Tour of Britain Blog and Podcast

Podcast - Stage 6, Dumfries to Glasgow

2007-09-17T08:53:00Z

Our final daily podcast from the Tour of Britain

Summary

King of the mountains: Ben Swift (overall E.ON King of the Mountains winner)
Following the Tour: Fan Andy Corkhill and his Dad
Crossing the line: Commentary from the finishing line of Stage 6

Podcast: Tour of Britain stage 6 (7:24, 6.78MB)

Podcast - Stage 5, Liverpool to Kendal

2007-09-15T09:17:00Z

Our sixth daily podcast from the Tour of Britain

Summary

Keeping up with the winners: interviews with Ben Swift, E.ON King of the Mountains Jersey holder and Mark Cavendish, sprint jersey holder.
Keeping it clean: Colin Clews, UCI appointed anti-doping inspector
Designing the route: Tour of Britain route director

Podcast: Tour of Britain stage 5 (9:42; 8.88MB)

Blog - James McCallum Stage 5

2007-09-14T14:59:00Z

One word..

FAST FAST FAST

Ok 3 word but you get the gist. 75 KM in the first 1.5 hrs is shifting by all accounts. The legs were not feeling too good today to be honest. Partly due to some high speed break dancing yesterday and having ridden 300 miles so far.

Needless to say it was pretty horrible really and I didn’t like it one bit. Then my first sign that things were on the up. Suddenly we went from 65kph to a standstill, it turned out to be some sort of problem with Police or something. So this meant that we had to ride the next 40km neutralised…..yeeeeeha!!!!

Man I needed a break. However once we got over the problems the race started as it had finished. With in 100 meters we were at 50kph, half a km later it was back to good old 65 kph.

As we hit the final climb the bunch blew to pieces and I found myself in a nice wee grupetto and we cruised into Bradford.

Looking forward to getting to Glasgow now.

Mmmmmm I can smell it.

Jimmy mac

James McCallum
Plowman Craven Evans Cycles Team

Blog - James McCallum Stage 4

2007-09-14T14:52:00Z

Luck?... What luck?

Yes today wasn’t much better than the last 3 and I ended up on my *** with some nice road rash at 1.2 km to go.

The afore mentioned crash happened when I was trying to get Tony up there so we could score a nice cheeky wee top 10 on the stage. The sprint had been pretty safe till the last 3km, as people started to get nervous and excited at the same time there was lots of flicking around at the front of the bunch. Suddenly big gaps in the bunch suddenly became small holes.

As T mobile began to wind it up at 2 to go there was 2 major switches from left to right. The first was ok and no one came down. The second was not as forgiving. I got totally blindsided by the rider in front of me. My left foot came out as my front wheel was taken away. As I skated along on bum the only thought was “I’m gonna get piled in to here by 80 guys”. However……it didn’t pan out that way no one hit me, can you believe it?

So after a bike change I managed to roll into the finish rather pissed off wondering what would be thrown at me next.

Jimmy mac

James McCallum
Plowman Craven Evans Cycles Team

Podcast - Stage 4, Rotherham to Bradford

2007-09-14T08:49:00Z

Our fifth daily podcast from the Tour of Britain

Summary

Renaming stage 4: Hugh Roberts on the Jane Tomlinson stage
King of the Mountains: Ben Swift of Barloworld, the man who went into stage 4 wearing the E.ON King of the Mountains jersey
Crashing hurts: Martin Pedersen
Designing the route: Tour of Britain route director Graham Jones

Podcast: Tour of Britain stage 4 (5:58; 5.46MB)

Podcast - Stage 3 2007, Worcester to Wolverhampton

2007-09-13T08:35:00Z

Our fourth daily podcast from the Tour of Britain

Summary

Designing the route: Tour of Britain route director Graham Jones
A man called Eon: Eon Matthews, Motor Cycle Safety Marshal
Winners press conference: E.ON King of the mountains Jersey holder after stage 3, Ben Swift of Barloworld

Podcast: Tour of Britain stage 3 (10:15, 9.37MB)

Blog - James McCallum Stage 3

2007-09-12T11:40:00Z

The hills are alive with the sound of panting.

Day 3, stage 2 169 km (actually 180 I believe)

On paper this day had all the makings of a horrible little day along the Devon coast. The hill came thick and fast with some of the descents feeling you were falling out of a plane. In actual fact a lot of the unclassified climbs were worse than the classified ones.

Very sneaky!!

For me it was a day of survival and I managed to find my self in a good group with a few of my team mates as well as some of the more established teams. In fact the most demanding part for me has been the transfers between hotel to start and finish to hotel. Some days there is the potential to be in the van for up to 3 hrs if we get into some crappy traffic. It isn't the best having to be up at 6am the morning of a (180km....) stage, especially when all you want to do is lie in your pit.

My luck has started to change though wooohoooo!!!!

Not punctures or mechanicals today but I'm not saying I'm out of the woods yet.

Catch ya on the flipside

Jimmy mac

James McCallum
Plowman Craven Evans Cycles Team

Blog - James McCallum reports on Stage 1

2007-09-12T11:34:00Z

From Bad to worse

So day 2 in the tob started well and on the face of it seemed to be a pretty simple stage with 2 smallish 3^rd cat climbs and a nice simple run in for the last few kms....easy right??

Mmmmm not quite, first problem stemmed from a random Mrs cow that had manage to have her mid afternoon stroll down it's usual road disturbed by the biggest race in Britain. As we took the fast right hander I could hear the sound of tyres squealing and the ever familiar scent of brake blocks on carbon wheel (similar to having the clutch of your car burn out). There she was just standing minding her own business and here we come to ruin her day. I have to say she did take it very well, not a kick or a snort to be heard.

Once we negotiated that and good old T-mobile had decided to ease off the Gas, status quo was back.

Then with about 6 kms to go we took a fast turn on to the main run in. Having safely made it around the corner we started top wind up in the hope of setting some team work up for the finale.

Then my good old mate bad luck reared his ugly head again.

SMASH!!!

I had just ridden straight thru the biggest hole in the road and I do mean straight thru it. For a good 300 meters I couldn't feel my hands I hit so hard. Thanks to the impact my front wheel flatted and I had to ride on it until the team car arrived with a spare.

Just as I was making contact with the race again thanks to a quick change I looked up and I seen what can only be described as what look like the whole bunch had been taken out by snipers and there was a massive pile up. Bodies and bike were everywhere.

For me that was it, I'd had enough, so I decided I was just going to roll in to the finish and stop fighting fate for another day.

Roll on tomorrow. Bring it on bad luck!!!!

Jimmy mac

James McCallum
Plowman Craven Evans Cycles Team

Podcast - Stage 2 2007, Yeovilton to Taunton

2007-09-12T09:00:00Z

Our third daily podcast from the Tour of Britain

Summary

Designing the route: Tour of Britain route director Graham Jones
Wearing the E.ON King of the Mountains jersey: Interview with Frantisek Rabon
Winners press conference: Serge Pauwels and Nikolai Trusov

Podcast: Tour of Britain Stage 2 (7:08, 6.53 MB)

(Music credit: Purple flipflops by DJ Topshelf)

E.ON Tour of Britain text competition

2007-09-11T09:54:00Z

Every day, you can enter a text competition to win fantastic Tour of Britain prizes, such as a King of the Mountains jersey or a bike.

Go to the text competition

Podcast - Stage 1 2007, Reading to Southampton

2007-09-11T09:06:00Z

Our second daily podcast from the Tour of Britain

Summary

Designing the route: Tour of Britain route director Graham Jones
Following the sport: Fans Andy West and Des Ludford
Winners press conference: Mark Cavendish and Frantisek Rabon

Podcast: Tour of Britain Stage 1 (6.25 MB 06:50)

(Music credit: Purple flipflops by DJ Topshelf)

Look out for E.ON's Cool Fuel bike

2007-09-10T15:00:00Z

Look out for the E.ON Cool Fuel bike at the Tour of Britain stages this week. They'll be giving out free drinks so pop along and say hello!

Blog - James McCallum reports on his prologue performance

2007-09-10T11:49:00Z

Crystal palace was the venue of the first stage of this year Tob.

It's a bizarre world riding pro bike races of this scale, especially prologues. No matter how many times you ride the course and check out every corner and bump, you still have bad old luck to blindside you when you least expect it.

For me it seemed to be well suited to my riding style coming from a track background - 2.2 km is well within my favour.

The prep started around 50 mins out from my start time of 15.58.

A quick jump on to my time trial bike to get used to the position again and then the start of the physical and mainly mental warm up.

The bike felt good and the legs were going around pretty nice as I click my way thru the gears and got a nice sweat on. Meanwhile I was focusing on my ride, the lines and the breathing.

15.58 arrived and I got a real good shout out from the announcer along with some nice applause which I found hard not to acknowledge.

Off the start ramp and the power was down through the bike and all the way to the tarmac below. This is when luck decided to change. My wheel pulled to the left and was rubbing against my frame. My first reaction was to try and kick the wheel and try to straighten it, however having tried this for what seemed to be an eternity I jumped off my bike in 2 minds....do I change bike?....do I just straighten the wheel?

The second was the easiest one and I took it.

So there I was standing on the route of the first day of the ToB seeing time pass by with every panicked breath and heartbeat. All that was left to do was try and limit my losses. I crossed the line around 50 seconds down on the winner Mark Cavendish.

So all in all not a great start to my tob, however if it doesn't kill ya it can only make you stronger and tomorrow is another day.

Don't you just love cliches?

Jimmy mac

James McCallum
Plowman Craven Evans Cycles Team

Podcast - Prologue Time Trial 2007

2007-09-10T08:07:00Z

Our first daily podcast from the Tour of Britain

Summary

Prologue time trial winner: Press conference with Mark Cavendish
Designing the route: Tour of Britain route director Graham Jones
Keeping the tour on the road: Chief Inspector Bob Brayshaw (West Yorkshire Police)

Podcast: Tour of Britain prologue (9MB 09:21)

(Music credit: Purple flipflops, DJTopshelf)

Welcome

2007-09-07T10:31:00Z

Welcome to E.ON at the Tour of Britain! Our blog, podcast and multimedia content covers the whole race, from the Prologue to the finish.