Talent isn’t the only quality you need to ‘make it’ in cycling, Lady Luck plays a big part; 'right time, right place', but of vital importance is persistence. As Winston Churchill said; ‘never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never.’ Former British Junior Road Race Champion, Jacob Vaughan must have read that quotation.

Hamish Haynes is one of British cycling's 'forgotten men.' Whilst Cycling Weekly tells us about the successes of the U23 Academy riders in Italy, ex-British Elite Champion Hamish just gets on with the job, competing against some of the best riders in Belgium week in and week out. His recent win in the prestigous Reningelst event went unrecorded. Pete Slater at SIS has been helping Hamish with nutrition this year - no 'freebees' though, even Daniel Bennati pays for his 'Go bars' - we thought it would be a good topic to discuss with a man who regularly pushes his body to it's limits.

It’s not often you see Direct Energie’s main man, Jean-René Bernaudeau in tears – unless someone spills something nasty on those John Wayne cowboy boots he always wears. But there were red, puffy and wet eyes for him yesterday as he hugged his big boy Lilian Calmejane at the Station Des Rousses high in the Jura mountains.

Talking About The Green. We're into the final couple of days prior to the big show starting, and I reckon it's time to throw my two cents into the prediction ring. I'll start with the green (or points) jersey-a jersey that two of the boys from Garmin have worn in the past two seasons, but which neither actually held. Wiggo and Millar both rode in the green jersey the day after the Prologue, yet neither was leading the points competition, which was lead by Fabian Cancellara, who happened to also be holding the yellow jersey, and so of course wore that on the day.

It was to be the big one, the Scottish 25 Mile Time Trial Championship this Saturday, June 17th at Irvine. The British 25 Mile TT Champion, Jason MacIntyre versus the man who ran him to within 13 seconds in the Scottish 10 Mile TT Championship the previous week-former double World Pursuit Champion and World Hour Record holder, Graeme Obree (Fullarton Wheelers).

f you know your Six Day stats then you'll be aware that the Australian pairing of Danny Clark and Don Allan is the ninth most successful ever, based on wins, with 15; but fifth most successful ever based on points from top four finishes - 15 wins, 15 second places, 11 third places and 12 fourth places.

We caught up with James McCallum after a busy weekend which combined the British Madison Championships, a Revolution meeting and a cyclo-cross.

Cannondale, F des J, Giant, Greenedge, Sky, Trek - they all tried to take control in the finale in Belfast in Stage Two on Saturday. But none could. It's not until you see a situation like we did in Belfast that you realise just how good Mario Cipollini's Acqua Sapone and Cav's HTC trains really were. In the event, it was irrelevant; Kittel was in a different league. He was way back and would usually have been out of it but turned left, found clear road, turned on the boosters and left the others scrabbling for the placings.

La Vuelta a España in Holland! So, La Vuelta a España started on Saturday in the Dutch town of Assen, joining in with the other Grand Tour by starting outside its borders. The Spanish Tour has done this once before, but it was still on the Iberian Peninsula; Lisbon in Portugal.

A couple of months have passed since we first spoke to Tom Copeland, who's living and racing with the French Team Champions, Bic2000, in the Finistère region of Brittany, so we thought we'd get in touch with him and bring ourselves up-to-speed with what's been happening.

Scotland doesn't get too many World Cycling Champions-so when John Paul won the World Junior Sprint Championship, it was something special. 'Juniors?' I hear you say... The team pursuit in the Junior Worlds was won by Australia in a time of 4:02 and the man Paul beat in the sprint semis, Max Niederlag of Germany did 9.899 in qualifying. Those are seriously quick times.

The 2010 edition of the Drummond Trophy saw Endura's domination of the domestic road racing scene march on with a 1-2 for Evan Oliphant and James McCallum; and only a determined Robert Hassan kept Ross Creber off the podium and prevented an Endura whitewash.