Tag: Falcon

Brittany, the summer of 1977 and a group of Scottish cyclists are over there as competitors in the Roscoff–Lorient road race as part of the ‘Festival Interceltique de Lorient.’ At one of these races, a criterium on a sunny day at a venue long forgotten, we met an English chap called Julian Wheat who had chucked his job and set up shop in the depths of Bretagne.

David Duggan, I know that name, wasn’t he the guy that Dave and I watched win that Dunfermline ‘mud fest’ cyclo-cross the other year? That’s him – and now he’s gone and won the Scottish Road Race Championship on that tough old course up in the North East which included five ascents of Stuie Hill. We thought we better find out a little more about this ‘DD’ fellow…

It was the best event VeloVeritas Reader John Day had ever been in - or would ever be in. It had been full-on for the last 45 of 100 miles, a true classic...

During the entire history of the Peace Race from 1948 to 1989 there were few Western winners, and no English speaker ever won - except one that is, in 1952: Ian Steel of Scotland. The story that the East European propaganda machine circulated after that edition of the Peace Race, 60 years ago, was that the "Westerner" winner Steel had been approached by his country's intelligence agency before he travelled to the race and was asked to; 'keep his eyes open' whilst behind the Iron Curtain - to spy, in other words.

We’ve opened the ‘whatever happened to’ file again, this time it’s a man who many will remember dominating Meadowbank Track League in Edinburgh back in the 70’s, winning a rare (in that era) British Track Championship medal and scoring numerous, notable successes on the road; Graeme Nisbet of Dunedin CC and Roiseal Cycle Racing Team.

My son reckons he’s on something and will, ‘get caught; there’s no way he could break his leg in the Tour and then be as strong as he is... Let’s hope (and pray) not; but my perspective is different – I think Alberto Contador is one of the greatest stage racers the world has ever seen and as such you can’t compare him to lesser mortals. People forget that Contador has been as close to death as a man can get and still survive.