Take a deep breath and welcome to the first ever edition of Criterium, Norfolk’s bespoke cycling journal.
It’s always difficult to start something like this as ultimately, the first edition sets the standard of what is to follow. On this précis, we’ve decided to go hell for leather and tackle plenty of ‘firsts’ on a worldwide scale.
We began the month in the relative backwater of Jersey as the Pearl Izumi Tour Series made its first visit to the island. The event proved to be a resounding success, with Matthieu Boulo of Team Raleigh taking the chequered flag on the tour's first ever 'hill climb' and Tom Stewart of Madison Genesis winning the road race. Crucially, we also managed to take in the island from two wheels ourselves and we’ve used the opportunity to put together a ‘cycling holiday itinery’ should you wish to make a visit yourself.
In addition to Jersey, our editor also managed to take in San Francisco. Hiring one of America's own - a Trek Madone from the suburb of Walnut Creek, Bradley took in rides in Sausalito, the wider bay area and joined several club runs in the world renowned, Marin Country. It wasn’t all hard work though – he also visited Rapha’s flagship cycling café in downtown San Francisco and he even had time to write an article or two in the process.
Finally, we are fortunate to have secured press-access to Le Grand Depart as Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire open its doors to le Tour. Ahead of a bumper issue next month reviewing and profiling every twist and turn of the race as it happened, we bring our thoughts as to who are likely to be the front-runners for the coverted yellow jersey. In this section, we bring you an extended look into who is in line to repair the damage done to American cycling by Lance Armstrong. We're also in the lucky position to be able to incude regular features on female cycling, thanks to Erica Auger joining our team earlier this month.
We hope that all of our readers have been as excited for this as we have!
Enjoy the ride and keep cycling.
Bradley Nelson Editor
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Welcome