So I'm home now after the Volta ao Algarve, which, like always, proved to be very hard. The stages were all mammoth 200k slogs on twisty-turny roads through the hills. The stage finishes were a bit sketchy and the whole thing was topped off by a 35km TT through the hills on bad roads which were wet for the first half of the race.
Hola from Comillas! "Adios Valverde" - so says the sports paper AS in response to Alejandro dropping 3' 23" yesterday in what should have been an innocuous transition stage - those Spanish journos aren't shy. Sleep came easily last night; but I was on the laptop for 07.00 to get my Angliru piece written.
We left our tale with Paul Kilbourne with ANC having ridden well in Ghent-Wevelgem and won the Sealink International and Kellogg’s City Centre Series but Paul felt that a more serious approach to support staff was required...
Clever and strong, Luis Leon Sánchez won this afternoon in Stage 8 from Andorre-la-Vieille into Saint-Girons, adding this to his win at Paris-Nice earlier this year.
Brittany, the summer of 1977 and a group of Scottish cyclists are over there as competitors in the Roscoff–Lorient road race as part of the ‘Festival Interceltique de Lorient.’ At one of these races, a criterium on a sunny day at a venue long forgotten, we met an English chap called Julian Wheat who had chucked his job and set up shop in the depths of Bretagne.
It seems as if English pro James Spragg’s luck has finally turned. After a crash blighted 2011 and the all too typical broken pledges regarding a contract for 2012, Spragg has finally put pen to paper for Algerian/Belgian Continental team, Geofco Ville D’Alger.