I started blogging about road cycling in 2009, as a calculated distraction from the exhausting work of writing my dissertatiion for my literature master degree. From time to time I needed some relaxation time, when I’m not thinkig about the realation of history and fiction. Also, I needed to work on something with a more instant result than a dissertation. A blog that I could update any time I want, where I could follow the increasing numbers how more and more visitors arrived on my blog, Seeing and feeling the progress of something was crutial to me to avoid depression.
I have been following road cycling races since the 1990s (more exacly from the day when Marco Pantani won on top of Alpe d’Huez in 1997), not only Tour de France, but also many other races. I understood and was able to explain to others the basic rules of the sport, and occasionally I could tell stories from its history.
The first version of my Hungarian cycling blog TOURázzunk együtt also provided basic infos about the most important road cycling races for cycling fans don’t speak any foreig language, therefore they couldnt just google the informations on international websites, especially on the official websites of the cycling events.
I remember the first race I covered was Paris-Nice 2009, and the first stage I was live blogging about was one of the first victories of Jacob Fuglsang.
It was a different era, wasn’t it? The peak of the career of Alberto Contadro, Fabian Cancellara or Tom Boonen. A time, when Vincenzo Nibali and Rochie Porte were considered as aspiring youngsters.
Anyway, years went by and my interest was slowly shifting towards road cycling history. However I published a book in 2017 about the latest issues and developements in the world of World Tour level road cycling events. ( Do you remember the invention of Hammer Series?)
In Februar, 2020 I started an English version of my blog. That was the first version of PelotonTales. The usually short blog entries about road history also served as a writing excercise.. I have been speaking English since my youth, but publishing texts on a foreign language, that’s an entire different thing. I clearly can see the improvement between my first article and the way how I now write one.
However, over the past 2–3 seasons, my relationship with road cycling races has changed a lot. As I focused more on the history of the sport, I found myself losing track of current events. I spent so much time exploring stories from the past that I started feeling disconnected from the modern races, teams, and riders. What once felt exciting and familiar now felt distant, and I realized I was no longer following the sport as closely as I used to.
During the Christmas holidays, I thought a lot about this and decided it’s time to move on from writing about road cycling events. While I still enjoy the history of the sport, I no longer feel the same passion for covering the latest races. That’s why I’ve decided that 2025 will be my final season. It feels like the right time to step back and focus on other things.