For those of you out there that don't follow each and every cycling result (most), over the Easter weekend part of the Node4-Giordana team rode the Tour of the North in Northern Ireland.
I clicked on Hamish Haynes' name on a palmares website, just to see who it is that he's beating to win these races in Flanders; 'Melle 2005' that was Steven de Jongh - twice a Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne winner.
Picking up the baton of Scottish international success from Katie Archibald in the pursuits and Callum Skinner in the kilometre, British Points Race Champion, Mark Stewart came away from the recent UCI World Cup in Cali with a bronze medal in the team pursuit. Riding with Germain Burton, Chris Latham and Matt Gibson the GB Academy team rode a 4:03 in the second round to set a new record for an Academy squad. We had a word with him when he got back to the UK...
There was a big surprise in that British 25 Mile Championship as IG Sigma Sport’s 22 year-old Joe Perrett relegated Hutchinson (In-Gear Quickvit Trainsharp RT) to third; with Matt Bottrill (www.drag2zero.com) in the silver medal spot.
‘Why do you rant about cycling?’ they ask us. ‘Because someone has to!’ we reply. There has to be a voice in the wilderness ... Did you watch the Worlds? Dave, Ivan and Vik all boycotted it – although they admitted to watching the finale. The Belgian offensive in the desert would have done Field Marshal Erwin Rommel proud – but apart from that and Sagan’s killer finale the race was processional.
If you look at those sharp black and white cycling pictures from the 70’s and 80’s on social media, beside or behind the featured star rider there’s often an uncredited figure – as likely as not that’ll be the rider’s soigneur. And in the case of some of the biggest stars of the eras from Eddy Merckx to Bradley Wiggins that soigneur is liable to be the gentleman we’re about to present to you; Mr. Pierrot de Wit from Brussels.
In what many pundits describe as the best Madison they’ve ever witnessed, Michael Mørkøv and the man with whom he won the world title in the discipline, Lasse Norman Hansen, beat the cream of the world’s track riders to the top of the podium.