Repeating the top of the leader sheet from the previous year, 30-year-old Anthony Colby and 46-year-old Marti Shea won Newton’s Revenge, a 7.6-mile bike race to the summit of Mt. Washington, the highest mountain in the northeastern United States.
After a brief foray into Spain and Andorra, the Tour de France has returned home. Photographer Casey Gibson was there for stage 8.
Top Tour de France teams will protest plans to ban radio contact between riders and their team managers on two of next week's stages. Johan Bruyneel, the team manager of Astana which includes yellow jersey favorites Alberto Contador, Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer, has described the decision as "unjustified and unacceptable". Astana is one of 14 teams who have already signed a petition against radio silence for stages 10 and 13 and will submit it later Saturday.
Stage 7 between Barcelona and Arcalis in Andorra was the first major test of the Tour de France, and would ultimately show who had arrived in Spain prepared to fight to the end in Paris. Even though there are still many more category 1 and hors category climbs to be raced in this year’s Tour, Arcalis was the first major obstacle.
As you probably know, I have never raced in the Tour de France, but I think it’s a safe bet to say Friday’s final Breck Epic stage is kind of like rolling into Paris along the Champs-Élysées after many hard days of racing.
Until reaching Barcelona and heading for the Pyrénées, the first six days of the Tour de France were held in hot weather. Road races in the heat present challenges for riders and staff in terms of hydration and electrolyte supplementation. But because “warming up” for the race usually happens in the first few kilometers, overheating isn’t a factor.
Caisse d'Epargne's Luis Leon Sanchez won Saturday's second day in the Pyrenees, a 176-km romp from Andora back into France for the start of the race's second week. Sanchez was part of a nearly day-long break that shook down to just four men rolling into Saint Girons. He smartly monitored a late attack by Ag2r's Vladimir Efimkin and benefited from Sandy Casar's too-early jump to take a solid win less than two minutes ahead of the main field.
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Alberto Contador just couldn’t help himself on the beyond-category steeps of the Arcalis summit high in the Pyrénées in Friday’s seventh stage. The 26-year-old is a natural born climber and, when he sees a road turn uphill, he’s going to do one thing: attack, even if that means attacking Astana teammate Lance Armstrong and defying team orders. “There were no instructions from the car (to attack),” said Astana team boss Johan Bruyneel. “We wanted to try to maintain our collective strength and wait for the attacks to come. Those attacks didn’t come.”
Just five teams are still in contention to deliver the winner of this excruciatingly tense 96th Tour de France. And these five do not include Ag2r-La Mondiale, the French team of the new race leader Rinaldo Nocentini. He was far from being the strongest man in Friday’s successful long-shot breakaway and he will certainly fall back into the ranks on Saturday.
After a spectacular morning start in downtown Barcelona, the Tour de France moved into the even more spectacular Pyrenees. Casey Gibson was there to follow all of the action
Two Tour de France rookies on opposite ends of their careers hogged the spotlight Friday in the Pyrénées. While the GC favorites marked each other up the Tour’s first of three summit finishes, Brice Feillu and Rinaldo Nocentini took full advantage of the opportunity. Feillu, 23, best-known as the younger brother of sprinter Romain Feillu, attacked out of a nine-man breakaway to win France’s second stage in three days while Nocentini, 31, an Italian roulleur familiar to American fans for his stage victory during this year’s Tour of California, snagged the yellow jersey.
It usually takes a highly-publicized doping scandal to bring Tour de France chief Christian Prudhomme to the brink of tears. But on Friday it was 24-year-old debutant Brice Feillu, giving the hosts their second stage victory of the race, who brought the emotions flooding out after an impressive ride to victory on the first day in the mountains. Feillu, a specialist climber who rides for Agritubel with his brother Romain, took his chance by attacking his small group of breakaway companions inside the final 6km of the 10.1km climb to Arcalis.
Agritubel’s Brice Feillu attacked his daylong breakaway companions to a stage win atop the hors catégorie Andorre Arcalis, as Astana’s Alberto Contador rocketed away from the main group to put time into his rivals for the overall. Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r), who joined Feillu in the day’s big breakaway, held on to finish in between Feillu and Contador to take the yellow jersey.
#ad-in-article {display: none;}New Hampshire's Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb has long enjoyed the reputation as the toughest hour (or two) on two wheels. The race to the top of "The Rockpile," rising an unrelenting 4,720 feet in 7.6 miles, with an average grade of 12 percent and some hellish sections as steep as 22 percent, is the ultimate test of legs, lungs and willpower.
Now, double that effort. Better yet, how about tackling nine races, in four different Northeast states, totaling 27,000 feet of climbing?
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A soaked but otherwise happy Cadel Evans indicated he is ready to meet his Tour de France rivals head on when the race heads for its first summit finish in the Pyrenees on Friday. However Australia's two-time runner-up faces a bigger test than the slippery roads which led the peloton from Girona to Barcelona on Thursday, on which compatriot Michael Rogers almost saw his Tour end prematurely. Evans had joined the frontrunners in pursuit of Garmin-Slipstream's David Millar, who was caught inside two kilometers, having attacked solo a three-man breakaway with 29km to race.
Stage 5 of the Tour de France was another seaside route along the French coast with brutal crosswinds. However, unlike stage 3, Team Saxo Bank and Chris Anker Sorensen were prepared and present at the front of the race when it counted. The final 50 miles of the stage were raced at full throttle and Chris set new personal-best Tour de France power records to prove it.
As part of a $430 million budget-reduction plan, the State of Missouri has frozen $1.5 million slated for the Sept. 7-13 Tour of Missouri. Race officials were notified Thursday of the financial situation, which if not remedied would cancel this year’s event. “We are very surprised and shocked that this has happened,” said Chris Aronholt, managing partner of Medalist Sports, which runs the Tour of Missouri. “We have a signed contract. This is the third year of a three-year commitment.”
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Germany's Tony Martin is hoping toemulate compatriot Jan Ullrich by wearing the Tour de France's white jersey all the way to Paris as he prepares to defend it through the Pyrenees this weekend. The 24-year-old Columbia rider has held the prize for the best placed U25 rider since the end of Monday's third stage, and finished Thursday's 181.5km race into Barcelona with the shirt still on his back. Martin, whose parents fled Hungary in 1989 after the fall of the Iron Curtain and settled in the former East German city of Cottbus, has spent the
And it all comes down to Arcalis. After months of speculation, mind-games and maneuvering, the much-anticipated showdown between Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador will finally unfold on the beyond-category steeps of the Arcalis summit in the principality of Andorra. Or will it? It’s all but impossible to read the tea leaves on what will happen in Friday’s 224km seventh stage.
There have been very few “down” moments in this 96th Tour de France. All of the first six stages have thrown different challenges at the 180 starters, and it’s a testament to today’s breed of pro cyclists that only three of them have so far dropped out — and all due to crashes.
It should come as a surprise to no one that Garmin-Slipstream’s David Millar went out on the attack on Thursday’s stage from Girona to Barcelona.
Photographer Casey Gibson was there when the Tour de France left Girona and at the finish when Cervélo’s Thor Hushovd takes a big win in Barcelona, capital city of Spain's Catalonia region.
Thor Hushovd’s sprint victory up Montjuic gave a huge boost to the start-up Cervélo TestTeam just as the continental squad prepares to lead defending champion Carlos Sastre into the Pyrénées starting with Friday’s stage to Arcalis. The sprinting Viking out-kicked three-time world champion Oscar Freire to claim his seventh career Tour stage win and deliver the Canadian-sponsored continental team a prestigious victory in its first-ever Tour de France.
Rabobank's Denis Menchov saw his yellow jersey hopes all but evaporate in the rain of Barcelona where he ended the sixth stage of the Tour de France nearly five minutes in arrears. Menchov, the recent Giro d'Italia champion who began this year's Tour as a contender, is now 4:54 behind race leader Fabian Cancellara after Thursday's 181.5km crash-marred ride to Barcelona. Cancellara's grip on the yellow jersey could loosen on Friday's seventh stage which heads up to Andorra in the Pyrenees, where Lance Armstrong, only 0.22secs behind in second place, could be the man to replace him.
Australian Michael Rogers was among the big name riders who crashed on the rain-hit sixth stage of the Tour de France on Thursday. Rogers, riding for the Columbia team, appeared to take down Cervelo sprinter Heinrich Haussler and American David Zabriskie of Garmin as the peloton negotiated a roundabout. The Australian, who finished ninth overall in 2006 but had to abandon after a serious crash on the eighth stage in 2007, was later taken to hospital for X-rays complaining of a sore elbow.
Tour stages tend to follow a pretty established routine at the start. Riders arrive in team busses, which park in a fenced-off paddock with direct access to the start line. Bikes, both those that will be used in the race and spares, arrive on the roof racks of team cars. There are usually four or five team vehicles in total. The mechanics who ride in the team cars with spare wheels are on hand at the start, but the trucks with most of the spare parts, wheels, and shop supplies drive directly to the team hotel at the stage finish.
On a day of crashes, wet roads and rolling climbs, Cervélo’s Thor Hushovd powered his way to a sprint win ahead of three-time world champion Oscar Freire (Rabobank). Garmin-Slipstream’s David Millar survived from an early breakaway until the final kilometer, where the lanky time trialist was reeled in as the course kicked sharply upwards. Although not a categorized climb, the pitch hit 6.6 percent before easing off near the finish, and was enough to shake points leader Mark Cavendish (Columbia-HTC) from his position near the front.
Columbia-HTC's Judith Arndt won stage 6 of the GiroDonne (the women's Giro d'Italia) on Thursday, the team's third stage win so far. Cervelo TestTeam's Claudia Hausler took the overall lead, but the win for Arndt moved her into second and teammate Mara Abbot is now in third.
So, for the last few days I have been blabbing on and on about how much fun the Breck Epic is and how great the courses are, right? Well, today was a different story. Today’s loop was long and hard. There were no smiles while winding through smooth, twisty singletrack like days prior. Instead I was grinding my teeth and begging for mercy.
Top professional and amateur men’s and women’s teams will take to the streets of West Chester, PA for the 5th Annual Iron Hill Twilight Criterium on July 11, 2009, the second event on the USA CRITS National Series calendar. In attendance will be last year's winner, Mark Hekman, riding for Team Mountain Khakis. The 2009 season for this professional bassoonist turned pro cyclists has been spectacular, with top 5 finishes at Tulsa Tough and the Kelly Cup, as well as a 2nd place finish at the Athens Twilight Criterium. The illusive win, however, has escaped him thus far.
Australian Michael Rogers will head into the sixth stage of the Tour de France on Thursday fully expecting the battle for the yellow jersey to soon move up a gear. But while Columbia's second-in-command has for now played down his own chances of challenging for the yellow jersey, he does not expect Lance Armstrong's Astana team to try and distance their main rivals just yet. "Of course they're in an ideal position right now. They have cards to play but I don't think they'll play them until the later half of the second week," Rogers told AFP on Wednesday.
Mark Cavendish's domination of the Tour de France bunch sprints is likely set to come to an end, temporarily at least, on the race's sixth stage which ends at Barcelona's Olympic stadium on Thursday. A day before the first summit finish of the race at Arcalis in Andorra, the Tour heads over more challenging undulating terrain, with an uphill finish likely tempting the peloton's 'punchers.'
Reigning Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre has put a positive spin on Cervelo's chances of defending his yellow jersey, claiming they would now employ a "happy, relaxed" approach. Sastre was one of several Tour contenders who on Tuesday's team time trial lost time to the Astana team of Lance Armstrong, who is now second overall just 0.22secs behind race leader Fabian Cancellara. Sastre's team finished a respectable eighth in the fourth stage race against the clock and, compared to fellow challengers Cadel Evans and Denis Menchov, Sastre's Cervelo team managed to limit their losses.
Cadel Evans admitted Wednesday he is still getting used to being so far behind in the race for the Tour de France yellow jersey before the race's crucia mountains stages have even started. Australia's two-time runner-up stayed out of trouble on Wednesday's tricky and wind-hit stage from Cap d'Agde to Perpignan, in which Silence teammate Matthew Lloyd escaped, unhurt, from a spill mid-race. Evans now goes into Thursday's sixth stage from Gerona to Barecelona in Spain 2:59 down on race leader Fabian Cancellara and second-placed Lance Armstrong.
Fabian Cancellara’s yellow jersey might be hanging by a thread, but it’s going to take more than a snip of scissors to take it away from him. Despite leading Lance Armstrong by just 0.22 seconds, Cancellara says that margin will be plenty to fend off the seven-time champion on the hilltop finish atop Montjuic overlooking Barcelona in Thursday’s stage 6.
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Sharp eyes might have noticed unfamiliar helmets on the heads of certain riders in Tuesday’s team time trial. At the start line, we spotted riders from the Astana and Garmin teams with new Giro-branded helmets. The Saxo Bank team, which is sponsored by Bell, also had new helmets, including a yellow one for Fabian Cancellara to match his leader’s jersey. Reportedly, other teams sponsored by Giro (including Rabobank and Caisse d’Epargne) are also wearing this new helmet in time trials.
Julian Dean says it’s only a matter of time before Tyler Farrar wins a stage at the Tour de France. The New Zealand veteran sprinter said Farrar might just be the man who gets past dominant sprinter Mark Cavendish. “I think he can win a stage at the Tour,” Dean said after Wednesday’s stage. “It won’t be easy. We just started working together at the Giro, but if we get our timing right, we can win.”
Covering a 200km stage across the wind-blown reaches of southern France means that some days you have to get lucky to get the right shot. Photographer Casey Gibson seemed to have a good day today.
Columba-HTC's Mark Cavendish tightened his grip on the Tour de France green jersey on Wednesday despite losing out on the chance to claim a third stage victory on this year's race. Cavendish, who stylishly won stages 2 and 3 from bunch sprints to take his tally on the race to six in three participations, was among those who fell victim to a vicious headwind as the peloton chased down an earlier breakaway.
Just a day after publicly apologizing for comments he made about the 2008 Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong told Carlos Sastre face-to-face he was sorry. On Wednesday, as Sastre rolled through the peloton during the neutral start congratulating members of the Astana team on their team time trial victory, Armstrong saddled up alongside. According to Sastre, the seven-time Tour champ told him he was sorry that he said the 2008 Tour was “a joke.”
The teams of Tour de France contenders Cadel Evans and Denis Menchov suffered further setbacks during the race's fifth stage on Wednesday. On the descent of the Cote de Treilles as the peloton upped the pace in chase of a six-man breakaway, 23-year-old Dutchman Robert Gesink crashed and picked up injuries to his wrist and left leg. He was later diagnosed with a fractured wrist and pulled out of the race by his Rabobank team, who have been left reeling with the relative demise of their yellow jersey contender Menchov.
Frenchman Thomas Voeckler scored a popular stage victory Wednesday in the fifth stage of the 96th Tour de France, a 196.5-kilometer (122-mile) race from Le Cap d’Agde to Perpignan. Voeckler (BBox Bouygues Telecom) was away in a six-man break for more than 180 kilometers, attacking the other five with about five kilometers to go and riding into Perpignan alone, with the chasing peloton in sight behind him at the finish line.
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Wow, what an exciting day of racing. There are simply no easy days in the Tour de France. On paper, Monday's stage 3 appeared to be a fairly routine flat stage for the sprinters, but it ended up being a detrimental day for some of the Tour’s overall favorites.
Lance Armstrong has an eighth Tour de France crown within his sights thanks to Astana’s domination in Tuesday’s team time trial, but he admitted that it won’t be easy. After barnstorming to seven straight Tour victories before retiring in 2005, Armstrong acknowledged Tuesday that trying to win for an unprecedented eighth time is more difficult than he expected.
Until the very final meter of Tuesday’s 39km team time trial in Montpellier it looked as though Lance Armstrong was going to grab the yellow jersey from Fabian Cancellara. That he didn’t take it may have disappointed those Armstrong fans looking for a Hollywood ending to a day that had already delivered so much. But those who support the Texan should be thrilled that his Astana team won the stage — four years after Armstrong last led a Tour team to a TTT victory — before even thinking about his not taking the jersey.
Fabian Cancellara held on to the yellow jersey by the slimmest of margins on Tuesday. Photographer Casey B. Gibson was there to capture the moment ... and a few more.
Alberto Contador was all smiles at the finish line in Montpellier after Astana’s dramatic team time trial win. And why not? The 2007 Tour champ had plenty of reason to be happy. The team not only won the stage, but Contador profits from the major time gaps opened up to rivals even before the race turns into the Pyrénées. “I have every reason to be happy. We took some time on our rivals, riders like Evans, Sastre, Menchov and the Schleck brothers,” Contador said. “Things are looking pretty good for us on the GC.”
Team Astana blazed through the team time trial to win stage 4. Astana came across the line 40 seconds ahead of the Saxo Bank squad of race leader Fabian Cancellara — the exact margin by which Cancellara led Lance Armstrong on general classification. After some careful math by race officials, Cancellara now holds the yellow jersey by a fraction of a second over Armstrong. Garmin-Slipstream finished second on the day, 18 seconds down.
When Specialized began making the bikes for Tom Boonen, he was not exactly complimentary about their stiffness. The company’s engineers worked hard to get him what he wanted, and when they delivered the S-Works Tarmac SL2 to the Quick Step team, the riders gave it a thumbs-up. Nonetheless, they decided for 2010 to again re-engineer the Tarmac from the ground up. Knowing that the SL2 was already a home run made the goals for the Tarmac SL3 different.
The positive test of German cyclist Stefan Schumacher for EPO Cera during last year's Olympic Games has been confirmed by the B sample, his lawyer Michael Lehner said on Tuesday. The 27-year-old rider, however, continues to protest his innocence and is determined to clear his name. Lehner said they are contesting in particular the circumstances under which the International Olympic Committee (IOC) analysed the B sample in a laboratory of the French anti-doping agency (AFLD).
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Bissell's Tom Zirbel, one of the very best domestic time trialists, is showing he is well-rounded enough to lead the National Racing Calendar, thanks to recent top performances in stage races.
For a working journalist, the Tour de France isn't exactly a day at the beach, even when it finishes at one. But when race security supplies a few extra obstacles, our man Casey B. Gibson manages to clear them with ease, two-ton camera bag and all. Here's what he shot.
Bob Stapleton was already in a good mood Monday morning before the start of the third stage of the 2009 Tour de France at Marseille’s old harbor. The president of Columbia-HTC was enjoying the warm afterglow of Mark Cavendish’s explosive victory in stage 2 and Andre Greipel’s win at the Tour of Austria.
Fabian Cancellara saved his yellow jersey Monday by slipping into the stage-breaking attack powered by the entire Columbia-HTC team. The Saxo Bank rider was the only one from his favored team to be in the decisive, 28-man breakaway featuring Lance Armstrong (Astana) but not second-place rider Alberto Contador. Cancellara came across the line sixth and actually widened his lead, from 19 seconds over Contador to 33 seconds over Tony Martin (Columbia-HTC), with Armstrong climbing to third at 40 seconds back.
Former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich is to be the subject of a disciplinary procedure by the Swiss anti-doping commission, according to Tuesday's edition of the German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ). Gerhard Walter, president of the Swiss Olympic Committee's disciplinary anti-doping commission, told the paper that they had been asked to open an inquiry. "I can confirm that we have received a request from the Swiss Antidoping Foundation (ADS) and for that reason we have launched a disciplinary procedure," said Walter.
George Hincapie should know. He called Monday’s amazing collective performance by his Columbia-HTC team as the greatest he’d been associated with. And that’s saying something when you consider that the American veteran was on all seven of Lance Armstrong’s winning Tour de France campaigns.
Naysayers will be quick to point out that Lance Armstrong’s presence in and Alberto Contador’s absence from Monday’s decisive 28-man breakaway is all the proof they need that the Texan is riding against the Spaniard in the 2009 Tour de France. Calmer heads might suggest that experience ruled the day when Armstrong followed Columbia-HTC into the biting crosswinds across France’s Camargue and bounced from 10th to third overall, now 40 seconds behind overnight leader Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank). Armstrong insists he was just riding smart.
Lance Armstrong's Astana team was fined on Monday after failing to sign on within the specified time at the start of the third stage of the Tour de France. Heavy traffic in Marseille city centre meant Astana broke the organizers' rule that teams must register for the stage at least 20 minutes before the start of the race. The Kazakhstan-backed cycling team have been fined 65 euros for the infringement. "How typical that this team were late. It is disrespectful to the public who came here just to see Armstrong," said race director Jean-Francois Pescheux.
Mark Cavendish (Columbia-HTC) won his second consecutive stage of the Tour de France on Monday as a late break of two dozen riders — Astana’s Lance Armstrong among them — stole a march on the dozing peloton in a crosswind through the Camargue. Armstrong, race leader Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) and the entire Columbia team made a split with some two-dozen kilometers to race that left defending champion Carlos Sastre (Cervélo TestTeam), Alberto Contador (Astana), Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) and the rest of the contenders fruitlessly chasing through ever-changing crosswinds.
Zach Bell (Kelly Benefit Strategies) and Evelyn Stevens (Team Lip Smacker) won the men’s and women’s final general classification at the 50th Annual Fitchburg Longsjo Classic NRC stage race on Sunday. Stevens, a 26-year old New York City rider who only started racing bikes last July, finished 20 seconds ahead of second-place Alison Powers (Team Type 1) and 23 second in advance of third place Jeannie Longo (Vitall Plus).
Katusha's Danilo Napolitano hit back Monday at allegations that his race tactics prevented team Cervelo from pulling off a sprint coup on the second stage of the Tour de France. Cervelo's Brett Lancaster, the main lead-out man for the team's Norwegian sprinter Thor Hushovd, was left frustrated and angry Sunday with what he called the "amateur' racing of Katusha sprinter Napolitano. "We got Thor right up there and then typical Napolitano just smashing people like he's in an amateur bloody under-19 race. It's just disgraceful," Lancaster told AFP. "The guy needs to pull his head in."
Quick Step rider Jurgen van de Walle on Monday became the first cyclist to withdraw from the 2009 Tour de France after suffering a broken collarbone on the second stage. The 32-year-old was involved in a crash just under two kilometers from the finish of Sunday's second, 187km-long stage between Monaco and Brignoles which left him with the broken collarbone and a damaged lung. The Belgian finished the stage, but was taken straight to hospital in Marseille where he was being kept under observation.
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Belgium's Tom Boonen said Sunday he was more concerned about staying on his bike than sprinting for victory after a crash just before the finish of the second stage of the Tour de France. A right-hand bend just under 2km before the end of the 187km stage between Monaco and Brignoles caused confusion in the peloton, causing some riders to crash and forcing the Quick Step sprinter to ride around the pileup.
Tyler Farrar stuck another feather in his sprint cap on Sunday by finishing an impressive second on his first real Tour de France debut. The Tour de France clicked into action on Saturday when Olympic champion Fabian Cancellara grabbed the race's yellow jersey when he won the opening stage time trial in Monaco. But for sprinters like Farrar, who as an American is a rare breed in his craft, Sunday's hot and sweaty 187 km ride from Monaco to here was the real start of the three-week epic.
The road back to his second Tour de France was different for Ryder Hesjedal this year. While most of his Tour-bound teammates followed the successful blueprint from 2008 and raced the Giro d’Italia in May, Garmin-Slipstream brass put the brakes on the tall Canadian and told him to rest instead of race.
Watching Mark Cavendish totally dominate the other sprinters at Sunday’s stage 2 of the 96th Tour de France set me thinking about the first time I saw him race. It was in early 2005 at the world track championships in Los Angeles, when he was only 19.
U.S.-based photographer Casey B. Gibson has an eye for more than just bike race action. He specializes in capturing the roadside characters and scenes that make the Tour de France special. He will be covering every day of the 2009 Tour de France. Today we present a gallery of his best stage 2 shots. Click here to see his stage 1 gallery.
As has become almost customary for those riders fortunate enough to earn the Tour de France’s yellow jersey, Fabian Cancellara also earned a yellow bicycle from his sponsors. Specialized surprised him with the new Tarmac SL3 about two hours before Sunday's stage. In addition to the yellow frameset, freshly assembled with a custom, yellow-highlighted SRAM Red gruppo and yellow-decaled Zipp 404 Zed Tech wheels, Cancellara sported a yellow Bell helmet to complete the ensemble.