Monday’s spectacular yet controversial stage up Plan de Corones capped a trio of decisive mountaintop finishes that saw Alberto Contador whittle out a slender but perhaps decisive lead going into the final week of the 91st Giro d’Italia. Contador hasn’t won a stage yet, but he’s finessed his way into a 41-second lead over Riccardo Riccò thanks to a superb time trial in stage 10 and three consistent performances across the Dolomites.
One by one the team stepped on to the bus, sweat pouring from their faces, their jerseys wide-open, radio earpieces hanging from their salt-encrusted helmet straps, road dirt and carbon brake dust on their faces, veins pulsing on their sweat soaked arms and legs. As helmets were buckled and seats found, each said in his own way, with his own accent, “That was the best lead-out I have ever been a part of.”
For a team to defend a race lead over seven stages takes a tremendous amount of effort on everyone's part to ensure the win. For one rider to do it on his own start to finish is almost unimaginable. But John Murphy of the Health Net Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis pulled it off during the five-day, seven-stage Tour of Atlanta this past weekend, despite having to contend with full squads form a number of teams, including UCI continental team Toshiba. Murphy won the opening-stage time trial by a solid 0:31 margin, but had five members of Toshiba within 0:55 of him after the stage.
The Colavita Sutter Home team took three of the six podium spots at the Tour of Somerville on Monday. Lucas Sebastian Haedo and Kyle Wamsley took the first two spots in the men's race, while Jonathan Page was third. Wamsley was second at Saturday's Kelly Cup NRC race in Baltimore. National crit champ Tina Pic won the women's race, outsprinting Cheerwine's Kelly Benjamin and Aaron's Erica Allar.
A pair of gravity veterans took home the USA Cycling 4X Pro National Championship in Angel Fire, New Mexico on Sunday. Rich Houseman (Temecula, California) claimed the stars-and-stripes jersey for the pro men, while Melissa Buhl (Chandler, Arizona) won the title for pro women.
Frayed nerves that were already threadbare after two torturous weeks at the 91st Giro d’Italia spilled over Monday in the 12.9km mountaintop time trial up gravel roads to Plan de Corones. While it made for great TV and proved popular with the tens of thousands of fans who trekked up the summit, it proved to be another source of irritation in an already exasperated, race-weary peloton.
At least there were two riders who were in high spirits after Monday’s grueling 12.9km climbing time trial up the spectacular summit at Plan de Corones. While nearly the entire peloton was a chorus of complaints over the difficulty of the controversial 16th stage up slippery gravel roads with grades as steep as 24 percent, Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas) and Alberto Contador (Astana) both had plenty of reason to celebrate.
When Andy Hampsten survived the snowstorm over the Passo di Gavia at the 1988 Giro d’Italia and took over the maglia rosa (see Hampsten and the 1988 Pink Jersey: Part 1) the battle to become the first American to win the world’s second most prestigious grand tour was far from over. There were still seven days to go, including two time trials and four mountain stages, before the finish in Vittorio Veneto.
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Starting under darkening skies with scattered rain showers, the 4th annual Priority Health Tour de Leelanau was fortunate to end in bright sunshine after some very aggressive racing. Organizers said the Tour de Leelanau drew the deepest fields of racers to ever compete in Michigan. Starting in the fishing village of Leland and ending in Peshawbestown on the edge of Traverse Bay, the race course for the Tour de Leelanau traveled from corner to corner of this scenic Michigan county.