Martin Ayres has worked at Jaguar for over twelve years, and once again joins Team Sky as their performance engineer during the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta á Éspaña in 2013. Having not ridden a bike for over 20 years, Martin is a recent convert to the sport after his experiences with the Team in 2012 – including during their historic winning campaign for the Tour de France.
I can’t ever watch games of football or rugby without wistfully wondering what it must be like to be professional. On days like today however, I’m pretty happy not to be a pro cyclist!
By Martin Ayres | Sport | Thursday, 16 May 2013 at 5:10 pm
Here in Treviso (a hub of Italian cycling) it looks like a big pink paint bomb has gone off. As with the Tour in yellow, the Giro is all about pink – the strapline for the race is ‘the fight for pink’.
By Martin Ayres | Sport | Monday, 13 May 2013 at 4:46 pm
The weather over the past few days has been far from ideal. The riders turned up yesterday at the team bus looking like they’d just undergone a severe hosing down. I’m usually amazed by how well they look and cheerful they are after such long distances, but they really wore the day on their expressions yesterday.
By Martin Ayres | Sport | Thursday, 9 May 2013 at 3:53 pm
The mechanics and I were chatting the other day, and we have unanimously decided that professional cycling is probably the least logistically friendly sport in the world.
By Martin Ayres | Sport | Tuesday, 7 May 2013 at 5:30 pm
Giro d’Italia? What’s that? I hear you say. Well, for anyone who has thumbed past page one in the cycling-for-dummies handbook (no, that does not exist) it is the second most famous race in the world, only beaten by a certain Tour de France.
By Martin Ayres | Sport | Friday, 3 May 2013 at 4:27 pm
Martin Ayres has spent the past three weeks on the road with Team Sky. With victory secured yesterday afternoon on the Champs Elysee, Martin looks back at a life changing experience.
By Martin Ayres | Sport | Monday, 23 July 2012 at 2:07 pm
We had a team meeting yesterday and Dave Brailsford reminded us that until we get Paris the job is not done.
By Martin Ayres | Sport | Friday, 20 July 2012 at 10:11 am
The past 24 hours for everyone on the Tour has been dominated by tacks – 20mm long pieces of pure evil.
By Martin Ayres | Sport | Tuesday, 17 July 2012 at 12:54 pm
The more time you spend on the road, the more important those small moments of fun to stop us all going deranged from the daily pressure of being on ‘Le Tour’.
By Martin Ayres | Sport | Thursday, 12 July 2012 at 2:47 pm
On Bradley’s arrival, he bounded out of the team car and shook the hand of every single person on the team, including yours truly. It was a real mark of the respect that exists between the riders and their support team, and made my day after missing out on watching the stage.
By Martin Ayres | Sport | Monday, 9 July 2012 at 4:08 pm
1Doctor Who ‘The Name of the Doctor’ – Series 7, episode 13
2On The Road at the Giro d’Italia: Feeling ill and racing in the rain must be pretty grim
3Where have property prices been reduced most in the UK?
4Syria’s cannibal rebel defends himself
5Dish of the Day: How to… make one of the sublimest of cocktails, the Negroni
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