Update 2/22/06: Cyclingnews changed their url for today’s stage!! I updated the url on the Yeswap portal this morning before the stage started, but I can only post to the blog in the evening. I’ll do the same for the rest of the stages, if the url changes again I’ll update the portal ASAP, but this post may not get fixed until later.

Last week I wrote about how you can follow Velonews’ live coverage of major cycling races on your mobile browser. Today I discovered that Cyclingnews has a mobile live site. That is awesome news for cycling fans who want a mobile way to keep up with the races. Velonews is a good cycling website but their primary business is their weekly print newspaper. Cyclingnews, on the other hand, is the premier cycling news site on the web. Their live race reports are extremely detailed and they have live coverage of just about every major cycling event on the planet.

This week Cyclingnews is covering the Tour of California live. Comparing today’s Tour Coverage on the two sites, Cyclingnews’ report was much more timely and detailed. Velonews updates tended to come in bursts every 10 minutes or so and there was one period near the beginning of the race when there were no updates for 50 minutes. Cyclingnews posted updates every few minutes that were very detailed right down to the names of the roads the riders were on. This was great for me – the stage was happening in my own backyard, the East Bay hills where I frequently ride. It meant a lot to me to know when the riders where on Happy Valley, Redwood Road or Palomares.

By the way, when I watched the Tour of California prologue Sunday, I used my phone browser to keep up with the standings and which riders I could expect to see as I wandered around the course. Being constantly aware of the race situation made watching the race much more enjoyable.

I haven’t quite figured out Cyclingnews’ url scheme, but for the Tour of California, it looks like they are using http://live.cyclingnews.com/wap for every stage.

Cyclingnews’ site is WAP1 and text-only but the wealth of information and timeliness makes it a great way to follow a race. I’ve put links to both Velonews and Cyclingnews’ live coverage on the Sports/Cycling page at yeswap.com so you can easily try them both. Because Cyclingnews’ mobile site is WAP1 you will only see a link to it if you are using a wml-capable browser.

Content: Usability:

Cyclingnews Live: wml