On a benign morning amid the lush greenery of the Kingdom of Fife, Endura pro Evan Oliphant proved too fit for the specialist testers, taking the Scottish 25 mile time trial championship by 1:17 from far travelled Carlos Riise (Shetland) with defending champion Arthur Doyle (Dooleys RT) a further 19 seconds back in the bronze medal position.
On a cold Sunday morning of stinging squalls, along the dual carriageway south of Laurencekirk, Dooley's Arthur Doyle successfully defended his Scottish ten mile time trial championship crown in 20:41 from Endura's Evan Oliphant with 20:59 and surprise Rob Wilkins in 21:02. Once I discovered Tay FM's 'Classics Sunday morning' the trip up became less of a pain; The Proclaimers, Kraftwerk-can't be bad...
Movistar top and tail la Vuelta as Italian Time Trial Champion, Adriano Malori has the weather gods on his side and rides in the dry whilst the GC boys look like they’re pedalling on ice around the technical circuit in beautiful and historic Santiago de Compostella. The last time I stayed in Santiago weeds were sprouting from the cathedral’s lovely facade, so that scaffold was no surprise – a face lift was long overdue.
Although my season started over a month ago in Argentina, the Portuguese season opened on Sunday the 12th February with the "2nd Trofeu Cidade de Luís", followed by the Volta ao Algarve.
There were politics in play before a ball was even kicked; ‘how have you guys got that big cabin, you only have two riders?’ Kris’s response was succinct; ‘Because I’ve been coming here for 30 years and the organisers are friends of mine!’ A Six Day wouldn’t be a Six Day without politics and plaudits.
A day or two after the dust from the ’25’ Champs had settled on the A71 and A78, VeloVeritas caught up with the gold and silver medallists to get their in depth comments on the race. We had expected a four way battle between Iain Grant (Dooleys), team mate Arthur Doyle, Ben Peacock (Paisley Velo) and Silas Goldsworthy (Sandy Wallace). We got some of it right; Iain did indeed win and Paisley Velo were in the frame – but not with Ben; Messrs Peter Murdoch and Chris Smart took silver and bronze respectively. Peter Murdoch shared bronze with Sean Childs in last year’s ‘25’ title race but this year made silver his own.
There's a 'new wave' of US riders on the way up, we've already spoken to Messrs. Dombrowski and Boswell, who'll bolster Team Sky for 2013. But BMC too are taking advantage of the new talent from the New World: 22 year-old Larry Warbasse from Dearborn, Michigan has just stepped up from the Swiss team's US development team to the World Tour squad.
When Sasha Castling of Ribble Cycles contacted us to ask if we’d be interested to hear more about the company’s decision to run a TV ad. campaign promoting their wares during the Tour de France, we took the opportunity to ask the man behind the company, Mr. Andy Smallwood a wide range of questions about his business, the sport and that, ‘tech stuff.’