Kate Richardson dominated in Ireland last weekend with the 20-year-old winning the Individual General Classification, Points General Classification, Queen of the Hills Classification and Best Young Rider Classification in an astonishing performance over five days and six stages in County Kilkenny.
In the CTT Ladies’ National 100 Mile Championship Scottish based Jo Patterson stopped the clock with 3:36:41, shaving over five minutes from the record.
Continuing our series of interviews with Scots who have been selected for the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games – but with track cycling events taking place on the Lee Valley ‘Pringle’ Velodrome in London - we talk with sprinter Lusia Steele.
Neah Evans is one of Scotland’s most successful ever cyclists with a raft of British, Commonwealth, European, Olympic and World championships medals on the track to her credit, she is reigning British Points and Individual Pursuit Champion.
Ellie Stone is reigning British 500 metre Time Trial and Keirin champion – but despite these successes she’ll not be riding either event at the Commonwealth Games in England - rather she'll be piloting a tandem in the para cycling events; the Kilometre Time Trial on Sunday July 31st and the Match Sprint on Friday 29th July.
Continuing our series of interviews with Scottish Cycling selections for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham next month – but with the track events held in London on the Lee Valley ‘Pringle’ Olympic velodrome – we spoke to para tandem pilot, Jenny Holl.
With the release of the list of Scottish squad selections for the Commonwealth Games cycling events we thought it would be good to catch up with a few of the riders; some ‘old friends’ and some new names to us. Lauren Bell burst on to the GB track scene by winning the 500 metre Time Trial and Keirin at the 2020 British track championships, as well as taking Sprint bronze.
In the 80’s there weren’t many female soigneurs in the pro peloton, but along came the 7-Eleven and everything changed. Trudi Rebsamen was amongst the first, Ed spoke to her about cycling ‘in the day’ and her late partner Steve Tilford.
The Alba Development Road Team is aiming to help female talent realise their dreams of competing against the world’s top riders in the biggest races. Thanks to financial backing from several international organisations all athletes are being provided with a bike, individual development plan, riding kit and full race programme to help achieve optimum performance.
Has a Scottish based woman ever won the British 100 mile time trial title championship before? The answer is ‘yes,’ in 1998; Andrea Pogson riding for Midlothian Racing Team did that very thing and kindly consented to delve back into her memory banks and give us her recollections of a highly successful time trialling career.
When we spoke to Britain’s Joss Lowden back in July she told us about her intention of attacking the world hour record. She’d already exceeded Bussi’s 48.007 kilometres in a ‘test’ ride. She turned intent into action on the boards of the Grenchen Velodrome in Switzerland with 48.405 kilometres on 30th September, well in excess of her own ‘test’ ride distance and Bussi’s record.
We thought it would good to talk with the previous ‘Woman of the Hour,’ Ms. Bussi about her record of 48.007 kilometres set on September 13th 2018 at high altitude on the boards of the Aguascalientes velodrome in Mexico.
Congratulations are in order as Christina Mackenzie became the fastest-ever woman to traverse the largest of the British Isles from it’s south western to north eastern tips. Christina, originally from the Isle of Lewis but now Stirling-based took time to speak to VeloVeritas a day or two after her epic ride.
Just turned 19 years-old, Louise Garbett finished the biggest race in the world on the Champs-Élysées in Paris and was escorted to the podium along with Laurent Fignon and Greg Lemond to receive the overall White Jersey for the first ever Tour de France Feminine.
British rider Joss Lowden who rides for Drops Le Col, on the sea level Derby track in England rode 48.160km in 60 minutes - 153m further than the current distance - in an ‘unofficial’ one hour ride and will be going for the official UCI record in Switzerland later this year.
Jo Patterson – who has just won the CTT 100 Mile TT with a stunning 3:42 ride in Wales, riding for The Independent Pedaler-Nopinz - has represented Ireland internationally and was born in England but she lives in Scotland and works in Wishae – that’s ‘Wishaw’ to non-natives… ‘good enough for us,’ we thought to ourselves.
If you know your cyclocross then you’ll know this lady; 15 times US Elite Champion and five times on a Worlds podium: Katie Compton. But her career is drawing to a conclusion and we thought we couldn’t let a book like hers close without mention.
‘Glass ceilings;’ they’re there to be broken through. England’s Cherie Pridham becomes the first female sport director in the World Tour; she’ll be with Israel Start-Up Nation for season 2021.
Mara Abbott is twice a winner of the overall GC in the Giro Rosa, picking up seven stages along the way not to mention two second places, a fourth, a fifth and 10th on GC. Abbott retired from the sport after finishing fourth in the Olympic Road Race in Rio, 2016. She took time to speak to us not long after her retirement; here’s what she had to say.
Our old friend and former Six Day man, ‘Brit,’ Norman Hill suggested to us that we should ‘have a word’ with the man who was his Six Day ‘runner’ on the winter boards circuit back when there were up to 17 Six Day races every winter, Marvin Smart, who was also an innovator in the field of advertising on the actual track surface – such an important factor in a Six Day organiser’s budget plans.
It was back in the spring when we last spoke to Douglas Dewey; he’d just won Gent-Staden, the first big race on the Belgian amateur calendar. Since then he’s ridden a very varied programme, including stage races in France and Belgium, hard fought kermises, a silver medal in the British Elite TT Championships and bronze in the British Pursuit Championship.
We left Fougères this morning and Martin summed it up best; ‘normally you’d have expected Cav to be all but unbeatable in those circumstances.’ I felt the same, especially with Tony Martin winning the chrono, QuickStep morale being sky high and Cav being desperate to make amends after his brush with Veelers the other day.
According to our research, the village of Plockton in Ross and Cromarty has a population of 378 – but it should actually be ‘377 and one would-be Kermis King.’ And you thought Plockton was only famous for ‘Hamish Macbeth’ and one of VeloVeritas’s favourite movies, ‘The Wicker man.’ Enter young Angus Claxton...
Stuart Hallam, Ian’s elder brother was there, road and track side for virtually all of his younger brother’s successes and is also a man who has made major contributions to the sport of cycling over the years. We thought we should catch up with, ‘Big Bruv.’