And So, Oh, Hello and welcome to another edition of the Roadbook part of the Never

Stray's Far family of podcasts with myself, Ned Bolting and normally David Miller.

Except David's off doing his own thing today so it's just me.

And the other reason why it's just me is frankly there's no road racing going on.

It has all come to a shuddering halt after the tour of Huangxi finally was completed in front of

an audience of precisely nobody over in China a mystifying race that occupies some sort of a place in the

world tall consciousness as yet undefined. Anyway unless you count six day

racing which you most certainly can if that's your thing which is just

come to a halt in London then yeah we are preparing ourselves for a a raceless couple of

months before it all kicks off again with the tour down under etc at the beginning of January.

Can't wait for that to start. So instead of our usual format if such a thing exists, which it patently obviously doesn't. All I'm going to do here is

tee up what's to come in this podcast. I have committed to audio form, a short

audio book if you like, my long editor's introduction to The Road Book, the Big Red Book, which is the

definitive cycling almanac, and which is going to be published the 2019 edition on the November the 1st on Friday.

But this is an opportunity really just to sit back and enjoy

reliving the memories of what was an exceptional year of road racing in 2019 because one of the

great privileges and pleasures of my job as editor of the roadbook is to review the year that has

just passed. So kick back, make yourself a cup of tea, pour yourself

a beer, whatever you want to do and remember just what a wonderful year we have just witnessed.

If 2018 had been the year of the miracle, then 2019 was a paradigm shift.

The cycling world tipped on its axis. Years from now, historians

of this magnificent sport will reflect that this was the point in time when the old guard shuffled out.

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