Jo Patterson – who has just won the CTT 100 Mile TT with a stunning 3:42 ride in Wales, riding for The Independent Pedaler-Nopinz - has represented Ireland internationally and was born in England but she lives in Scotland and works in Wishae – that’s ‘Wishaw’ to non-natives… ‘good enough for us,’ we thought to ourselves.
Joshua Shubert, on a blowy Monday at the start of November under the strict conditions which apply to RRA record attempts, dipped under three hours for the RRA 100 mile ‘straight out’ time trial, averaging a staggering 2:57:38 - that’s 33.6 mph or 54 kph.
Adam Wild [GS Metro] has been a regular on the Scottish time trial scene for a year two; we’ve watched him get that bit faster each year – and now he’s confirmed he’s one of the fastest around with a win in the CTT National 100 Mile Time Trial Championship on a course around the Wiltshire-Gloucestershire border.
This year Marcin Bialoblocki has turned his attention to the 100 mile TT distance, winning the national title before setting out specifically to break competition record in Norfolk, last Sunday, bringing the record close to the scarcely believable 3 hours 10 minutes barrier with a 3:13:37 ride; that’s 31 miles per hour average on a course with 42 roundabouts.
Biggest news of the weekend? Spilak wins overall in Suisse - and the Russian team takes the GC at ZLM too with Goncalves; Dillier wins the Route du Sud for BMC or Cav shows form in Slovenia to get the Dimension Data management team off the Valliums? Nope - Richard Bideau.
Adam Duggleby’s (Vive le Velo) 3:16:51 to break the British 100 mile time trial record on the e2/100, Newmarket course is the ride which has tongues wagging on this side of the Channel and North Sea. Peter Harrison (AS Test Team) 3:18:58 was also inside the old mark; as was the man we interviewed two years ago when we all thought he’d nabbed the record with his 3:18:54, reigning BBAR Richard Bideau – until the course was re-measured and found to be ‘short’ by 0.2 miles.
We caught up with Bideau two days after his ride...
Ghent, or rather ‘Gent’ we love it; the bars, the people and the fact you can walk into a filling station and there are six quality cycling magazines on the shelf to chose from, and you have to love a city where they have taps to discharge the rainwater. Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, the first real races of the year – Down Under, the Desert races, Langkawi? Come on!
Michal Kwiatkowski is hoping to tackle the Tour of Flanders this season as he looks to continue his momentum following a standout 2017 campaign. The Pole enjoyed arguably the best 12 months of his career with marquee victories at Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo and Clasica San Sebastian, before heading to the Tour de France to help wingman Chris Froome to a fourth title.
I was the one who said that the Giro d’Italia doesn’t have a great field – but the fact is, ‘so what?’ It’s only stage three but already the ‘Bigs’ are at it, knocking lumps out of each other. I was thinking of an ABC of ‘key words’ for each of today’s protagonists – for big Ryder Hesjedal it was ‘aggressive’ but maybe it should be ‘anxious?’
It had to be an early start, today for Le Grand-Bornand. To get down to the Bourg-Saint-Maurice start, we had to drive against a section of race route and decided to get away early to beat the closures.
Follow the road until further instructed... Hurray, the satnav is working again! Ahh ! pardon, bonjour mes amis en Ecosse, bienvenu au 15eme etape de la Tour de France avec l'equipe VeloVeritas a Prato Nevoso.
Here at VeloVeritas we think that Scotland's great performances at the Commonwealth Games Velodrome didn't get the attention they merited. In order to set things right we decided to catch up with as many of our medallists as we could and learn a bit more about them and their medal-winning rides. James McCallum came back with a bronze medal from the 20 Kilometer Scratch, making a mockery of those who felt he wasn't worthy of selection.