Tag: Tour of the Kingdom

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.

In a sunny but very windy Lincolnshire Endura Racing's Russell Downing rode a strong race of attrition today to take his fourth Lincoln GP in a sprint ahead of breakaway companion Marcin Bialoblocki (NODE4 Giordana Racing) and over a minute an a quarter ahead of previous winner Kristian House (Rapha Condor Sharp).

A familiar name cropped up to win the recent David Campbell Memorial Race in Fife, run on a tough course over the Cults Hills – that of George Atkins. Atkins spent time living and racing in Scotland a year or two ago and this year he’s stepped up from the 100% ME amateur squad to ride as a pro with the Raleigh.

One of the more interesting transfers over the winter was that of Garmin’s US rider Tom Peterson to Dutch team Argos-Shimano. The 26 year-old from North Bend, Washington has been with Jonathan Vaughters’ outfit since the TiAA-CREF days back in 2006.

One good thing to come out of the washed-out British Madison championship at Meadowbank over the weekend was that there was plenty of time for VeloVeritas to talk to one of Britain's best roadmen, Dean Downing. The 32 year-old from Rotherham had originally intended to kill two birds with one stone; ride the champs and show his fiancee the sights of Edinburgh. The way it worked out, his fiancee had a wedding dress fitting and the race was rained-off. Never mind, he got to talk to us instead.

It’s been a funny old week – it’s always the same, there’s that void after a Grand Tour and it’s hard to fill. Dumoulin ‘done good’ to win; if you’re as old as me you can remember the last Grand Tour win by a Dutchman, Joop Zoetemelk in 1980 in the colours of TI Raleigh; he’d won the Vuelta the previous year and as well as his Tour win finished in second spot six times – with a record 16 Tour finishes off 16 starts.