Tag: South Africa

On a typical wet and miserable Fife Sunday morning, Dooleys' 41 year-old former duathlete Iain Grant made up for his one second defeat in the Scottish 10 Mile Championship with a sparkling 1:49:00 over the longer distance at the Scottish 50 Mile TT Championships, putting him 2:24 clear of Sean Childs (RNRMCA) and 2:55 up on defending champion Alan Thomson (Sandy Wallace).

Somehow Matt DeCanio and his 'Stolen Underground' website had passed me by. You may think that I keep abreast of all the forums and Twitter feeds which bang out the latest kitting gossip - usually behind half baked aliases - but I don't. I'd much rather talk to Michael Nicholson about how he's doing in Belgium or Doug Dewey about his new team in France.

Not for the first time, Vik took the words right out of my mouth whilst discussing the La Vuelta a España 2012; "You can’t have a bike race finishing on a motor racing circuit, it just doesn’t work!" And he’s right; too wide, too bleak, no atmosphere and almost no spectators. Degenkold was mightily impressive, again.

"Argyle Armada" by Mark Johnson takes readers on a journey into the world of professional cycling, specifically focusing on the Garmin-Cervélo team led by Jonathan Vaughters. The book offers a fascinating blend of captivating storytelling, really nice photography, and an exploration of the team's fight against doping, its difficult decisions, and quite a few personal dramas.

I've known John for 43 years; we went to school together and although there have been spells when our lives have gone in different directions for a while, it takes us about three minutes to pick up the thread and it's as if we've never been out of touch. John has lung cancer, one tumour in his lungs and three in his brain; he starts chemo and radio therapy, this week. When his son asked me what I thought, immediately I said; 'look at old Lance, he was at death's door and came back to win seven Tours.'

The Gent Six Day 2009 kicks off next week, so as a way to build the excitement we thought we'd revisit last year's finalé, with VeloVeritas' own Ed Hood there and working for the Danish World Madison Champions, Saxo Bank riders Alex Rasmussen and Michael Mørkøv, as well as Swiss star Franco Marvulli. Read on!...