Today’s pic is of Jack Barrett, a 17-year-old Junior cat 4 racer from Stirling Bike Club, in a breakaway on lap 3 of a 5-lap Gifford road race on Saturday, 6th March.
Only thing is, he ain’t a 4th cat any more. Jack placed 2nd overall on the day and will be contesting the A race next month in Dunfermline – the Sup6r Six round two Duncan MacGregor memorial road race.
This pic, yet another of Scottish great Sir Chris Hoy, shows some great motion blur- something you don’t often see from top magazine photographers such as Graham Watson, who prefers to freeze the action.
Robert Millar in the Giro d’Italia. Riding for Panasonic, this must be Stage 2, which he won. He also won the King of the Mountains classification – it was the first time he had ridden in the Giro.
The quality of the photograph is not great but for historical value it is worth a look.
Graham Watson captioned this picture with “1994 Worlds?” but I am thinking it is more likely 1995? Obree reclaimed the hour record from Chris Boardman in 1994 at Bordeaux, with his tucked position, which was banned for the World Pursuit Championships by the UCI one hour before the race.
He then developed the Superman position and won the World Pursuit Championship in 1995 using it.
Following yesterday’s post on the climb to Stirling Castle, here is a shot of a Gan rider pushing up the final cobbles to the castle esplanade on the prologue of the 1998 PruTour. I reckon this is Magnus Backstedt? <edit— Magnus reckoned it was Jens Voigt>The prologue was won by Chris Boardman from George Hincapie, with second favourite Viatcheslav Ekimov a little way back.
Watched The Road to Roubaix recently- a good documentary on the Queen of the Spring Classics. Thanks to @StumpyRider for lending it to me- the power of twitter strikes again!
The race is of course famed for it’s brutal cobbled sections. One of the most interesting things I took from it was that most of the bikes used in the race will never be ridden professionally again.
The pros all shower in an ancient concrete/stone changing room, with separate stalls badged with the names of the winners. It had the feel of a local race- everyone washing down together, no primadonnas here.
As a photography enthusiast, I also enjoyed the creative process of Timm Kölln with his series of gritty post-race portraits, titled The Peloton.
Another pic of the 1989 Edinburgh race featuring Scotland and Britain’s greatest ever cyclist. The castle rock is on the left and the famous New Town can be seen behind. For those that don’t know, The Mound is a hill that climb’s up from the main shopping street, Princes’ Street, up to the Old Town. As seen with the Edinburgh Nocturne, the centre of town is a fantastic setting for crit racing. I know little more about the race pictured here but seemingly it was a Kellogg’s criterium.
Today’s pic is a beauty, showing Robert Millar racing around Edinburgh in the City Cycling Race. I don’t know very much about the event at all, any comments appreciated. He’s obviously riding for Z.
A spectator said: “I was watching the race that day and mostly I remember the amazing noise that those guys made as they sooked as much air as they could on their way up the Mound.”
The pic of the day comes from Timm Kölln’s stunning The Peloton series of photographs. It’s a series of candid portraits of pro racers, shot just after they cross the finish line. This warts-and-all view of pro riders captures a range of emotions and sensations: from pain, exhaustion and resignation, to confidence and triumph.
Timm explains: “What was supposed to be a spontaneous approach to my favourite sport and its protagonists during the Giro D’Italia 2005 turned out to be one of my most challenging portrait series.
Since then I have been travelling to many important races, portraying the cyclists immediately after crossing the finishing line. Though they stand still, the race, in this moment, seems to continue on their faces.”
These riders look pretty much how I feel after a winter club ride. I’m inspired to try this style of post-race portait, but I’m afraid how it might go down.
Today’s pic of the day is a video! Chris takes on the formidable Theo Bos, world sprint champion for 2006 and 2007, in the deciding third of three rounds of the sprint quarter-finals.
In his autobiography, Chris describes this race as a victory of confidence more than anything else. Bos surprised him in round one, and Hoy led from the front in round two and held him off. Before round three, Hoy could detect in Bos an air of defeat. Perhaps this is why Bos goes so early- he is worried he will be beaten, and tries a dangerous tactic in response to his round two loss. It’s testament to Hoy’s confidence and power that he pulls Bos back from such a distance and celebrates on the line even with such a narrow margin.
At the bell he had fully committed, which gave me the carrot to chase. I closed a two-length gap on the back straight, drawing level on the home straight, and by the time I crossed the line I already had my right arm in the air, celebrating the biggest scalp of my sprinting career so far. The noise in the velodrome was as loud as I have ever experienced…
The only problem I have with this clip is that the commentators call Hoy “l’inglese” at the beginning. Er, no, he’s a “scozzese”
