When we saw Mark Stewart’s recent post on social media that he’d moved on from the Ribble Weldtite team – who he’s been with for three seasons - and joined his ‘local’ New Zealand continental team Black Spoke Racing, it reminded us that it had been a while since last we spoke to the Scotland’s reigning Commonwealth Games Points Race Champion who’s been based on the other side of the world these last two years.
He looked super cool on a Fred Baker with a Western Road Club jersey on his back; plonk him atop a silver all-Campag Benotto clad in Sanson strip – complete with crumpled Oppy cap at just the right angle – and well, you were into the Simpson/Ocana/Merckx zone on the CooloMeter. Phil Edwards is that man; omnipresent on the GB amateur scene he piled up the wins then headed to Italy, made a name for himself in the savage amateur scene there before stepping smoothly up into the glamorous but cutthroat Italian professional world.
Denmark’s Mads Pederson drops to the wet Yorkshire tarmac, a hundred metres past the finish line, he can’t take in what he’s just accomplished. He has out-sprinted one of the foxiest and fastest men around, Matteo Trentin of Italy - the hot pre-race favourites for the title on this horror of a day.
Since the last round of the French cup, I’ve been training hard for the Tour of Moselle. The three-day stage race was my main target for the second half of the season. Unfortunately, my preparations were cut-short when I was hit by a car in training last week and that's my season ended.
Today was a good day, we took in all five cols of the stage, starting in Bagneres-de-Luchon - it only adds to your respect for the pros when you see what they have to deal with. The gruppo was travelling at funereal speed, 30 minutes down when it passed us near the top of the Aubisque.
It was Keirin and Sprint legend Koichi Nakano’s birthday the other day, 65 years-old. His huge claim to fame is that he won 10 consecutive World Professional Sprint titles. Mention of his name got us thinking that he didn’t really win those titles straight and to find out more we spoke to Gordon Singleton of Canada…
The results of the "Rising Westerly" 100 Mile Time Trial held on the Aberdeen/Stonehaven/Deeside course, and organised by GS Corsa. Carlos Riise (Shetland Wheelers) made another successful "air"“raid" on mainland cycling by comfortably winning the "Rising Westerly" by over 14 minutes from Granite City RT's Norman Skene.
Sadly, Scottish 12hr Champion, Joe Wilson (Sandy Wallace Cycles) crashed at Aboyne and was forced to retire. Carlos reported that Joe was probably just over a minute up on him at the time.