If you were following the Paris Olympics this year you might recognise Hamish Turnbull who won Silver in the team sprint race, along side his team mates Ed Lowe and Jack Carling. What you may not have seen is that Hamish spends his time off the track riding a Vielo R+1 1x road bike.
Yesterday Hamish surprised us with a visit to Vielo Studio for a coffee and to show off his new bit of bling. Hilariously he told us that he’s not received the presentation box for his medal yet, apparently they are posted to the athletes aver the event. In the meantime he’s keeping it safe and sound in …. A sock!
It was the first time any of us had held an Olympic medal before. They’re surprisingly heavy, but the detail was incredible.
We’ve known Hamish and his Sister Fiona for over 10 years. Born in Morpeth the pair used to race for the ‘Speedflex’ racing team as kids. Fiona was actually in our very first Vielo Photoshoot. Ian and I always tried to help the family out with sponsorship, product or support throughout their junior careers. It was fantastic to see Hamish growing as an athlete and competing in his first Olympics.
What you may not know is that Hamish has been using a Vielo R+1 Road bike for training for over 2 years now. When Hamish told us he need something to train and have fun on when he’s not on the track, the R+1 made perfect sense to him. His track bikes don’t have a front derailleur so why should his road bike?
We couldn’t quite match the 94 tooth chainring he uses on the track, but he didn’t need anything near as big for the roads. When he’s not living in Manchester with Team GB he spends time at home with is family in northern Scotland. A 48T Vielo chainring was more appropriate to the terrain around Manchester and he’s plenty strong enough to get up the climbs around Inverness.
Hamish also showed us the wounds he was nursing from crashing out of the men’s Keirin semi final at over 77kph. The scary high speed incident on the last day of the track cycling left him with a lot of missing skin, but thankfully no concussion. He was patched up on his back, legs and arms. Although he was undoubtably sore he didn’t seem to perturbed by it, just keen to tells us about the stories from Paris. Oh and show us his new special gold Samsung flip phone, an exclusive for the Olympic athletes.
Before he left for some well earned time off, Hamish incredibly kindly gifted us one of his Team GB Paris 2024 Olympic jerseys. This will now sit proudly in the Vielo Studio alongside the skin suit he gifted us in 2022 from the UCI track champions league series.
Although, we’ve promised to get them both framed now!
V.
