Medical investigators are looking for cyclists to help with an online survey that will provide researchers with detailed information about cycling health and injuries. Researchers from the Injury Prevention Center at Rhode Island Hospital are launching the survey to expand knowledge about cycling-specific injuries and promote safer and healthier cycling.
Agritubel went one-two in the ninth Classic Loire-Atlantique in France on Friday just a day after learning it was going back to the Tour de France. Mikel Gaztanaga, 27, slipped away in a 20km breakaway that held on until the end to keep the race trophy on the team’s shelf. Agritubel won last year with Nicolas Jalabert. Teammate Jimmy Casper came through second while Frédéric Finot (Differdange-Apiflo Vacances) took third at eight seconds adrift. Agritubel was one of three wild cards invited to the 2008 Tour. It will be the team’s third consecutive Tour appearance.
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the latest edition of The Prologue, the weekly summary of news from the world of professional cycling by your friends at VeloNews.com.
Once again I'm filling in for Senior Online Editor Charles Pelkey, who is due back from Africa early next week.
It was a busy week in pro cycling, both on the road and in the public-relations offices of various organizations, where several newsworthy press releases were issued.
Australian rider Allan Davis, who finished second in the Tour Down Under in January, has joined Belgium's Mitsubishi team, which competes on the second-division Continental Pro circuit. Davis, 27, kicked off his professional career in 2003 under Manolo Saiz with the ONCE and then Liberty teams. Last year, the Australian rode with the now-defunct American team Discovery Channel, under whose colors he finished second at Milan-San Remo.
Fourteen junior cyclists were injured, two of them seriously, when a car plowed into their peloton during a training session Friday in Poland, police said. The youths were hit by the oncoming vehicle on a main road near Kalisz in central Poland, the home of their cycling club, KTK, local police told the country's PAP news agency.
The past week has been one Rock Racing’s Michael Ball would likely rather forget. On Tuesday the team owner and Italian star Mario Cipollini announced that they had parted ways, and on Thursday Tour de Georgia organizers Medalist Sports announced that Rock was not among the 15 teams invited to compete this year.
La Classicissimia, La Primavera – whatever you call it, Milan-San Remo is one of cycling’s most electrifying and prestigious races, one of the sport’s treasured “monuments.” Whoever wins San Remo is king of Italy for a day. Twenty-five eight-man teams line up Saturday in front of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan for the 298km run past the picturesque headlands jutting out of the Italian Riviera toward the finish in San Remo.
The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month.
Shimano’s electric Dura-Ace is becoming more and more common in the ProTour peloton. Gerolsteiner rider Stefan Schumacher scored a podium placing on it at last year’s world championships. For three years now an electric prototype group has been raced in the spring classics and semi-classics. Last year it was also in cycling’s biggest show, the Tour de France.
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Sunset on the Blue Ridge Parkway
The Road to L'Alpe d'Huez
Early morning start - Land Park Criterium, Sacramento, CA
Montana Traffic Jam
In its twelve years the Tour of Ohio has continued to go from strength to strength, with ever-growing crowds, and in 2007 the Tour of Ohio expands to be in conjunction with the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure with over 4000 participants in this family orientated event (sponsored and publicized by Bob Evans).
Roadie: The Misunderstood World of a Bike Racer Entertains Roadies and Educates the Non-Racer Veteran race announcer and long-time roadie Jamie Smith sets out to explain the sport he loves and the roadies who live for it in his new book from VeloPress, Roadie: The Misunderstood World of a Bike Racer.
Team Type 1, a first-year professional team that has twice won the Race Across America corporate team division, will be among 15 squads at this year’s Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T. Team Type 1 was founded in 2004 by racers Phil Southerland and Joe Eldridge to inspire people living with diabetes to take a proactive approach to managing their health and overcoming obstacles often associated with the condition. Four of the 15 riders on the Team Type 1 professional squad – Southerland, Eldridge, Tim Hargrave and Fabio Calabria – have Type 1 diabetes.
***** The UCI and Mr. Hein Verbruggen have sued Mr. Richard Pound ex-president of WADA before Swiss courts for what they perceive as being continual injurious and biased comments by Mr. Pound against UCI and Mr. Verbruggen in the context of the efforts made by them to eradicate doping from their sport. Indeed, on many occasions, Mr. Pound has publicly questioned the extent of the UCI’s efforts in the fight against doping. UCI Press Service
Lausanne's Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said Thursday that it would make a judgment on the doping case involving Italian Danilo Di Luca in 10 days time. Tour of Italy champion and former Pro Tour winner Di Luca served a three-month suspension for doping at the back end of last year. He had been implicated in the 'Oil for drugs' affair, accused of using the services of a tainted Dr. Carlo Santuccione, who is suspected of supplying doping products to athletes. But Di Luca took his case to the highest appeal body in an attempt to clear his name.
World Championship Sports Network (WCSN) will provide exclusive coverage of the UCI Track Cycling World Championships beginning March 26 in Manchester, UK. Cycling fans can watch the webcast on www.wcsn.com and broadcast on WCSN TV as the top 47 nations eye the special rainbow striped jersey reserved for World Champions.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) announced Thursday that it is suing Richard Pound, the former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, for remarks Pound made relevant to the UCI's anti-doping efforts. The UCI said Pound's remarks were "injurious and biased." "Indeed, on many occasions, Mr. Pound has publicly questioned the extent of the UCI’s efforts in the fight against doping," the UCI said. The suit is filed in Swizerland on behalf of the UCI and its former president, Hein Verbruggen.
Organizers on Thursday announced the 15, 8-rider teams that will compete in next month's Tour de Georgia. A total of 120 professional cyclists will compete in the 600-mile, seven-day event to be held April 21-27. The final field:
Serotta is pleased to announce the hiring of essential new personnel charged with elevating the Serotta brand experience. Paraic McGlynn, a French Cycling Federation-trained cycling coach, advanced bicycle fitter and former manager at the Bicycle Ranch and foot bed manufacturer eSoles, joins Serotta as Director of Applied Cycling Science. Mike Minerva, Creative Director of Minerva Designs, will drive Serotta’s visual presentation and marketing strategy in tandem with Marketing Director Tiffany Teaford.
Cyclists in the now defunct Team T-Mobile "probably" took doping products under the supervision of Freiburg university doctors, according to an independent report published on Thursday. And the 23-page interim report, published by the commissioned inquiry into the doping scandal at Freiburg's University Medical Clinic, has also named two more doctors involved in the scandal. The report sheds light on the doping practices of Team T-Mobile — who changed their name from Team Telekom in 2004.
Tour de France organiser ASO on Thursday named the 20 teams it has selected for this year's race. The line-up includes the American team Slipstream-Chipotle. Team director Jonathan Vaughters said the invitation was a relief. "I found out about 5 minutes ago," Vaughters told VeloNews Thursday morning.
Milan-San Remo is the season’s first big fish and cycling’s most important one-day race for sprinters never fails to deliver one of the most exciting battles of the year. Changes in both the finish area due to work on the Via Roma and the addition of a new climb called Le Manie with about 100km to go are sure to add new drama to one of the year’s most important contests.
This year's Tirreno-Adriatico featured classic Italian scenery, a string of blistering sprint finishes, and a key 26km time trial on stage 5 that largely determined the overall win for CSC's world champion, Fabian Cancellara.
Tomeke at the TOC
Officials in Reading, PA, are again gearing up for what has become the city’s largest single-day, free, sporting event, the Commerce Bank Reading Classic, this year on Thursday, June 5th. This world-class professional cycling race is the second leg of the Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling series and features nearly 200 of the sport’s professional athletes competing for the leader’s jersey.
Tour de Georgia organizers on Wednesday released details of one of the most anticipated stages at this year's race — stage 4's 10-mile team time trial, to be held at Road Atlanta, a race car track 50 miles outside Atlanta. At a media event at the track, race organizers spelled out the logistics for the event: four circuits on the hilly, 12-turn track for each 8-man team. Two teams will be on the track at at a time and the team's time will be taken from the fifth team member across the line.
Generalities — I’m heading deep into them here in the coming paragraphs. That said, the differences in racing styles from one country to another are pretty entertaining. Racing styles differ dramatically, and while some countries have an “international” feel, most manage to retain their individuality pretty well, even with a chunk of the field from afar. I’ve also noticed a little parallel between racing style, and the mentality of the country behind it (Warning: BIG GENERALITIES HERE).
Quick Step is so deep in talent on its classics team it can put up a half-dozen candidates for victory. With the team’s big stars Tom Boonen and Paolo Bettini resting their guns for Saturday’s Milan-San Remo, other riders are getting a chance to step into the spotlight. Last week, it was Gert Steegmans winning two stages at Paris-Nice.
With a surge in the number of teams requesting invitations to race in Georgia in April, the management company for the Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, Medalist Sports, has announced the elite field of 15 teams. With eight riders on each team, a total of 120 professional cyclists will compete in the 600-mile, seven-day event (April 21-27, 2008), beginning just 31 days from today.
Milan-San Remo will have an extra team after all, but it won’t be Rock Racing. Just a day after Mario Cipollini cut ties with the American team, race organizers of Saturday’s “La Primavera” announced that Miche-Silver Cross would fill the final slot for the classics season opener. Rock Racing and Cipollini were hoping for a last-minute bid to start Milan-San Remo, a race Cipollini won in 2002, but race organizers opted to go with the San Marino-based continental team instead.
Dear Readers; Tragedy struck the San Francisco Bay Area cycling community last week in a collision that killed two cyclists, and sent a third to the hospital with serious injuries. According to reports published in local newspapers and press releases from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s department, this is what happened:
Norco Performance Bikes is excited to announce the addition of Hans Lambert to our Factory Team for the '08/09 season. Hans is a downhill and 4X racer from St. Bruno, Quebec who has recently shaken up the Canada and Quebec Cup series' when he captured the 2006 National DH Championship title (Junior Expert). Hans is known on the circuit for his aggressive style and impressive ability to perform under pressure.
GE Energy is sponsoring one of 15 international teams—the GE Marco Polo Cycling Team presented by Trek—scheduled to compete in the sixth annual Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, a 600-mile, seven-day cycling race across the state April 21-27. This is the sixth year that Atlanta-based GE Energy is supporting the Tour de Georgia, one of North America’s premier professional bicycle races. GE Energy is a founding sponsor of the event, which will showcase some of the cycling world’s elite competitors.
The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month.
Sam Gowdi at the St. Patties Day Feast at Bootleg Canyon DH
Scott Johnson at the St. Patties Day Feast at Bootleg Canyon Super D
Sue Takes on Death Valley - 2008