ProTeam Lampre-Merida meticulously closed down a dangerous two-man break in the final kilometres of today’s 160.7km second stage – the racest longest – but their final lead-out was not enough to overcome the strength of Korean sprinter Sung Baek Park, who secured enough bonus seconds to leap into the overall race lead.

Known as the ‘International Azerbaijan Tour’ until last year, this hard-man’s race, held in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, enters its 28th year with the new ‘Tour of Iran’ label. Local riders have been victorious in 19 of those 27 editions held to date, and they will be looking to re-claim the title after Spaniard Javier … Continue reading »

Regular readers will have first seen Ryota Nishizono pop up on Cycling iQ during last year’s Tour of Japan. Then riding for Bridgestone Anchor, Ryota went on to win his country’s elite men’s time trial championships before being picked up by ProContinental team, Champion System Pro Cycling, before the start of the 2013 season.

Winner of the final stage of last year’s Tour of Japan, Aisan Racing Team’s Taiji Nishitani picked up where he left off, putting his long-range sprinting ability to good use with a strong ITT performance in today’s opening stage of the 2013 Tour of Japan in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture.

Coming back higher and harder than in 2012, the 12th Tour de Korea (09-16 June) ditches a full north-to-south traverse in favour of elevation and compactness. With fourteen categorised climbs, including two C1′s, and a 25.5km team time trial, only a genuine all-rounder should emerge victorious.

Roughly 25 million bicycles are produced and sold in China each year, with another 8 million or so being imported. Shanghai’s ‘China Cycle’, the largest annual exhibition of its kind on the mainland, offers a snapshot of a growing local bike market bustling with brands that are probably off the radar of most western consumers.

Newly upgraded to UCI2.1 status for 2013, the 16th edition of the Tour of Japan looks certain to be a cracking race. From 19-26 May, 16 teams, including Italian ProTeam Lampre-Merida, will tackle a challenging 582-kilometre parcours which is not to be underestimated.

Starting this month, ‘Neutral Zone’ will be a regular segment on Cycling iQ which gives readers the opportunity to learn a little more about the cyclists whose names appear on the start lists of UCI AsiaTour races.

China’s Guangdong province may be known as the “world’s factory” of consumer goods but, over the border, Hong Kong is building infrastructure in an effort to produce something else: local track cycling talent that can take on the world.

Riders from ProTeam ORICA-GreenEDGE are set to feature amongst a peloton of select ProContinental and Continental teams in Friday night’s 2013 OCBC Cycle Singapore Professional Criterium which, in its fifth year, will feature a start-list that many races on the AsiaTour would be proud to have, but few could afford.

Two veterans of the sport squared off in yesterday’s 197.6km Melaka Governor Cup, but it was CCN Cycling Team’s resident 46 year-old Lex Nederlof who usurped Singapore’s tenacious Sea Keong Loh, after the two stole away from a break in the final laps of a challenging circuit that claimed 30% of the field through attrition.

Speculation over a potential merger of the Asian Cycling Confederation’s and Oceania Cycling Confederation’s respective annual cycling championships has been building over the last year, but a video promotion recently uploaded by a national cycling federation certainly adds an air of imminence – though perhaps fruition will come later than the video suggests.

Despite the fundamental challenge of squeezing in a wide variety of terrain and balance into a four-day format, Le Tour de Filipinas’ organising committee has again delivered a superb parcours which is certain to catch out at least a few international riders who may underestimate – thanks to their relative anonymity on the global stage … Continue reading »

71 cyclists from 24 nations assembled at the Buddh International FI Circuit near Delhi, India, to participate in the 156.2 kilometer Elite Men’s Road Race at the 2013 Asian Cycling Championships last weekend. Cycling iQ and local freelance writer Praveen Kumar combined resources, secured a media pass and witnessed the race for the coveted White Jersey … Continue reading »

From the first day the Cycling iQ blog started, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know a core group of individuals that share a similar objective: discover and broadcast information held captive inside Asia’s growing, but at-times seldom-reported, professional road cycling scene. In his own words, Malaysian journalist Shamshul Fitri shares his passion for … Continue reading »

When the Chinese Cycling Association’s (CCA) held its 2012 General Assembly in Beijing last December, Secretary-General Zhang Bin (张斌) lamented the lack of Olympic gold medals attributed to China’s road cyclists thus far. In announcing a three-pillar plan to develop the China’s national cycling program, it is clear every effort is being made to ensure the 2016 … Continue reading »

It seems remarkable that a country with an estimated 244 million people and annual sales of 7,000,000 bicycles doesn’t have at least one permanent professional road cycling team, but this is exactly the situation Indonesia had been in until recently, when assistance in the form of Ireland’s Cycling Federation came along.

Lashings of champagne, authentic or not, have left a sticky residue on many a pro cyclist’s shoe this year, with several races of the 2013 UCI road cycling calendar already in the rear view mirror. It has taken a little while longer to make a full roll call of the global peloton, but we can … Continue reading »

Spectrum Worldwide, the Singapore-based event management company which owns and operates several mass participation cycling events, including the hugely-successful OCBC Cycle Singapore, this week launched ‘Cycle Asia’; a regional concept promising to give amateur cyclists access to closed-roads events in some of Asia’s biggest cities.

Dubai’s cycling ‘master plan’ was officially extended by another 18 kilometres last week, as Sheikh Mansour Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum opened a new dedicated cycling track on Al Qudra Road. In most countries, such infrastructure might get a few column inches; in Dubai, that’s not how things are done. Cue the extravagant video.

Road cycling stars in the recent screenplay adaptation of a Chinese novel which explores the spirit of sport and the dynamics of cross-cultural relationships in modern-day China. Though it’s not along the same hard-core lines as ‘American Flyers’, the film hints at a growing institutional support for cycling on the mainland.

With no official results being made available until after the race had concluded, the ADC Tour of Vietnam was all but impossible to report on. However, the UCI itself took the time to write a retrospective report on Vietnam’s first UCI stage race.

The 2012 AsiaTour, which officially ended with the Tour of Brunei in September, was scattered across 13 nations and comprised 155 days of racing. Logistically and financially, it’s a puzzle for most teams – but has anyone wondered about the actual formula which bolts it all together? Is the calendar logically set out for sustainable … Continue reading »

Champion System Pro Cycling Team today advanced its position as the leading investor in Asian road cycling talent with the addition of reigning national champions Ryota Nishizono (Time Trial, Japan) and Chanjae Jang (Road Race, Korea). China’s Xu Gang, who also recently renewed his national champion status, returns for his second season in a team … Continue reading »

Where is pro cycling and cycling culture in China going? For most of the year, this question circles in a small fishbowl of new media (like this blog). However, the recent Tour of Beijing has helped the discussion spill over into much larger ponds, including that of China’s state-owned Xinhua News Agency.