Golding takes seven-day record
Rugby-man sets sights on RAAM
ritish two-time cancer survivor James Golding broke the world record for the distance cycled in seven days in the early hours of Monday morning.
Golding set a distance of 1,766.2miles over a series of laps on roads near his home in Rugby.
Fiendishly hot weather and headwinds made the early part of the ride difficult. Shortly after finishing his ride at 2.26am Monday morning — having just broken the previous record — well before the 4.59am deadline, Golding said: “It has been a roller coaster. Two days ago if someone had said it was over I wouldn’t have argued. I’d had enough,” he said.
He added: “The whole thing was based on the flat area but it was hotter there and the wind swirled around so it always felt head on. In the early part it was good, I knew what those laps would be and 16 of them every day was job done. Toward the end though I needed to break the monotony and just get on with riding my bike so I changed the route.”
The challenge complied with Guinness World Record rules and was done on a UCI legal bike.
Golding has survived cancer twice and is an Ambassador for Cancer Research UK. When he left hospital in 2009 after treatment for his first bout of cancer he had to relearn to walk and then 12 months later was severely injured during a ride across America. He beat cancer for the second time in 2011.
He said he was now looking to compete in the Race Across America in 2019. “Since being ill I have a greater understanding of what we are capable of. By doing extreme challenges we can show not just ourselves but everybody what is achievable,” he said.
Stannard misses out on Tour ride
Ian Stannard was left off Sky’s Tour de France team when it was announced last week following a difficult first half to the season.
Stannard has played a role in all three of Chris Froome’s Tour wins but will have to watch from the sidelines in July.
Sky performance manager Rod Ellingworth said: “He has had an up and down season. He never really got into the Classics and he got a bit sick during the Dauphiné, that’s why he pulled out.”
“Ultimately it’s about making hard calls and trying to select nine riders to go over that terrain. There were only two spots for the role of defender that he plays. Luke [Rowe] is going well and Christian Knees is showing fantastic form, plus it’s a home start for him.”
Landa poised to leave Sky
After two years at Team Sky, Basque cyclist Mikel Landa is reported to be joining team Movistar in 2018.
Landa won a stage and the mountains competition in the 2017 Giro d’italia for Team Sky this May and will help Chris Froome in the Tour de France this July.
Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport, however, reports that he will jump ship to Movistar in 2018. It said that the Spanish Worldtour team and Landa came to an agreement and needed only to confirm it.
The 27-year-old rode to third overall in the 2015 Giro d’italia behind team leader Fabio Aru in second and winner Alberto Contador.
BC plans could slash traffic queues
British Cycling has released research showing a single change to the Highway Code to make cyclists safer could dramatically slash queues too.
BC is campaigning for a rule for all traffic to give priority to traffic to their left at junctions.
Research by transport planner Phil Jones Associates shows the rule could reduce car queues by 43 per cent and queues for cyclists by 21 per cent.
BC policy adviser, Chris Boardman, said: “The time saved at a single junction amounts to around six hours every year for regular car commuters — that’s a whole season of Line of Duty.”