Tag: Junior Racing

And after a couple of seasons of near misses, Grant Ferguson, the British U23 ‘cross and Elite MTB Champion has finally reached the top of the international MTB slippery pole with an excellent win in the U23 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup at Val di Sole in Italia. Second was Titouan Carod (France) who’s the 2015 U23 World Cup overall winner, emphasising the quality of the Scotsman’s win.

Dave Le Grys has been on the British track scene since I was a junior-that's a long time. In part three of our "left-field" track riders we wanted to have a word with the man who was winning track medals in 1973 - and nearly 40 years later is still winning them.

We're on the percorso early, today. Montevergine is the destination - the first real mountain top finish of the Giro. At the top it's 1,260 metres above sea level, it's 17.1 K long with a total altitude gain of 856 metres, average gradient 5% and maximum gradient 10%. It's always good to 'work the start' - get some pictures and quotes in the 90 minutes or so between the team buses arriving and the roll out but today we just don't have time.

Hola! It's a bit like being in a Vuelta sprinters' stage, this morning in Peñafiel. Dry tundra, deserted low rise blocks to the left and right and all under a cloudless high plains sky.

It's Giro time again! Getting to Venaria Reale wasn't too bad - Edinburgh to Malpensa Airport in Milan on Easyjet; pick up the hire car and head west towards Torino. We decided that rather than brave Friday night rush hour traffic, we'd stay in Chivasso, around 20 K from Torino. A wise decision, Torino was overflowing with 'Alpini' - Italian mountain troops, past and present - for their annual 'beano.' The day after the TTT the Gazzetta reckoned that there were one million people on the streets of the city - we believe it.

If you’re a regular VeloVeritas reader then you’ll be aware of top Scottish time trial rider, Silas Goldsworthy’s quest to qualify for the individual pursuit in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. We've just written about his victory in the classic Scottish event the Tour des Trossachs, but Silas' most recent opportunity to dip under the qualifying standard for the Games came in that Mecca for Six Day racing - Gent. But not on the tiny 167 metre Kuipke Velodrome where Sercu, De Wilde and Keisse have ruled down through the ages; but on the 250 metre covered track in Gent – scene of the ‘International Belgian Open.’ Those UCI rules just keep changing; and now riders have to qualify individually just to ride World Cups, never mind World Championships. We spoke to Silas after he’d had a chance to gather his thought about his excursion to VeloVeritas’s favourite city.