I think the new closed style helmet from Giro will catch on. Giro will produce it, market it with no alternatives and the punters will have no option but to buy it. I say this as a runner, it is getting near nigh on impossible to buy a pair of running shoes that do not totally consist of or have a blob of some ' zany ' fluo colour somewhere. All the brands are at it. It is hideous and I ain't gonna buy into it.

Leaving it to Cycling Ireland to revisit the decision rather than trumpeting, shows he has the best interests of Irish Cycling at heart.

Who better to stand against McQuaid, who has had two terms to sort out the UCI but thought "SSDD" was good enough.

Time for change, and integrity (Moran) versus shambolism (McQuaid) - there is no question who will be best for Cycling Sport's Future.

Those must have really been awesome years for the sixes.
I love to imagine the dark, dirty, cigar smoke filled halls with guys sweating away hour after hour yet still putting on a show for an enthusiastic crowd. Polished bikes, colorful silk jerseys, the smell of liniment , sweat, beer and smoke. Like to think there were some real battles taking place in those days as well. Need more stories of those years!
Thanks for the update!

I remember one winter Julian came out with us on a club run and his bike frame (not the Colnago) just fell apart and collapsed. The head tube had been nailed into the headset lug, but not brazed. Crazy

Regards

Richard

Julian (like me) was in the Oxford City Road Club in the seventies, as were his brother Barry and Mick - both also very good cyclists...

Saw Barry and Mick (and Oxford City time trial star John French) at the funeral of Ken Lansbury (Oxford City president) recently.

I remember Julian coming out with us on as club run when he was "home" once - I had never seen a Colnago before!

Regards

Doug

Often see Maurice at Hearn Hill - easy to forget just how mighty he was..

Lets hope that their teams allow them to ride the track this winter, instead of a trip to a race in a desert for a few appreciative camels, some lost Nubians and of course lets not forget the the guys who bankroll it, the Oil Sheikhs; "Rock the Casbah".

I was wondering why the racing aspect and the mass participation cannot be combined. If you look at any of the Marathon and half marathon events run by UK athletics, these seem to combine both aspects perfectly well. Those that want to win the race go off clear at the front leaving those who do it for funa nd charity to go round in their own time and with their own objectives.

The main requirement I think would be to start people in the right place on the start grid, so that the fastsest (Cat E/1) start first followed by cat 2 then 3 then 4 and the rest. You might even start each cat with a suitable gap, almost like a handicap race, and with the use of chips, you could even place finishers within their own catagory.

I am sure somebody will have good reasons why this won't work on a bike, but just wanted to see if anything could be learnt from other sports.

John

I took up road cycling in 2011 and despite wrecking my entry level bike in an accident (not my fault) and some cuts and bruises I kept going, got myself a carbon bike last year and now also have a winter trainer too.

Last year I joined my club in February. It's quite a large club by today's standards, but not that big either (120 members give or take).

I joined the fast 9am group ride and on my first ride I got dropped by the slower echelon of our group including an 82 year old man. I happened to be 30 years old at the time! With training and hard work, I got to the point where I was sitting at the front of the group on club rides and even winning "races" back to the club house along our usual finishing route. Mind you that was on the Sundays when the Cat 4 riders were not racing, otherwise I'd place in the top 3/4.

I had also done a number of time trials through the season, which I enjoyed thoroughly and beat my PB each time, as I would have expected.

I finished the season very well and had a lot of confidence that if I could have a good winter of training, then perhaps I could step up to Cat 4. Alternatively I would focus on time trialling.

When I thought about it, I came to the realisation that to race on any regular basis I would have to either go to Hogg Hill or Dunton as open road races locally are too few and far between (and standards also a bit out of reach for me).

Races at both of these venues have quite large fields and crashes on the final lap are de rigeur. My club president had an accident at Dunton mid-season 2012 and fractured his skull and broke ribs.

So when I thought about it, as someone with a young son, I concluded that if I was going to push myself it would have to be in TT because it just wasn't worth the danger to myself and the cost of bike replacements.

A greater number of open road races, especially for Cat 4 riders would be enormously welcome in the UK. A man can only wear a pointy hat so many times

MD

PS regarding sportives, I've never seen much press attention to sportives referring to them as being competitive or encouraging that sort of behaviour. In general I am supportive of sportives as they provide a challenge to cyclists of all abilities, albeit in certain areas the challenge is greater than others. I can easily do 60 miles in an Essex sportive and not climb more than 3,500 feet, which isn't exactly the "Fred" is it?

Fast forward to the current aspiring road racer version of me: The idea that anyone can road race simply by dint of applying for and getting a BC race licence with no provisions on it for previous experience is anathema to me. Do people go straight to racing because of extreme confidence, extreme arrogance or because they have had some sort of previous "training"? The answer, I would argue is that those riders have mostly gleaned their skills through organised club group riding. This is where in my opinion the gap between sportive and road race widens. The only people I have ever seen riding as a group in a sportive are seasoned club riders, and the place they have learned to ride as a group is not through a sportive but at that club. Add to that that there are only a few sportives where clubs enter - mostly I suspect as those ones have more kudos. The vast majority of riders on sportives are riding solo or in a very small unorganised (i.e. not group-riding) ensemble. I would suggest that the two aspects are always going to be fairly unconnected as they have different appeal. Sportives will never be a breeding ground for road racers. They may provide inspiration to go to road racing for a few folk but in general they are too social ride orientated.

So can there ever be a proper link from one to the other? More to the point should there be? I am only now gaining confidence to enter road races. I'm a wee middle-aged wumman who is never going to win anything but I do have a competitive itch that sportives don't scratch. BUT, to get the skills even at a basic level that have made me feel now ready to compete, I have augmented my club riding experiences by attending as many coaching sessions and schools as I can (e.g Scott Contessa). Without these I wouldn't have considered road racing. And this is where the problem for road racing lies - there are very few opportunities to do this sort of "apprenticeship". I am lucky in that women are currently being targeted. Are there similar opportunities for men or youths that are aimed at the beginner end rather than at those who already possess a good set of skills? I cant find any. It seems the only way into competitive road racing is through, erm, competitive road racing. Surely that is where the problem lies?

I suspect we are actually pretty much saying the same thing here as the real issue lies in how we can achieve getting the profile of road racing up. Part of that is taking it out of the arena of appearing only in the specialist cycling press as that is preaching to the already converted. Sadly our local and national press are too soccer-obsessed to devote many column inches to non-professional cycling. That can only be changed by a lot of pressure at local level which hopefully will filter up at some point. That means getting articles such as yours David into the national press as well as in VeloVeritas.

It will take a lot of pushing.

Your achievements were phenomenal given the levels of support and equipment!!

Allan sounds like a great person, if guys like Marco Pinotti are anything to go by:

After reading his book I saw that he was to be a good team manager as he had feelings.

He did not need to be hard on the riders. He led by example like his mate Sean Yates. He came back from illness in Australia to join ACBB and just went from there.

Many of the people mentioned in the book I heard of from others in the Gent area.

One was Mike Tanks.

On day in Zomergem there was a dark Turk-like man riding around the cafe's on a black Geoffrey Butler bike with chrome forks. He said this was Tank's bike. You know he had a Nieuwlingen (schoolboy), Junior and Senior licence all at the same time.

It is not the same now with all the rich lads with their carbon and aluminum.

Along with his father Anthony and cousin Jeff they have made a huge contribution to the development of local cycling.