Tag: Rás Tailteann

Talent isn’t the only quality you need to ‘make it’ in cycling, Lady Luck plays a big part; 'right time, right place', but of vital importance is persistence. As Winston Churchill said; ‘never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never.’ Former British Junior Road Race Champion, Jacob Vaughan must have read that quotation.

There was no partying at Iljo's dad's bar, De Karper - which is just along the road from the Gent track - for us tonight; we had a ferry to catch. I didn't have time to put together a Day Five piece, today. We were up at 09:00 for the 13:00 start; usually I spend the early afternoon writing, but today I couldn't, although I did manage to get the Day Five pictures away as the under 23 lads prepared for action.

Tim Mountford was one of the pioneers of US professional cycling in the 60’s and 70’s; he recently gave freely of his time to tell VeloVeritas about his adventures in what was a golden age for European cycling.

The girl in the petrol station where we just filled up was stunningly beautiful - I sent Dave back in to buy Coke, so he could see her; why don't they have girls like her in the filling station at Wester Hailes? The Gazzetta is on my lap as we head for 'partenza' in Sondrio. Even though you can't speak Italian, you can get the jist of most of what's being said; "Sorpresa Van Den Broeck, delusione Savoldelli."

Sasha Castling, Ribble’s Head of Public Relations put us in touch with Jamie Burrow, Ribble’s Head of Product to talk gravel, cool but affordable machines, and their new SRAM eTap AXS x Ribble Gravel Ti machine in particular.

So I thought it was about time I posted another Dan Patton Blog update, I've been rather quiet of late and the reason being quite simply there's not been much to talk about. I've been plagued by misfortune after misfortune this winter which ironically gave me lots more time to update the blog, yet I was short of anything really interesting to say - until now that is...