Thursday, April 18, 2024

Tag: Kuurne Brussels Kuurne

Gent-Gent & Kuurne Brussels Kuurne 2009 – Day 2

Saturday morning dawned bright and mild; this gives rise to mixed feelings - on the one hand you want a freezing, wet, death race, but on the other, it's no fun standing in the cold and wet for hours. One thing is sure - sunshine would have been of no use to Viktor at the Kuurne Brussels Kuurne!

Gent-Gent & Kuurne Brussels Kuurne 2009 – Day 1

We're at Gent-Gent. His long torso arches, like that of a tiger about to pounce on it's prey; elbows out, the black Specialized with it's hugely over-sized down tube - necessary to absorb the mega wattages this beast produces - surges forward.

Omloop Het Volk & Kuurne Brussels Kuurne 2008 – Day 3

Sunday dawned bright and clear and it was three refreshed men who headed for Kuurne Brussels Kuurne. This was bike skeking taken to a new level; two-and-a-half hours of it, and it wasn't enough. Batavus are an old favourite of ours and their 'Professional X' is cool, matt black against a tide of white this year.

Omloop Het Volk & Kuurne Brussels Kuurne 2008 – Day 2

Getting to Flanders yesterday for the kuurne Brussels Kuurne was painful - a two hour delay at Prestwick, then a battle through the rush hour traffic on the Brussels ring road. Dave and I are getting good at indiscriminate lane changing and not indicating, but we really have to brush up on our tail-gating technique if we want to drive in the authentic Belgian fashion.

Omloop Het Volk & Kuurne Brussels Kuurne – Day 1

You know you're in Belgium at the Kuurne Brussels Kuurne when the barman is Iljo Keisse's dad - and when there are posters for bike races in the loo! But I'm getting ahead of myself; "live cargo", that's how the airlines refer to their passengers. And that's how we feel: the flight is two hours late and we're sitting on the floor at Prestwick Airport, or 'Glasgow South' as Ryanair would have it, despite the fact that we're 50 kilometres from the city on the Clyde.

Tomeke takes Kuurne Brussels Kuurne 2007 at a canter

Kuurne Brussels Kuurne 2007. The portents for Sunday were better: we weren't hung-over; the sun was out; and we got up to the start at Kuurne without one wrong turning. The chemists were shut though, so Pozzato couldn't buy his hair gel. The start at Kuurne is always a real, "organised chaos" job, there's a riders enclosure but somehow, some riders get mixed up with the crowd and can't get back in to the start enclosure, so have to wait on the roll-out beginning, then cajole their way through the sea of people so as they can go to work.

At Random

Giro d’Italia 2015 – Stage 18, Melide – Verbania; Gilbert Takes His Second

Monte Ologno, high above Lago Maggiore, Thursday 15:00 hours; we had to get up here early to beat the road closures; we got a slapped wrist from Vancouver for 'missing the cut' on the Mortirolo so no slip ups, today. The stage describes a big curve from Melide near Lugano to Verbania on Lago Maggiore; but there's a late surprise - which we're sitting at the top of. It's a nasty one; 10.4 K @ 9.0% average with a max of 13% makes it Category 1 and very tough. Where we are - 450 metres to go - it's scenic with wonderful vistas across the lago but lower down it's not unlike the Mortirolo in that much of it is a tunnel through the trees.

Callum MacGregor – First Time Working on the Tour de France 2015

With Dave and Martin on family holidays it was down to Callum MacGregor to step in and put up with me for the annual mad whirl around France. As an experienced racer and fan but a first timer working on the race I thought it would be good to get his impressions of Le Grande Boucle. And there's time to spare on the long haul from L'Alpe d'Huez, north to Paris.

The VV View: Smugness Or Sadness?

I've known John for 43 years; we went to school together and although there have been spells when our lives have gone in different directions for a while, it takes us about three minutes to pick up the thread and it's as if we've never been out of touch. John has lung cancer, one tumour in his lungs and three in his brain; he starts chemo and radio therapy, this week. When his son asked me what I thought, immediately I said; 'look at old Lance, he was at death's door and came back to win seven Tours.'

Jim Gladwell – the current Scottish Hour Record Holder who’s planning another attempt

When VeloVeritas was at the Copenhagen Six Day last month, we witnessed a successful attempt on the Danish Hour record by Martin Toft. It got us thinking; ‘is Jim Gladwell still the Scottish Hour record holder?’ And indeed he is – ‘best have a word,’ we thought to ourselves...

George Bennett – “I Couldn’t Say No”

With all the recent transfer news about who is going where in the ProTour, or UCI World Tour as it will soon be known, certain 2011 signings of interest seem to have slipped under the radar. One which caught the attention of VeloVeritas was with Team Radioshack's U23 feeder team, Trek-Livestrong. After another stellar season for Trek with at least five riders moving up to top UCI World Tour teams; including Britain's Alex Dowsett who's making the step up to Team Sky. These moves leave spaces to be filled and one of the riders moving into the top American U23 line-up is New Zealand's up-and-coming star George Bennett.

Chloé Dygert Owen – Winning Rainbow Jerseys for Five Years

How long a career do you need to have to win 10 [yes ten] World titles? US ‘chrono girl,’ Chloé Dygert Owen has won that many and she’s still only 23 years-old; and there are two Pan Am golds and an Olympic silver in the dresser drawer too. High times we ‘had a word’ with the young lady out of Indiana.