Apart from the Tours of Yorkshire and Britain we only have one UCI race in the UK, ‘The Rutland CiCLE Classic,’ an event which anticipated the current ‘gravel craze’ by a decade and more. We thought it would be interesting to talk to the man behind the race, Colin Clews.
The Giro; for the weeks before and during it’s like the Death Star, sucking all other cycling results in and destroying them. But one result we couldn’t let pass without comment was Evan Oliphant’s splendid win in the Premier Calendar Tour of the Reservoir. Congratulations to Evan for turning round a Stage One deficit of five seconds to overall victory in The Reservoir by 13 seconds over Team UK Youth’s Chris Opie, the man who took that first stage.
There is no doubt that British cycling is alive and well at the highest echelons of performance - Britons won the Tour, the world champs and pretty much the entire velodrome; there's also no doubt that British cycling is alive and kicking at the grass roots level too - membership has doubled since 2007. It makes sense to assume that all is well in between, too, right?
Unfortunately not; BC is the governing body for beginner’s racing, Regional racing (2nd and 3rd cats), all levels of women's road racing, National level racing (Elites and 1st cats) and the semi professional/professional teams below Sky. All of these parts of the sport are in trouble - but particularly at the higher end.
The University of Lincoln continues its support for the ever popular Lincoln Grand Prix Cycle Race by extending its previous year supporting sponsorship to become the event's main sponsor in 2012, for the 57th edition of the event on Sunday the 13th of May.
Racing for his Asfra Flanders team, VeloVeritas contributer Dan Patten bagged his first win of the year in Belgium at the weekend, at a kermesse in Ghoy, in the Wallonne region of Hainaut. It has been on the cards for a while but Dan finally got the first one under his belt.
Last Sunday’s Scottish 50 mile time trial championship at Irvine saw Dooley’s Iain Grant make it the ‘double’ – adding a second gold to his 25 mile title won earlier in June at Stonehaven, with Silas Goldsworthy (Sandy Wallace Cycles) taking the silver-medal spot.
It must be the water in Mol in the Province of Antwerp, Belgium; not only is it Tom Boonen’s home town, it’s also the home town of the man who was in the team car behind him for so many of the ‘Tornado’s’ triumphs; Wilfried Peeters, sport director with the Deceuninck ‘Wolf Pack’ was a ‘Man of the Northern Classics’ in his own right.
Ed Hood is a sad old git who is stuck in the minutia of cycling facts and figures! The trouble is that so am I, maybe even worse! Ed was very excited by the book (Tu vueltas) I sent him with all the details of all La Vuelta a España's from 1935 to 2008, lots of info for us sado's.
It's a term bandied around a lot; 'legend', too often in fact, in a world where superlatives fly around - but this gentleman really does deserve the title. Robert Bartko has been at the top of his trade for two decades and on Tuesday night in Copenhagen's Ballerup Super Arena he went out in style with his 21st Six Day win off 79 starts. It was just a matter of hours before the Copenhagen finale when his big frame filled the doorway of the VeloVeritas cabin before he sat down to chat to us about his career.
So January was all sunshine and roses. And then"... KERTHUMP! Along came Europe in winter in all of her furious unpredictability! My first night in Girona was one of the very rare times that it snows in town.