Friday, April 19, 2024

Tag: Classica do Alpendre

Tomás Swift-Metcalfe Blog: More 1.1.2 Races

The last few weeks have been reasonably uneventful so what to write on the Tomás Swift-Metcalfe Blog? We had a heat wave which was wonderful, but which only lasted a week. The team did a few races in Spain (I was resting) and won a stage in Vuelta as Asturias, which was excellent. I once did that race and it was probably the hardest I ever did. The weather seems to change from valley to valley and the place is very mountainous.

At Random

Road racing, Rhododendrons, Sportives, and Sunday Shopping

We look at the popularity of Sportives in this article. In 2014, both the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia will visit the UK. The 2011 World Road Race Champion was a British rider and the current Tour de France champion is British also.

George Woods – “happy to be back on my bike and racing again” (and winning in Belgium!)

It was back in July when we first heard about 21 year-old George Woods (Richardson’s Trek Racing Team) ‘doing the business’ in Belgium, we ‘had a word’ with him but with all that Tour carry-on we didn’t get round to writing the interview up. Then the other week we saw he was in the frame again, winning a 114 kilometre kermis at Deinze. High times we gave ourselves a shake and got the piece published!

Volta a Portugal 2012 – Stage Two: Oliveira do Bairo – Trofa

191.5km, 2400m Ascent from Oliveira do Bairo to Trofa, and today was brilliant! No long transfers this morning and I didn’t have very much to do. It was fantastic, a rest day practically.

Jim Linden – Part One; Four Times Scottish Best All Rounder

In the ‘whatever happened to?’ file: Mr. Jim Linden, former four times Scottish BAR; six times Scottish individual time trial champion and three times Scottish record breaker. The good news is that we can report that he’s alive and well and living in Hong Kong where, at 84 years-of-age he’s still working as a consultant.

Bremen Six Day 2012 – Day One

Bremen Six Day, the car park outside the race hall, it's 02:29 Friday - we'd targeted bed for 03:00 so mustn't grumble.

Neil Mapplebeck – Racing Dutch ‘Total Cycling’ in the 70’s and 80’s

Our chum, Graham Robson suggested we catch up with Neil Mapplebeck who raced in the tough school that was 70’s and 80’s Dutch ‘Total Cycling’ with ‘all-time greats,’ Kuiper, Raas, Knetemann, Schuiten and Zoetemelk just some of the names from that era.