Copa Ciclismo - Corrida da Cidade 14th August

Photo essay by Abub Ibraimo with commentary by Mario Traversi

The Corrida da Cidade is the 16th race in the Copa Ciclismo calendar. For the event we chose the route of the upcoming African Games road race with a few less laps.. Quite a strong turnout for the race, with most members of the National Cycling Squad as well as club members and enthusiasts doing either the 3 laps or 7 lap race.

Riders with race organisers and Police escort

Joao Paulo da Glória and Tim Doyle discussing race strategy

Abilio think's Abub's shoes look funny. Betinho is feeling the cold. Unknown MTBer thinks our lycra pants all look funny

Mark Peletier and Tim Doyle discussing race strategy. "Should we attack on the descent or on the climb?!"

Messias Langa with his Bianchi

Your author showing off his teeth, and trying to scare the opposition

Paulo de Almeida looking serious on the bike

Tim Doyle looking for someone to discuss race strategy with

Rui Ferreira flanked by the unlikely Da Silva brothers, Gustavo & Guilherme

Gustavo practicing his Giro d'Italia pose

Mussa Rashid, our Beira cyclists down in Maputo getting ready for the Africa Games

The Peloton at the start.. note the palm trees swaying in the wind.. it's going to be a tough race!

Guilherme off the front on the first climb of the day, leading the race.

The peloton riding one neutralised circuit to get a feel for the course. Messias up front showing how it's done.

Betinho is happy about something.. So am I. Maybe one of us broke wind? Check out Messias and Abilio's faces.

Top of the viaduto climb, all together. Each successive loop would see a few cyclists come off the back.

Along Av.Edoardo Mondlane. Police support kept intersections clear for the cyclists.

Peloton along the Marginal. A stiff breeze meant we all stuck together. Vicente and Abilio pushing up front.

Mussa on the finishing straight along Av.10 Novembro on one of the last laps

Vicente leading the charge along Mondlane, with Mario in the background steadily falling back

Betinho taking the victory with a one-handed salute. Should work on that a bit for the more usual 2 arm salute.

The Podium - 1st place Betinho Cuambe (centre), 2nd place Mussa Rashid (left), 3rd place Arone Jaulane (right)

Vuelta a España - Stage 6 controversy

Hello all,
Time for another grand tour, and some controversy. Unless you are american or live on mars you probably know that the Vuelta is now on, the three week cycle race around Spain. Well, stage 3 of this race was quite a cracker with a very interesting finish. On the descent of the only major climb of the day, 10km from the finish, the Liquigas Team managed to break away from the peloton with 4 riders and won the stage. Great news for them, right?!

WRONG!

So what's wrong? Well, for starters Nibali, the team captain came 4th. Chavanel, the red jersey wearer.. is still in red. And Sagan is not Nibali's best friend any more. Sagan won the stage and is Liquigas-Cannondale's strongest sprinter. But why did it go wrong. Well, if you open any cycling blog, they will explain that Sagan took the stage, but really had to because Movistar's Pablo Lastras was in the break and gunning for the win. So why did Nibali not come 3rd? I can understand Sagan taking the win. I can understand Lastras taking second. So why did Valerio Agnoli take 3rd? Mystery of mysteries..

So what is my take on the whole issue? Nibali was the weakest rider of the breakaway and was already showing signs of fatigue in the final km's of the race. He couldn't sprint for the win because Lastras would have beaten him to it. So why didn't the Liquigas riders not try to isolate Lastras in the run-in to the line. I mean, they had FOUR riders there! One could have gone a bit earlier, taken Lastras and then stopped, letting the train behind attack from the other side. If Lastras went with them, the other side would attack, and hopefully he'd be too tired to do the final sprint to the line and Nibali could have taken the win, the time bonus and the red jersey..

In the end it was Nibali's own fault - he didn't have the kick for the final attack (possibly having used his energies on the downhill attack which broke him away from the peloton) and he didn't use his team-mates to wear down Lastras.. Thy concentrated on opening up the gap with the peloton (17 seconds.. but they had at least 10 just from the downhill charge) instead of worrying about the 20 second time bonus for 1st place (or 12 for 2nd place, or 8 for 3rd place)..

Nibali is still "green" and needs to think more instead of just being a good descender.