Tag: Tour de France

Daniel Friebe's book, "Jan Ullrich, the best there never was" covers his career and life in great detail with many interviews with his coach, Peter Becker and two of the men who attempted to manage their brilliant but erratic charge, Rudy Pevenage and Walter Godefroot - who no longer exchange Christmas cards - not to mention many of his Telekom team mates, and of course there’s the other ‘stuff’; Ullrich’s addictions to alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, sex; and most damaging of all, for a man whose job involves riding a bicycle up mountains - food.

It’s with great sadness that we record the death of British Legend, Brian Robinson, a man who defines the word ‘pioneer’; Britain’s first Tour de France stage winner, for which he is perhaps best remembered – but that wasn’t the only British cycling history he made...

We spoke with Dutchman Johnny Hoogerland, who most will remember as the victim of a terrible crash in the 2011 Tour de France when he and Juan Antonio Flecha were brought down when a car overtaking their five-man escape group swerved right to avoid a tree after executing an irresponsible overtaking manoeuvre on the grass verge.

Brian Robinson was 90 years-old on November 3rd – here at VeloVeritas we thought we should honour the great man’s anniversary by recalling a couple of interviews we did with him a year or two back.

Celebrating Joop Zoetemelk’s success 40 years on from the 1980 Tour de France, Raleigh is releasing an anniversary edition bicycle and frameset of the TI-Raleigh.

Adrian TImmis could do it all: track, stage races, criteriums, cyclo-cross and even MTB. A talented junior with a British championship to his name, he rode the 1984 Olympics, turned pro with the most glamorous professional team Britain had ever seen, won a stage in the Midi Libere, rode Le Tour with the now legendary ANC team, landed a contract with Z-Peugeot and then...

It’s the stuff of cycling folklore; the year was 1987 and a British trade team lined up in Berlin for the start of the world’s biggest bike race. ANC-Halfords was the name on the jersey and the team's presence was largely down to Mickey Morrison, a good amateur rider in the 70’s who brought major sponsors into UK cycling but who’s contribution is largely forgotten...

We've been covering the Tour de France for many years, and like most people who love cycle racing, it's one of the highlights of the year. Bastille Day at Le Tour is special, and the pressure on the French riders to perform is intense - we were lucky to be on the race when Warren Barguil took a fantastic win ahead of Nairo Quintana and Bert Contador. Fantastic weather, great racing, a change to catch up with old pals Adam Hansen and Jack Bauer, meant July 14th was a memorable day for both of us and is our pick for a highlight for 2017.

Inga Thompson started racing as a professional cyclist in 1984 and went on to ride the Los Angeles Olympics Road race the same year, where she finished 21st. She rode two more Olympics and has ten National Championships. Add three World championship silver medals and you have a full palmarès.

Our pal Craig Geater works as a mechanic for the Orica GreenEDGE team, and is putting in the hard shifts at the Tour de France. Like everyone involved in the race, he's very busy, but when he has his iPad or phone in hand he's been taking a moment or two to snap some images, and fire them over to us.

Allergic to Stairs. I can remember watching the Tour in the years before being a part of the race. I was always completely gutted that just when things got interesting and they’d had a few mountain stages, there would be a rest day.