Tag: Royal Highland Show

Rio is his eighth Olympics; and there are six Commonwealth Games and ‘over 30’ World Championships in there too – and whilst we’re talking chiffres (as the French call figures) how about 60-odd Scottish Championships including 14 Scottish Hill Climb Championships and nine Tours de Trossachs? Yes, it’s that man Sandy Gilchrist, who, along with Robert Millar was Scottish Cycling in the 70’s and into the 80’s. He rode the Peace Race, Tour de L’Avenir, Milk Race and World Championships in a long and varied career which continues to this day as he just keeps on wielding those spanners at the sport’s highest levels.

Has a Scottish based woman ever won the British 100 mile time trial title championship before? The answer is ‘yes,’ in 1998; Andrea Pogson riding for Midlothian Racing Team did that very thing and kindly consented to delve back into her memory banks and give us her recollections of a highly successful time trialling career. 

Mara Abbott is twice a winner of the overall GC in the Giro Rosa, picking up seven stages along the way not to mention two second places, a fourth, a fifth and 10th on GC. Abbott retired from the sport after finishing fourth in the Olympic Road Race in Rio, 2016. She took time to speak to us not long after her retirement; here’s what she had to say.

Sunday stage on the The Girvan 2007 started at 12.01am in the Roxy, Girvan's answer to Stringfellows. We drank cocktails, there was Bobby Darrin on the sound system, and the talk with the Prada-clad lovelies was of moving to Saint Tropez for the Spring.The scent of Chanel filled the air. Na - you know what it was really like; but we only had three beers, so there are no war stories.

‘Lockdown’ does have benefits. The big advantage for me is that I have time to catch up with riders who it’s long overdue I should speak to. One such rider is Australia’s Micheal Wilson, a winner of Grand Tour stages and Italian races of quality. Micheal was at home in Tasmania with a glass of his own Pinot Grigio to hand – Micheal is still involved in wine production – when I called and asked him to stroll down memory lane with me...

Jocky Allan has passed. Life is strange, sometimes. Yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine, we got round to talking about cycling, and with a far away look in his eyes, he reminisced about his first bike; "my maw pushed the boat out and bought me this beautiful red racer, it had white wall tyres and white transfers on the tubes - JB Allan."