Eurosport’s Harmon to let legs do talking

Rob Spedding | Blog, Cycling Plus, News | 20/08/2010 15:02pm

Anyone familiar with Eurosport‘s coverage of professional bike racing will likely be fans of commentator David Harmon’s double act with Irish cycling legend Sean Kelly. This weekend, though, Harmon has a new partner and he’s swapping the studio for the saddle in a bid to set a British cycling record.

If all goes to plan Harmon and his new ‘sidekick’ Jeremy Hastings – a wilderness guide from the Scottish island of Islay – will set off from Pembroke Castle at 4am on Saturday August 21 astride their bespoke tandem Rocket 1 and attempt to ride 363-miles across the widest part of the UK to Great Yarmouth in around 17 hours.

David Harmon and Jeremy Hastings on Rocket 1

The pair’s Team Wiggle Tandem has been built specially for them by Dolan Bikes and once they arrive in Yarmouth they’ll set a new mark – there isn’t currently a tandem record for this ride but there is a Road Records Association ‘standard’ of 17hr 30 minutes.

Once the pair have, hopefully, polished off this record they’ll be turning their attention to a host of other long distance tandem records including the End-To-End. Both Harmon – who’ll be stoking (or sitting at the back) – and Hastings have previous in long distance. I first met the pair while riding the London-Paris Cycle Tour in 2008. That year they both seemed pretty normal but after a few post event shandies they decided to return the following year and ride the whole event on fixies. And this year they complete the ride on Rocket 1.

Training hasn’t been without it’s trials either – David lives in Shropshire and Islay, where Jez lives and works, aren’t exactly close to each other and a crash earlier in the year left Harmon with ride stopping bruising – but we’re betting on the fellas setting a new record this weekend! Good luck chaps!

To follow Team Wiggle Tandem’s progress click here!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 20th, 2010 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Blog, Cycling Plus, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Tags: C+, Cycling Plus, Lycra, record attempt, tandem