Tag: Tour of California

Have you been clearing out the loft, found an old race programme or finishing sheet and wondering what to do with it? Fire it off to VeloVeritas – we love the smell of the old paper, those names that we’d just about forgotten and remembering that British Cycling did actually exist before Sky came along. Kris, my Six Day boss sent me a photocopied sheet from the past the other day – it’s not the best print job but it’s just about readable; the Crystal Palace Grand Prix...

The legendary GB Team Pursuit quartet which won bronze in the 1972 Munich Olympics – Ron Keeble, Mick Bennett and Ian Hallam have all appeared on our pages but the missing piece was Willi Moore. However, thanks to the good offices of the aforementioned Mr. Keeble we caught up with the man who could do it all – time trials, road and, of course, the track – British, Commonwealth, World and Olympic medallist, Mr. W. Moore.

We learnt with sadness yesterday that Scottish rider Ian Steel had passed away, at the age of 86. Ian became national champion in 1952 and rode and won the famous Peace Race by taking the lead on stage eight of twelve as his British team won both the individual and team titles. We thought readers would appreciate revisiting out interview with Ian from a few years ago.

Cannondale, F des J, Giant, Greenedge, Sky, Trek - they all tried to take control in the finale in Belfast in Stage Two on Saturday. But none could. It's not until you see a situation like we did in Belfast that you realise just how good Mario Cipollini's Acqua Sapone and Cav's HTC trains really were. In the event, it was irrelevant; Kittel was in a different league. He was way back and would usually have been out of it but turned left, found clear road, turned on the boosters and left the others scrabbling for the placings.

I had intended to start this piece on the subject of Mr. Dettori’s current woes by saying that Frankie seems like a cool guy to me; but then reminding us that so too did Tyler H. and Lance. But one of our readers has given me a better intro which underscores my point. Namely that it’s not just about Lance and ever stiffer penalties.

With the Copenhagen six day about to start we thought we’d best have a word with one of Denmark’s track legends; former World and Olympic kilometre champion, Niels Fredborg. A man who was knocking out 1:4 kilometres some 40 years ago...