A phone call from Craig MacLean the other day;
"I'll be up in Edinburgh on Monday morning, to do some promo for the Edinburgh Nocturne races at the end of the month, fancy catching up?"
For sure mate. And so I pottered along to the press launch of the Nocturne event today, which centered around an exhibition of roller racing, with the wonderful backdrop of Edinburgh Castle.
Big Hitters' Playground. Gaaaaaame on! It has finally become time for the big swinging cats to unsheathe their claws. It feels like forever since the race started - I reckon the first big climbs don't normally come quite so late-so I reckon there'll be a few lads (and their teams) wondering what their form is like and hoping that they earn the big bucks that they're paid.
Yesterday we arrived in Rodez as planned, picked up the hire car without any bother, and got ourselves, eventually, after getting lost a couple of times, to the hotel - one of these typical French 'pod' rooms, but it's okay with it's bunk beds and little shower room / toilet. A drive up to the Permanence, aka the Press Headquarters, to pick up our race accreditation, and we'd be all set for a pretty cruisy Rest Day. Only, the Permanence happened to be over two hours drive away, and once there, we found that only Ed's 'creds' were ready - mine hadn't been "approved by Julia" (the head ASO cred issuer).
It’s been a wee while since we last spoke to former world professional pursuit champion, Colin Sturgess. When we heard he was back in harness – winning the League of Veteran Racing Cyclist time trial championship this autumn we thought we’d best have a word.