Tag: Royal Highland Show

There is no doubt that British cycling is alive and well at the highest echelons of performance - Britons won the Tour, the world champs and pretty much the entire velodrome; there's also no doubt that British cycling is alive and kicking at the grass roots level too - membership has doubled since 2007. It makes sense to assume that all is well in between, too, right? Unfortunately not; BC is the governing body for beginner’s racing, Regional racing (2nd and 3rd cats), all levels of women's road racing, National level racing (Elites and 1st cats) and the semi professional/professional teams below Sky. All of these parts of the sport are in trouble - but particularly at the higher end.

That's 12 days out of 14 or 15 I've been out on the bike; I was getting out regularly before the Giro but life was just so hectic after I came back that I let it go. This time, though, I'm back - I want to ride around the Trossachs with Martin as we do the race report. I spoke to Tyler Farrar tonight, he's always cool to talk to - he proves that you don't necessarily have to be controversial to be a sprinter.

On Friday La Vuelta a Espana arrives in Burgos, Castile y León, having travelled from Rincón de Soto, famous as the pear capital of La Rioja. The riders will have endured almost 200km of undulating terrain, and conquered the Pradilla and Valmala passes towards the end of the stage on the way. Bunch sprint? We wouldn't bet on it.

"Given my record of bad luck in 50's, when I heard that the course had been changed, I expected to end up in the Cromarty Firth at the turn, checking out the dolphins!" But Mark Atkinson successfully avoided that fate to take his third Scottish 50 Mile Time Trial Championship title; leading Sandy Wallace team mates, second placed Jonathan Copp and fifth placed Ian Black, to take a double championship win on a bright but cool and windy Sunday morning on the A9 near Invergordon.

‘Alberto defends lead in spite of heavy bombardment at Monte Castrove en Meis,’ says the Saxo-Tinkoff press release – with Chris Froome the man in charge of the howitzers. Christopher may not be stylish but the man is a bike racer – and that has to be respected. The tactic is simple, when the road goes up and the pace eases back a notch – attack! It nearly netted him the win today but Aru is young, hungry, skinny and pretty quick for a mountain man. But Froome did climb to second on the ‘virtual’ podium and claw back some time on Contador.

Rest Day Number One on Le Tour de France 2011! As it stands this is the day everyone is hanging out for on the whole race, riders just want a day off the mental and physical stress.