Monday, April 29, 2024

Tag: Old Races

The 1978 Crystal Palace Grand Prix

Have you been clearing out the loft, found an old race programme or finishing sheet and wondering what to do with it? Fire it off to VeloVeritas – we love the smell of the old paper, those names that we’d just about forgotten and remembering that British Cycling did actually exist before Sky came along. Kris, my Six Day boss sent me a photocopied sheet from the past the other day – it’s not the best print job but it’s just about readable; the Crystal Palace Grand Prix...

The 1962 Usher Silver Tankard Road Race

Usher Silver Tankard Nostalgia: “describes a sentimental longing for the past” defines the dictionary. I’m not one to sit and say that everything was better when I was a youngster – bikes certainly weren’t; much of the equipment available was scrap and would get laughed out of court in 2013. Cycling clothing was horrible and cycling shoes were positively medieval. Albeit cars were cooler, music was better and so was the cycling scene.

At Random

Le Tour de France 2012 – Stage 6: Épernay – Metz, 210 km

Martin, the Editor, and I had a meeting last night and agreed there’d be no over-use of superlatives or schoolgirl punctuation on our site. But what can you say about Sagan? - other than he was super, super awesome!!! [Ed!!! What did we totally, like, agree or something??? Editor.] Seriously, what a ride, we can say that Cav wasn’t there and that Greipel was in bits; but Goss was there and so was his train - no matter to Sagan.

La Vuelta a España 2012 – Stage 4: Barakaldo – Valdezcaray Station 160km

Echelons formed out of Barakaldo, Froome turned killer, Valverde was ambushed, the podium shook itself into shape early and a nice guy won. If that sounds exciting – it was.

Vittorio Adorni

Vittorio Adorni was one of the classiest riders to sit on a bike, at a time when there were many top riders; Jacques Anquetil, Jan Janssen, Felice Gimondi and sometime teammate, Eddy Merckx. Vittorio Adorni died on 24th December at the age of 85.

Phil Edwards

It was Phil Edwards’ friend and former team mate back in their amateur days, respected cycling photographer John Pierce who broke the sad news to us that the big man from Bristol, who won both the British Junior and Professional Road race Championships and was right hand man to Italian ‘campionissimo’ Francesco Moser at ‘super squadra’ Sanson for five seasons had died of a suspected heart attack at his home in Monaco on Sunday, April 23rd aged 67 – he was born 03:09:1949. Phil Edwards, British Champion, Olympian, respected member of an elite peloton, successful businessman and gentleman, rest in peace.

Scottish National Road Race Championships 2012

After years of trying, James McCallum (Rapha Condor Sharp) finally took his win in theScottish National Road Race in Balfron today, edging out good friend Evan Oliphant (Raleigh) in the uphill sprint after a hard-fought race, with Vanilla Bikes' Alistair Rutherford a lone third a handful of seconds behind.

Stuart Balfour – First French Win in Ronde Briochine

We spoke to Scotland’s Stuart Balfour at the start of the season but word has been trickling back that 21 years-old from Heriot who is a Rayner Fund rider with Cotes d'Armor-Marie Morin Veranda Rideau, ‘en France’ has been ‘doing the biz.’ Best have another word, we thought to ourselves...