Tag: Unicycles

It’s not every year there’s a Grand Tour taking place at the same time as the European Cyclo-cross Championship but this is ano 2020 and the ‘new normal’ is upon us. The podium places contained more cheer for us ‘Anglos’ with bronze going to Scotsman, Cameron Mason and silver to Englishman, Thomas Mein.

Cannondale, F des J, Giant, Greenedge, Sky, Trek - they all tried to take control in the finale in Belfast in Stage Two on Saturday. But none could. It's not until you see a situation like we did in Belfast that you realise just how good Mario Cipollini's Acqua Sapone and Cav's HTC trains really were. In the event, it was irrelevant; Kittel was in a different league. He was way back and would usually have been out of it but turned left, found clear road, turned on the boosters and left the others scrabbling for the placings.

If you’re like us, you thought the Scottish Road Race Championships at Kennoway in Fife over much of the old Dave Campbell Memorial Race parcours would be pretty much a formality for ‘10’ and ‘25’ mile time trial Champion, John Archibald (Pro Vision). The best view from the podium went to Mark Robertson (Army CC); the man who’s based in the north east of England beat Fraser Martin (Raleigh) into silver and aforementioned John Archibald into bronze. Best ‘have a word’ with Mr. Robertson we decided...

It's here. Le Tour de France 2012 Prologue. The endless analysis is finally over, there's rubber on tarmac, folks hanging over barriers and commentators getting their facts wrong, already.

Joaquim Rodriguez is building on the foundation of respect he laid at the Giro. The little Catalan isn’t sitting around waiting on Froome bludgeoning him in the ‘contra reloj’ on Wednesday; he’s riding like a champion, ‘la course en tete’ – at the head of the race, especially when heading 'home' to Andorra.

It looked like a straight Arnaud Demare (FDJ & France) v. Andre Greipel (Lotto & Germany) shoot out in Troyes but Marcel Kittel (QuickStep & Germany), over on the bright side of the road, was way too quick for them both; Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data & Norway) hit out long and produced a good performance given he was stranded at the front so early, only being swamped late as Demare slid like an eel between the Norwegian and the barriers.