It was a very warm evening yesterday, and we wandered back round to the hotel last night after our dinner in the middle of a typical Pyrenean thunderstorm - huge bolts of lightning searing across the sky and claps of thunder which lingered and reverberated for what seemed like 20 seconds. In the space of 5 minutes, the roads were flooded. We went to sleep in our "pod" room to the sound of pouring rain, and woke up to the same - only worse. It wasn't a nice day to be outside, let alone reporting on, or riding, a bike race.
The end game of stage seven of the Presidential Tour of Turkey saw a break of seven riders clear with six kilometres to go. Despite their lead plummeting as an angry peloton closed them down, there were riders skiving and scheming. One man was having none of it and with just over five kilometres to go he bolted – Iljo Keisse.
Continuing our series of pre-Track Worlds interviews with riders who came from the 'left field' of the velodrome, in this second part we talk to Mike McCarthy.
Mike didn't quite come from nowhere to win the 1992 World Professional Pursuit Championship but certainly shocked the world of the Euro Pros to take what was arguably then, the most prestigious of all the track titles.
Fast and furious street racing for a summer evening in Peebles for the Peebles Sprint. It’s really three events in one – first the families (and anyone with a bike who wants to join in riding round the course for a ‘victory’ lap), then a full-on women’s race, before the headline men’s racing kicks off.
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.
Here at VeloVeritas we're die hard track fans and one of several results which caught our eye from Columbia – along with Pervis’s brilliant sprint treble and the Kiwis winning the team sprint – was the madison result, with Spaniards Albert Torres and David Muntaner taking the crown in Cali. David recently very kindly agreed to speak to VeloVeritas about his elevation to World Champion status.
Deeside Thistle APR and 43 riders in 5 groups set off with the scratch group 15 mins behind the front-runners. The weather was warm and sunny but the riders faced a strong westerly wind gusting up to 30 mph. Ray Wilson of Dunfermline CC and Alistair Watt of Granite City RT broke away on their own and caught all the groups with about 7 miles to go, then Ray won the sprint to the line.