Tag: Bremen Six Day 2012

Time trials are always difficult days at races. Firstly, the riders line up knowing their final position in the race depends on their forthcoming hour of solo work, and secondly, the logistics for the staff are super complex here at the TdF Stage 19.

Up at 04:30, the plan was to get the bus from Porty at 09:00 - however, and to cut a long story short, the van is abandoned in a western suburb of Edinburgh and a cab was flagged down to get me to the airport on time. The flight was undramatic - thank God - and there was Kris in the airport bus park, with the camper. It's seems to be an unwritten law that you have to arrive in a different country from where the race is; so the rendez-vous was in Geneva, Switzerland.

It’s been a wee while since we last spoke to former world professional pursuit champion, Colin Sturgess. When we heard he was back in harness – winning the League of Veteran Racing Cyclist time trial championship this autumn we thought we’d best have a word.

The British ‘25’ is still THE race to win - Sheil, Bonner, Engers, Lloyd, Doyle, Webster, Boardman ... Any rider would be honoured to add their name to that list. This year we’d all been expecting Matt Bottrill to add to his already impressive palmarès. But it was one of VeloVeritas' amigo, Dan Fleeman’s charges at Dig Deep Coaching who upset the form book: Ryan Perry (Langdale Lightweights RT) who’s 48:04 was 20 seconds too quick for Britain’s fastest postie.

It’s been a funny old week – it’s always the same, there’s that void after a Grand Tour and it’s hard to fill. Dumoulin ‘done good’ to win; if you’re as old as me you can remember the last Grand Tour win by a Dutchman, Joop Zoetemelk in 1980 in the colours of TI Raleigh; he’d won the Vuelta the previous year and as well as his Tour win finished in second spot six times – with a record 16 Tour finishes off 16 starts.

C’est la vie. After filling most of Saturday with a dozy nine hour drive, the team arrived in the medieval village of Sillans-la-Cascade. We were greeted with a hearty four-course feast, courtesy of the host family who would be looking after us. This set the theme for the week; each meal was both tasty and enormous. With 1000km to ride in the next seven days plenty of fuel was certainly welcomed.