Talkingshop: Julian ‘Rambo’ Ramsbottom

Racing at the Eddie Soens recently was the 2000 winner, Julian Ramsbottom who back in ‘the day’ was known by the nickname ‘Rambo’. Still is it would appear. 

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Related Links: Rudy Project Round 1

Before you get any Sly Stallone imagery in your head, or Dolph Lundgren, Julian is very ‘unRambo’ to look at but of course the shortening of his surname saw the nickname stick.

When I first started with my website Echelon Velo (pre BC, that’s before British Cycling not Christ; I’m old but not that old!), Julian was in the top echelon of the sport in road racing. He’d won the Jock Wadley, been 3rd in the Girvan and a stage winner in the Yorkshire Classic to name but a few of the podiums. He rode for the Harrods Principia team at one time and was a regular force to be reckoned with on the ‘circuit’.

Last weekend, Julian was at the Rudy Project and as a first year vet, found himself in the winner’s circuit again but for the Over 40’s competition. He was also the sixth fastest overall on the day, showing that he is still is a class act! Ie, class is ageless as Malcolm Elliott has shown.

Asked how he came to move away from road racing and more into time trialling, Julian replied “time constraints really. I’m working full time and the job as a postman has gone to walking as the area I work in has done away with bikes. So I’m walking seven or eight a miles a day which doesn’t really help the bike riding.”

“The walking does take it out of the legs and while I get used to it, it’s different to the old days as a pro when it was don’t walk unless you really have to. I find that while it’s difficult to fit training in with work, you just have to get on the bike as quick as you can after work because if you sit down, you never get out!”

“I am doing a bit of road racing this year but only up to 60 miles. You can get away with that on two hours training after work!”

 Off the front at the Eddie Soens, a race he won 12 years ago …

Julian, who hails from Lincolnshire, rides for Scunthorpe Polytechnic CC. He rode for I-ride last year and has over the years been in top teams here and there but keeps coming back to his local club. He’s been riding for 25 consecutive years since he was a junior and feels he’s earn’t the opportunity to reap the rewards of having passed the fourty mark.

His club he says, also has a few good riders in time trialling so for local events they will be a force to be reckoned with thanks to riders like Julian, Tony Nash and others. The aim will be to pick up some team success as well as individual wins.

Talking about the course for the Rudy Project last weekend, Julian explained how it was his type of course. “I much prefer races like this against the clock rather than bashing up and down dual carriageways. That really isn’t my scene. I do the odd one if nothing else is on but I much prefer to ride on courses like this despite it being a bit bumpy.”

“I prefer a smoother surface than this as I hit a big pot hole going out and the old bars went down a few centimetres. I tend to take each race as they come nowadays and just enjoy the sport as a hobby. But, now that I’m fourty, the Rudy Project Series (vets) is something to go for, the overall.”

Asked if he kept in touch with the road racing scene, Julian explained he did and added that the world of Prems has moved on a world from when he used to ride them. “I had a little taste of it in the Soens this year” he says. “I got away with Rus (Russell Downing) and a few others with six laps to go but because the right people weren’t there, it came straight back again. It is a lot more like pro racing on the continent here now.”

Top vet! Julian gets his Rudy Project prize, one of many perhaps this year …

 

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