Saturday, April 20, 2024

Tag: MTB

Finn Crockett – “I’m an old boy now, I turn 23 this month!”

Following on from our interviews with Scotland’s 2022 Commonwealth Games selections we caught up with a man who’s enjoyed a great start to 2022 and who’ll be riding the road race in Birmingham, Ribble Weldtite’s Finn Crockett.

Mark West – the Welshman in Charge of Africa’s “Most Exciting” UCI MTB Team!

When we photographed the National Champion of Lesotho, Phetetso Monese in action at last year's Commonwealth Games MTB race in Glasgow, little did we know that key to his - and the nation's - burgeoning success was a Welshman, Mark West. Mark got in touch with us recently to ask if we'd be interested in hearing more about Monese's country and the background to his appearance on the Cathkin Braes and we jumped at the chance.

Grant Ferguson – Winning the U23 UCI MTB World Cup at Val di Sole!

And after a couple of seasons of near misses, Grant Ferguson, the British U23 ‘cross and Elite MTB Champion has finally reached the top of the international MTB slippery pole with an excellent win in the U23 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup at Val di Sole in Italia. Second was Titouan Carod (France) who’s the 2015 U23 World Cup overall winner, emphasising the quality of the Scotsman’s win.

Dan Fleeman – New MTB Team; Forme Coaching-Pactimo-Cannondale

I remember the first time I met Dan Fleeman; 2007 in the days before Twitter, The Shack, LanceGate, the slick marketing of the ‘Flanders Classics’ and the World Tour. Vik still used to go to pro races; before he was too badly scarred by the World Tour – the Tour of Beijing was the last nail in the coffin.

“World’s Ultimate Cycling Races”

The new book by respected cycling journalist Ellis Bacon may help - the "World's Ultimate Cycling Races" is an eclectic mix of facts and stats about events all over the globe, from Pro level races such as the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana to MTB races, Gran Fondos and Sportives that anyone can take part in.

At Random

Sam Spokes – a Great Start for Drapac with 5th at the Aussie Nationals

He has a great name for a cyclist, Sam Spokes; we first spoke to the young Aussie in 2013 when he was making a name for himself with QuickStep U23 feeder team, Etixx. Last year also saw some nice results - but not enough to move him up to the Etixx World Tour squad. But all is not lost, he’s signed with Australian Pro Continental team, Drapac – and in his first race in the Aussie team’s distinctive red jersey he made the winning break in the recent Australian Elite Road race taking a solid fifth behind winner Heinrich Haussler (IAM Cycling).

Andrew Feather – National Hill Climb Champion for 2020

It was two years ago when we first interviewed Bath solicitor, Andrew Feather as CTT National Hill Climb Champion. In 2018, his Championship win was his 12th hill climb success off 15 starts - impressive. But not as impressive as this year with his Championship win the now 35 year-old’s victory was his 15th hill climb win off 15 starts.

Yanto Barker – the Man Behind the Le Col Brand

The new Bahrain McLaren team colour scheme for the team’s jerseys and bikes is hard to miss; but it was the little ‘le col’ logo that interested us. ‘Le Col’ is the clothing company founded and run by British ex-pro, Yanto Barker. We found out more about outfitting a World Tour team and the man behind the brand.

The VV View: What are the Odds? Team Sky, Brad and Dave Millar

I hope you all had a good Xmas; Viktor didn't - but that shouldn't surprise us. He did make a good point though - namely that Sky are well behind with their training camps; all of the big squadra have had one, if not two camps already. From a fitness and bonding point of view the digital vision guys are behind the eight ball already; it'll be interesting to see if that makes a difference come flag dropping time.

Scotland’s Clan McGinty – a True Cycling Family

One of the things that’s good about FaceBook is seeing those old pictures from the 70’s when cars, music and especially bike racing were all cooler than they are today. Recently, there have been some nice pictures of those Regent boys and that got me to thinking about the omnipresent Clan McGinty. A quick message to Steven of that ilk followed and we hope you like what he had to say as much as we did...

Michael Berling – International CiCLE Classic (Rutland) Winner

"The 'Rutland' is a bit of lottery!" That's what many riders say; but not 2010 winner Michael Berling. He's been top four three times in the last three years - we thought we best have a word with the man VeloVeritas works for every year at the Six Days of Copenhagen.