It's 12.25 and we're headed for a road that the men's lifestyle and driving mags rave about; The Amalfi Coast. Amalfi, Porto Fino, Sorrento - playgrounds of the rich and famous.
At the time I set off for Flanders in 1973 to live at Mrs Deene's, I only knew two people who had raced there – one of them being Stan Butler’s son Keith - who had done well enough that he had become a professional - so it was entirely word-of-mouth, a case of asking for whatever advice people could offer and setting off on the cross-channel ferry, hoping for the best.
When Taylor Phinney crossed the finish line at the end of the Giro prologue, a big sigh went up here at VeloVeritas – ‘there goes our Giro prologue winner exclusive!’ Sky's Geraint Thomas had been top of the leader board until Phinney used those amazing genes of his to great effect and the Weshman had to make do with second place.
The stage today would have been earmarked as one for the break, and this it has turned out to be. Two of the popular heroes of the Tour battled it out for the stage win: Thomas Voeckler and Jens Voigt took each other, and three other escapees on, with Voeckler using his cunning and power to take the stage in a very funny looking slow motion sprint.
He’s a man we should have caught up with long ago – but one of the few good things about ‘lockdown’ is that it has given us the time to catch up with riders who have ‘slipped through the VeloVeritas net.’ At last; Mr. David Whitehall...
Arthur Doyle, (Dooleys) comfortably retained his Scottish 25 Mile Time Trial Championship 2010 title with 52:54 on a cool but mostly dry Sunday morning around the verdant Howe of Fife, second was the man on the big fixed gear who was the surprise of the 2009 ten mile champs, Peter Ettles (Sandy Wallace Cycles) with 54:07-surprise this time was Philip Kelman (Deeside) with 54:44 off an early number 45 start.
VeloVeritas didn't arrive until number 92 was on the line, so apologies to Mr. Kelman for the lack of photographic evidence.
However, we were up at 06:00 am on Sunday to edit yesterday's road race pictures; we weren't slacking...