For some the word ‘cycling’ conjures up little more than the Tour de France but for the aficionado (and devoted punter) it’s a sport that, in addition to generating its unique form of excitement, offers those who enjoy a bet plenty of varied opportunities.
In addition to the road racing, cycling also takes the form of BMX racing, mountain bike racing and indoor track racing; all sports that generate thrills, spills and potential winners.
Where Can I Bet?
Cycling markets are now offered by the majority of bookmakers – the sport no longer considered ‘niche’ for betting purposes – but some offer a wider range of bets than others. As ever, it’s a question of finding one that offers the level of detail and information that suits your betting needs, and to ensure you have the best opportunity to find a site that’s right for you look no further than our recommended sites below…
Different Types of Bet…
As ever, there are plenty of different betting options available if you fancy having one. While the most obvious is betting on the winner, some of the other options are explained below:
Outright: These types of bets are placed on the outcome of an entire tour or event rather than on an individual race. Outright bets are usually placed before a tour or competition starts but are also available during the course of a competition.
Place: Depending on the nature of the particular race it’s a notoriously difficult sport in which to predict a winner. The big events can have as many as 150 competitors, so often it’s an each-way place bet that finds favour with the punters, where you predict a finisher in the first five or ten of a race.
Live Betting: The uncertainty that accompanies any cycling race, or stage, makes live betting a favourite. Falls, crashes and flat tyres are commonplace in virtually every form of the sport but to follow a race in real time and bet on events as they unfold is both fun and potentially lucrative.
Specials: These are too numerous and varied to list but essentially some bookmakers will look to offer the punter a series of fun bets beyond just picking the winner of a race. To use the Tour de France as the example, these will be bets such as the winner of the green jersey (the rider who collects the most points for specific events within the tour), the number of different yellow jerseys (tour leader) that will be awarded during the tour and the number of riders who finish the tour.
INTENSE TRIVIA
The longest running bike race is the Catford CC hill Climb, in Kent (UK). It was first run on Westerham Hill on August 20th 1887. Riders rode a mixture of ‘safety bicycles’ and penny farthings – all on solid tyres. Of 24 starters, only 12 made it to the top. The race is now run on a steeper hill York Hill, with a maximum 25 per cent gradient .
Major Events
Road Racing
The big one of course is the Tour de France but, as mentioned in the introduction, this is but one of a year-round programme of races and tours on the road. They tend to fall into three main categories:
The Grand Tours: Along with the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España make up a series called the Grand Tours. These attract the best road cyclists in the world and each one lasts a gruelling three weeks, each with just a couple of rest days. The Tour de France takes place every July, and attracts bets on the outright winner, stage and team winners. Similarly for the Giro and the Vuelta, which take place in May and the end of August respectively. In the wider sense these three form part of the UCI World Tour, a series of 37 worldwide events in Europe, the US, Canada, China, the United Arab Emirate and Australia. The tours are over varied terrains, many including mountain stages.
The Classics: These are the one-day professional cycling road races that attract the best riders in the world. They form part of the UCI Pro Tour and are raced over one day. There are no individual stages, instead the competitors’ essentially race from point A to point B, although they do occasionally overlap with the tours, where a stage is recognised as an individual race. Well known races in this series include the Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Baston-Liège. These races tend to be run over flat courses, not mountains, and so specialist climbers rarely win or earn a place – complete racers and sprinters being the better bets.
The Critériums: Similar to the UCI Pro Tour and the Classics but these tend to be slightly shorter races and usually consist of several laps around a closed circuit, often a street circuit. For spectator purposes these are popular events as the fans are close up to the action and see the riders whizz by more than once, as they do on the tours. For the punters, the crash, bang, wallop nature of this racing offers risk and reward in equal measure.
Track Cycling
This type of racing is usually indoor and raced on banked tracks in velodromes. As a spectator sport it is thrilling but really only ever enters the major public arena every four years at the summer Olympics.
This type of cycling falls into two main categories, sprints and endurance.
Sprint Races:
Sprint – a straight one-on-one race.
Keirin – a sprint for victory following a speed-controlled start behind a motorized pacer, over a distance of around two kilometres.
Team sprint – a three-man team time trial held over three laps of a velodrome, and, in the women’s event, a two-woman event held over two laps.
Track time trial – competitors compete individually against the clock to record the fastest time over a specified distance from a standing start.
Endurance Races:
Individual pursuit – two competitors start the race from a stationary position on opposite sides of the track. The event is held over four kilometres for men and three kilometres for women.
Team pursuit – a track cycling event similar to the individual pursuit, except that two teams, each of up to four riders, compete, starting on opposite sides of the velodrome.
Scratch Race – a race where all riders start together and the objective is simply to be first over the finish line after a specified number of laps.
Omnium – a series of six different events held over the days, the winner determined by who wins the most points.
Madison – A multi-team, multi rider event that lasts between 30 and 60 minutes.
Major track cycling events that punters should keep an eye out for are as follows:
- UCI Track Cycling World Championship
- UCI Track Cycling World Cup
- UCI Track Cycling World Ranking
- National Series Events
INTENSE TRIVIA
In the 1904 Tour de France, 12 riders were disqualified for reasons varying from taking a train to using cars. The specific reasons were never published, but, so many riders were disqualified, the fifth placed rider Henri Cornet, aged 19, was eventually crowned the winner.
BMX
An event that started in the US but has spread worldwide and now forms part of the Olympics. These can take the form of racing over purpose built tracks and/or freestyling events. These events are considered more niche than track cycling but still have a huge following and there are hundreds of national and international events held across the world under the auspices of the UCI.
Mountain Biking
Like BMX, mountain bike racing now forms part of the Olympics but this takes part on cross-country courses and over longer distances. Also like BMX has a full season of national and international events organised under the umbrella of the UCI.
Betting Strategy
As ever, there is no magic wand but if you’re looking to pick an outright event winner prepare plenty of time in advance. Research is naturally key and ante-post betting offers better value, in particular when betting on the tours.
Also worthy of consideration is betting on specific stage winners, with the form of the individual and his or her team a good guide on making your choice. Be wary of picking a team member who is there to support the team’s ‘star’ and who has virtually no chance of winning a stage.
In-play betting again boils down to research and, as ever, form counts for everything. Upsets in cycling are generally few and far between when it comes to winning tours or long distance events – if a rider is fancied by the bookies that’s for a reason – but anything can happen on an individual stage, so it’s okay to be speculative.
Hopefully some of the above will prove useful if you get the urge to have a bet on folk propelling themselves around a track or a road on two wheels, and by allying our info with some research of your own there is fun and money to be had when betting on the fastest and most resilient. Ultimately it’s about having fun while giving yourself the best chance of winning a bit of cash along the way, so allow us at OnlineGambling.co to wish you the best of luck.
