Het Volk... Friday, the evening before the race, as we sat in the Viadukt, our fave local bar in Ghent, we caught sight of our pilot friend who flies Belgian Air Force C130s around the world whilst in an advanced state of enebriation. He was flying to Kabul on the morrow; but tonight in the Viadukt he couldn't bite his thumb.
Kiwi’s in the peloton are no rarity these days; George Bennett, Shane Archbold, Paddy Bevin, Jack Bauer are all well-known figures on the World Tour but the spiritual Godfather of these men whilst as Kiwi as they come was actually born in The Netherlands; Mr. Tino Tabak is definitely old school 70’s and ‘tells it like it is.’
In Part One of his account of ‘running’ at the SKOL Six Days in the early 70’s Pip Taylor told us about the 1971 race. For the 1972 race he’d moved up the strata and was ‘running’ for a bona fide ‘Blue Train’ pairing.
Duelling Trains. There's something about certain sporting moments when two competitors meet each other in their pomp and just go head to head. There's a minimum of tactics, and a maximum of fireworks, and we, the interested onlookers can only marvel at how good this is, and wonder who will crack first?
We look back at the final five stages of the Vuelta 2019, a great race with hardly a dull moment which saw the emergence of yet more tremendously talented youngsters.
With the World Track Championships only a few weeks away, we thought we'd talk to some top riders who you may know not much about, guys with interesting stories to tell, our "left-field' stars. Here's Ryan Oelkers tale...