Interviews

Stuart Hallam, Ian’s elder brother was there, road and track side for virtually all of his younger brother’s successes and is also a man who has made major contributions to the sport of cycling over the years. We thought we should catch up with, ‘Big Bruv.’

Since we spoke to Toby Perry in April things have moved on apace for him and by happy coincidence we caught up with his coach, former British champion on road and track, Dean Downing at the Hawick start of the Tour of Britain stage. ‘Deano’ advised us that it might be a good idea to ring Toby in Spain - he had some good news to share.

Despite an interrupted season thanks to Covid and visa tribulations, Calum Johnston's results came and so did a contract for season 2022; he joins the full Caja Rural ProTeam and will joust in the same arena as the likes of Alejandro Valverde and Enric Mas. 

The name ‘Gilchrist’ is a famous one in Scottish Cycling with Mr. Sandy Gilchrist, star of road, track and time trial, as one of its most lauded sons. And now there’s another Gilchrist making the headlines in Scottish Cycling, Sandy’s US born wife, Kathy was recently elected President of Scottish Cycling.

Cameron Mason isn’t the only Scot, ‘on the up’ in the washing powder-challenging world of cyclo-cross; 19 year-old Perth man, Rory McGuire (Wheelbase-CabTech Castelli) recently took round four of the National Trophy Cyclo-cross Series near Sunderland.

British Cycling in the 80’s and 90's: televised Kellogg’s city centre criteriums, the Milk Race, the Nissan Tour of Ireland; and to go with Sue Ellen’s big hair and shoulder pads on the TV, those Campag Delta brakes – and then there were... Kirk Precision magnesium frames. Steve Sefton was that soldier…

Every year, VeloVeritas catches up with the CTT National Hill Climb Champion, this year the man who best defied gravity was 31 years-old Tom Bell who rides in the colours of his own coaching concern, High North Performance.

21 year-old Linlithgow ‘cross man’ Cameron Mason who rides for Trinity Racing has been cementing his place as one of the top u23 ‘cross riders in the world. Cameron wasn’t among the frozen cabbage fields and sand dunes of Flanders when we spoke, he was down in sunny Calpe on the Mediterranean to ‘top up’ on his endurance training.

Bruno Cornillet rode for some of the most famous teams of the 80’s and 90’s, alongside some of the sport’s best known names – fellow Breton, Bernard Hinault, Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle, Greg Lemond, Viatcheslav Ekimov, and a certain Scot named Robert Millar.

When we saw Mark Stewart’s recent post on social media that he’d moved on from the Ribble Weldtite team – who he’s been with for three seasons - and joined his ‘local’ New Zealand continental team Black Spoke Racing, it reminded us that it had been a while since last we spoke to the Scotland’s reigning Commonwealth Games Points Race Champion who’s been based on the other side of the world these last two years.

A lady we had let the mists of time envelope was Sally Ashbridge, who won the RTTC/CTT ‘10’ in 2001 and 2002, the ‘25’ in 2001 and ‘50’ in 2002.

Scotland’s Josh Quigley rode an average of 311 miles every day for a week to establish a new Guinness world record for the Seven Day Cycling Distance Record.

After six years racing on the continent, Stuart Balfour has decided to head back to Blighty and a change of race scene with the Ribble Weldtite team for 2022.