Tag: Kampenhout

One good thing to come out of the washed-out British Madison championship at Meadowbank over the weekend was that there was plenty of time for VeloVeritas to talk to one of Britain's best roadmen, Dean Downing. The 32 year-old from Rotherham had originally intended to kill two birds with one stone; ride the champs and show his fiancee the sights of Edinburgh. The way it worked out, his fiancee had a wedding dress fitting and the race was rained-off. Never mind, he got to talk to us instead.

La Gazzetta Dello Sport doesn't like Gibo Simoni, he gets a 3 out of 10 for yesterday's effort, where he contrived to drop 17:59 on the stage - ouch! Saving it for today's stage to Monte Petrano? We'll see.

‘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...

Hood junior had already clued me in on the stage winner by text (there's about 400 metres of road, just outside the beach airport where you can receive a text); Simon Gerrans (GreenEdge & Australia) the former Aussie champion is a cool guy - when he won Milan-Sanremo I tried to ring him for a quote but went to ansaphone.

The phone rings, it's Vik; "Why haven't you spoken to that Wade Mangham boy? He's getting round all right in Flanders." In line with VeloVeritas policy of trying to keep abreast of who's 'up and coming' in the Flatlands, we tracked young Mr. Langham down - here's what he had to tell us about dodgy club presidents, Shane Archbold's mullet - and he has a chat with his bottle cages.

The splendidly named ‘Bugatti and Musker’ released a disco classic in 1976; ‘Ain’t no Smoke Without Fire,’ it’s about a guy who's worrying that his girl is straying. ‘Please don’t do nothin’ to make me ashamed of you . . . when I heard the news it broke me in two... But it could just as well have been written about cycling’s problems...