He's best known around the world for his engaging commentary for over 16 years of the MotoGP races, these days for Eurosport, and this year has also been covering the British Touring Car Championship for ITV Sport - but not many of his 'petrolhead' listeners and viewers realise that super-busy Englishman Toby Moody was a racing cyclist in his formative years and remains a huge fan of the sport.
The current flag bearer for black track cycling Nolan Hoffman, hails from South Africa - and there's irony in that, given the vile apartheid regime which ruled the country for so long.
Just before his dominant performance in the Four Days of Grenoble finale with Iljo Keisse, World Madison Champion, Kenny De Ketele took time to talk to VeloVeritas. De Ketele has been around the track scene for a long time, always there and knocking on the door. But it was the winter of 2011/12 when the man from Oudenaarde finally arrived.
There's a 'new wave' of US riders on the way up, we've already spoken to Messrs. Dombrowski and Boswell, who'll bolster Team Sky for 2013. But BMC too are taking advantage of the new talent from the New World: 22 year-old Larry Warbasse from Dearborn, Michigan has just stepped up from the Swiss team's US development team to the World Tour squad.
Watching a dream die is never nice, but if it's done quickly and clinically, then it's humane, at least. Iljo Keisse and Kenny De Ketele were ruthless executioners in the last chase in the small hours of Sunday morning. Bryan Coquard and Morgan Kneisky rode with panache and bravery, in what I believe was a 100% 'straight' finale. Inside the last 50 laps of 180 the Belgians attacked - we were waiting for it.
My pal Vik called me this morning; ‘the racing at the Grenoble Four Day can’t be very good if you’re spending so much time taking pictures of boys on the trapeze!’ If I could get him down here it would be different. It’s not just a bike race; if he was here, eating the nice food, drinking champers with friends, with the race whizzing around him and the amazing shows, he'd see things in a new light.
The trouble here at the Grenoble Four Day 2012 is that when folks see you with a camera and hear you write for a website, you've had it. I spent a chunk of the afternoon taking pictures of Gunther, one of Iljo Keisse's soigneurs. He's back on the bike as a 'master' and has the track bike down here with him, he trains on the boards in the afternoon and actually looks good on the bike.
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.
Young Sky star, Alex Dowsett's early season was compromised by a bad crash in the Three Days of West Flanders - but he's come back strongly. He took eighth in the World Elite TT champs, rode strongly in the Tour of Beijing, aiding team mate Boasson Hagen on to the podium and closed his season with second place with Luke Rowe in the Duo Normand two-up time trial.
It's been quite a season for Saxo-Tinkoff's former World Madison Champion, Michael Mørkøv. The man from just north of Copenhagen was the prime animator in the Spring classics; wore the polka dot King of the Mountains leader's jersey in the Tour de France for the first week; was in the Danish team pursuit squad which dipped under the magic four minutes in London and he was back off 'up the road' in the late season Northern European classics.
On a beautiful Scottish Borders Sunday morning, Boardman Elite’s versatile mountain biker, Grant Ferguson turned around a 10 second deficit at the top of the steep section of the Stow climb to win the Scottish Hill Climb Championship by three seconds from up and coming Steve Lawley (thebicycleworks.com), with the bronze going to Jamie Kennedy (Glasgow Couriers).
Baby Giro winner, Joe Dombrowski is just half the story when it comes to rising US stars joining Team Sky for 2013. Dombrowski’s friend, countryman and Bontrager-Livestrong team mate, Ian Boswell is another young man who’s been busy this year, attracted a lot of attention and will be joining the Team Sky juggernaut.
LanceGate is divisive, no question. Our editor, Martin and I have similar views on many things in cycling – but not on this one. Martin thinks that the boil must be lanced; (pun intended) get the puss out before the healing can begin. My feeling is that what’s happening is the equivalent of dropping a nuclear depth charge into a huge cesspit – spectacular, very messy and with no real positive effect, unless you’re a tabloid editor or a ‘forum sitter.’
Amidst the welter of Tweets, outraged forum posts, recriminations and blame culture which have followed in the wake of 'LanceGate' we decided that it may be educational to speak to a man who's ridden the whirlwind of a dope test positive, Joe Papp.
As the Worlds memories begin to fade and thoughts turn to the late season classics in northern Italy and France, VeloVeritas takes a last look back at the Cauberg. But this time through the eyes of a man who rode that beast of a hill all 11 times on Sunday, Ireland’s Ronan McLaughlin.
Dan Patten's 2012 season began way back on the 19/02 and with my final race on the 14/10, it is finally time to relax, reflect and look ahead to the rest of 2012, 2013 and beyond!
Just a small look back at the 2012 season and its up's and downs for theBicycleWorks Team. The 2012 season has came to end for us as a team with what can only be described as a season of two halves.
Despite the Lance Armstrong Scandal, it’s not hard to dislike Lance Armstrong; he’s arrogant, controlling, self-obsessed, hypocritical and brought to cycling the horrors of bodyguards, blacked-out SUV windows, black socks and celebrity visits to the Tour de France.
Sometimes a ride comes along and right away you can just tell he has what it takes. We first caught sight of Joe Dombrowski at the Italian Valle d’Aosta stage race, last year. Aosta, l’Avenir, the Baby Giro and the U23 Worlds are where the pro talent scouts do their window shopping.
'It's not a competition any more, it's a personal time trial,' the words of Tour de Trossachs organiser, Janette Hazlett after she had to void the result, following a serious crash. David Clark of the Stowmarket & District CC was involved in what appeared to us to be a head on collision with a car on the Loch Venachar road and had to be helicoptered to hospital.
I was chatting to a friend the other day who expressed how sad he was about the whole Lance Armstrong situation; I think that is something we can all agree on... Heroes, Heroism and Amorality. Then later in the conversation he went on to say how he hoped Sky were clean, thus setting himself up for more potential sadness and disappointment.
Garmin’s Ryder Hesjedal came out of the Giro in shape of his life, with his morale sky high after his historic win. He rested well after Italy, resumed training and was in great shape for the Tour de France. He rode strongly in the prologue and managed to keep out of trouble – until stage six.
It's no surprise that Endura Racing's 'man of the year' Jonathan Tiernan-Locke has today signed for Team Sky. Anyone who thought that Englishman’s top six GC placing and King of the Mountains win back in the 2011 Tour of Britain was a freak result had their eyes opened this spring when the 27 year-old from Plymouth won the first stage, fourth stage and GC in this season’s Tour of the Mediterranean – a race dating back to 1974 and which boasts Eddy Merckx as one of its winners.
‘Perkins’ is a famous name in Australian cycling; back when I was a boy, Daryl Perkins was a top performer on the tracks, winning medals at national and Commonwealth level.
He passed those good genes down to son Shane, who recently took individual sprint bronze in London behind Messrs. Kenny and Bauge.
Perkins has been a major force on the world track sprint, team sprint and keirin scene for a number of years, despite the fact that he’s still only 25 years-old.
In a day of torrential downpours Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) secured his place in the history books as the first Spaniard to win the Giro di Lombardia, with a beautiful solo victory ahead of Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Rigoberto Uran (Team Sky).
We left Colin Sturgess in Part One telling us about his time as a teenager racing in the Commonwealth Games and in the Olympics, and turning pro for the Belgian team ADR.
Colin Sturgess exploded on to the UK cycling scene in the 80's - within a couple of seasons he was world professional pursuit champion. But his enormous potential was never full realised.
After strong amateur results Paul Jessonhad been offered a two-year deal with Splendor in the Spring of 1979, and although he was eliminated in that 1979 Tour, his promise was confirmed in the 1980 Vuelta, then held in Spring, when he won the stage to Santander.
If you're a rider, you've have had issues with 'les vitamines' and Paul Kimmage turns up at your press conference, best ask for a brandy to sip, forget that Vittel. Kimmage is the man who wrote 'The Rough Ride', an exposé of his experiences as a young 'green as grass' young pro and his flirtations with 'the needle.'
Paul Kimmage has been a near-lone voice in the wilderness for a long time, questioning the ethics in cycling and railing against the alleged corruption amongst the riders and the people charged with running the sport for over 20 years.
We thought it would be interesting to revisit a couple of interviews with Kimmage, to see if his position and message have changed any in the interim.