Tag: Team Bissell

GreenEDGE - pectations... oh yes. How about THAT for a play on words! 2012 is here and I’ve managed to get a blog post going in the first week of the year. Two New Years resolutions in one; get a blog post a fortnight out there, and at least make it past January 10th prior to failing at keeping to all resolutions.

In the u23 version of Gent-Wevelgem, which is a UCI Nations Cup 1.Ncup rated event, Britain’s Sam Watson beat the cream of Europe’s u23 talent to win a race which boasts the likes of Fons de Wolf, Eddy Planckaert, Niko Eeckhout, Greg Van Avermaet and Mads Pedersen among previous winners.

We slept like logs last night - maybe it was the fact that we were emotionally drained or maybe it was the grappa we had for a nightcap? We stayed in Cecina, on the Ligurian Sea, roughly half way between the Stage 4 finish in Ligorno and the stage 5 start today in Piombino. The season hasn't started yet on the Ligurian, it kicks off in June; over on the east coast the Adriatic season has already begun and they'll be out there on their sun loungers as I write this.

The appearance of daffodils by the roadside at the The Gordon Arms Trophy served to remind you that despite the wonderful blue sky, it is in fact only just the beginning of spring; the morning was tempered by a pretty chilly nor-easterly, taking the temperature down enough to justify at least arm-warmers for most of the field, with gloves, leg-warmers and even overshoes the choice for many riders too.

Who’s Filippo Ganna? Just the World Individual Pursuit Champion, that’s all. But don’t worry, we’d never heard of him either, until he won it. The rot first set in when the UCI ‘unified’ the professional and amateur pursuit titles in 1993 and cut the distance back to 4000 metres – the pros had previously contested the title over 5000 metres. But wet rot gave way to even nastier dry rot after the Beijing Olympics when the UCI announced that the individual pursuit was being chopped from the Olympic programme.

The Scottish road racing season kicked off last Saturday at Gifford and any fears of 'same old, same old' were quickly dispelled by 'Master Tom Arnstein'.