Tag: The Beacon Cycling Festival

Stage 5 is a guaranteed Traditional Bunch Kick. It is in the mold of the traditional early week flat stages of the Tour from years gone by. It is a 197km shot across the northeast of France, coincidentally passing very close to where the Australian WW1 cemetery at Villers-Brettoneux is located. A very moving place.

The last time we spoke to Justin Grace – the Kiwi who’s coaching skills had much to do with turning New Zealand into one of the world’s major cycling sprint nations – he’d just left his role at the Land of the Long White Cloud and signed up for – La Belle France. Perhaps it was no surprise to hear that Grace is now with British Cycling as sprint coach – with New Zealand and France among his toughest opposition.

Since the last blog training has been great and on the 14th Lindsay Gordon headed for Spain with every intention of doing a good solid weeks training in the mountains around Benidorm.

Who were the men of the Giro? There was Ryder, certainly – and Rodriguez; but there was also Guardini’s confirmation; Ferrari’s transformation from from villain to hero; Cav and Taylor Phinney’s displays of grinta; Marco Pinotti’s class in winning the last time trial and Basso’s heroic but ultimately doomed bid for the podium. But perhaps the man of the race was Belgium’s Thomas De Gendt, who threatened to turn the Hesjedal/Rodriguez battle into a sideshow...

Cycling’s world governing body Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), have today announced that Glasgow’s Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome will host a round of the 2012/13 UCI Track World Cup series, which will see British Cycling deliver an event in which the world’s best riders compete at the venue for the first time.

It’s another big Madison tonight here at the Copenhagen Six Day 2012; 75 kilometres/300 laps, but with a ‘twist’ — it’s a handicap. Bartko/Lampater, Stam/Stroetinga and Alex/Michael give away six laps to Jackie/Schröder — with the rest of the field somewhere in between.