"I knew you'd ask that! With my team mate Gordon Murdoch in second place in the series, there's no pressure on me, and all I would say is that it'll be hard for someone to win who's not in Pedal Power!". Those were the words of Gary Hand in the run up to this weekend's race, and with Ben Greenwood (Rapha Condor-Recycling) pulling out of the second round of the Scottish Cycling Super 6 due to injury, it looked set to follow a similar pattern to the first round; being dominated by Pedal Power.
It's Leicester's Saffron Lane velodrome, August 1974. The newly crowned British 20 kilometre champion, Maurice Burton waves his bouquet. Sections of the crowd are booing. Is it because the champion rode a tactical race, not killing himself in the winning break, conserving his sprint? Perhaps, but Burton has just made history, he is Britain's first black senior champion.
Schlecks Shaken... What a stage last night turned out to be! Prior to the stage, the thoughts were that it was always going to be a breakaway, and there wouldn't be much movement on the general classification. Half right! The high likelihood of the break staying away meant that all of the boys not in with a chance on general were hoping to get a piece of the action, meaning it took hours before the break finally got clear.
We've been watching the up-and-coming riders and have chosen our ‘Top Ten Young Guns’ for 2023. Our rider choices for 2022 included some top performers so let’s look at the ‘Men to Watch’ in 2023.
We mentioned the other day that Craig Geater is now working for the Discovery team, but before that he was a spannerman for Riis' CSC outfit, and it somehow seemed fitting to now publish our interesting interview with him from that period.
Changes; ‘time may change me; but I can’t trace time,’ said the late, great David Bowie, most take it to mean that whilst you can run your finger back along the timeline of your life, you can’t change anything along there. I take myself as an example; now I have an ‘e’ Gravel Bike, disc brakes, 1 x transmission.
The day started with a long transfer from our hotel in the magnificent town of Covilhã, Termas de Monfortinho, situated at the foot of Serra da Estrella. We’ve been run of our feet with with reconaisance, various signings on and parading around the palce...