Tag: Bertin-d'Alessandro

John Herety has won a Peace Race stage, French amateur classics, the British pro road champs and was robbed of the GP Pino Cerami-the judges gave it to local hero Rony van Holen-but photos later showed that the Englishman's wheel was first across the line. Now he's passing all that experience on to a new generation through his role as team manager of London squad Rapha-Condor Recycling, who are north of the border to recce the hills, gravel, rain, wind farms and sheep that are-Girvan.

Sitting here in Bourg-Saint-Maurice, perhaps I'm going to revise my opinion that l'Equipe's Tour coverage isn't as good as the Gazzetta's Giro coverage. The Gazzetta looks better, but the L'Equipe goes so deep.

Chris Froome will go down in the record books as Great Britain’s second Tour de France winner. But whilst the slim man who now lives in Monaco may have GB next to his name in the record book – he’s originally from Kenya by way of South Africa and his win is a huge shot in the arm for cycle sport in the Dark Continent. But Froome was beaten to the punch as the first African in yellow by a man whose passport still declares ‘Republic of South Africa.’

During the entire history of the Peace Race from 1948 to 1989 there were few Western winners, and no English speaker ever won - except one that is, in 1952: Ian Steel of Scotland. The story that the East European propaganda machine circulated after that edition of the Peace Race, 60 years ago, was that the "Westerner" winner Steel had been approached by his country's intelligence agency before he travelled to the race and was asked to; 'keep his eyes open' whilst behind the Iron Curtain - to spy, in other words.

The sun is hot even at 07.15, the autoroute is quiet, straight and fast; we're headed for le Tour and Loudenvielle Le Louron; Millie Jackson is telling us that her man is a "fine man" - what more could you want from life? It's 10.00 am now and we're on the descent off the first climb of the day, the second cat, Col de Port or Portet, depending on which sign you look at. Martin got his first look at le Tour village this morning, as always, the scrambled eggs were great and the coffee strong.

Raleigh - Back in the Game. The all-new British-based Team Raleigh was launched recently. Our pal Dan Fleeman - who together with Tom Barras will lead the squad - kindly sent us some pics from the team's presentation which took place at the Eastwood Hall Conference Centre and Hotel in Nottingham, home of the legendary marque.