We continue our journey through every edition of The Road Book with a focus on a year which was, quite simply, like no other: The Road Book 2020.
“For four months nothing moved. The racing had stopped.”
In the autumn of 2020, our team were faced with the difficult task of crafting the definitive record of the most unforgettable 12 months of our cycling lives as the global pandemic of Covid-19 shattered the best made plans of race organisers across the world. Lockdowns were compounded by natural disaster as bush fires so terrifyingly vast in scope that they were visible from space ravaged the Australian landscape in January. It was a year when our precious bubble of road racing, so often an escape from the world, was repeatedly pierced by outside events.
Racing was suspended, the calendar fundamentally altered and our everyday existence restricted to the walls of our homes. Perhaps predictably, the very way we experience and enjoy this sport so inextricably linked to the landscape, geography and the weather, was radically changed. The throngs who crowd alpine mountains or scream on their heroes from the pavements of cobbled streets faced the unenviable prospect of being denied that cathartic release.
Its unsurprising therefore, that many of the essays contributed to the pages of The Road Book 2020 turn their attention to how cycling negotiated this existential threat to the very fabric of its being. Max Leonard made comparisons between the cessation of the cycling calendar during the two World Wars, and Covid. As the only other time that European racing has ground to a complete stop, it is a worthy and poignant comparison. Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio focused on her experiences in that interminable gap, those four months of enforced cycling purgatory. Whilst similarly Laura Wieslo deals with the explosion of ‘virtual racing’ a bizarre twist on a sport so dependent for its meaning on the landscape through which it traverses. Whilst Lukas Knofler covered the first category-1 race to return in Romania’s Sibiu Tour in late July in a depth which this fascinating race has long deserved but sadly too often lacked.
Once racing did resume, it certainly didn’t disappoint. For all that 2019 represented the passing of a torch from one generation of riders to the next, 2020 was the moment this new breed of cyclist refused to relinquish their newfound grip.
A trio of names which will be all too familiar to our readers took their place amongst the pantheon of greats. Wout van Aert stormed through the spring, claiming victory at both Strade Bianche and Milano-Sanremo before picking up a couple of stage wins in an impressive showing at the Tour. The Belgian wrote all about the experience in his brilliant In the Winners’ Words piece. Compatriot Remco Evenepoel was the subject of an essay by William Fotheringham which charted the course of a stellar season, and debated the merits of contemporaneous comparisons to a certain Eddy Merckx.
However, six years down the line, and the only man mentioned in the same breath as the Cannibal is the young Slovenian who took the Tour de France by storm, winning his first maillot jaune in thrilling style with a penultimate day time trial.
Of course, that man is Tadej Pogačar, who’s coach Allan Peiper broke down their victory for a wonderfully unique In the Winners’ Words. Pogi is also a central figure in Richard Williams’ Children of the Summers End, an ode to the value of an autumnal Tour de France which for so long, looked as though it would be denied to us.
It is therefore this thrilling edition of the Tour de France which we have focused on for your reading pleasure. We’ve made each stage report, Allan Peiper’s In the Winners’ Words contribution and Richard Williams’ essay made available as a free pdf here.
Have a glimpse behind the curtain at this truly unique edition of The Road Book, which will be available as part of the Spring Sale for a heavily discounted price between the 25th and 27th of February.
