.

Carlos Barredo beating Roman Kreuziger in last year's edition of the Clásica de San Sebastián

Surprisingly, Alberto Contador will be at the startline on Saturday*. Last year, having won the Tour de France he decided to take it easy for the rest of the year with his only racing appearance coming in the Clásica Cancun, a minor race which he won. It’s the first time the triple Tour winner will appear in a Pro Tour race this late in the year after one of his Tour victories. Hitherto, Contador seemed to have been following in the footsteps of his former team mate Armstrong. The American, during his Tour winning years, made a habit of cutting his season short after the Tour de France. There were exceptions, in 2002 he competed in a string of one day races in August (including the Clásica de San Sebastián), and in 2000 he raced and won, the GP Eddy Merckx and the GP des Nations to prepare for the upcoming Olympic Games.

Carlos Sastre bucked this trend completely when he became the first rider to enter the Vuelta a Espana as reigning Tour de France champion since the Spanish Grand Tour moved to its current September slot on the calendar. Sastre rode strongly to take an impressive third place, the third time in a row he had finished on the podium of a Grand Tour that he’d entered. Next month, amazingly, Sastre is due to take part in his home Tour again, having already completed the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France this year. Completing the three Grand Tours in one season is something Sastre has already achieved in 2006 where he finished 43rd, 3rd and 4th in the Giro, Tour and Vuelta respectively. He follows in the footsteps of the 1982 Vuelta a Espana winner Marino Lejarreta who rode all three Grand Tours in one year on no less than four occasions. In 1989 he finished all of them inside the top 20 overall. Not to be forgotten is the fact that back then there was less than a week between the end of the Vuelta and the start of the Giro.

Incidentally, Marino Lejaretta holds the record for the number of wins in the Clásica de San Sebastián with three in 1981, 1982 and 1987. Historically the race is won by a rider who has shown excellent form in the Tour de France. In 2008, the race was won by yellow jersey wearer and stage winner Alejandro Valverde. Laurent Jalabert won back to back editions in 2001 and 2002, the same years he won his King of the Mountains titles at the Tour. Erik Dekker, winner in 2000, had won three Tour stages that year. So perhaps surprisingly it is a rider who didn’t take part in the Tour who has been made the bookie’s favourite, classics monster Philippe Gilbert.

Other favourites for the race include Spaniards Joaquim Rodriguez, Luis Leon Sanchez, Samuel Sanchez, and last year’s winner turned front wheel ninja, Carlos Barredo. Ireland’s Nicolas Roche is also in the top 10 of the bookie’s favourites to win this classic. While others around him are racing for contracts, or are disgruntled at riding for a team they no longer harbour ambitions for, Roche is safe in the knowledge that he has just signed a new 2 year deal with his AG2R La Mondiale team, which just may give him a boost in confidence to try and capitalise on his good Tour de France form.

*Shite. Just been informed that Contador won’t be on the startline on Saturday.

Alberto Contador has won his third Tour de France joining Philippe Thys, Louison Bobet and Greg LeMond as a three time winner of the world’s biggest race. Alessandro Petacchi has won the Green Jersey in the Tour to add to his wins in the points competition in the Giro and the Vuelta. He becomes the fourth man to achieve the grand slam of points jerseys along with Eddy Merckx, Laurent Jalabert and Djamolidin Abdoujaparov. Andy Schleck has won the white young rider’s jersey for the third time emulating the only other rider who has achieved this feat, Jan Ullrich. Cadel Evans wore the Yellow Jersey as the current world champion becoming only the 2nd man to do so in the past 20 years after Tom Boonen in 2006. Mark Cavendish is now the third rider to have won four or more stages in three consecutive Tours after Eddy Merckx and René le Gréves. The Manxman also became the first man to win back to back road stages into Paris since Charles Pélissier in 1930 and 1931.

Many aspects made this one of the most memorable Tours ever. The crashes and go slow on Stage 2, all the hoo-ha on the cobbles the following day, Cavendish’s ups and downs, Andy Schleck losing his chain and Contador’s subsequent attack, plenty of French stage winners and most importantly of all, the fact that the Yellow, Green and Polka Dot jerseys all came down to their last competitive day of racing.

John Wilcockson wrote an article recently suggesting that Contador could already be on the way out, I completely disagree. I think that Contador rode a perfect race. He rode a solid time trial followed by an unexpectedly excellent performance over the cobbles considering he had never ridden a cobbled race before. He managed to coax Andy Schleck into working with him on Stage Nine to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne thereby distancing all of their mutual rivals and putting Schleck into the Yellow Jersey which he would then have the responsibility of defending.

He then took the yellow jersey after stage 15 which tasked his team with defending the Maillot Jaune for only three days (not including the final time trial and the procession into Paris). Then despite the presence of a fierce headwind on a flat time trial course he put over half a minute into his closest rival to seal his third Tour victory. It seems to me that Contador’s Tour worked out perfectly, despite the fact he didn’t win a stage. When people think of Greg LeMond they think of a three time Tour winner. They’re less concerned with the fact that he ‘only’ won four Tour stages in his career and won the 1990 edition without winning a stage.

Going into the second half of the race, Schleck led Contador by 41 seconds, the Spaniard took back 10 of those seconds on Stage 12 which meant the riders entered the Pyrenées separated by 31 seconds. On Stage 15 to Bagnéres-de-Luchon the now infamous chain incident occurred which saw Contador seize the Yellow Jersey with a lead of 8 seconds. Whether this attack was sporting or not, Contador clearly had this stage ear marked as the one where he hoped to assume the race lead. Contador countered the attack of the hapless Andy Schleck who dropped his chain shortly after his initial burst of speed. To me, the speed at which Contador zoomed past his team mate Vinokourov suggested that he would have caught and passed Schleck. There is no guarantee that Schleck would have gotten on to the back wheel of Contador. Judging by their inseparability in the subsequent mountains stages, it would seem that the best Schleck could have hoped for on that stage would have been to finish alongside Contador.

The major difference to the race that this would have made is that Schleck would still have been in yellow when it came to the stage finish atop the Col du Tourmalet. But the dynamic of the race would not have changed as Contador would probably have been content taking a 31 second deficit into the final time trial. Even if Schleck had been in yellow, the onus would still have been on him to drop Contador, which he evidently wasn’t able to do anyway. Contador on the other hand, being paced up the climb, seemed like he could have distanced Schleck if he had really applied himself. Therefore, I don’t think the chain incident would have ultimately changed the overall outcome of the race. It’s all ifs, buts and maybes, but it is wonderful that these are the type of ‘what-ifs’ that are being discussed rather than the likes of ‘what would have been the outcome if yer man who tested positive hadn’t have influenced the race?’.

I watched Stage 17 again this morning. Seán Kelly mentioned while commentating that when the Tour is over people will have forgotten the 39 seconds that Contador gained due to Schleck’s dropped chain. Remarkably, the gap between the two in the final general classement was exactly 39 seconds. Had this bizarre twist of fate not occurred, I feel Kelly would have been right. After all, how many minutes was Andy Schleck spared when the decision was made to stage a go slow on Stage 2?

As for Wilcockson’s suggestion that Contador is close to the end of his Tour de France reign; the triple Tour champion is now 27 years old and has won the last five Grand Tours that he’s entered. To put this into perspective the last seven Tour winners and the age they were when they won their first Tour are: Carlos Sastre 33, Oscar Pereiro 29, Lance Armstrong 27, Marco Pantani 28, Jan Ullrich 23, Bjarne Riis 32, Miguel Indurain 27.

Apart from the prodigious Jan Ullrich none of the recent former Tour winners were younger than Contador is now when they won their first Tour de France. He must also be commended for being competitive for the whole year before the Tour, in the week long stage races and the Ardennes classics. Perhaps this is the reason why many people reckon he wasn’t on his best form in this year’s Tour. So what will he be capable of if he returns next year back to his best? He will be very very hard to beat for a number of years to come.

In the race for the Green Jersey Mark Cavendish finished 11 points behind Alessandro Petacchi. Intermediate sprints are worth six points each but Cavendish didn’t contest any of them throughout the Tour (there were 45 in total). If he had won two of them he would have won the Green Jersey. However, we also mustn’t forget that Thor Hushovd was very hard done by on Stage 2 when the race finish was neutralised and no points were awarded when the bunch crossed the line. Hushovd had managed to stay with the main peloton which finished the stage behind Sylvain Chavanel. His main Green Jersey rivals Cavendish and Petacchi finished in groups 10 minutes and 13 minutes down respectively. Undoubtedly, Hushovd was in better form in the first week of the Tour than the last week, which means he probably would have been favourite to take the bunch sprint for 2nd place. Regardless, even if he had only finished 5th on the stage he would have landed an extra 22 points. He lost the Green Jersey by 21.

It was also a great Tour de France for Nicolas Roche who achieved his pre-Tour goal of a top 15 place. He sat in 18th place overall before the stage finish on the Tourmalet. On that foggy evening on the final climb of the race he put in the best performance of his career to take 12th place on the stage. This moved him up into 15th on G.C. capitalising on the time lost by Thomas Lofkvist, Alexander Vinokourov and Carlos Sastre. He followed up his immense performance in the mountains by also putting in his best ever time trial performance, finishing ahead of the likes of Armstrong, Kloden and Kreuziger to defend his 15th place which he carried proudly into Paris last Sunday.

The Tour de France withdrawal is now beginning to set in, but fear not, for there is plenty of other races on the calendar. In fact it’s been a good week for Irishmen all round. David McCann has just secured 5th place overall in the Tour of Qinghai Lake and Dan Martin took 3rd place in the Italian Brixia Tour. Most of the major Tour stars will be back in action this Saturday in the Pro Tour Clásica de San Sebastián. Roche will be present along with Philip Deignan who will be riding his first race since he was forced out of the Tour de Suisse due to illness. And sure it’s not that long until the Vuelta!

Today I climbed the Col de Marie Blanque. I’ll never whinge about going up the Sally Gap again. I’m staying with my uncle Barry and my auntie Bairbre in a small village at the foot of the Col called Sarrance, about 50km from Pau. We had a bit of a false start in the morning which involved a trip to the bike shop in nearby Oloron to purchase a new seat post clamp, but it meant we caught a glimpse of Denis Menchov, Jurgen van den Broeck, and Robert Gesink heading out towards the mountains, which felt slightly surreal.

With the saddle sorted and the clouds creeping ever closer down the valley, myself and Barry (who rode the Étape last Sunday) set off toward my first Pyrenean climb. The climb starts off quite gently and gets progressively harder and steeper as you approach the top. About three kilometres into the nine kilometre climb, even though I knew the vicious gradients were still up the road I thought to myself, ‘this isn’t so bad, what’s all the fuss about?’. At which point Barry turned to me and said ‘if you’re riding in a group, it’s around now where you turn to they guy next to you and say ‘this isn’t so bad, what’s all the fuss about?”. So I said nothing and kept going.

With five kilometres remaining to the summit I found myself cursing all the Zaytoons and sneaky cans I’d had during the World Cup. What’s worse are the completely unforgivable Daytoons, where you can’t even use the excuse of being on a night out to drunkenly convince yourself that a massive kebab is full of healthy vegetables and essential protein. With three kilometres to go, my breathing was so heavy and my legs were so laden with lactic acid that my mind could no longer concoct intelligible reasons for me to curse myself.

When the one kilometre to go sign I was expecting actually turned out to be the two kilometres to go sign, I realised I had to stop and take a breather and eat something. I stopped for five minutes or so and once I got back up on the bike and moving (which isn’t easy on those slopes) I immediately felt an improvement. Even though the last two kilometres are the hardest, I felt better on them than I did during the previous two, and I made it to the top without the need for further rest.

And here’s all the photographs to prove it:

Setting out from the house in Sarrance with Uncle Barry in our Brim Brothers jerseys.

The view from the front door with eerie clouds creeping down the mountains.

The signpost at the foot of the climb which kindly lets you know what you're letting yourself in for.

Just passing the three kilometres to go sign. I thought since there was so much fog about it seemed appropriate to try climbing on the drops like Marco Pantani, maybe it would make me climb better?

It didn't

But refuelled and re-energised I was on the way again with just less than 2km to go.

I seem to have gone blind here as I approach the summit.

Success! I made it. I remember being much happier at this point, but I don't seem to have been able to express that happiness using my face muscles, it would have taken far too much energy.