I come from Halifax and have spent many hours cycling in and around Sowerby Bridge, Hebden Bridge, Todmorden, Haworth, Rochdale, Oldham, Cragg Vale etc etc. Now that would make for an epic race in my view. Plenty of valleys for recovery after climbs and great scenery. I know the British Cycling Academy use the area a lot for training.

I'd love to see the pros tackling the area - maybe we'll see that for the stage of the Tdf in a few years? But equally I think it would make for a great World Championship Race.

I was sure it was Spain who would win with either Valverde or Purito but Gilbert timed his attack to perfection and very pleased to see him in the rainbow stripes next year.

Very credible first race at that level for JTL who was there in the reckoning on the final climb.

Some big issues to be sorted out in cycling which could have a major impact on the sport going forward. USADA are due to send their evidence to the UCI to have the lifetime ban on Lance Armstrong ratified.

What happens if they don't?

Well seeing as it is a condition of Olympic entry that a sports governing body must comply with WADA and the local anti doping body we could see the UCI take a step which means that the sport of cycling loses its Olympic status.

Whilst this is going on what is Uncle Pat McQuaid doing..........I'll tell you what!! He's busy suing Paul Kimmage along with the UCI and Hein Verbruggen (former UCI overlord) for comments relating to a Sunday Times article and comments given to Lequipe.

Crikey. That rlGiro courserl isn't taking any prisoners.

With the 55km time trial, uphill TT and TTT it's no wonder that Bradley Wiggins will be giving it a go.

It would appear that at the moment the Tdf is not in his sights which is an insult in my eyes. The defending Tdf winner should be at the race even if as a protected domestique. Even Cav showed up to the World Champs despite not standing a chance.

Tiernan-Locke to Sky confirmed, to the surprise of nobody

Super domestique with the odd challenge for stage wins on the hillier stuff? Can't see him as anything more tbh, I'd love to be proved wrong however.

For now, yes. Get some grand tour miles under his belt before doing anything else.

The JTL move to Team Sky basically means he will be put to the service of Wiggo/Froome in the next few years.

For me it is a waste of his talent. Just look how close he was to contention in the Worlds this year - looks to me like we have a guy who is perfect for the hillier classics.

For JTL it is a job - and a far better paid job than he has had for the last few years. Perhaps he just wants a few years with one of the best organised teams in the World Tour and put his personal ambitions on the backburner for a few seasons. Perhaps he is just a super domestique - I suppose we'll see on the World Tour stage.

Looks like I was wrong about the Rabobank prediction with Cav. I now expect OPQS to sign Renshaw.

Sky have been vocal about the disappointments in the classics and are targetting improvement in that area. They've made several signings with an eye on that direction

Looking at their signings I can't say that I would agree with you. The only signing where they have even mentioned the 'classics' has been.........

Gabriel Rasch - a 36 year old who has been signed to bolster the classics squad. Looking into his past he doesn't seem to have set the world on fire. Unless of course he has a great record of being a domestique in the classics.

I can only think he is the type of rider they have identified as a future DS.

Of course within the team already there are potential classics winners in EBH, Thomas, Stannard and Wiggins but I just don't think it is a priority to the team.

Every other signing (unless I'm mistaken) has been about improving the stage racing credentials of the team.

So, for the guys obviously into cycling on here, the results of the investigation seem pretty damning. Lance Armstrong always had allegations thrown at him, particularly in the French press. In a sport as physically demanding as that, it would be incredibly difficult to be as dominant as he was. Well now we, pretty categorically, know why. All those years he stood up and protested his innocence when he knew he was a cheat. It makes his whole persona seem so false, the whole Livestrong thing seems sullied by it now.

And the sport itself? Has it recovered from the doping scandal? According to the summary of the report read on the news, 20 of the 21 cyclists on the podium in the Tour de France from 1999-2005 were on doping programmes. That's a pretty shocking stat and suggests doping was incredibly widespread. Is it still? Or has it improved now, and is that a factor in Britain's rise in the sport?

I think it has unquestionably improved now. Sky are very vocal in their anti-doping stance and so are Garmin, amongst others. I suppose you could say that so was Armstrong, but I genuinely believe the culture has changed.

I was one of those with my head in the sand about Armstrong, for some reason I thought it possible that he was innocent, but there's absolutely no doubt that he was involved now. He had the chance to redeem a semblance of credibility by co-operating with the investigations, like his former teammates have, but he refused, and that about sums him up I'm afraid.

There's every chance that if every rider in the peloton back then were clean, that he would still have been the strongest, but sadly we'll never know. It was impossible to compete without doping.

All in all I think this is actually a good day for cycling in the long term. Plenty are now following the example of David Millar and admitting past misdemeanours, and hopefully, as in the case of Millar, will be pro-active in ensuring that the sport stays as clean as possible. Riders are no longer afraid to speak out against doping, and the dopers are now in the minority, not the majority, as it previously was. That riders, such as Millar, Cavendish and Wiggins are consistently competing, winning races and placing highly suggests that cycling is as clean as it has ever been and the new wave of cycling fans that the sport has acquired over the summer can have some faith in it.

I knew about doping in cycling as far back as the mid 80s when I first started following pro races, the organisers/UCI certainly weren't bothered about it then despite all that had gone before (cyclists taking stimulants/doping goes back at least to the early 20th Century)
That Armstrong was beating quite convincingly other dopers just underlined how effective his doping was compared to others.

Shame we can't retrospectively remove dopers records/achievements from other sports such as athletics..

Without getting all scientific, it does have more effect on some than others. Plus, we'll never know if Armstrong was the strongest athlete without the doping.

The defence from his lawyer on SSN is quality.

We know why it's taken USADA so long to publish
Testing is better now than ever so I believe it's harder to cheat and get away with it. There's a growing culture of openness lead by Slipstream and later taken up by Sky. The times for stages over routes that are well known are down on the peaks around the late '90s/early 2000s which has to mean something.
Has it recovered? Possibly not. You talk to people about the grand tours and you'll still hear "they're all on drugs anyway" come back. I think the successes British riders have had is beginning to change that as people are less willing to believe ill of their own, but there's a hell of a long way to go.
As for the rise in British success - that's a very interesting question. It may be a factor, but the way the whole thing has become a professional operation from talent identification through to the training of the elite is more important. It used to be so haphazard that anyone British even getting close to success was a happy accident, an anomaly. Now it's expected because of the processes that have been put in place.