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Round 3 of the National Series was held at the classic MTB venue, Margam Park in South Wales. Arriving to practice the course on Friday we were greeted by scorching hot sunshine. The course had the usual mix of long tough climbs, fast bumpy singletrack decents, and some new technical sections which were still wet and slippy from torrential rain earlier in the week. Two laps were enough to warm up the legs and scare myself on the decents….. The decents at Margam are not necessarily described as technical, but riders push the speeds as high as possible, and if you do stray offline there are old mining holes and stone walls waiting to cause maximum carnage. Luckily I stayed on course, just! A relaxing coffee in the sunshine was great, before the trip home to clean my RXC Team Bike, check the tyres, and swap the riser bars for flats with bar ends. The Margam climbs didn’t seem quite right without bar ends to grab in anger. Race Day: Even hotter weather! Arrived at the race and soon found Richie, posing in the arena with his latest pink Castelli hat and pink bar tape!! A quality turn out for the ...

‘Milan – San Remo’ is the fourth episode in the High-Definition documentary Beyond The Peloton. The film makers Joe Finkleman and Booker Sim follow the creation and first racing season of the Cervélo TestTeam. With their all-access passes, they will show you what race footage fails to capture, everything “beyond the peloton”. This episode is a real heart breaker. In the words of Heinrich Haussler “coming second means you are the first loser”. Click here > to watch the fourth episode of Beyond the Peloton’, Milano-San Remo.

The yesterday’s stage of the Giro can be described with three words – a short, fast and explosive stage with the final mountaintop finish at Blockhaus. Carlos Sastre commented after the race, “I would like to thank all my teammates who have done a sensational job, helping to make the race as hard as possible for my benefit. But my rivals were stronger than me today and they managed to secure an important advantage in the lead up to the general classification of the Giro d’Italia.” “The tactic today was the same tactic we’ve had for all three weeks,” said Sports Director Jean Paul Van Poppel. “Working for Carlos and to make sure to get him in the best position. Of course we know that Carlos is the man for very long stages with lots of climbs; that’s when he’s at his best. This stage was pretty short, so the team tried to make it hard by giving full gas throughout the stage. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAyEDl1RxAY[/youtube] As we got closer to the climb, we had Serge Pauwels, Vlody Gustov, and Philip Deignan driving for Carlos, and unfortunately, Philip took a corner a bit too fast and crashed. It was OK for us, ...

Carlos Sastre came out of the anonymity of the peleton Monday with a dramatic stage victory in a grueling, seven-hour march across the Apennines to re-energize his hopes of overall victory at the Giro d’Italia. Sastre finished 25 seconds ahead of the maglia rosa holder Denis Menchov (Rabobank) and Danilo Di Luca (LPR Brakes – Farnese Vini). Sastre is now in third place in the GC 2’19” behind Menchov. “The sixteenth stage of this year’s Giro has been a very important day for me and the rest of the team,” said Sastre after his win. “Thanks to the whole team’s hard work I was able to secure a very nice and very important stage victory. “I felt protected by my team mates throughout the day, who were close by at all times, giving me water when I needed it. Then, in the last part of the race, Serge Pauwels made a very important play that allowed me to see that some riders were struggling. That made me ride on stronger upon seeing a chance to get past the odd rider and earn important time against riders who were ahead of me in the general classification. “Tomorrow is the second rest ...

In the High-Definition documentary Beyond The Peloton, film makers Joe Finkleman and Booker Sim follow the creation and first racing season of the Cervélo TestTeam. With their all-access passes, they will show you what race footage fails to capture, everything “beyond the peloton”. “One of the main goals of Cervélo TestTeam is to provide fans with better access to the world of pro cycling,” said Gerard Vroomen, co-founder of Cervélo. “Joseph Finkleman and his small crew have unlimited access to the team and we hope the series will show fans how a team is built, and what life is like on a professional cycling team. Fans can always watch race footage on television and online. But this is something different. We want to take the viewer, as the title implies, beyond the peloton to reveal everything that happens before and after the actual race. We’ll show the personalities of riders and staff, the equipment testing and all the effort it takes for a small team to compete against the biggest teams in the sport. I have always thought this is the most interesting part of cycling and I believe that cycling fans of all stripes will find it equally compelling.” ...