Tag: Custom Equipment

We left Ax3 Domaines this morning, and are now in Lourdes - a strange place, like a religiously themed Blackpool; only it's not little replicas of the tower they're selling, rather all manner of tat plastered with religious images. The last time I was there was with Martin, we sat, stunned in a late night pizza place - yellow jerseyed Rasmussen had just been sent home from le Tour by Rabobank.

We've been watching the up-and-coming riders and have chosen our ‘Top Ten Young Guns’ for 2023. Our rider choices for 2022 included some top performers so let’s look at the ‘Men to Watch’ in 2023.

It's different here; the butcher asks you how Keisse is doing in the six and the local paper has Iljo in full colour, on the cover. In the same paper - De Gentenaar - which is a local 'rag,' there's a two page guide to track racing and two pages of stats on the 2009 season.

In Peter Post's TI-Raleigh squad everything mattered; the bikes had to be the best, the clothing had to look the most stylish and fit properly, the cars had to look stunning. Winning was everything. Post was completely in charge and German ‘Golden Boy’ Dietrich Thurau was on board but still with a smattering of GB riders. By 1976 the team had gone ‘total Euro’ save for two names, Dave Lloyd and one Bob Cary. We spoke to Bob to hear his story.

It was at the Berlin Six Day a few years ago that we first saw Neah Evans in action on the boards. She’s made a lot of progress since then and the 27 year-old was recently part of the successful GB team pursuit squad at the Manchester World Cup. High times we ‘had a word.’

Honestly, we think that Jason Kenny is a great sprinter - he can go short, long and is tactically very sharp. He's not six times Olympic Champion across three disciplines because he's a dud. We also think that if he got himself off to Aguascalientes then Monsieur Pervis' 2013 world 200 and 1000 metre records of 9.347 and 56.303 respectively would be in jeopardy; not to mention Chris Hoy's 2007 standard of 24.758 for 500 metres. But how can he be a professional?