Tag: Tour Series 2010

The crowd counts us down; the pistol cracks; I give Franco a hefty shove; 'Cara Mia' blasts from the PA and the 2009 Copenhagen 6 Dages Lob is well and truly under way. Two minutes ago I was wondering why I put myself through that nightmare journey from Portobello to Ballerup-the suburb of Copenhagen where the Super Arena and it's pine velodrome live-two buses, a plane, another bus, a long train journey then waiting in the freezing cold of a Copenhagen night for my lift to the track.

Well we've hit September and so the final month or so of the season for the Dan Patten Blog. The good news is I'm still feeling motivated to race and race hard to finish off the year. The bad news is the last few weeks I've been caught out with a bit of illness that seems to be going round these parts at the moment, and which has proved hard to shake off.

Jonathan Bellis was one of British Cycling’s brightest lights - until a life threatening scooter crash on September 19th 2009 in his then home of Tuscany. The versatile man from the Isle of Man spent practically a year in hospital and even then had to return for another operation at the end of 2010. Prior to the accident it looked as if Bellis was headed for the very top.

We're at Gent-Gent. His long torso arches, like that of a tiger about to pounce on it's prey; elbows out, the black Specialized with it's hugely over-sized down tube - necessary to absorb the mega wattages this beast produces - surges forward.

National Champion of two different nations at the same time? Is that possible? If your name is David Solari then the answer is ‘yes’ – and the man made six Worlds podiums in four different disciplines to boot.

Przemyslaw Niemiec wins today, but it’s just morbid curiosity which compels me to watch Chris Froome (Sky & Monaco/England/South Africa/Kenya) these days – he climbs like a stick insect with Saint Vitus Dance. It upsets me; but distressing or not, it gets him up them hills, albeit in his own mystifying style – off the back, off the front...