Tag: Giro d'Italia 2016

Robbie Mcewen, Oscar Freire, Linus Gedermann, Rui Costa, and Andre Greipel took the five one-day races that make up the Challenge Ciclista a Mallorca, which suffered from the weather like other events around the Med. Great to see Jens Voigt back in action and winning a competition too.

Perhaps you’ve seen them on TV when Eurosport used to cover the Berlin Six Days – or maybe you remember them at Leicester, ‘back in the day?’ The ‘Big Motors.’ Germany, along with The Netherlands were always the ‘Heartland’ for the motor-paced aspects of the sport but in Britain back in the early 70’s we had one of the best in the world in Roy Cox. Cox was six times British Champion, won big on the German ‘stayer’ circuit, rode four World Championships and made the Worlds final in his home Worlds in 1970 – the first British amateur to do so in 70 years.

Aidan McIlroy (Auchencrow Thistle) backed up his great ride in the recent Gordon Arms time trial to win his own club's promotion, the hilly TT - "Up The Cleugh". Second was Gary Robson, and third Jon Kelly, visiting from the north of England.

"In Spring a young man’s fancy..." Well, this Spring, being no longer young, my fancy turned to applying for volunteering at the World Road Championships on the "Yorkshire Team", the events being held 22st to 29th September in Yorkshire, where I have been living for the past eleven years.

My old dad used to say to me that you knew you were getting old when it seemed like every other week you had to attend a friend’s funeral. I scoffed; but now I understand what he meant – it’s not funerals with me but rather writing cyclists’ obituaries and sadly, I must another to the list, my old GS Modena, Brummie team mate, Steve Beech.

How is it that a country which spawned Campag, Ducati, Ferrari and Armani can't get the plumbing to work? Last night's hotel had the electrical switch for the shower just a couple of inches from the shower head; the difference between being scalded and freezing was two microns on the control.