Tag: Toulouse

Down in the South of France it was AG2R and F des J reminding us that the French teams work hard in the winter, too at Haut Var. Long term 2009 Tour yellow jersey wearer, Rinaldo Nocentini took stage one and the man with the lucky four leaf clovers on his tricot, Christophe Le Mevel took stage two and the GC.

Hugh McGuire, who has died suddenly of a heart attack aged 71, was the Glasgow-born Scot who became one of the top UK cyclists in the 1960s, representing both Scotland and the British Army. He took part with the best of GB riders in the Tour of Britain / Milk Race era, winning stages - and in so doing following the wheels of a slightly older top gun, Jimmy Savile. McGuire became noticed, and in 1962 and 1963, was selected to travel behind the Iron Curtain to participate in the annual Berlin-Warsaw-Prague road race, the co-called Peace Race designed by the Soviets to bring together the world's top cyclists in reconciliation between Warsaw Pact countries and the West.

In the car on the way down to Irvine on Sunday morning it never occurred to VeloVeritas editor Martin and I that we’d soon be witnessing anything other than Marcin Bialoblocki (NOPINZ) making it a clean sweep of RTTC titles from 10 to 100 miles. Not for the first time, we got it wrong. Commonwealth Games pursuit silver medallist, John Archibald (Ribble Pro Cycling) relegated the big Polish power house to second place by three seconds with a sparking 18:18 – Big Marcin looked a tad stunned when the news broke that we had a Scottish winner of a British title on Scottish roads.

We had a feeling we’d be chatting to this gentleman again, after the ‘100’ championship – and so it proved. Originally scheduled to be held up on the Cromarty Firth but postponed due to bad weather the Scottish ‘100’ championship was incorporated with the Furneaux Trophy in the Aberdeen District and won by their reigning ‘50’ champion, Jon Entwistle (Team JMC) – we caught up with him soon after he’d achieved his ‘double.’

"Rest day", that's a misnomer right away. The ferry was late into Civitavecchia; we had to do a death march with our bags across town to get our Hertz car; then there was a 300 K drive south; the Permanence in Montevergine Di Mercogliano wasn't set-up (there were mountains of rubbish in the streets, so maybe it wasn't surprising) and to finish-off we had to pad the streets of Salerno until we found an internet cafe.

The press release said: “Spokes Racing Team: It was officially announced today by British Cycling that Kirkcaldy based Spokes Racing Team will host a round of the British National Junior (under 19) Road Race Series in 2015. It will be the first time in around 25 years that a Junior National race will be held in Scotland and a first for Fife."