Gerry Butterfill – Taking the Start with Eddy Merckx
Year in, year out during the 70's, Guildford man Gerry Butterfill returned to the cycling Heartland of Flanders to pit himself against the very best in the world.
Mason Hollyman – Looking for a Stage Race Podium with Israel Cycling Academy
We were looking at the result of the u23 Trofeo Piva in Italy, recently to see how Flavio Zappi’s boys had done when a name caught our eye; in 11th spot was a certain Mason Hollyman [Israel Cycling Academy] with a little union jack beside his name. Best ‘have a word’ with the 20 year-old gentleman from the rugby Heartlands around Huddersfield and Wakefield, we thought to ourselves.
Toby Perry – “My goal was to win a race – I’ve done that...
Flavio Zappi’s boys are in full effect in la Bella Italia and Scotsman Calum Johnston is turning the pedals in anger in Espana and the man who won the Memorial Zumzarren in Estella-Lizarra, Navarre, Northern Spain where Calum finished 14th recently, was an Englishman; 21 year-old Toby Perry from Ashford in Kent, by name.
Matthias Barnet – “I just love being on the bike and able to compete”
Seven years ago, in 2014, we interviewed Matthias Barnet, he had just won the 2014 British u16 Criterium Championship on the technical Hog Hill circuit at Redbridge, London. Since then we’ve not heard much of the man but when we spotted that he had signed up with Flavio Zappi’s squadra for season 2021 – along with fellow Scott, Hamish Strachan, who we spoke to recently – we just had to have a word with him.
Ollie Robinson – Racing season 2021 with Ukrainian team Lviv
The top 20 of the recent, hard fought GP Monsere in Belgium saw a name familiar to VeloVeritas but unsung in the UK take a fine top 20 placing in the company of top opposition: Ollie Robinson, who we interviewed last year. He’s now with a Ukrainian UCI continental team, Lviv Continental so we thought a catch up chat was well in order.
Sean Flynn – on a Dual Road/MTB Program with SEG Racing
20 year-old Sean Flynn from Edinburgh; four times a British Champion at youth and junior level, is on the SEG roster for season 2021, which is an achievement in itself.
Hamish Strachan – “I thought Italy would play much better to my strengths”
You may have read our recent interview with Senor Flavio Zappi here on VeloVeritas? This season the Zappi Racing Team will have strong Scottish representation with Messrs. Hamish Strachan and Matthias Barnett quitting Bonnie but chilly Scotland and the brooding, icy waters of the North Sea for La Bella Italia and the more benign waters of the Adriatico.
Roy Schuiten Revisited – ace pursuiter of the ’70’s
We recently ran or tribute to the late, great 'Big Bert' Oosterbosch. It was so well received by our readers that we thought we should re-run a piece from a few years ago which pays tribute to another Dutch chrono and pursuit king - the late, great Roy Schuiten.
Phil O’Connor; 21 Years of Cycling Photography
It was May 1981 when Phil O'Connor took his first race picture; Manxman, Steve Joughin winning a stage of the Tour of Britain, 'Milk Race' as it hurtled into Bournemouth - some months later he managed to get it published in a cycling magazine.
Christina Mackenzie – National 12 Hour Champion 2020
Covid having put paid to her 2020, ‘End to End’ bid after her brave but ultimately unsuccessful 2019 attempt, Christina Mackenzie (Stirlingshire Bicycle Club) had to re-focus and made the CTT 12 Hour Championship her goal for the year. ‘Mission accomplished,’ winning by some 12 miles with a provisional 251.64 miles on a tough course in equally tough conditions.
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The VV View: In the Bleak Mid-Winter
It's been a while since we ranted so in this Nugget Ed offers some Mid-Winter Thoughts on Tom Dumoulin's decision to stop, the 'Cross Worlds, AG2R's New Jersey, flat-bar gravel bikes and the latest 'best rider' rankings...
The VV View: Scotland’s Young Turks
As the sleeping beast that is the 2020 cycling season stirs after it’s long snooze, we thought it would be good to look at how Scotland’s ‘Young Turks’ spent lock down and what their plans are for the rest of this strange year.
The VV View: Everesting, Zwifting and Jockey Wheels for a Grand!
It's been a while since we ranted, so in this edition of the VeloVeritas View we offer a thought or two on Strava, Zwift, Everesting and other Covid-19 aspects of cycling - as well as whether we consider jockey wheels for a grand a good deal...
Your Comments about Mrs Deene, George, and their cyclists’ Guesthouse
The piece we ran recently by reader John Day about staying with Mrs Deene in Belgium aroused a lot of interest on social media but it was spread over a number of different pages and apps. We thought it would be a shame to let some fascinating and funny comments go to waste so we pulled a selection together for you.
The VV View: Our Top 12 British Classics Rides
‘Cycling Weekly’ printed a list of their ‘10 best Classic Races of all time.’ It’s not the usual time of year for ‘retro’ pieces, the Classics should be in full swing but Covid-19 has blown apart a lot of well laid plans this spring. So here’s our top dozen British Classics Rides, in what we see as order of merit...
Viktor’s View – Rants of Love for Cycle Sport
Folks say to me that Viktor, "VeloVeritas's answer to Nostradamus" doesn’t exist, he’s just a vehicle for me to express extreme view points. They’re wrong. The man actually lives and breathes – and mostly for all things cycling and the Coronavirus crisis has seen him at his ranting best.
Tour of the Campsies 2020 Goes to Cameron Richardson
I thought I’d check out what where the expression, “awa’ the Crow Road” came from before Davie and I headed for the Tour of the Campsies; ‘Crows take your soul to the hereafter it’s thought in many cultures and superstition.’
Kasper Keeps Cool in Kuurne Brussels Kuurne 2020
I love the drive from Gent up to Kuurne for the Kuurne Brussels Kuurne semi-classic... staring out of the car window at the fields, the canals, tree-lined avenues, the steeples, tiny concrete roads that would be great to explore on the bike. There was a little rain on the way up but by the time we got to Kuurne it was a mild, sunny morning; ideal for wandering down the main drag where the busses line up and checking out 2020’s new hardware.
Roadside at Het Nieuwsblad 2020
We're roadside at Het Nieuwsblad 2020; since the race went World Tour the start just isn’t the same; the buses used to line up in the street, you could look at the bikes right until start time and brush shoulders with the riders as they pedalled to the sign-on. Not now, whilst some of the buses park up outside, the majority park in the huge 30’s exhibition hall adjacent to the Kuipke Velodrome in Ghent...
Dunfermline Cyclo-Cross, Scottish CX Round 5
We took a trip to watch the Dunfermline Cyclo-Cross. It’s a wee while since we’ve been to a Scottish cyclo-cross race and the sport has changed beyond all recognition from the early 70’s when your ‘cross bike was your winter bike with the muddies removed.
Kyle Beattie takes the Scottish Hill Climb Championship 2019
On a dry morning with little wind and a temperature which varied from mild to chilly depending on how the clouds whirled into the Lomond Hills, 23 year-old Kyle Beattie (Cairngorm CC) took the Scottish Hill Climb Championship 2019 north with a 7 minutes 43 seconds ride; a margin of 12 seconds over Fife rider Robin Downie (Team Andrew Allan Architecture) who put a single second into bronze medalist, Tom Merry (Edinburgh University).
World Road Championships – Mads Pederson surprises to win the Elite Mens’ Road Race
Denmark’s Mads Pederson drops to the wet Yorkshire tarmac, a hundred metres past the finish line, he can’t take in what he’s just accomplished. He has out-sprinted one of the foxiest and fastest men around, Matteo Trentin of Italy - the hot pre-race favourites for the title on this horror of a day.
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Chris Latham – World Cup Omnium Silver Medallist
If there’s one negative you can fire at British Cycling’s hugely successful track cycling campaign over the last decade it’s that perhaps the young talent hasn’t come through as fast we’d expected but this season team pursuiter and now World Cup omnium silver medallist, Chris Latham has shone. VeloVeritas caught up with after his return from New Zealand...
Mark Cavendish at the Tour de France 2012 – He’s THAT...
2012 Tour de France: one sprint stage, one stage win for Mark Cavendish. The world champ was sensational in the finale of last night’s stage. He squeezed by “The Gorilla” Andre Greipel who ran off the back of a beautifully organised leadout train.
Shane Archbold – Fiorenzuola Summer Six Day 2013 Winner
We talk to Shane Archbold about the Fiorenzuola Summer Six Day. My favourite Shane story is the one where I pulled him in off the track at Copenhagen during the Six Day.
World Road Championships 2006 – Day 6: Postscript
It's 3.45 pm CET. I've been doing the tourist thing today. Salzburg is beautiful no-doubt, but it's a tad de-caffeinated, a good place to come with your girl but lacking that real-life' edge of say a Gent or a Lisbon. It's hard to find a proper bar but this one seems OK, complete with busty barmaid. World Road Championships 2006.
Steve Nutley – Scottish 100 Mile TT Champion
It was another surprise win in a Scottish time trial championship as Sandy Wallace Cycles', Steve Nutley took the honours in the '100' on a wet day along the Cromarty Firth, last Sunday.
Brian Temple – Scotland’s First Commonwealth Games Cycling Medallist
Brian is the man who won Scotland’s first cycling medal back in 1970 when the Commonwealth Games came to Edinburgh for the first time. Australia and England were the top cycling nations in the competition with riders like Englishman Ian Hallam (who won the pursuit) and Australian John Nicholson (who won the sprint) and were expected to dominate the 10 mile; but a break comprising Vernon Stauble (Trinidad), Jocelyn Lovell (Canada) and Temple sneaked away from the Big Guns and stayed away.
A quick lap around season 2017/18’s Six Day Stats
With the 'kid on' London Six Day just finished, we thought you might like to peruse the season 2017/18 Six Day stats. There were six races: London, Gent, Rotterdam, Bremen, Berlin and Copenhagen...
San Sebastian From The Outside
A week after the Tour, and Mands and I got ourselves over to San Sebastian for a bit of vacation relaxery after the saga that is the nose to the grindstone month of the Tour.
Dave Millar Scores a Deserved Win (TDF 2012 Stage 13)
Dave Millar takes a superb stage; Stage 12 was as close to a guaranteed breakaway stage as there is with it’s steeply lumpy early: flat late profile. The sprinters lose too much time to be able to catch up and contest a bunch finish, but it is far too flat to result in any time gaps between the big hitters.
The VV View: Whatever Happened to the Individual Pursuit?
Who’s Filippo Ganna? Just the World Individual Pursuit Champion, that’s all. But don’t worry, we’d never heard of him either, until he won it. The rot first set in when the UCI ‘unified’ the professional and amateur pursuit titles in 1993 and cut the distance back to 4000 metres – the pros had previously contested the title over 5000 metres. But wet rot gave way to even nastier dry rot after the Beijing Olympics when the UCI announced that the individual pursuit was being chopped from the Olympic programme.
James Spragg – Getting Back to the Racing
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.
Dan Bigham – “I’m somebody who prides themselves on objective decision...
In 2017 he won eight British titles; with his KGF team he’s put together the most effective independent UCI Track World Cup squad there is and when Cycling Weekly want to speak to an ‘aero expert,’ he’s the man they go to. Dan Bigham has been a regular on VeloVeritas these last two years and we were pleased to see his selection for the Commonwealth Games.
Tom Southam – Enjoying the Best of Both Worlds
Amore & Vita, the sunshine and glamour of the Italian pro scene; scorching Australian road race championships; Girvan on a cold April Monday afternoon - Tom Southam has seen it all. We caught up with the man with esoteric musical taste on a cold February afternoon-after he'd just done three hours.
George Atkins – Time Trials, Belgium and Cooking!
George Atkins was a name that suddenly appeared on the Scottish scene back in the summer. And on Sunday the versatile man from Leicester took silver in the British U23 Time Trial Championships, but before his foray into the world of riding 'alone and unpaced', he spent six weeks in Flanders, so naturally we needed to have a word with him, not long before the British Champs.
Kyle Gordon – “From start to finish, the Games were just...
Dreams can come true. Ask Highlander Kyle Gordon. When we spoke to him last December, he'd turned in some nifty performances on the track over the winter - his dream was to make it to The Games. And he did...
