We often hear about how the riders at the Tour de France study "the Roadbook" to learn the final kilometres of a particular stage, or to identify which stage may be "the one" to go for, but what exactly does the Tour de France Roadbook contain, who uses it, and how useful is it, really? Published by ASO each year a few weeks before the Prologue and in several languages, the Roadbook is also known as the race "bible".
I'm in Trinidad & Tobago, but in Fort William, which could be somewhere I saw in a movie; once you're in the Tropics it seems to affect your perceptions of time and place, is where the Scottish 10 Mile Time Trial Championship is taking place, today - under the shadow of mighty Ben Nevis. Martin, our editor and web-guy is riding it and - strange though it may seem - I'd like to have been there.
If you watched Stage One of the Giro on Eurosport or GCN then you’ll have heard that someone had the great idea to recruit British professional rider, Dan Bigham to join the commentary team as a ‘chrono specialist.’ Here at VeloVeritas we thought it would be good to put to Dan all those sad questions that trouble bike obsessives like us.
Ed gets it all off his chest in our latest Rant; do we really need aero front lights? What difference does a tricked out 'pain cave' make? Some clever innovations that aren't April fools, and should Tomeke take over from Patrick at QuickStep?
Apart from the Tours of Yorkshire and Britain we only have one UCI race in the UK, ‘The Rutland CiCLE Classic,’ an event which anticipated the current ‘gravel craze’ by a decade and more. We thought it would be interesting to talk to the man behind the race, Colin Clews.
Spanish sports paper, Mundo Deportivo says; 'El Tigre, en la Lieja-Ponferrada-Lieja' comparing the race to an Ardennes Classic. 'A complete cyclist with a brilliant future,' they say of the 24 year-old Pole Michal Kwiatkowski. Despite a tiny box on the front cover, the race gets two-and-a-half pages with nice colour pictures.
No Steve Cummings – saving it for the road race or just no form? - it looked like a shoot-out then between Dauphine winner, Geraint Thomas and chrono specialist Alex Dowsett (Katusha) for the British Time Trial Championships 2018. The sun was out, our spot on the hill was perfect, the marshal was sound with not a trace of Janitordom and Dave’s cheese and ham pieces were of exceptional quality. And Britain’s best bike riders were set to scoot past us. Not much more a man can want in life.