Tag: Bertin-d'Alessandro

In Part 1 of "When Scotland had a National Stage Race" we saw the domination of the East Europeans that ended with the introduction of Professionals in to the Scottish Milk Race. The first year it was the British based pro's, then the big boys in the shape of the Belgian Isjberk-Gios team arrived in 1978 and set fire to the race, so instead of an East European domination we now had a Continental Pro domination, but they had something the Czechoslovakians, Poles, East Germans or Russians didn't have: style; class; and that "Pro-appeal".

Evan was out of the team car and just off the massage table when we caught-up with him after the second stage of the Tour of Britain 2006, into Liverpool, won by GB man Roger Hammond.

The day started with a long transfer from our hotel in the magnificent town of Covilhã, Termas de Monfortinho, situated at the foot of Serra da Estrella. We’ve been run of our feet with with reconaisance, various signings on and parading around the palce...

Stage Two had been hailed as one where the cross winds could blow things apart from the off but fortunately the Weather Gods remained benign and we were treated to a high speed finale where F des J and Nacer Bouhanni demonstrated again that they know exactly how to handle fast, technical finales. The wiry Frenchman was in a class all of his own after a beautiful lead out by his boys and in particular last man in the train, Geoffrey Soupe who rode a magnificent finale for his Capo.

The first climbing day of the Tour has been and gone, and nothing major has changed, it's surprisingly static. We're still unsure of the form of the Schlecks (and particularly Andy); Contador still has a tower of work to do to get back into the race; Evans still looks very good; and Hushovd still has the yellow! So while there have been no significant changes, there has been a significant surprise.

Le Tour is like Pac-Man, it gobbles up every bit of attention there is in the world of bike racing; the Tour of Austria runs concurrently but you wouldn’t realise. For the record, Victor de la Parte of UCI Continental Team Voralberg won it; beating six World Tour and seven Pro Continental teams in the process. In addition there were the UCI European U23 Track Championships in Athens – stand out rides were a sub four minute team pursuit by the GB squad to win and a win in the scratch race by one of the pursuit team members – Matt Gibson.