Photo from Xabiaz on Flickr

As I was skimming down the start list of the Tour of Catalunya today I had to do a double take about a third the way down. Wearing number 78 for Orica Green-Edge would be the Basque climber Amets Txurruka. I’m positive that I was already aware that the 33 year old had joined the Australian team, as I like to keep up with the transfers in the off season, but seeing things written down in the context of an actual race was still a shock and I’m sure I’ll still be rubbing my eyes in a comical fashion when I see Txurruka in his Green-Edge colours.

Yeah sure, riders move from team to team all the time but there are some examples of a certain type of rider pitching up at a certain type of team that feels so odd that something jolts inside you when you find out and you feel that the universe just won’t be the same place anymore.

Witnessing the start of Txurruka’s Txorica Txadventure (sorry) was exactly one of those occasions of weirdness. After spending his first season as a professional at Barloword, the last ten years have been spent at the Spanish regional teams Euskatel-Euskadi and Caja Rural. So a Basque, who is well into his twilight years, moving to an Australian team with a strong identity of having riders from the colonies will always strike me as bizarre every time I see him now.

But with cycling at a stage where old stalwarts are getting ready to retire and the new generation are trying to better themselves, there have been plenty of other strange moves which are curious for different reasons.

Continue reading “Txurrukas Txorica Txadventure and other odd rider transfers”