Tag: Tour of Britain

One man we can’t ignore is Orange Monkey’s Rab Wardell; he understands that as a professional athlete you have to engage the Press, keep them on side and make it easy to write about you. And that’s how we came to be sitting down with him in the Cafe of the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, recently.

It was a Saturday night in the summer of 2009 and I was driving ‘up the Town’ to the movies. I pulled the car over, answered the mobile and had my first chat with the man. VeloVeritas's pundit in residence Viktor had spotted this New Zealand laddie who was burning up the Flanders kermis scene in the colours of Anglo/Belgian team, Kingsnorth Wheelers – Jack Bauer.

The roofs outside our hotel window were steaming in the morning sun when we opened the shutters on Sunday morning. Much as we felt we'd been part of something special on Saturday in the blizzard on the Tre Cime - it was nice to see a clear blue sky and feel the warmth of the sun on our skin. The Hotel Trieste is well up the 'Fawlty Towers' rankings; it was built by the old patron's grandfather - and hasn't been painted since - hot water was at a premium and outside our room, the place was freezing. But the beds were clean, the room was cosy and the wi-fi was A1.

On Sunday, Rapha Condor JLT 22 year-old Mike Cuming won the eight stage UCI 2.2 Tour of Korea from a field which included Pro Continental teams MTN and Champion System, to join his dad as a member of that exclusive club.

Ron Keeble's childhood stories would make a good movie – it would need to be in black and white though, to get the mood right, and perhaps a French director? Full of mischief and close shaves with authority, two things that would follow him throughout his life. It’s safe to say that this is not your average cycling book.

The Saunier Duval Team Launch 2008 squad changed a little from last season - the team is made up of 26 riders, and one of its distinctive features will be it's youth: there will be no less than nine men under 24 years of age, and thus the team will be the second youngest in the ProTour peloton. The second distinctive feature of the team this season will be improved training: two personal trainers have been hired: Sergio Gelati, who worked with the team in 2007.