It finally felt like spring had sprung on Saturday in beautiful East Lothian in the town of Gifford. The Ribble-Weldtite team headed north to race in Round One of the Scottish National Alba Men's Road Race Series, and as well as the sunshine the guys enjoyed the race - and the result. At the same time, the team sent a squad to the Peaks Two-Day event, with more remarkable performances.
I for one imagined that Kyle Gordon’s 2018 Scottish 100 mile time trial record of 3:36:10 was going to be ‘on the shelf’ for a long while but records are there to be broken and Spokes Racing Team’s Lee Rosie did that very thing in the Scottish 100 Mile Time Trial Championship, taking two minutes from Kyle’s time with a stunning 3:34:10 ride.
On a typical four seasons in one day Scottish spring morning on the fast dual carriageways of the Irvine by-pass, Dooleys' Iain Grant reminded us all why he's Scotland's short distance king with a stunning 19 minutes and 40 seconds ride to relegate his team mate and former '10' champion, Arthur Doyle into the silver medal position, 15 seconds back and reigning champion Ben Peacock (Paisley Velo) into bronze with 19:59.
'Why do you want to go further, nothing is there?' the cute park ranger asks us; she's guarding the last section of the fabled climb.
We're beside Lago Enol, one of the beautiful Lagos de Covadonga and we need to drive the finale to complete our mission for the day.
'Two minutes?' we plead with her - 'you have ten and then I come looking for you!' she smiles.
She's right, low cloud, grass, rock and no lightweight climbers - just a lone Asturian cow...