Dan Patten's Blog - So, I'm recovering well - so well in fact that I came my closest to date to winning here in Belgium last Sunday, finally ending up in 3rd place, but so close to taking the win.
Dan Patten has joined the ASFRA - Flanders team for this season, and being based in Belgium he's getting into the kermis scene with enthusiasm - and with some success too. He'll be keeping us all up-to-date through his new regular VeloVeritas blog, sharing how his season is going, what it's like living in Belgium, and inside stories and tips about racing in "the Heartland". Read on!...
As is our habit, perusing the results from around the globe, 'imagine our surprise' when we saw that the winner of the World 64-69 Masters 'cross - held this year in Suffolk, England - was Chris Wreghitt.
"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.
The Giro was a wonderful race, no question; but whilst it's charging across Italy everything else gets ignored - like the Scottish Road Race Championship, for example. The winner was - unsurprisingly - Raleigh's Evan Oliphant. VeloVeritas caught up with the man from Wick a few days after the race...
We’re at the Grenoble ‘Six’ – only it’s no longer a ‘Six;’ in line with Zürich, they’ve cut it back to be the Grenoble Four Day. I haven’t taken any pictures of the Paris Folies girls yet - I got into an awful bother last year with those topless shots – and decided to wait and see what the outfits were like before I reached for the Nikon.
Criteriums, a man of my acquaintance describes criteriums thus; ‘a bunch of guys turn up, they ride round in circles for an hour, one of ‘em wins then everyone goes home.’ Very true, but a night hanging over the barriers in Galashiels, a nice borders town under the spring sunshine with your amigos whilst catching up with old friends sure beats watching the soap operas.
The new crowned King of the Chrono is Dutchman Tom Dumoulin (Giant). He put a minute into maillot jaune Froome in today’s technical and tough time test and set himself as the number one favourite for the Rio Olympic Time Trial. And that’s after a brilliant mountain stage win last weekend in Andorra.