Tag: Lanzarote

Criteriums, a man of my acquaintance describes criteriums thus; ‘a bunch of guys turn up, they ride round in circles for an hour, one of ‘em wins then everyone goes home.’ Very true, but a night hanging over the barriers in Galashiels, a nice borders town under the spring sunshine with your amigos whilst catching up with old friends sure beats watching the soap operas.

It’s that time of the year again; when young men cross the North Sea to the Flatlands, full of dreams of pro contracts, flowers and kisses from pretty podium girls. It doesn’t always work out like that for all of them but one young English rider has made a very strong start to 2020 with excellent early results; young Mr. Ollie Robinson.

Monday July 23rd, 21.55 in a Ryanair Boeing, somewhere over Northern England. They sell papers on the plane, these days - at inflated prices of course. The whole outside 'wrap' of The Times is a Bradley Wiggins picture, yellow clad and taking the turn at the top of the Champs Elysees, l'Arc de Triomphe providing the background. And the 'The Thunderer' isn't too proud to pinch L'Équipe's headline from two days ago; 'Promenade des Anglais.'

John Herety has won a Peace Race stage, French amateur classics, the British pro road champs and was robbed of the GP Pino Cerami-the judges gave it to local hero Rony van Holen-but photos later showed that the Englishman's wheel was first across the line. Now he's passing all that experience on to a new generation through his role as team manager of London squad Rapha-Condor Recycling, who are north of the border to recce the hills, gravel, rain, wind farms and sheep that are-Girvan.

As James McCallum (Rapha Condor Sharp) prepared for the recent Tour of Normandy (won by Europcar’s Jerome Cousin) he took time to talk to VeloVeritas about his hopes for the 2012 season - his sixth as a professional.

With the recent appointment of Gary Coltman as Head of Performance at Scottish Cycling, VeloVeritas thought it would be interesting to learn about the man and his plans – here’s what he had to say to us: