Sunday dawned bright and clear and it was three refreshed men who headed for Kuurne Brussels Kuurne. This was bike skeking taken to a new level; two-and-a-half hours of it, and it wasn't enough. Batavus are an old favourite of ours and their 'Professional X' is cool, matt black against a tide of white this year.
Getting to Flanders yesterday for the kuurne Brussels Kuurne was painful - a two hour delay at Prestwick, then a battle through the rush hour traffic on the Brussels ring road. Dave and I are getting good at indiscriminate lane changing and not indicating, but we really have to brush up on our tail-gating technique if we want to drive in the authentic Belgian fashion.
You know you're in Belgium at the Kuurne Brussels Kuurne when the barman is Iljo Keisse's dad - and when there are posters for bike races in the loo! But I'm getting ahead of myself; "live cargo", that's how the airlines refer to their passengers. And that's how we feel: the flight is two hours late and we're sitting on the floor at Prestwick Airport, or 'Glasgow South' as Ryanair would have it, despite the fact that we're 50 kilometres from the city on the Clyde.
Adam Hansen was just off the massage table when we caught up with him on Tuesday evening, we couldn't talk during massage because the masseur is a; "full on techno anthems, trance guy,"-just like Davie Urquhart, then? (Just joking, Davie!)
‘Sprinter stages,’ why are they so dull? Albeit ‘Bison’ Bodnar (Bora hansgrohe & Poland) did a job of enlivening the last wee bittie of yesterday’s procession. Maciej Bodnar ended the day on top. Firstly, the GC teams won’t go in the break, they’re there to look after their team leader; mountain stages are different where they’ll put men up the road so as the team leader can bridge up to them.
I haven’t raced since September 1st. I’ve been working hard though, on Swift Momentum Sports (SMS), and restoring an old building and of course, some training. SMS is doing pretty well. I’m glad to have shown people some fantastic cycling and running, as well as to have trained some very good athletes. My professional cycling career, however is pretty much over. I wasn’t renewed for the 2014 season.
The three guys behind the blog and podcasting site "Velo Club Don Logan" may be 'foul-mouthed and ill-informed' (their words), but they're also nice lads and very entertaining too. After listening to the fantastic podcast of their interview with Graeme Obree - in which Graeme talks openly about previously unexplored aspects of his life and career - we had to find out more about this site and the men behind it, and we caught up with them recently to get a bit of background and to hear their plans... okay, there aren't any plans...
On a benign morning amid the lush greenery of the Kingdom of Fife, Endura pro Evan Oliphant proved too fit for the specialist testers, taking the Scottish 25 mile time trial championship by 1:17 from far travelled Carlos Riise (Shetland) with defending champion Arthur Doyle (Dooleys RT) a further 19 seconds back in the bronze medal position.
With the bell approaching, Grant Ferguson finally made his move and he broke clear, able to stretch his lead to around half a minute at the finish line, as he claimed his first national Cyclo Cross title.