Sitting in the middle of the peloton, riding along at a steady tempo as a team controls the pace on the front, I hear our director in the radio: “There is a dangerous descent coming up in four kilometers. Move to the front to stay out of trouble. There is gravel on the corners and many switchbacks. Get to the front.”
Jonathan Page (Planet Bike) scored a rare win on this side of the Atlantic on Saturday, riding away from all challengers on a muddy course in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Quick Step's Tom Boonen won the third stage of the Franco-Belge stage race on Saturday in a sprint finish ahead of England's Roger Hammond (Cervélo TestTeam) and American Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream). Farrar continues to hold the overall race lead after winning the first two stages in the race which finishes Sunday at Tournai.
Reigning Vuelta a España champion Alejandro Valverde has brought his season to a premature end admitting he needs rest before beginning to plan his race objectives for next season. Valverde was originally slated to compete in the Paris-Bourges race on Thursday and the Paris Tours one-day classic next weekend, but after discussions with his Caisse d'Epargne team he has decided to hang up his bike. "I need to rest both mentally and physically before thinking towards next season and resuming training," said Valverde, who will compete in a few criterium races in the coming weeks.
We could start this year’s first cross’ diary by talking about racing, but for the moment we’re gonna talk about flyin’.
The owners of the Austrian laboratory Humanplasma, already at the center of a huge doping scandal, admitted tax evasion on Friday but denied any role in doping athletes. Officials for the lab admitted not declaring 300,000 Euros earned from taking blood tests from athletes but continued to deny accusations of being involved in doping. "We have informed the authorities for several months," said lab spokeswoman Michaela Eisler. "The blood tests were simply stocked on lab premises. There were no transfusions."
Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream) made it two in a row Friday at the Circuit Franco-Belge. Just a day after winning the opening stage of the four-day race across the French-Belgian border, Farrar kicked his way to his 10th win on the 2009 season. Farrar won ahead of Alexandre Usov (Cofidis) in the 225.7km second stage from Maubeuge, France to Poperinge, Belgium, with French rider Jimmy Casper (Chausson-Sojasun) coming across the line third.
Rio de Janeiro will become the first South American city to host the Olympics after the International Olympic Committee voted to award the 2016 Games to the former Brazilian capital on Friday. The city of Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympics came to an early end after the city was eliminated in the first round of voting during the IOC's site selection meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Emboldened by his bronze medal at last weekend’s world championship, Spanish rider Joaquím Rodríguez now wants to win the Giro di Lombardia. Called “Purito” within the peloton, the pint-sized puncheur still has a full racing calendar, with scheduled starts at Paris-Bourges, Paris-Tours, Giro del Piemonte, Giro di Lombardia and the Japan Cup. That heavy end-of-season schedule means there’s no time for celebrating a well-deserved worlds medal that helped save the honor for the heavily-favored Spanish team.
Thor Hushovd wants to make it loud and clear: he’s intending on racing the 2010 Tour de France and defending his green jersey. There were some conflicting reports that the Norwegian winner of the 2009 sprinter’s jersey might skip the Tour, but the Cervélo TestTeam rider confirmed that next July will be much like this year.
An expected 3,500 cyclists will take to the streets of Santa Rosa, California, at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning for the start of the inaugural King Ridge Gran Fondo, a mass-participation ride promoted by local cycling star Levi Leipheimer.
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Lance Armstrong said he still hasn’t decided whether he’ll race at the Tour of California or the Giro d’Italia next season as he prepares for the 2010 Tour de France. That’s according to an interview in the newest issue of Vélo magazine in France. Armstrong provided the first glimpse of what his racing schedule will look like with his new RadioShack team. Like he did in his comeback season last year, he will debut at the Tour Down Under in January in Australia.
he 2009 USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships opened in the velodrome at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, on Wednesday as Cody O’Reilly (Bissell) and Cari Higgins (Proman) were awarded the first-ever elite omnium national titles. In all, three national champions were crowned on the first day of competition inside the country’s only 250-meter indoor velodrome.
Lennard Zinn has been spending time in the shop (as always) and had a chance to try out a new hacksaw specifically designed for cutting carbon fiber tubes (like fork steerer tubes, handlebars, and seatposts). He and test editor Matt Pacocha reviewed several additional tools in our November issue, which is on sale now. Also in that issue, we have a rundown of 12 must-have tools for your shop or garage. Effetto Mariposa CarboCut hacksaw Retail price: $65
Recently crowned world champion Cadel Evans promises to honor the rainbow jersey with aggressive racing for the remainder of the 2009 season. The 32-year-old Aussie isn’t wasting any time, and will make his debut in the famed rainbow jersey on October 8 in the Coppa Sabatini in Italy. “I will try to honor the rainbow jersey even if my legs are understandably a little tired after a grueling season,” Evans said during a press conference Thursday at the Silence-Lotto team headquarters.
Tyler Farrar is back in the winner’s circle, sprinting to victory Thursday in the opening stage of the Circuit Franco-Belge. Farrar out-kicked Danilo Napolitano (Katusha) to claim victory in the 213.6km stage from Templeuve, France, to Mouscron, Belgium. Tom Boonen (Quick Step) came across third in the mass gallop and Saxo Bank's JJ Haedo rounded out the top four. The win also puts the leader’s jersey on Farrar’s back after the opening stage of the four-day Franco-Belge race.
Alexander Kolobnev is quickly earning a reputation as a rider who delivers in major international competition. With his second world championship silver medal in three years, and a fourth-place that could turn into bronze from last summer’s Beijing Summer Olympic Games, the consistent Russia knows how to pack a punch come crunch time. “They call me the sniper,” Kolobnev told VeloNews. “You have one shot, then you have to wait 364 days until the next chance.”
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British sprint specialist Mark Cavendish has pulled out of Paris-Tours, the road sprint classic on October 11, his Columbia team announced on Wednesday. Cavendish, who won six stages at this year's Tour de France, had already withdrawn from the world championships in Mendrisio, Switzerland with a lung infection. The Isle of Mann rider recently pulled out of September's Tour of Missouri after two stage wins with the same problem.
The B-sample requested by former Silence-Lotto rider Thomas Dekker has confirmed his positive drugs test for the banned blood-booster EPO, the Dutch ANP news agency reported on Wednesday. The wire service said that Dekker has accepted the findings and is awaiting his sanction. The sample was originally taken on December 24, 2007, but new procedures introduced since then allowed for further tests which revealed a positive reading for EPO and the rider was ruled out of this year's Tour de France three days before the start in July.
A glance down the world championship results sheet reconfirms the notion that the best way to assure a shot at the rainbow jersey is to race the Vuelta a España … and to finish it. The entire top 10 of the elite men’s road race Sunday in Mendrisio competed in the Vuelta. Most of them rode all the way to Madrid, and the three that didn’t finish the Vuelta shared a total of five stage victories.
Alberto Contador spent time this week speaking with Spanish school children about a new book by author Jordi Sierra i Fabra, a collection of stories about the cyclist's early years and the challenges he's faced in his career. The two-time Tour de France champion presented the book aimed at children, “Querer es Poder,” (Where there’s a will, there’s a way) to a group of students Monday, but one story he’d like to conclude is where he will race in 2010. Contador said everything remains undecided about his home for the upcoming season.
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The UCI’s Licensing Commission has renewed the four-year ProTour license of the Italian Lampre team and a granted a one-year renewal to Milram, but denied the renewal applications of Bbox Bouygues Telecom and Cofidis. The license commission "has decided not to award a UCI ProTour license to the French teams Cofidis ... and Bbox Bouygues Telecom," the UCI said, without offering details for the refusal.
American national time trial champion Jessica Phillips didn’t win the elite women’s world time trial championship last week. She didn’t take a medal, or even finish in the top 10. And, designated as an alternate, she didn’t participate in Saturday’s road race, either. Yet just rolling out of the start ramp of the world time trial championship wearing national team colors was a victory in itself for the Aspen, Colorado, native. She finished 14th out of 41 starters, 2:11 behind the winner, U.S. teammate Kristin Armstrong.
Dear Readers, As many of you know, I spent last week in Las Vegas, attending the Interbike trade show and the outdoor demo that preceded it. While my tech department colleagues and I have been posting stories and photos since the start, we’ll be doing more over the next few days. There was just so much there, it’s hard to offer even a glimpse at everything that struck us in a single story, or even two or three. Looking through my files last night, I spotted some interesting items I’d like to share with you today.
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Ryan Iddings (Lapiere) survived a hard-charging chase in the men's elite field and Kristi Berg (Redline Bicycles) dominated the women as the Seattle Cyclocross Series (SCX) kicked off in Washington this weekend. Sun, warmth and a dry, fast course greeted racers to start the largest 'cross series in Washington. Some hard core 'crossers felt a little guilty enjoying the sunshine on race day; but we all knew the rain and mud would be here soon enough so we might as well break out the lawn chairs and soak up the last bit of summer in Seattle with 650 of our closest racing buddies.
David Espinoza (Penn State), Colleen Hayduk (Kutztown University of Pennsylvania) and David Williams (Marian University) turned in strong performances during the USA Cycling National Collegiate Track Championships, held last Thursday through Saturday at the Valley Preferred Cycling Center in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania. Racing started Thursday at the former Lehigh Valley Velodrome with Espinoza winning the kilometer meter time trial in 1:06:54, 2.3 seconds faster than runner-up Matthew Fox (Midwestern State).
Last year at Vermont's Green Mountain Cyclocross Weekend, Dan Timmerman (Richard Sachs/RGM Watches/Radix) made everyone take notice when he was the only rider to keep in sight of winner Jamey Driscoll. Now the Richard Sachs rider has ascended to the mountain top by sweeping the weekend and taking the overall series lead. Timmerman took advantage of his front-row position to establish a lead on the first lap of each day. Saturday quickly turned into a battle for second place, as no one was able to keep the Ithaca, New York, rider is sight. [nid:98800]
Despite its late-season date, a near-conflict with the Interbike expo and ’cross races around the country, the first-ever TD Bank Mayor’s Cup attracted a deep field of domestic pros and regional elite riders, to race through the warren-like streets of Boston’s government district. Of course, the purse — $40,000 split evenly between men and woman – may have given some racers a little extra incentive to extend their season.
The future is bright for both U.S. men’s and women’s cycling. That’s according to USA Cycling’s director of athletics Jim Miller, who says there’s enough talent to assure more success by American riders on the road at the top levels of the sport. Miller says there’s plenty of firepower to fill the void left by the retirement of Olympic and world champion Kristin Armstrong on the women’s side as well as a bounty of prospects moving up from the U23 to the pro ranks on the men’s side.
Interbike 2009 is officially over, in the books. We at VeloNews escaped Sin City without injury, and have just a few more tech tidbits and quick looks to share. Look for more detailed reporting on certain items in the months to come as we get to test them out for ourselves.
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Katie Compton (Planet Bike) made it two-for-two on Sunday at the Planet Bike Cup, once again riding Luna’s Katerina Nash and the rest of the women’s field right off her wheel. Belgian Erwin Vervecken (Revor-Baboco-Champion System) came out on top in the men’s race, which doubled as round 2 of the U.S. Gran Prix of Cyclocross. Compton attacked Nash mid-race, going to the front after and drilling it to win by nearly a minute. As in Saturday’s race, Nash hung on for second with teammate Georgia Gould third.
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Spain and Italy have forged a healthy rivalry in the men's world championship road race, with four wins apiece this past decade. But both were left behind to watch on Sunday as Cadel Evans soloed away to claim the latest rainbow jersey on offer. Thanks to Paolo Bettini in 2006 and 2007, and Alessandro Ballan in 2008, Italy has been the team to beat of late. Damiano Cunego, second to Ballan last year, was hoping to make it four straight wins (Mario Cipollini also won for Italy in 2002).
Cadel Evans erased a career of close calls with a daring attack on the final climb to drop a super-star group of riders to win the 2009 world road cycling championships. The Aussie climbed out of the saddle in the closing kilometers of the 259km epic battle to win the most important victory of his career. No one can say Evans doesn’t attack anymore. “This is for all the critics I’ve had this season,” Evans said. “I have seven worlds medals from mountain biking at home, but none of them are gold. People say I never win, but today I won something pretty big.”
The UCI has unveiled a new educational program that will complement its ever-increasing anti-doping arsenal. UCI president Pat McQuaid said more than 14,000 doping controls were conducted across all disciplines in 2009 and said the fight against doping must include prevention as well as detection and enforcement. Dubbed “True Champion or Cheat,” an interactive video course will be required viewing for nearly 1,000 registered professionals and is aimed at prevention and awareness among pros and amateurs alike.
Bob Stapleton, the influential boss of the Columbia-HTC team, says the UCI’s plan to ban race radio is a step backward for cycling. The UCI management committee voted Wednesday to phase out the use of radio communication between riders and sport directors within elite men’s road racing in the coming seasons, a decision that’s quickly drawing the ire of many within the peloton. “I think it’s like driving a car looking in the rear-view mirror,” Stapleton said. “I think the basic premise is wrong. It’s just not taking into account how racing works.”
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For the entire elite women’s race, and half of the men’s, the title sponsor of the Planet Bike Cup looked poised to sweep the top step of both podiums. Held in near summer heat on Saturday at the Angell Park Speedway in the Madison suburb of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, and doubling as the opening weekend of the sixth annual U.S. Gran Prix of Cyclocross, the Planet Bike Cup was looking like a two-fer for the home team until the dream scenario quickly went awry under a rolled tubular tire.
The U23 worlds race is always an unpredictable affair, but French phenomenon Romain Sicard did what just about everyone thought he would. Fresh off winning the Tour de l’Avenir in dominating fashion ahead of a strong U.S. team earlier this month, Sicard surged away from a fractured peloton with two laps to go in the 13-lap, 179.4km course Saturday to win France’s first U23 world title since competition began in 1996.
The cycling future of the Astana team, whose star rider is Tour de France champion Alberto Contador, could be in doubt, UCI president Pat McQuaid said Saturday. Astana, whose ProTour license is currently under review, is hoping to impress the UCI licensing commission to avoid the revocation of the final year of its ProTour status. However, McQuaid said there were several areas of concern.
Kristin Armstrong’s farewell race ended with an exclamation point as she powered into the winning, four-rider move in Saturday’s elite women’s road race. Tatiana Guderzo (Italy) – a bronze medalist in the road in the Beijing Olympic Summer Games – attacked on the final lap and soloed to victory 19 seconds clear of a three-rider chase group featuring Armstrong in the 124km race under cloudy skies in Mendrisio.
In what’s no surprise, the Italian and Spanish teams are leading the odds to win Sunday’s elite men’s world title. Just as they have for the past decade, Italy and Spain bring deep squads with two or three options to win the season’s most important one-day race on the calendar. Leading Sunday for Italy will be last year’s runner-up Damiano Cunego, with defending champion Alessandro Ballan and Filippo Pozzato waiting in the shadows. Spain comes with Alejandro Valverde, with Olympic gold medalist Samuel Sánchez and three-time world champ Óscar Freire ready to step up.
UCI president Pat McQuaid said sport’s international governing body can do nothing to stop Alejandro Valverde from racing the world championships road race on Sunday. Valverde is currently serving a two-year ban in Italy handed down by the country's Olympic Committee (CONI). Despite admitting he believed Valverde was involved in the Operación Puerto doping scandal that erupted in Spain in May 2006, McQuaid said he would not extend that ban worldwide until the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rules on two appeals later this year.
Fabian Cancellara is dreaming of carving a place for himself in the pages of cycling history by becoming the first rider to ever win the world championship in both the road race and time trial in the same year. After dominating Thursday’s world time trial championship, winning his third rainbow jersey in the discipline in four years, the Swiss powerhouse is audaciously proclaiming his intentions of taking aim at the world road title.
With its RZR wheelset, Reynolds has plenty of buzz in its booth at Interbike. But the company’s forthcoming 92.2 rim is equally as remarkable, as the carbon model redefines how a clincher tire mounts to a rim. Paul Lew works as a consultant for Reynolds. In addition to his cycling experience, Lew has built unmanned flying vehicles. His inspiration for the 92.2 came from aerospace designs. “No aircraft wheel uses a hook,” Lew said, referring to the inner lip of a clincher rim that typically holds a clincher tire in place.
The Tour of Ireland will return to a five-day schedule in 2010, organizers announced Friday. The dates for the 2010 edition were confirmed at the UCI Congress in Mendrisio, Switzerland, this week. The dates for the five-day tour are 18th to 22nd August 2010.
Unlike a grand tour or a classic, or any other major annual bike race, the world road championships is the sport’s only prestigious event that has the whole world looking on — and the organizers have only one chance to do it right. That’s because the Union Cycliste International selects a different country (and city) every year to be the host.
Markus Storck has long wanted 2005 Ford Ironman Hawaii Triathlon World Champion Faris Al-Sultan to race on his bikes, and when the sale of Cannondale opened up the opportunity to put his fellow German on a Storck, he quickly got to work. Even while working on prototyping a new electric bike and constructing a new building, Storck came up with the Aero 2. “I got no sleep for four months,” says Storck, “and now I need a vacation.”
Garmin-Slipstream’s Bradley Wiggins has disputed reports that he is looking for ways to get out of the final year of his contract with the American-sponsored team. Responding to interpretations of an earlier BBC report that implied that staying with Garmin-Slipstream is unlikely to boost his hopes of finishing on the Tour de France podium next year, Wiggins said he has no plans to leave his team. “I have a lot of love for Garmin and these stories are not my thoughts on Garmin,” Wiggins said in an email to VeloNews.
We got a first look at a new 2010 DT Swiss wheel line in Germany, at the Eurobike show. Like so many things over there, we ran out of time to have a good look and get the story out. Fortunately, DT Swiss is well supported here in the States with a U.S. office, and they put on a great show here at Interbike as well. DT Swiss’s “Tricon” line includes one road wheelset and one mountain bike wheelset. Tricon technology refers to a complete system of hub, spokes and rim, which are not sold as separate components, only built into a complete wheel.
Rabobank sprinter Theo Bos has signed a two-year contract with the Cervélo TestTeam. The 26-year-old Dutchman and the team made the announcement at the world road championships in Mendrisio, Switzerland. Bos originally made his mark as a track racer, earning five world titles and a silver medal in the matched sprint at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Bos made the move to road racing in 2009, winning several events including the Ronde van Noord-Holland and the Omloop der Kempen.
Running unopposed, UCI president Pat McQuaid was reelected to another four-year term Friday following a UCI congress held in conjunction with the world road race championships. The 60-year-old Irishman was the only candidate for the post, which he took over from Dutchman Hein Verbruggen in 2005. A former professional racer in the 1970s, McQuaid has also worked as a cycling coach, race organizer and president of Ireland's national federation. During his tenure McQuaid has worked hard to help globalize the sport, especially in Asia, the Americas and Oceania.
Australian Cadel Evans said he has virtually no chance of winning cycling's coveted rainbow jersey on home soil next year when the world road race championships are held in Geelong. Evans, who finished runner-up in the Tour de France in 2007 and 2008, is among a handful of contenders looking to end Spain and Italy's domination of the competition's road race here on Sunday. And he feels the profile of the 13.8km circuit that the peloton will race 19 times for a total distance of 262.2km suits his climbing talents better than the 2010 course.
Vuelta a España stage-winner Ryder Hesjedal has agreed to stay with Garmin-Slipstream through the 2011 season. “I’ve signed to stay with the team for two more years. The team has been pleased with me and I am very happy with the team,” Hesjedal told VeloNews. “It was pretty simple. We were always on the same page. We were in agreement early in the year to work out an agreement.”
Eric Barlevav won the final race of the USA Crits series Thursday night in Las Vegas, with his Mountain Khakis teammate Mark Hekman winning the field sprint behind to claim the series title. To put the cherry on top, Mountain Khakis won the team overall prize for the 2009 USA Crits. “It’s huge to win here,” said Barlevav. “USA Crits was definitely a big goal for our team. We tried to win all the races, and we tried to win the overall, so this is great for us.”
Kona wanted what all full-suspension bike manufacturers want in a trailbike, a platform that does everything well. But the solution isn't always so simple.
With hundreds of brands crammed into the Sands Convention Center, there are plenty of products — ranging from the humbug to the showstopper, and from the truly helpful to the truly useless. We found three companies with some innovative improvements to current standards and solutions to common problems. Take a look.
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Riding the momentum of Kristin Armstrong’s gold-medal performance at Wednesdays’ world time trial championship, the U.S. women’s road team is hoping to extract a little more hardware out of the UCI world road championship on Saturday.
“Thirty seconds!” yells the UCI official and instantaneously you see the fidgeting of fingers on hoods and legs clipped into pedals. In cyclocross, the sprint is at the beginning of the race, rarely the end. So racers get their bodies ready for that first shock to their systems from the word go. Legs bouncing all around in fast-twitch anticipation of the gun, eyes focused forward or on the wheel or course in front of them, heart rates instinctively racing without even having pedaled a stroke.
It was oh-so-close for Tom Zirbel in the elite men’s world time trial championship Thursday, who rode to an impressive fourth place against the best chrono-men in the world. The 30-year-old had a front-row seat in his first European race of his career to grab the “hot seat” in the 49.8km time trial after posting a time of 1:00:42.86 (49.214kph). That blazing pace stood for nearly three hours as rider after rider failed to knock him down.
Maybe Britain’s David Millar was right in saying that he’d “rather race for the win in the road race than second in the time trial" at the world championships this week in Mendrisio, Switzerland. Like Millar, most observers figured that Fabian Cancellara was a shoo-in to win the world time trial title on his home turf. And it wasn’t even a contest. Cancellara earned his third world time trial champion’s jersey, blazing through three laps on a 16.6km circuit near Mendrisio in just 57:55.
Kristin Armstrong put an exclamation point on the final week of her racing career with an emphatic victory in Wednesday’s elite women’s time trial. The Olympic champion whipped old foes and a new generation of faces by nearly one minute to retire with the rainbow jersey. But she’s not done yet. Armstrong will compete in Saturday’s road race, promising an exciting finish to her elite career. VeloNews European correspondent Andrew Hood caught up with Armstrong following her emotional victory:
Kristin Armstrong won her second world time trial title on Wednesday. Casey Gibson took a closer look at the bike she used to get another rainbow jersey.
The UCI management committee, meeting at the world championships in Switzerland, has voted to phase out the use of two-way radios in all aspects of road racing. Accepting a UCI road commission recommendation, committee members agreed to broaden a ban that already applies to junior and under-23 categories to all others, including the top tier of professional riders.
The women's podium repeated its 2008 order at CrossVegas Wednesday evening, as thousands of spectators saw a display of raw power and consistency. Later, under the lights at a soccer complex on the outskirts of the city, new faces emerged from the tactical men's race, frustrating an elite group of chasers. In both races, domestic riders prevailed against European challengers in this city that is so uniquely — if sometimes regrettably — American.
The doors of the Sands Expo and Convention Center opened on Wednesday, kicking off the 2009 Interbike trade show in Las Vegas. Our tech crew spent most of the day wandering the aisles intent upon finding new items that might catch the interest of VeloNews readers. But while new bikes, new wheels and other high-end components are the big draw, tech writer Lennard Zinn went looking for things that have a more utilitarian purpose, many of which can be used on a daily commute or training ride.
The rumor that Interbike 2009 might be smaller than in years past didn’t seem to hold up on opening day — there was quite a crowd queued up at 8:45 a.m. for the show's 9 a.m. opening at the Sands Expo and Convention Center, and we’re seeing plenty of cool new products in every category.