Tag: Marmotte

Firstly, a warm welcome to my new blog which aims to document my 2017 season of training and racing in Belgium with PCT Tomacc. Thank you for taking the time to read my ensuing ramblings, I hope you find them of some interest and if not, I can only apologise for being so dull in nature. In this edition there is an overview of the first half of my winter training, from picking myself up and dusting myself off after my collarbone break in September through to full gas December endurance training in Girona... Having returned from Belgium just a few days previously, on the 9th September I crashed whilst training in Cornwall and shattered my right collarbone into five pieces.

Here at VeloVeritas whilst we have the utmost respect for John Archibald and his performances we didn’t seek any pre-Worlds interviews from him, his sister Katie, Neah Evans or Mark Stewart. We felt that the ‘they just need to turn up and ride then bring home the rainbow jerseys’ vibe was putting them under pressure – of which they would experience more than enough in the cauldron of Pruszkow. We let the dust settle post-Worlds, gave John a call and found how it went...

Yes, there are days when we’ve criticised the racing – those endless ‘sprinter stages’ where only the last five minutes saves the day. But we were puzzled by the comments we saw about yesterday’s stage to Rodez on social media; the "Bore de France" and the break "allowed for purely commercial reasons"?

Amidst the welter of Tweets, outraged forum posts, recriminations and blame culture which have followed in the wake of 'LanceGate' we decided that it may be educational to speak to a man who's ridden the whirlwind of a dope test positive, Joe Papp.

It’s ‘all change’ again for Omega Pharma Quick Step’s thrice Irish Elite Road Race champion, Matt Brammeier. He’s a man who shapes his destiny – abandoning British Cycling’s Academy to walk his own path in Belgium. Despite being part of the QuickStep team which dominated one day racing this season, it hasn’t been a great year for Brammeier. He’s hoping for better things with Champion – he took time to speak to VeloVeritas soon after the deal had been done.

World Road Race Championships 2011 - Cavendish and the whole team were brilliant, full stop. There can be no 'buts' or 'maybes' - his team...