Tag: Rapha-Sharp

Kate Cullen's decisive victory in the British Track Championships is the strongest indication yet that those, including the selectors of the WCPP, who had written her off as 'too old', will have to reappraise her situation. VeloVeritas talked to her when she got back from Manchester.

In English we’d say, ‘Birdsong’ – in Danish it’s ‘Fuglsang.’ Despite the fact that he seems to have been around for a long, long time, Jakob Fuglsang is still only 28 with his best years as a stage race rider surely yet to come. We felt we needed a proper look inside an Ardennes Classic; so who better to speak to than Amstel top 20 finisher, said Mr. Fuglsang?

Our pal Craig Geater works as a mechanic for the Orica GreenEDGE team, and is putting in the hard shifts at the Tour de France. Like everyone involved in the race, he's very busy, but when he has his iPad or phone in hand he's been taking a moment or two to snap some images, and fire them over to us.

The sun is high in the sky as we head south to the Pyrennes and Plateau-de-Beille from Toulouse. The French are making a real fist of out-doing the Italians as the worst drivers on the planet; we stopped at a cross-road in Toulouse last night and the guy behind us had a fit, horn, wild arm movements and a challenge to a square-go. We got his registration and will be back down after the Tour to visit him with a young-team from Ballingry. The game-plan today is to spend a full day on a mountain, just watching it all happen.

I’d been meaning to get back into semi-serious bike riding for a while but a diagnosis of spinal stenosis, which doesn’t affect everyday life too much but which is damn sore if you’re pressing hard on the pedals, made it difficult. Then came the, ‘Eureka!’ moment – an e-Bike.

Continuing on our recent Irish theme we caught up with Aidan Duff, former Vendee U professional and now owner of Fifty One Cycles – building bespoke carbon frames. 'Fifty One?' we hear you say... The race number for Merckx, Ocana, Thevenet and Hinault when they won the Tour de France. With tales of Jean Rene Bernadeau, Tommy Voeckler and building custom carbon – not ‘off the peg from Taiwan’ - we cover some interesting ground. Let’s go...