Top 10 Moments of 2014

The past 12 months in cycling have delivered an endless stream of memorable races, landmark victories, big-name crashes, unprecedented crowds and surprise results.

In chronological order, here are our Top 10 Moments of 2014...

Avila wins world points race in home city

Nothing quite gets a crowd going like a home winner and there were few better examples than Colombian rider Edwin Avila’s spine-tingling victory in the points race at February’s UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Cali, his home city. Avila took the lead of the 40km event by gaining three laps on the rest of the field but had a slender advantage of just five points over New Zealand’s Tom Scully going into the last lap and final sprint. Scully made a frantic dash for the line in the final 250m, but Avila followed and finished right behind to triumph by four points and send the crowd in the Alcides Nieto Patino Velodrome into raptures. A special moment even for the neutral.

Contador tackles the Muro di Guardiagrele

For pure entertainment, there was not much to beat Alberto Contador's wrestling match with the ludicrously steep Muro di Guardiagrele on stage five of Tirreno-Adriatico. It measures only 610m in length but averages 22 per cent in gradient and reaches a leg-snapping maximum of 30 per cent. Few climbers look as natural on an incline as Contador – hips swaying and shoulders rolling – but this brute of a ramp reduced him to hunching, bobbing and zig-zagging his way up. Yet he still got the better of it. He had initially attacked 32km out to distance all of his main rivals, but he still had to sweep up what was left of the breakaway on the Muro di Guardiagrele to seal the stage win. Simon Geschke put up a fine resistance, but he was ultimately no match for the peerless Contador, who took the race lead that day and went on to win overall.

Crowds at The Women’s Tour of Britain

The Women’s Tour of Britain was set up in a bid to build on cycling’s rising popularity in the UK and bring world-class women's racing to these shores, and on the evidence of its inaugural edition in May, it is already an overwhelming success. The weather may not have played its part and the challenge of Lizzie Armitstead, the main British hope for victory, didn’t materialise, but tens of thousands of fans nevertheless lined the route of the race on each of its five days to provide an almost unprecedented level of support for women’s cycling.

Quintana excels on climb to Val Martello

Watching a pure climber soar up an Alpine climb is one of the most beautiful sights in cycling and Nairo Quintana’s ascent to the Val Martello summit finish on stage 16 of the Giro d’Italia was a definitive example. The Colombian had escaped from race leader and compatriot Rigoberto Uran in a group of seven riders on the descent off the day’s previous climb, the Passo dello Stelvio, and took a lead of 1min 50sec on to the 22.3km final ascent. It was then that the 24-year-old began his climbing masterclass, dropping his fellow escapees one by one and single-handedly more than doubling his advantage over Uran to 4min 11sec by the summit. It was a sublime and ultimately race-winning exhibition of climbing.

Froome v Contador drag race

Chris Froome and Contador went head to head numerous times in 2014 but stage two of the