Cycling News and Opinions
Unfair and Unbalanced
April, 2012

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April 20: You should be visiting this site any way...Italian Cycling Journal is holding a contest for a a set of Volume 1 and 2 of The Story of the Giro d'Italia. Be the rist to answer ten question about the Giro and the books will be on your way. Piece-a-cake.

April 16: An era has ended. There is no more Milan bike show. In an attempt to remain relevant, the troubled Eicma Milan bike show has moved to Verona and will be held in September, just after the monster Eurobike show has had its way with the buyers of the cycling industry. This is an understandable if desperate change, given that the larger part of Italy's bike market is concentrated in the northeast part of Italy. Also, Padua's ExpoBici, also held in late September is turning out to be a very successful show, with over 500 exhibitors last year.

It has been almost a decade since I last attended the Milan show, and by then it was showing signs of real stress caused by its major competitor, Germany's Eurobike, which started in 1991 to mostly serve the mountain bike sector. Eurobike has since grown to encompass the entire industry. In the late 1990s Milan's show already felt like a regional show rather than the great international exhibition it had been.

When I first started importing bikes in the late 1970s, the Milan Show was held in November, every other year (in odd-numbered years) and the great Cologne show (which was favored by the big bike companies like Peugeot) was reserved for even-numbered years. The cycle of product development and revision was leisurely enough back then that this sufficed to keep the industry up to date.

I doubt moving to beautiful Verona, close to the dynamic and growing Padua show, will be enough to reinvigorate the Eicma show, which used to a symbol of Italy's dominance of the high-end sector of the bicycle industry. A few decades ago the world waited breathlessly for the geniuses of Italian cycling, Campagnolo, De Rosa, Gipiemme, Masi and hundreds of other companies, large and small, to unveil their latest creations. Because it was the show at which Italy's small, family-owned businesses would display (it's every-other-year format helped make it affordable to tiny firms), I never knew when I would stumble upon some wonderful product. It was there in 1983 I met Antonio Mondonico and forged a wonderful working relationship that lasted until we both retired.

And woe betide the businessman who did not get his work done during the Milan show's trade-only days. If he had to come back during the public days, the crush of bike-mad tifosi made navigating the packed aisles almost impossible. The show and it's world of silk sew-ups, Columbus SL frames, Cinelli 1A stems and and Nisi rims was huge. It was exciting. I'll miss it.

April 9: Here are the UCI World Tour rankings after Paris-Roubaix and Tour of the Basque Country.

Inidividuals:

1. Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-Quick Step): 366 points
2. Simon Gerrans (GreenEdge): 210
3. Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel): 208
4. Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas): 182
5. Peter Sagan (Liquigas): 179
6. Alejandro Valverde (Movistar): 167
7. Alessandro Ballan (BMC): 166
8. Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha): 142
9. Oscar Freire (Katusha): 140
10. Michael Albasini (GreenEdge): 112
11. Bradley Wiggins (Sky): 112
12. Damiano Cunego (Lampre): 106
13. Christopher Horner (Radio Shack-Nissan): 96
14. Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil): 92
15. Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-Quick Step): 90
16. Fabian Cancellara (Radio Shack-Nissan): 86
17. Roman Kreuziger (Astana): 86
18. Bauke Mollema (Rabobank): 75
19. Tiago Machado (Radio Shack-Nissan): 72
20. Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Lotto-Belisol): 70
21. Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky): 70
22. Simon Spilak (Katusha): 66
23. Rigoberto Uran (Sky): 63
24. Michael Rogers (Sky): 61
25. Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r): 61
26. Matti Breschel (Rabobank): 60
27. Juan Antonio Flecha (Sky): 60
28. Daniel Martin (Garmin-Barrcuda): 60
29. Greg Van Avermaet (BMC): 60
30. Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step): 52
31. Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil): 51
32. Tejay Van Garderen (BMC): 51
33. Michele Scarponi (Lampre): 51
34. Bernhard Eisel (Sky): 50
35. Robert Kiserlovski (Astana): 44
36. Lars Petter Nordhaug (Sky): 42
37. Lars Boom (Rabobank): 40
38. Arnold Jeannesson (FDJ-Big Mat): 40
39. Jan Bakelants (Radio Shack-Nissan): 40
40. Daniel Bennati (Radio Shack-Nissan): 33
41. Jean-Christophe Peraud (Ag2r): 32
42. Sep Vanmarcke (Garmin-Barracuda): 31
43. Matteo Tosatto (Saxo): 30
44. Luca Paolini (Katusha): 3-
45. Maxime Monfort (Radio Shack-Nissan): 30
46. Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-Quick Step): 24
47. Wouter Poels (Vacansoleil): 24
48. André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol): 22
49. Matteo Carrara (Vacansoleil): 21
50. Mathew Hayman (Sky): 20

Teams:

1. Omega Pharma-Quick Step: 547 points
2. Katusha: 382
3. Liquigas: 376
4. Sky: 366
5. GreenEdge: 342
6. Radio Shack-Nissan: 327
7. BMC: 279
8. Euskaltel: 208
9. Movistar: 205
10. Vacansoleil: 202
11. Rabobank: 198
12. Lampre: 168
13. Astana: 133
14. Ag2r: 106
15. Garmin-Barracuda: 106
16. Lotto-Belisol: 101
17. FDJ-Big Mat: 72
18. Saxo: 32

Nations:

1. Spain: 717 points
2. Belgium: 567
3. Italy: 566
4. Netherlands: 348
5. Australia: 315
6. Switzerland: 198
7. Slovakia: 179
8. USA: 153
9. France: 120
10. Great Britain: 118
11. Norway: 113
12. Germany: 84
13. Czech Republic: 78
14. Slovenia: 77
15. Portugal: 72
16. Colombia: 65
17. Denmark: 60
18. Ireland: 60
19. Austria: 51
20. Croatia: 44
21. Belarus: 8
22. Russia: 8
23. Poland: 8
24. Sweden: 6
25. South Africa: 6
26. Canada: 2
27. New Zealand: 1
28. Luxembourg: 1
29. Argentina: 1

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