Tag: Giro d'Italia 2008

Vik's latest nod to us is regarding an Englishman, Douglas Dewey. Douglas won the British U23 time trial championships last season, but the other week he pulled off a major win in Belgium-Gent Staden, the first major amateur classic of the year.

Mark Cavendish, there's little left to say, really. He's the best roadman sprinter in the world - and his partnership with Steegmans is developing into something special. It's not as if anyone is going to lean on Big Gert...

If perfection is a 10/10, and the attainment of perfection is impossible, then GreenEdge have had a 9/10 first month of racing. They have won both the road and TT Australian jerseys for the year, and have won the overall on their first ProTour race. Simon Gerrans is top of the UCI World Rankings, and GreenEdge are 3rd (see the full lists).

Ex-British Criterium Champion and Commonwealth Games track medalist James McCallum has recently returned from a few months racing and resting in the antipodes, and is looking forward to getting stuck into the new season with his re-vamped Endura Racing team. We met James for a good old chinwag this week over lunch: he turned up at the restaurant looking hungry, and with a huge Endura team bag over his shoulder...

One of the biggest professional kermises in Flanders is the Gullegem Koerse, first held in 1942 when Belgian legend Marcel Kindt claimed victory. Since then it’s been won by many of the hardest kermis riders in the game – Willy Tierlinck, Wilfried Nelissen, Nico Eeckhout, Gert Omloop to name a few. Not to mention some of the best roadmen of their eras; including Nico Mattan, Peter Van Petegem and Philippe Gilbert. And for this year’s edition we can boast of a Scottish winner in Andy Fenn – well, his mum is Scottish and he rode the Commonwealth Games for us in Delhi.

For 2014 Jonny Bellis is with Denmark’s Christina Watches Continental team which this year has a big British involvement with Planet X supplying the Viner (pronounced, ‘veenir’) bikes and the team clothing – and two of the squad. Jonathan is joined by Jake Tanner – son of British legend, John Tanner – at Christina, and we talked to Jonathan recently at his new home near Pisa.