Tag: Superprestige Series

After a gruesomely boring stage where one man – albeit latterly assisted by Tommy V – held off the pack for 200 K it was another day of joy for Dimension Data’s Mark Cavendish; just too quick for Greipel, Coquard and Sagan on a slightly uphill finish into Angers. Kittel looked to be well placed at the red kite but got it wrong on the final right hander to finish well out of it. Greipel reckoned maybe he was one cog too high in the finish on 54 x 11 – Cav’s choice of gear was just fine though.

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.

Scottish rider, Alex Coutts, who is a regular interviewee on VeloVeritas, has been riding in Asia this season for the Giant Asia Race Team; it's now been five months since his season started in the Tour of Langkawi. As "The Burntisland Buzzard" is training again in Spain for a hard six week period of racing in China, Japan and Korea, we thought it was about time we got an up-date on life competing in the UCI Asia Tour circuit.

John Mangan won 156 continental races not to mention a raft of races in his native Ireland before he headed for France and huge success. Such was his strength both on and of the bike that for a decade he was head of the ‘Brittany Mafia’, the group of riders which controlled racing in the West France racing Heartland. He would tell me; ‘I think that in all the years I was there we only let two wins slip away from us.’

Giro or not, we had to do our final catch up with a man who doesn't just talk about racing - he's in the saddle, jousting with old war horses like Kirsipuu and Eeckhout; Rab Wardell. As we approached the Monte Petrano climb, yesterday I caught up with Rab, back in the Old Country, via the wonders of digital technology.

For those of you who don't know me - and I imagine that is most of you - my name is James Moss and I am about to begin my third season as a full time professional. After two enjoyable seasons riding for Endura Racing, I am pleased to say that this year I will be pinning numbers onto the jersey of a new team, Node 4 - Giordana Pro Cycling. Here's my new James Moss Blog.