Tag: Track Worlds 2014

If we interviewed ‘Jamesie’ McCallum, we couldn’t very well neglect his friend and training partner, Britain’s most northerly professional rider – Wick’s Evan Oliphant. This will be his ninth professional season and his second with Raleigh.

On a Sunday morning as close to perfect as we'll get in Scotland, Arthur Doyle (Dooleys) did what most people had expected and took the Scottish ten mile championship over the A811, Kippen Flats, equalling Graeme Obree's 20-13 course record. If Arthur's first time trial championship win went to form, then the destination for rest of the medals was much less predictable.

The Danish Press did Cav proud at the World Road Championships 2011; having Peta on his arm doesn't hurt as far as the photo opportunities go. And being the saddo I am, the first thing I did when I got home was to buy the British papers. All of the quality dailies 'done him proud'-The Independent gives him pride of place on their sports section and Alasdair Fotheringham's prose is perfect.

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.

Andorra, Pyrénées. Everything about it seems wrong. For a start, it's an independent tax haven/principality sitting at the top of a Pyrenean mountain, an hour's drive over sweeping twisty hairpinned roads from the nearest town. Some pals said to me that when they went to Andorra for skiing, they thought it was OK. Perhaps the snow covered all the cracks, but I'm not sure how the inhabitants' attitudes could be masked; almost - no, everyone - we met was unpleasant, in attitude and manner.

Great Britain took Olympic Team Pursuit bronze in ’72; Worlds silver in ’73; tasted bitter disappointment in ’74 when on a world record ride and again took Olympic bronze in ’76. Recently we’ve interviewed three of the gentlemen who were in those teams: Ian Banbury, Rik Evans and Mick Bennett. We’ve caught up with another of the group, Mr. Ron Keeble who was in the Munich team which took Olympic bronze in 1972.