Tag: Six Day Bikes

Just one stage to go - I'll miss the race, the coffee, the weather, the Gazzetta - but not the time spent sitting in the car, before, during and after stages. Saturday was a monstro - Salerno was where we spent the night; we had a two hour drive to the start, then a 217 kilometre stage followed by a mad breenge to the Sicily ferry, on the very toe of the Italian boot. At least the ferry was very straightforward, no dramas; and we did get a chat with Paolo Bettini - a nice guy.

After a year at DFL, 23 year-old Scottish professional Alex Coutts from Gorebridge, has renewed old sponsorship links with Flemish bike concern, Flanders. We caught-up with him recently at mentor John Anderson's Edinburgh shop, the Bicycleworks. Coutts was just back from a training trip to Spain and is already looking like he is ready for action.

The Track Worlds have come and gone; but before we’re into the Classics - and soon after that all roads will be leading to le Tour - we thought we’d have a quick word with Scotsman Callum Skinner about this Worlds. His GB team had a disappointing sprint campaign with nada results in any discipline, team sprint, keirin or individual sprint – the only bright spot being Skinner’s 1:01:07 in the kilometre to give him seventh spot.

For once, Adam Hansen isn't burning up the tar at the Aussie champs, he's off shore in the Med, getting ready to try and help HTC-Columbia top a remarkable 2009 season. Worried that he may be getting bored, VeloVeritas flashed him 20 questions - here's what the big man had to say...

The trouble with Richard Virenque was, that if he was seven times King of the Mountains; he was at least eight times King of the Erses.

At the time I set off for Flanders in 1973 to live at Mrs Deene's, I only knew two people who had raced there – one of them being Stan Butler’s son Keith - who had done well enough that he had become a professional - so it was entirely word-of-mouth, a case of asking for whatever advice people could offer and setting off on the cross-channel ferry, hoping for the best.