"The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglay," Rabbie Burns must have had a premonition about the Giro when he wrote that. It should have been a short hop over the Pordoi Pass from the digs to the start at Arabba to Marmolada. The jobsworth policeman at the top of the Pordoi settled our hash though; "No, you stop now, road closed, no journalists, only team cars!" Aye, cheers pal, you'll soon get that job you want in the riot squad, bludgeoning students. Sorry..., I was ranting, wasn't I?
The first road stage has started! Touted as a mini Liege Bastogne Liege, the course covers many of the same roads as the race known as La Doyenne, one of the single day Classics known as a Monument. The last time these roads were tackled at the Tour was in 2009, easily the worst working day of my Sports Physio career - I was working for the Garmin team at the time.
Most of the hugely successful GB Olympic cycling team are taking a break - but not Scotland's Katie Archibald who undertook a hugely successful campaign at the recent European Track Championships in Paris. And that's before we talk about her racing and winning at the London Six Day... We caught up with her post Paris but pre-London to discuss her two golds and one silver medal Euro haul.
From jousting with ‘Kermesse King’ Mario Willems to shelf stacking at Tesco, it’s been a bit of a roller coaster week or two for Glasgow Wheelers’ 20 year-old, Dougie Young. We caught him between shifts to give us tales of a summer spent in a land where cyclists aren’t a nuisance and bike racing doesn’t induce blank stares or shakes of the head.
The phone rings, it's Vik; "Why haven't you spoken to that Wade Mangham boy? He's getting round all right in Flanders." In line with VeloVeritas policy of trying to keep abreast of who's 'up and coming' in the Flatlands, we tracked young Mr. Langham down - here's what he had to tell us about dodgy club presidents, Shane Archbold's mullet - and he has a chat with his bottle cages.
The last rant of 2017, where did that year go? In fact, where did the last 11 years go? It seems like t’other day we set the site up. To business! Let’s get the bad bits of 2017 out of the way first...
On one of those grey Scottish mornings where it looks like the sun might just break through - but it never does - Dooley's Iain Grant successfully defended his Scottish 25 Mile Time Trial Championship 2013 title on the rolling A90 dual carriageway east of Laurencekirk on Sunday morning with a sparkling 50:46 course record.