Whooo hooo!!!! It’s the World Championships – time to hand out those rainbow jerseys again. This time Innsbruck is the host city and we have climbs on the menu. The action kicked off with the last ever trade team TTTs – it was emotional.

Time-trialling in it’s purest form is a beautifully agonising contest of flesh, bone and sheer will against the clock. Add in a team element and you have a synchronous endeavour wreathed in pain, sweat and snot that I find compulsive and strangely moving to watch. I realise I may be in a minority with this.

I know they are problematic in short stage races, where they have a huge impact on the result. I’m aware that the expense required to equip and train does not make for a level playing field. But, at the World Championships there is no race to influence, it’s just the effort and coordination required by six riders to get the minimum of four riders over the line in the quickest possible time. So let’s throw away our preconceptions and roll with the expertise on show. And WHAT an advert for the art it was.

Women’s TTT

Wiggle High5 set the early benchmark, but it was a superbly co-ordinated Canyon-SRAM who took the honours. They scorched through the 54.7km in 1:01:47, 22secs faster than hot favourites Boels-Dolmans with 2017 champions Team Sunweb in third at +29secs.

The moment you realise

LOVE the matching rear disc wheel and sock combo

This is the fifth time Canyon-SRAM (and it’s previous incarnations) have taken the World TTT title and Trixi Worrack has been in every gold medal winning team…

Bittersweet

Race report from Cycling News

Men’s TTT

The result of this contest was always going to come down to who could manage their resources on the climb after 40km of fast paced effort. We got a thrilling three-way duel between 2017 champions Team Sunweb lead by the dark and dashing Tom Dumolin, BMC boasting Stefan Kung and Rohan Dennis in their last ever TTT,  and winning at races all year long Quick-Step Floors.

All three topped the climb with five of the six riders still in line. The advantage swung between them on the run in  but it was the Quicksteppers who claimed the top step for the fourth time with a time of 1:07:25. Their split times got faster and faster and they screamed down the descent at speeds touching 111kph – a pacing strategy judged to perfection. Sunweb took silver at +18secs with BMC in third.

Wolfpack howl for their 69th victory of 2018

Four times for the Quicksteppers and what a way for Niki Terpstra to finish his time with this team.

The TTT will be very different in 2019. We will see 4 rider national teams, with the times taken for the women plus the men.

Michael Matthews World Class warm up…

A special day for BMC

As if the podium wasn’t emotional enough…

Just fantastic to watch local team Tirol Cycling get their time to shine and take to the hotseats..

Well, I say hotseats, more of a throne surrounded by an array of boxes to perch on.

Full race report at Cycling News

Daily Dose of Rainbows

Header Image: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)