Dan Patten's Blog - As the season rolls on the races are coming thick and fast. May was always going to be an important month with the Belgium Cup (Beker Van Belgie/Coupe de Belgique) series taking center stage.
One of the things that’s good about FaceBook is seeing those old pictures from the 70’s when cars, music and especially bike racing were all cooler than they are today. Recently, there have been some nice pictures of those Regent boys and that got me to thinking about the omnipresent Clan McGinty. A quick message to Steven of that ilk followed and we hope you like what he had to say as much as we did...
Here at VeloVeritas we’ve been doing a bit of research into Six Days from years gone by and a name that cropped up was that of Derek Hunt. Hunt was a very successful schoolboy and junior on the UK scene in the 70’s before moving to The Netherlands where he was a regular participant in the amateur Six Days – notably, winning the Maastricht race.
A dull and not very warm (6 to 7C) day, with little breeze for the Bikelife 25 today. But there was some really outstanding stuff, especially from winner Jon Copp, and more especially from 70yr old Derek "Dastardly Dick" Stewart who had an all-time Personal Best, first time under the hour!, with a fine 59.52 (+22.38 up on his age std).
In April 1978 my pal Dave and I stopped off in the north of England to watch the English pros in action at the Lancaster Grand Prix. Sitting in rare north of England spring sunshine to watch the race we were surprised and excited when Falcon pro, Nigel Dean chose our patch of grass to call it a day and sit and happily chat away to us for an age. It’s taken us a while to catch up with him again...
One More Sleep! time for the TdF 2010 to Start. We are at the end of Day -1, which is the point where the whole team just want things to start already. Admittedly I’ve been in that mood since Tuesday afternoon when I headed out from the team Service Course in Girona. Now everyone else has joined me in night-before-Christmas-as-a-seven-year-old land.