Tag: English Professionals

There have been quite a few brothers in the peloton over the years, so we picked just a few of the cycling siblings (there may be more to come) to compare the brotherly love and their palmarès.

Young Englishman Paul Double is a wee bit of a ‘forgotten man’ - out there in an Italian continental team racing against some of the world’s best - but not by VeloVeritas. Paul’s results this year are all the more commendable given he was hit by a car early in the year and had to fight back to fitness.

At French WorldTour squad Groupama FDJ, Lewis Askey has come close to a French UCI 1.1 semi-classic win and is always in the thick of the televised action. Unfortunately, his progress has been pulled up short by a crash at Paris-Roubaix – most likely caused by the dreaded disc rotor. We caught up with him as he recuperated back in England.

In the u23 version of Gent-Wevelgem, which is a UCI Nations Cup 1.Ncup rated event, Britain’s Sam Watson beat the cream of Europe’s u23 talent to win a race which boasts the likes of Fons de Wolf, Eddy Planckaert, Niko Eeckhout, Greg Van Avermaet and Mads Pedersen among previous winners.

It’s fair to say that the two years Gabriel Cullaigh spent with Spanish World Tour team Movistar didn’t go as well as he’d hoped and for 2022 he’s back in the UK with Cornish UCI Continental team, Saint Piran.

Stuart Hallam, Ian’s elder brother was there, road and track side for virtually all of his younger brother’s successes and is also a man who has made major contributions to the sport of cycling over the years. We thought we should catch up with, ‘Big Bruv.’

This season James Shaw was racing the UK at continental level with the Ribble Weldtite team but next year he’s back to the World Tour, this time with EF Education Nippo.

When Jos Ryan of the David Rayner Fund gets in touch then we know it’s not just to ask how we are. ‘Have you been keeping up with our rider, Toby Perry’s performances in Spain, he’s just had his second win?’ Fortunately for us, we could reply in the affirmative.

Year in, year out during the 70's, Guildford man Gerry Butterfill returned to the cycling Heartland of Flanders to pit himself against the very best in the world.

The top 20 of the recent, hard fought GP Monsere in Belgium saw a name familiar to VeloVeritas but unsung in the UK take a fine top 20 placing in the company of top opposition: Ollie Robinson, who we interviewed last year. He’s now with a Ukrainian UCI continental team, Lviv Continental so we thought a catch up chat was well in order.

Harry Tanfield is good at Snakes and Ladders; he went up the ladder from UK continental team Canyon Eisberg to World Tour team, Katusha Alpecin, but that folded. However, he grabbed another ladder to go to French équipe AG2R, there was no contract renewal at the end of season 2020 though, then came the snake as he slid back down to another UK continental team, Ribble-Weldtite, just for a week or two. Now, he’s gone and grabbed a rung again, this time with South African squad Qhubeka-Assos.

Perhaps VeloVeritas sage and mentor, Viktor summed it up best; ‘he was the coolest – nobody looked better on a bike than Grant Thomas, he was everything I wanted to be in a cyclist.’ We thought that we should share more of the tributes which have been paid to the man.

Following the sad passing of former British Amateur Road Race Champion and road track star Grant Thomas in The Netherlands we received many words of tribute to the man who defined ‘cool’ on a racing bike. Mr. Paul Kilbourne has featured on our pages before, reliving his memories of his time with the now legendary ANC team, gave us a lovely tribute to Grant, which we publish with pride.

It’s not every year there’s a Grand Tour taking place at the same time as the European Cyclo-cross Championship but this is ano 2020 and the ‘new normal’ is upon us. The podium places contained more cheer for us ‘Anglos’ with bronze going to Scotsman, Cameron Mason and silver to Englishman, Thomas Mein.

Englishman Hugh Carthy (EF Pro Cycling) took his first Grand Tour win on Stage 12 of La Vuelta a España yesterday, attacking just outside the final kilometer of the legendary Alto de l'Angliru, soloing to the finish in a fantastic display of measured, determined riding.

Given events in Milano today we thought you might like to see what the man in the final Giro d'Italia pink jersey, Tao Geoghegan Hart had to say to VeloVeritas some seven years ago... For 2014 the 18 year-old from London was off to follow the path trodden by his mentor, Movistar’s Essex chronoman, Alex Dowsett; heading for the USA under the tutelage of Axel Merckx at Bissell – formerly Trek/Bontrager.

The Kazemaatenstraat is part of 70's cycling legend, a condemned cul-de-sac in Ghent where penniless 'Anglo' cyclists could have a cheap roof over their heads as they pursued their (mostly lost) cause to make it big and become a ‘Kermis King.’ Manchester's Bernie Nolan was one of those riders and has kindly agreed to share a few reminiscences with us...

Mark Walsham, one of the “Crit Kings and Men of the 80’s” - there can only be one first question: How many wins in total is it, Mark? "Just over 200 all included."

In Part One of our interview with Bob Cary we covered that part of his career up to his third year with TI Raleigh and the end of 1976. For 1977 he was back in the UK with the Carlton-Weinmann team alongside riders like Olympic team pursuit medallists, Mick Bennett and Robin Croker not to mention British pro scene stalwart, Reg Smith.

In Peter Post's TI-Raleigh squad everything mattered; the bikes had to be the best, the clothing had to look the most stylish and fit properly, the cars had to look stunning. Winning was everything. Post was completely in charge and German ‘Golden Boy’ Dietrich Thurau was on board but still with a smattering of GB riders. By 1976 the team had gone ‘total Euro’ save for two names, Dave Lloyd and one Bob Cary. We spoke to Bob to hear his story.