The Tour of the Med, a nice way to ease into the season; a big bunch floating along under early sunshine with a bunch sprint at the end? Not quite! How about 95 K in 1:45 with the peloton ripped apart from the gun and conditions so cold that the contents of your bottle are frozen solid in five minutes?

My buddy, John Hardie is a 65 time Scottish grass track champion; his hero 'back in the day' was Danny Clark. When he heard that 'Six Day King' Danny Clark and me were breakfasting together at Copenhagen, it wasn't long before the email arrived with the questions he wanted me to ask the great man.

For once, Adam Hansen isn't burning up the tar at the Aussie champs, he's off shore in the Med, getting ready to try and help HTC-Columbia top a remarkable 2009 season. Worried that he may be getting bored, VeloVeritas flashed him 20 questions - here's what the big man had to say...

Ex-British Criterium Champion and Commonwealth Games track medalist James McCallum has recently returned from a few months racing and resting in the antipodes, and is looking forward to getting stuck into the new season with his re-vamped Endura Racing team. We met James for a good old chinwag this week over lunch: he turned up at the restaurant looking hungry, and with a huge Endura team bag over his shoulder...

It was Vik (who else?) first spotted the man; 'there's a New Zealand rider winning a lot of races for Kingsnorth Wheelers in Flanders just now, you should get hold of him!' he told me, last summer. We duly tracked down Jack Bauer and have been keeping an eye on him and talking to him, ever since.

John Lee Augustyn is probably best known outside of the African continent for his head-first lunge down the scree slopes of the Col de la Bonette-Restefond descent to Jausiers in the Tour de France a couple of years ago, and this after leading the race over it's summit in glorious solitude - only Frederico Bahamontes and Robert Millar share that particular accolade. Last season was difficult for John Lee, but now though, things look like they're going to change for the 23 year old, and we recently chatted to him to find out more...

Viktor calls; "That home page on the site hasn't changed for days. There's a Scottish pro called Alex Coutts out training in Spain, trying to get ready for the season, why aren't you talking to him?" Just one of the things that bugs about Vik, is that he's actually right a lot of the time!

Oh no! Not another drugs article! Yes, but this one is positive - ah, no, not that kind of a 'positive!' Dan Fleeman texted me the other day to tell me that he'll be getting a bit of an airing on the Bike Pure site, due to his decision to continue with UCI Biological Passport level blood testing with Raleigh - at his own expense.

Joe Papp is one of the very few riders to admit, face up to and openly discuss the fact he failed a drugs test. Like most folks, we're sick of the drugs scandals, but then the Tom Zirbel situation pops up and we to have accept that it's still a problem and we need to understand it better. Here's what Joe had to say - and it's scary!

Last year at this time, life was ice cream and fairies for Dan Fleeman; he'd won the Tour of the Pyrenees; Cervelo Test Team had snapped him up and a start in a Grand Tour looked like a formality. But pro cycling is an unforgiving sport, and 2009 didn't go according to the script for the likeable man from Lichfield.

We didn't make the Scottish cyclo cross champs, this year; new house for Martin; major drive to accumulate Brownie points for me - those pictures of Big Wendy from Gent make it hard to plead; 'it was hell out there!' Anyway, congratulations to new champion, 17 year-old junior, Kenta Gallagher (Scott UK) who took the senior title; we thought the man deserved to be interviewed.

Peter Jacques used to be the track judges nitemare; but he's mellowed with age and is now easing open - rather than breaking down - the door on a management and promotion career. We heard there were a few commissaires went for a celebratory beer when you quit, Pete?

He started making shorts on the kitchen table, his suppliers used to manufacture his products inside out; but he's just recruited double world champion, 'Big Bob' Hayles to ride for and manage his UCI Continental team - things have come a long way for Jim McFarlane!

The cheer from the cabin next door to ours - below the Grenoble velodrome - told us that the result Flanders had been holding it's breath for, had arrived. Belgium's number one Six Day man, Iljo Keisse's 'positif' in the 2008 Gent six day race has been dismissed on the grounds of 'insufficient evidence.' "Cathine was not found in the 'B' sample and HCT was there in quantities so small as to have no effect on performance."

Cervelo's Dan Fleeman left it late to take his first win of the year; but it took him just 3 minutes 18 seconds to convert late season road form to victory in the most specialist and punishing of races-the British Hill Climb Championship, on the 1100 metre Pea Royd Lane climb near Sheffield, England on Sunday.

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.

There were some great rides in the World Elite time trial championships; the trouble was that Fabian's towering performance over shadowed everything. Take the man in 11th spot - Dave McCann of Ireland, no sponsor, no state of the art bike but a solid performance that saw him in the 'hot seat' area for a large part of that sunny afternoon in Mendrisio..

It's not often that the Comic [Cycling Weekly magazine - editor] inspires me, these days-they don't care, they get my subscription cash-but when I saw the 'minute with' ex Lance team mate and Fondo star Jamie Burrow, I thought; "there's a man I've been stalking, I need to get a grip of him!" His win this year in the Maratona delle Dolomiti was big news in Italia. Here's what he had to say...

Brian Smith has been helping put the 2010 Endura Racing squad together - we spoke to him yesterday and here's what he had to say.

Cervelo's Dan Fleeman first came to our attention when he won the 2008 Tour of the Pyrenees; we've kept in touch with the 26 year-old Englishman ever since; through Langkawi, Paris-Nice and into the Ardennes classics.