Tag: Haribo/Aix en Provence DN1

Ooh That'll Hurt. Stage 2 of the Eneco Tour, and we shot southwards from northern Old Zeeland (I can’t help it) which is an amazing place — we were 6m below sea level and 100km inland on a bit of land that was ocean only 30yrs earlier! Incredible.

"Cycling dismay as events frozen out for London 2012" says the headline in the Guardian. The bottom line of the article is that there will still be the same number of women's track events in London - three, sprint, pursuit and team pursuit.

‘Unfinished business’ is how Iain Grant (Dooleys) viewed the 2013 Scottish 100 mile championship; and it has to be said that he ‘did the business’ on the day to win in 3:54:05 giving him a yawning nine minute margin over team mate Gavin Shirley [4:03:02] and Jim Cusick (Glasgow Couriers) [4:03:26]. Here’s what he had to tell VeloVeritas about his completing his hat trick of 2013 Scottish time trial titles...

A clean sprint and Evan Oliphant bags win number seven in the Scottish Road Race Championship. I suspect it wasn’t coincidence that he was assigned number 7 as his race number today, a nice touch. The result had a familiar ring to it though, if you were to look at the past ten years of championship results. Don't however, be deceived into thinking this was anything other than a very well organised race on a very demanding circuit and what was lacking in glamour was more than made up for in grit shown by the riders on a day of mixed weather on bleak moorland roads.

It's Giro time again! Getting to Venaria Reale wasn't too bad - Edinburgh to Malpensa Airport in Milan on Easyjet; pick up the hire car and head west towards Torino. We decided that rather than brave Friday night rush hour traffic, we'd stay in Chivasso, around 20 K from Torino. A wise decision, Torino was overflowing with 'Alpini' - Italian mountain troops, past and present - for their annual 'beano.' The day after the TTT the Gazzetta reckoned that there were one million people on the streets of the city - we believe it.

Truth be told it wasn't him but his double, Paul Tabak, manager of Dutch outfit BRC Kememesland-burgundy blazer, black gingham shirt, grey flannels and shades-dapper guy! Dead ringer for Nicholas. A tad incongruous among the club jerseys, tee-shirts and fleeces at the managers' meet though. The UCI guys were really nicely turned out in blue, logo-ed shirts and body-warmers, so now you know where all that money goes.