Sean Kelly was the ‘King of the Classics’ for many years but the man from Carrick-on-Suir also won the Vuelta a España and many shorter stage races. His record at Liège-Bastogne-Liège is only beaten by Argentin and Merckx. We spoke with the Irishman for his thoughts on the ‘Old Lady’ of the road.
A few weeks ago saw the last of the Spring Classics with ‘La Doyenne’ – Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the oldest and arguably toughest of them all with barely a metre of flat road in it’s 258 kilometres. Before that, the U23 version of the race took place over 166 kilometres but taking in many of its famous big brother’s climbs, such as La Redoute. Our colleague from the Six Days, soigneur Martyn Frank put us in touch with James and here’s what he had to say to VeloVeritas.
Dylan Groenewegen (Lotto-Jumbo & The Netherlands) goes from way out, Arnaud Demare (FDJ & France) scrambles for his wheel but is lengths back at the line with Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain & Italy) doing well for a man whose speciality is late season races in balmy Italy, taking third. We agree it was a great sprint from the Dutchman but it wasn't a vintage Kuurne Brussels Kuurne.
Some folks say that last is the worst place to finish in a bike race, others say second place is the heart-breaker. For me it would be fourth place - so near to a medal but so far. And fourth spot was where our boy Douglas Dewey finished in the British Time Trial Championships 2013 at Stewarton on Thursday night.
There have been quite a few brothers in the peloton over the years, so we picked just a few of the cycling siblings (there may be more to come) to compare the brotherly love and their palmarès.
As we’re all too well aware, the sport has lost five top line teams for 2014 with no new teams coming in at Pro Continental or World Tour level to replace them; a sad state of affairs. But bucking the trend and moving up from Continental to Pro Continental level – the only team to do so - is Australian outfit, Drapac.
Peter Junek is a designer and builder of perfect velodrome track surfaces and geometry, such as Cochabamba in Bolivia and Mexico’s Aguascalientes Velodrome. We thought a chat with Peter would be interesting...
You have to be in the right frame of mind to rant – unless you’re a Master, like Vik – VeloVeritas’s cycling sage and soothsayer, Vik can waken up ranting and probably rants in his sleep. I can’t do it to order – but the stars have aligned this morning and there’s a lot to get off my chest...