Chris Baldwin, a top domestic climber and stage racer, with start this week's Mt. Hood Classic with the OUCH-Maxxis team. Baldwin was fired by Rock Racing earlier this year, then re-hired just prior to the SRAM Tour of the Gila, where he raced with one teammate and no team support, finishing sixth overall. The OUCH team announced Tuesday that he had signed with them for the remainder of the season.
Belgian cyclist Tom Boonen still hopes to ride in the Tour de France in July, contradicting officials who said he would not race after he tested positive for cocaine earlier this year. "I hope to take part in the Tour and we are attempting to reach agreement with the organizers as we want to avoid legal proceedings," the 28-year-old told reporters at a cycling festival at Gullegem in Belgium on Tuesday.
Everyone's favorite 1965 Charlton Heston film, in which he stars as Michelangelo tirelessly painting 12,000 square feet of the Sistine Chapel, takes place in the Vatican City.
Can I use a Campy 11-speed shifter with a 10-speed cassette?
Check out CyclingTips's author page.
Check out CyclingTips's author page.
“Rad” Ross Schnell, the defending All Mountain world champion mountain bike racer, suffered a broken hip Saturday at the opening round of the French Enduro mountain bike cup, held in Métabief, France. Schnell, 28, was competing in the fourth of 10 races in the Saturday-Sunday event when he slipped on wet grass and hit the deck at 30 miles per hour. He fractured the greater trochanter area of his left femur.
Uvex, a leader in cycling helmets in Europe, is not well known in the United States. But the German brand hopes to change that through a new distribution agreement with Magura USA. I had a chance to try the Uvex FP1 Race helmet, the same lid as worn by sprinter Mark Cavendish and his Columbia-Highroad teammates. It’s exceptionally light, fits well, is very comfortable, has passable ventilation and is noticeably lighter than most other helmets I’ve worn.
Why do my vintage Campy shifters not shift well?
Why does my vintage Campagnolo drivetrain shift on its own?
Why does my Campagnolo hub have only eight ball bearings?
Mountain Khaki's Daniel Ramsey didn’t think much of his chances in a field sprint in Sunday’s Riverview Criterium. So he attacked with five laps to go in the NRC event and held off a hard-charging field to win ahead of Rahsaan Bahati (Rock Racing) and Bernard Sulzberger (Fly V Australia). "I just went off of instinct," said Ramsey after winning the third round of Oklahoma’s Tulsa Tough criterium series. "I don't think I've ever placed top 20 in a field sprint before, so my best option was to attack.”
British rider Mark Cavendish wants to make amends for his premature exit from last year's Tour de France by claiming the green sprint jersey in Paris next month. Cavendish pulled out of the 2008 Tour after the 14th stage after four stage wins because of a combination of fatigue and his desire to concentrate on the Beijing Olympics. But the 24-year-old Columbia-Highroad sprinter regrets that decision and wants to become only the second cyclist from Great Britain to win a jersey in the Tour following the King of the Mountains title won by Scot Robert Millar in 1984.
Editor's Note:Jeremy Powers is a pro road racer with the Jelly Belly team, and races cyclocross for the Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com team. Powers provided VeloNews.com readers with an inside look at the cyclocross scene last fall and winter, and now, after a few months' vacation, he's back to provide a look at his season on the road. Last time you heard from me I was finishing up my cyclocross season in Belgium, trying to conquer the world championships.
Editor's note: VeloNews Technical Editor Zack Vestal visited Zipp Speed Weaponry's Indiana factory this spring and reported on the company's history in part 1 of this article. In part 2, Vestal gets behind some of the company's philosophy and practices in product development and production.
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Rather than aiming for a win, Shawn Milne (Team Type 1) started Sunday’s U.S. Air Force Classic in Arlington, Virginia, planning to spend the day working for his team’s sprinters, Kenneth Hanson, who’d been second at the Clarendon Cup the day before, and Serbian Aldo Ino Ilesic. A few laps of the 7.8 mile circuit later, he wasn’t sure he could even do that. But by race’s end, it was Milne throwing his hands up at the line.
After racing from the north to the south to the center of the boot, we finally reached Rome and completed the last fourteen kilometers of the Giro. In the flamboyant, dramatic fashion that we have now become accustomed to after three weeks of racing in the circus, we whizzed by Rome’s historical sites, snaked through the cobbled city streets and, finally, turned our last pedal strokes in front of the coliseum. The course provided drama for the television audience but also put many riders on edge due to its technical aspects.
Lance Armstrong said his 12th-placed finish in the Giro d'Italia was "promising" ahead of this year's Tour de France. Armstrong came into the Giro insisting that he was not there to contest for the win. "I came in open-minded. I did not know what to expect, obviously because of the crash in Castilla y Leon, the time off the bike and the trip over here," Armstrong said. "In my view it has been a hard three weeks. In the second half of the race I showed that I was certainly getting better and I think we can take that away from here. It is promising for June and July."
American Taylor Phinney (Trek-Livestrong) won the Paris-Roubaix Espoirs on Sunday, emerging first from a group of 11 that entered the Roubaix velodrome together. Phinney, 18, becomes the first American to win the race for riders under 23. The 170km race has been held since 1967 and has been won by budding professionals including Yaroslav Popovych, Thor Hushovd, Stephen Roche and Frédéric Moncassin.
Rabobank's Lars Boom finished second in the final time trial of the Tour of Belgium Sunday to clinch the final overall victory. Quick Step's Sébastien Rosseler won the stage in 20:53, followed by Boom at six seconds. Brent Bookwalter (BMC) was the top American on the stage and overall, coming in 13th at 41 seconds in the final stage, and 19th on the GC. Boom, 23, said he hasn't raced much since the end of cyclocross season. He was the 2008 cyclocross world champion.
Race leader Denis Menchov won the Giro d’Italia on Sunday despite suffering a fall in the last kilometer of the final stage, a 14.4km time trial through Rome. Menchov, now the third Russian to win the Giro, added the title to his two Vuelta a España victories in 2005 and 2007. The 31-year-old Menchov beat 2007 Giro champion Danilo Di Luca (LPR) by 41 seconds over the course of the three-week tour, with Liquigas’ Franco Pellizzoti rounding off the podium finishers a further 1:18 adrift.
On the Evening of June 17, downtown Flemington NJ will host the first stage of the second annual Giro Di Jersey Stage race.