Martyn Roach was one of the strongest riders of his generation but despite offers to move to foreign shores he remained a ‘true blue’ GB amateur, working full time all through a beautiful career which lasted from the 60’s to the 80’s.
‘Super Sid’ was what they called him; his tarmac graffiti artist fans used to paint; “screw ‘em Sid!’ on any suitable stretch of road surface. Sidney Barras was his Sunday name and few people have won more bike races than this man. A fixture on the British professional scene for 18 years from 1970 onwards, it was high time we caught up with him.
Maurice Laing won the Scottish school boy road race and time trial championships, made the podium of the junior and senior road race championships; won the Davie Bell, Sam Robinson and Trophy Pernod; rode the Milk Race and performed with distinction in France.
The 12 day, 13 stage British ‘Milk Race’ of 1992 was a pro-am affair with Belgian hard men Collstrop – who won four stages including the opening TTT; talented home pros from Banana-Met; the Danish National squad; the Belgian National team; a squad form CIS, the Commonwealth of Independent States – formerly the Soviet Union and the Netherlands National team to name but seven.
And a team from Ireland; but no one expected 21 year-old Conor Henry from Belfast to defy some of the best riders in Europe to take final victory. Here’s his story...
To misquote Shakespeare; 'that which I greatly feared is upon us.' Brad hasn't been taking bottles in the chases thus far and we'd no reason to think he'd start tonight, but he did. Right at the moment his mitted hand clutched that bottle, my heart sank - I've lived this nightmare before.
It's been a while since we last spoke to Englishman Matt Green at the tail-end of 2011, when he was off across the pond to ride in the 'States, and a lot has happened to him since then - not least of which a very serious accident which kept him out of action for most of last season. Matt's recovered from his injuries now, is back on the bike and back in training, with a contract to race again for a fourth year with the US team Astellas Professional Cycling - plus a new blog recording how his year pans-out starting soon, right here on VeloVeritas! Let's catch up with Matt and hear about what's been happening...
VeloVeritas soothsayer and mentor has been on to me for a while; ‘you should be speaking to that Zak Coleman laddie, he’s on the VolkerWessels team in The Netherlands, that’s a top team and he’s the only non-Dutch boy on it! They ride a lot of the UCI European Tour races, the likes of the Baloise Belgian Tour.’
With pre-race favourite Iain Grant (Dooleys Cycles) pulling out of the Scottish 100 Mile Time Trial Championships on Sunday before the finish, the race gave us a new winner in mountainbike rider - turned roadman Eddie Addis, beating Jim Cusick (Glasgow Couriers) by the slim margin of 28 seconds.
Nacer Bouhanni will not take part in the 2016 Tour de France. He suffered an attack at the team hotel on the night before the French national championship road race, requiring an emergency 4-stiches intervention.
It was a great World Track Championships for Scotland with Katie Archibald coming home from Hong Kong as World Omnium Champion. But not such a great Championships for Dundee’s Mark Stewart who was competing in the team pursuit and madison. Unfortunately GB missed out on the bronze medal in the team pursuit to Italy whilst Mark and partner Ollie Wood were DNF in the madison. We caught up with the AN Post professional a week or so after the Worlds, back in his Italian base...