Welcome to VeloVeritas' coverage of the Tour de France 2014. Stage one looked like a "truce" to VV - except for that finale, of course. We give our views on Cav and a few other aspects of the 2014 "Grand Boucle" (with a bittie to Yorkshire tacked on, that is.) You'd have to be devoid of a soul not to feel sorry for the man - even more so when he puts his hand up and says; "my fault!". Last year he wasn't at his best in le Tour, despite the stage wins. He'd finished a very hard Giro - aren't they all ? - and then rode the Tour.
It’s not every rider who wants to be part of a peloton, face a timekeeper or circle the boards. Some simply want to challenge themselves. Professional Australian athlete Jack Thompson falls into that category, albeit he’s set records along the way.
When we heard on Sunday that our blogger Ian Field had won the British Cyclo-Cross Championship on a dry and sunny day in Suffolk, we wanted to celebrate that win with a chat.
"Ooooohhhhhhh!" The moan echoes around the bar; these boys are aficionados, they all know that solid Astana Dane, Michael Valgren Andersen isn't coming back - he timed his jump to perfection, there was that fatal second or two of hesitation among the frozen men behind him and he was gone, en route to win Het Nieuwsblad 2018.
British Cycling in the 80’s and 90's: televised Kellogg’s city centre criteriums, the Milk Race, the Nissan Tour of Ireland; and to go with Sue Ellen’s big hair and shoulder pads on the TV, those Campag Delta brakes – and then there were... Kirk Precision magnesium frames. Steve Sefton was that soldier…
Brian is the man who won Scotland’s first cycling medal back in 1970 when the Commonwealth Games came to Edinburgh for the first time. Australia and England were the top cycling nations in the competition with riders like Englishman Ian Hallam (who won the pursuit) and Australian John Nicholson (who won the sprint) and were expected to dominate the 10 mile; but a break comprising Vernon Stauble (Trinidad), Jocelyn Lovell (Canada) and Temple sneaked away from the Big Guns and stayed away.
We last spoke to up and coming 23 year-old Swiss star, Silvan Dillier back in the spring after his win in the Tour of Normandie; since then he’s been a busy man. There was stage win in the hotly contested Triptyque Ardennaise in Belgium, a win in Cham-Hagendorn in Switzerland and stage in the Fleche Ardennaise in Belgium. Then came a ride as a stagiaire with the BMC World Tour team – and an excellent win in Stage Two of the Tour of Alberta.