We're at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2012... we left the Vivaldi at 02:15 on Thursday morning - we must be getting old. Gent is changing, they've pulled down most of the station and there are cranes everywhere as the old girl's face gets lifted.
It's not everyday that we have the African champion racing on Scottish roads so when we met Dan Craven of Rapha/Condor after his fine third place at the recent Drummond Trophy, we thought we'd better make the most of it.
Doug Shapiro wasn’t the first American to ride the Tour; that was Jonathan Boyer; or the second, that was Greg Lemond. But he was the third to do so; and not just in any old role – as a domestique for Tour, Vuelta and Worlds winner, Joop Zoetemelk as part of the mighty Kwantum Hallen team. Here at VeloVeritas we thought that he must have a good tale to tell...
Pau, Thursday morning, the sun is out, so that's a good start. How do we feel? A tad flat, it has to be said, but the show must go on. Over to our left, the publicity caravan is rolling-out, headed for Castelsarrasin. It's a day for the "baroudeurs" today - the breakaway specialists. There are five fourth and one third category climbs today, so it's a hard day's work - maybe a French win? That would be nice, this Tour could do with a 'lift'. The Pez guy is out of the office today, checking-out the 2008 Look frames and bikes launch in San Jose - a dirty job, but...
A few Sundays ago we saw Tom Dumoulin time trialling his way to Tour de France stage glory in the thin-aired horror that is Andorra; but there was a much more important race against the watch going on in darkest North East Scotland – the Scottish ‘50’ Mile TT Championship. Back at the ‘10’ Champs, winner Chris Smart (GTR) told us that there was a ‘changing of the guard’ taking place in Scottish time trials – and so it proved, with new name, Jon Entwistle (Team JMC) taking the 50 mile honours in 1:44:45 from Chris (1:46:15) and 2015 champion, Alan Thomson (Sandy Wallace Cycles, 1:48:07).
An Aussie winning Scottish cyclo crosses; what's that all about? VeloVeritas went walk-about and tracked him down for a billy-can of tea beside the billabong.
We can’t all be big sprinting/hard climbing/glam winners who get our faces on the pages of Cycling Weekly and International Cycle Sport. Enter Ged Dennis, 80’s professional racing cyclist, with a tale of monkeys, IOU’s, unheated bedrooms, gifts from the Gods and … choreography.