IFFY'S CORNER

The Tour de France is the biggest event in cycling, but it is much more than that. It is the biggest annual sporting event in the world, and just to wear the Maillot Jaune is usually regarded as the pinnacle of a cyclist’s career. In 2013 Gerry Ryan’s team Orica GreenEDGE lined up for its second attempt at the great race. This was shaping as a defining moment for the fledgling Australian squad. They had won some major one-day races and smaller tours in their first year, but t

Some ideas arrive fully formed. Others take a bit of stubbornness, a bit of luck, and a bit of sheer bloody-mindedness. The Bay Cycling Classic — or the Bay Crits , as everyone came to call it — had all three. Back in 1988, I’d been thinking hard about how to bring cycling to the people. Not tucked away in industrial estates or hidden in country towns, but right into the heart of Melbourne’s summer holiday crowds. The beaches, the foreshore, the caravan parks — that’s where t

People often ask me how the Detour started. They expect a grand plan or some clever strategy. The truth is far more chaotic and far more fun. In 2004 I took a group of characters to the Tour de France. One of them was Ian Jones, better known as Emu, who brought along his home movie camera and filmed the whole circus. When he got home, he handed the tapes to his son Dan, who was an aspiring film student. Dan stitched it all together. It was rough, it was shaky, it was full of

Gerry Ryan and Simon Gerrans at the 2013 Tour de France I am standing with Gerry Ryan on the Champs Elysees at the final stage of the 2010 Tour de France. It is one of the most magnificent boulevards in the world and now the permanent home of the Tour’s grand finale. The riders are about to begin their dozen laps up and down the Champs, around the Arc de Triomphe and through the Louvre. In a few hours a stage will be built in the middle of this famous avenue and Alberto Conta