Tag: Grand Tour

Prior to the recent ‘five plus one’ it’s 35 years since a Six Day string made the London boards hum – albeit different times, riders and venue. We thought it would be interesting to fire a few questions at a man who’s worked both races; 1980 AND 2015 – VeloVeritas’s ‘man on the inside’ and over the years soigneur to some of the biggest names in Six Day bike racing; Kris Tolmie.

Mara Abbott is twice a winner of the overall GC in the Giro Rosa, picking up seven stages along the way not to mention two second places, a fourth, a fifth and 10th on GC. Abbott retired from the sport after finishing fourth in the Olympic Road Race in Rio, 2016. She took time to speak to us not long after her retirement; here’s what she had to say.

"Cometh the hour, cometh the man," the hour was a sunny late September afternoon in Mendrisio, Switzerland, the man was Cadel Evans.

There’ll be a popular name missing from the Six Day lap boards come the winter of 2020/21, that of Belgium’s Moreno De Pauw, at just 28 years-of-age he’s decided to call ‘time’ on his career and join the police. Over the years he’s been a prolific collector of championship medals – 28 Belgian titles and too many Belgian championship silvers and bronzes for us – or him - to keep track of.

Continuing our series of pre-Track Worlds interviews with riders who came from the 'left field' of the velodrome, in this second part we talk to Mike McCarthy. Mike didn't quite come from nowhere to win the 1992 World Professional Pursuit Championship but certainly shocked the world of the Euro Pros to take what was arguably then, the most prestigious of all the track titles.

We caught up with the man behind the team and the holder of the record for most British titles won in one season – eight – Dan Bigham, after he returned from a successful foray to Canada where round two of the Tissot World Cup took place on the boards of the Milton Velodrome in Ontario where the men in black came away with silver.