More rubbish professional kits for 2010: Astana and Quick-Step

Posted on 30 December 2009 by Alex Murray

First up, Astana. I think we can dispatch this one pretty quickly.

Alberto Contador and Alexandre Vinokourov present the Astana kit for the 2010 season

Is there anything good to say about it? The visual branding is weaker than last year even if the logos are less confused. That’s about as good as it gets.

There’s just no definition to the colour blocks and it all just goes nowhere. The previous iterations were stronger visually. Perhaps it’s an embodiment of a team lacking direction and identity, not to mention lacking strength and depth in the squad.

And now to Quick-Step (found these photos via Maglia Rosa blog although they’ve been doing the rounds for a while now in various places)

Tom Boonen in his 2010 Belgian champion's kit for Quickstep

Ignore Tom Boonen in his Belgian Champion’s kit, that looks pretty cool and follows a well-worn formula that works: Champion jersey + predominantly black shorts.

And that’s where they’ve gone wrong. Take a look at Tom in last season’s abortive “retro look” out on a Paris-Roubaix reccy

Tom Boonen in Quickstep's retro kit on a training ride ahead of Paris-Roubaix 2009

The blue up-and-over on the 2010 kit looks like generic cookie cutter kit that any club can get made up by any number of suppliers. Black shorts with white sponsors’ names would have worked so much better.

Then there’s a concessions to television airtime. The white side panels don’t say “guaranteed return on investment while in a break”, they say “we’re hedging our bets in case our man doesn’t win and you can’t read the really big logo on his chest”.

Both kits also suffer from the poor application of red. In Astana’s case it’s Specialized; in Quick-Step’s it’s Eddy Merckx.

Corporate identity is big business, and Specialized have established that red S icon pretty well over recent years. It just doesn’t work with that strange cyan and yellow though.

The new Merckx M on the other hand is an absolute abomination. Gone is that incredible EM logo and loving heritage typeface, replaced by another generic re-branding exercise.

It’s vile and hateful, but most of all it’s typical of the unnecessary need by new owners to make their mark. It brings nothing to the brand at the same time as removing all the acquired heritage value and support.

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London League 2009/10, round 11: Herne Hill as the ice planet Hoth

Posted on 22 December 2009 by Alex Murray

It was epic, it was cold, it was helluvaheckalot of fun. Riding the frozen wastes of the Herne Hill velodrome certainly made for something different from the usual “mud and iron” of the London Cyclocross League.

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(Photo: John Mullineaux for Londoncyclesport.com)

I haven’t trained for nearly two weeks so was planning on taking it a bit easier than usual at the back. Stay out of the way and stay upright seemed order of the day.

After one lap, the advice from Rene was “there are too many people behind you”. This was probably down to me running some of the worst affected sections which seemed to be quicker than tottering along in the inevitable traffic jam of nervous riders.

Soon solved that by going too hard in the wrong places – running up steep hills, corners, that sort of thing.

Once I’d worked through the rush of blood and settled down, it was a case of seeing how far back I could finish. The results have me down one from the back of those who actually finished. Plenty of DNFs tells you how tough it was.

I probably went easier than I needed to and took fewer risks than I could have, but better to finish in one piece than not in two.

I still haven’t cleaned the bike due to the freezing conditions and sheer laziness on my part. Still it’s nearly Christmas, so these things can be forgiven.

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Predictions for professional cycling in 2010: the bad news

Posted on 22 December 2009 by Alex Murray

I was going to go with top 10 at the Tour de France 2009 but that ruled out some of the more interesting stories that could develop this season, notably the question of whether BMC Racing Team can get the big race invites with their roster.

  • At least one doping ring will appear on the radar then sit temptingly on the horizon without ever unloading its cargo fully to the public.

Wada already seems to be wrestling with the finer details of “blood-spinning” or “platelet plasma therapy” but the fact remains that autologous blood doping remains difficult to detect and that there is no ratified test for it at present.

More salient is that the Italian Olympic authorities, Coni, have started to make inroads into the networks in Italy, as evidenced by the case of Gianni Da Ros. As anti-doping bodies gain more judicial powers, it’s only logical that they will be more able to act against doping as a form of fraud.

Following a similar theme…

  • At least one rider with previous direct connection (in the form of ban or other prosecution) to doping will face sanction by a governing body after their name once again crops up in an investigation or as a result of a routine anti-doping control.

It stands to reason that this is likely given the number of riders connected to previous scandals or who have served bans who are riding in the top two tiers of the sport (Protour and Pro Continental teams if we want to be narrow about it).

If you’re the type of person who likes to keep lists as aide memoire then you’ll probably already have scribbled Vinokourov, Kashechkin, Sella and Ricco in your notes as short odds with the bookies given their profile. But beyond them, there’s a mangrove of dubious riders who have either stepped back from the limelight into scenes where controls are less rigorous or been pushed back as far as riding the Gran Fondo circuit.

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