Tag: Garmin - Barracuda

The Copenhagen Six Day is a special race for us here at VeloVeritas – it was the first Six Day we worked at, nearly a decade ago. We’ve built good relationships with Danish riders over that period, especially reigning Danish Elite Road Race Champion, Michael Mørkøv who’s no stranger to our pages. Therefore it was with sadness we received an email from Mr. Henrik Elmgreen – for many years the organiser of the Copenhagen Six Day – to inform us that one of Denmark’s Six Day legends has died.

We spoke with Dutchman Johnny Hoogerland, who most will remember as the victim of a terrible crash in the 2011 Tour de France when he and Juan Antonio Flecha were brought down when a car overtaking their five-man escape group swerved right to avoid a tree after executing an irresponsible overtaking manoeuvre on the grass verge.

At the time I set off for Flanders in 1973 to live at Mrs Deene's, I only knew two people who had raced there – one of them being Stan Butler’s son Keith - who had done well enough that he had become a professional - so it was entirely word-of-mouth, a case of asking for whatever advice people could offer and setting off on the cross-channel ferry, hoping for the best.

August has been a little bit of a disappointing month for me in some ways. It started with me messing up a big target race and ended with two races heavily disrupted by illness. Having said that, these sandwich a road race win so there’s been success too.

Time to Regroup. After the savagery of yesterday’s stage, today is very likely to be a neutral stage from the GC boys’ point of view. There are big hills in it, but they are very early in the stage. Hence those who played big roles late in the climb yesterday will likely be riding small, tucked into the bunch conserving energy.

With Ribble Weldtite Pro Cycling rider Cameron Jeffers recently taking the first big road event of the season – The Eddie Soens Memorial Handicap at Aintree we thought it might be a good time to catch up with some of the names on the team who caught our eye – a young Scot entering the pro ranks, a man continuing on his comeback trail and a man with World Tour T-shirts to his name…