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The best way to describe the summer for me is it is a roadies winter just with better weather. Ok that’s not strictly true on a couple of points but you get the picture. The summer for me is where all the building for the next Cross season begins. A good rest after the Cross season is the first thing on the list, usually 4 weeks ‘off’ and a couple of weeks getting back into the swing of things is in order before beginning the real training. Training is all about consistency and building up gradually towards those goals of...

Those of us who were lucky enough (I was trying not to say old) to come through the "traditional" cycling club system would have mentors, coaches and "old boys" to coach them how to train, race and look after themselves in and around competitions. I was lucky enough to have started my sport at the historic Ribble Valley Cycle Racing Club where coaches and mentors like John and Doreen Mallinson, Mike Jones and the guy who wrote the book (King of Sports) Peter Ward would run formal and informal coaching courses and club nights.  In addition to leading rides over...

21 races done, Finishing the season UCI World Ranked 30th, 22nd overall in the UCI World Cup including 2 top 20’s, 3 UCI race wins including my 3rd consecutive British Championship title. Sat here now it feels like it was a long season, which left me both physically and mentally drained but on the other hand it doesn’t seem all that long ago I was sat planning my race schedule back in my mid-summer break last July. The season was action packed with a race more or less every weekend throughout the months of October to FebruaryAlong the way were...

Back in the day, there was – the raw beef steak. Tradition – or legend - has it that bike racers of the Heroic Era, which roughly preceded the first world war, would place a thin slice of fillet steak inside their baggy woollen shorts in order to cushion the vibrations and friction generated by riding over rough, dusty roads. It has also been claimed that the steak would be cooked and eaten at the end of a race, presumably because it would be wasteful to throw it away. Such succulent extravagance inevitably gave way to the greater economy offered...