A name that’s caught our eye this year is that of 23 years-old Robert Scott from Halifax in West Yorkshire who rides for the WiV-SunGod continental team, winning the Tour de la Mirabelle and Paris-Troyes.
Mark Cavendish was in the break ALL day on this wet, windy, tough, gnarly day - major respect to the man on his second British Championship win on Scottish roads.
In a solid 12th place at the British Road Race Championships in Lincoln was 21 year-old Scot, Sean Flynn, riding for top Dutch development team SEG Racing, in what was one of the team’s last races before sadly, it folded. We caught up with Sean not long after another fine ride, this time in the last race of the European season, the 188.5 kilometre UCI 1.1 Ronde van Drenthe.
On a day when we watched hard men like Gran Piemonte winner, Matt Walls and Tro Bro victor, Connor Swift crack before our very eyes it was reigning champion, Ben Swift who extended his tenure in that lovely jersey from 2019 through 2020 and 2021 into at least June 2022.
In recent years John Herety is best known for his work as manager of the various incarnations of the popular and successful Condor continental team. But he’s a man who’s ‘got the T-shirt’ – British and French amateur Classic wins, a Peace Race stage, a year with ACBB, three years with Coop Mercier, the British Professional Road Championship, the GP Pino Cerami (nearly) and a stage in the Tour of Britain Milk Race (eventually).
In Part Two of our interview with British professional legend, Sid Barras we discuss the race he was favourite for every year for a decade but which it took him 10 years to win; the British Professional Road Race Championship.
‘Legs’ they called him, on account of those massive thighs, but he was christened ‘Keith Lambert.’ And the triple British Professional Champion recently gave freely of his time to take a wander through his career with VeloVeritas.
If you were around British bike racing in the 70’s and 80’s then you’ll remember the name, Phil Thomas. One of those Liverpool ‘cheeky chappies’ who were so strong in British cycling back then and a prolific winner on the road and criterium scene. Thomas could win anything from a seafront criterium to the Manx International via 10 mile track races to Milk Race stages.
Ben Swift launched a monster kick, leaving Scot, John Archibald to the bronze then zooming past teammate Ian Stannard on his blindside in the streets of Norwich to arrive at the line in solitary splendour and unleash a mighty roar of triumph and relief. We caught up with him at his Isle of Man home on the Tuesday after his win...