One subject has dominated the cycling cyberspace today: the announcement of the impending retirement of George Hincapie (BMC). Everyone’s favourite American is calling time on his successful 19-year career in the pro peloton after this year’s Tour de France and the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, and tributes have been pouring in from around the cycling world.
While Hincapie will perhaps best be remembered as the man who rode on all of Lance Armstrong’s seven Tour victories, he has had an enviable career in his own right. He has been an Olympian five times (1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008); a Tour de France individual stage winner (stage 15, 2005) and he has finished both Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders 17 times.