Tag: Team Raleigh-GAC

We last spoke to Erick Rowsell back at the start of last season, since then he’s produced some notable results – a stage win in the Tour de Normandie; a stage win in Doon Hame and top placings in UCI Euro stage races.

The World Tour, the pinnacle; but unless you're a super talent nurtured from your junior years a la Taylor Phinney or Bradley Wiggins, how do you take the first step up the mountain where only the Super Teams can breathe the rarefied air? Well, you could do a lot worse that speak to a certain Peter Murphy - Jack Bauer did and the rest is history. Peter is one of the men behind Kingsnorth Wheelers - the Flandrian team with the English name.

Ciao, come sta? Viareggio on the west coast of Italy, 06:30 Saturday May 15 and VeloVeritas is on the Giro - well, not quite, we have our credentials to collect from the Gazzetta camper van, this morning at the stage start in Carrara. The trip down wasn't too bad, Edinburgh to Luton, then Luton to Pisa - there was an hour's delay at Luton, but we were on Easyjet, so no one gets too stressed.

La Vuelta; have you seen the parcours? Brutal! In my opinion, too hard; if it was Italy or Spain they'd engineer it to suit the characteristics of the 'home boy,' but in España it's one for the mountain men - maybe they forgot that Alberto wasn't riding; that we may have seen the best of Carlos; that Valverde will have a bad day and that José Manuel Fuente and Luis Ocaña have left us (God rest their souls).

Two decades, twenty years, it's a long time - especially to ride a bike at world level. But it was 1994 when Australia's Luke Roberts won his first world title in the junior team pursuit. The following year he twinned another victory in the team event with the world junior individual championship for good measure. Two Commonwealth, three world and an Olympic team pursuit title followed. He's ridden Pro Tour with CSC, Milram, Saxo, the Grand Tours, Classics and just about everything there is to ride - including the Six Days.

The 30 Mile TT Record was held by Michael (Doctor Hutch) Hutchison with 55:39 but was smashed recently in the Leo Road Club event by Stuart Travis, with 53:44. The record actually fell before the Team Bottrill man finished with Gary Chambers (NOPINZ) clocking 55:09 before Travis depth charged that with his 53 minute ride. Travis also led his team to a new team record by a remarkable 10 minutes. Here’s what Mr. Travis had to say to VeloVeritas a day or two after he put his name on the same page in the CTT record book as some of the greatest short distance time trial riders the sport has ever known.