BH Bikes USA president and CEO Chris Cocalis stopped by the VeloNews office this week to show the new BH G5 frame and fork, which will be debuted at the Tour de France by Team AG2R-LaMondial this weekend. If the G5 bike is any predictor of the team’s pending performance, expect AG2R riders to be climbing and sprinting to victories left and right.
The Cervélo TestTeam has received UCI permission to reverse the colors on its nearly all-black kit in time to use a largely white version at this year’s Tour de France. The team has proposed changing its colors so that the black and white portions of the jersey are reversed.
Tom Boonen's bid to overturn a bar him from competing in the Tour de France has hit another snag with the decision by a French court not to hear his case. The former world road race champion from Belgium was barred from the Tour by its organizers Amaury Sports Organisation (ASO) following his positive test for cocaine in April, even though the test was taken outside the sporting calendar.
The 2009 Tour de France hasn’t even started yet, but it’s already clear what the main story line will be. Come the grand tour’s crucial stages, who will be Astana’s team leader? Will it be pre-race favorite, 2007 Tour champion, and the widely regarded best stage racer in the world right now, Alberto Contador? Or will seven-time Tour winner and worldwide sports icon Lance Armstrong get the nod? VeloNews.com doesn’t have the answer just yet, but we do have an exclusive interview with Armstrong where he addresses this weighty topic.
Fabian Cancellara’s time trial bike time trial bike that he raced in the Tour de Romandie, the Giro d’Italia, and the Tour de Suisse now has a name: The Shiv. Unlike shivs used in prison riots, this is hardly an improvised weapon slapped together out of found items. Engineers have thought out every detail on this bike and tested and simulated it for its contribution to the bike’s overall aerodynamic efficiency, stiffness, and strength. And the materials and the processes required to make it are extremely expensive.
Tyler Farrar will be something of an oddity when he lines up Saturday for his Tour de France debut – an American sprinter. For the first time in several years, since Fred Rodriguez lined up at Mapei and later at Silence-Lotto, an American will have a legitimate shot at winning a bunch sprint in the Tour. And unlike Rodriguez, who rode his last Tours in support of Robbie McEwen, Farrar will see strong support from his Garmin-Slipstream teammates. Veteran lead-out man Julian Dean will be Farrar’s guide through the high-speed duel of nerves and speed.
Journalists and cycling-industry representatives descended upon the quiet resort town of Sun Valley, Idaho, last week for Press Camp, a three-day event that included rapid-fire, one-on-one meetings each morning, followed by afternoon test rides and demos. It was a lot of information to absorb in just three days — but we’re finally catching up and passing the word along to you.
Team sport directors are rallying their opposition to plans to ban race radio during two stages during the upcoming Tour de France. Representatives from some of the top teams Monday criticized efforts by Tour officials to ban the use of earpieces and radio links between sport directors and racers during two stages at this year’s race, calling the measure “outdated and inappropriate.”
With the addition of a mobile phone company co-sponsor, Team Columbia is now Columbia-HTC. Team owner Bob Stapleton announced the new sponsor and his squad’s Tour de France lineup Monday. Mark Cavendish, who won four stages in the 2008 Tour, will be joined by Michael Rogers, Kim Kirchen, George Hincapie, Tony Martin, Maxime Monfort, Mark Renshaw, Bernie Eisel and Bert Grabsch at the start of the 2009 Tour in Monaco on Saturday. Rogers, Kirchen and Monfort are the team’s GC hopes, with world time trial champion Grabsch a clear favorite for the individual events.
Rock Racing’s Rahsaan Bahati won his third consecutive Manhattan Beach Grand Prix on Sunday. Colavita Sutter-Home p/b Cooking Light rider Lucas Sebastian Haedo took second in the seaside Southern California NRC criterium while Ken Hanson of Team Type 1 placed third. In the women's race, 16-year old Proman Hit Squad rider Coryn Rivera took the win after riding a smart race and outkicking the competition out of the final turn.
Quick Step has eight of its nine riders ready for the Tour de France, but the Belgian team is waiting to learn the fate of Tom Boonen. Boonen’s immediate future lies in the hands of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which is expected to decide Tuesday if the recently crowned Belgian national champion can start the Tour.
The analysis of the “B” sample of Katusha's Christian Pfannberger confirmed the presence of the banned blood booster EPO, Austrian anti-doping officials said Monday. The 29-year-old Pfannberger tested positive for EPO in an out-of-competition test March 19. The counter-analysis confirmed the result and now Pfannberger will face a disciplinary process at NADA, the Austrian anti-doping agency. The two-time Austrian national champion was suspended by his Katusha team when news of the EPO positive broke last month.
With Damiano Cunego giving the Tour de France a skip to prepare for the world championships, Lampre-NGC will instead focus on trying to win stages and leave the fight for the GC to the other teams. The Italian team brings a nine-man squad full of stage-hunters, with the lone exception of veteran Marzio Bruseghin, who will do what he can to try to finish among the top 10 overall. The improving condition of reigning world champion Alessandro Ballan, who missed the spring classics with poor health, gives Lampre a shot to fight for a stage in the breakaways and transition stages.
French veteran Christophe Moreau will headline Agritubel in what’s expected to be his final Tour de France. The 38-year-old Moreau will anchor an Agritubel team that brings a mix of youth and experience that will be on the hunt for stage victories and perhaps a spell in one of the jersey for Moreau’s exit.
Tom Boonen (Quick Step), whose participation in the next Tour de France may depend on a court order, won the Belgian road cycling championships on Sunday. The 28-year-old outsprinted Philippe Gilbert and Kristof Goddart to claim his first national title as an elite on an undulating 234km course that some felt would not favor the big rider’s strengths. "Philippe was the strongest today,” said Boonen. “I had no legs but I raced with my head. I am especially happy for my team, which did a great job.”
Brazilian Daniela Figueiredo Genovesi on Sunday became the first solo woman to finish the Race Across America in several years, taking the victory by some 10 hours over U.S. rider Janet Christiansen. Genovesi covered the the 3,021 miles from Oceanside, California, to Annapolis, Maryland, in 11 days, 17 hours and eight minutes. “I don’t know the words to say how I feel,” she said. “So happy, so happy.”
The Cannondale people know a good thing when they see it, and hosting their international sales meeting and product release in Park City, Utah, is one of them. Setting up shop in the small ski town and mountain bike mecca gives Cannondale dealers and the press a chance to try out some of the company's latest products. This year we've gotten a look at Cannondale’s 2010 line, including top-end models of the cross country Scalpel, the 7900-equipped CAAD9 road bike and the race-ready CAAD9 cyclocross bike, complete with tubulars.
It’s almost July and you know what that means – it’s time to bet on the Tour de France. Bookies across Europe ? where betting on the Tour and other cycling events is quite popular ? have anointed their favorite. Alberto Contador leads the odds across all the major European betting houses, outstripping seven-time Tour champ Lance Armstrong and defending champion Carlos Sastre. In fact, Contador is so heavily favored by the bookies, that it would be hard to make much money on the Spanish climber.
Note: This interview was conducted several days before Cervélo TestTeam announced its 2009 Tour de France roster, which did not include Simon Gerrans. The Aussie was very surprised, writing on Twitter, “I’m still digesting the news. I’m pretty disappointed.”
Riccardo Riccò – Italy’s bad boy of racing – already has a team for next season when his 20-month ban for doping ends in 2010. Italian second division team Ceramica Flaminia has confirmed it has signed Riccò to a two-year contract and is expected to officially announce the news in a press conference this weekend.
Australian Cadel Evans has been given scope for a more promising tilt at the Tour de France yellow jersey with a reinforced team for the July 4-26 event. Silence-Lotto on Friday named the two-time runner-up as team leader, with his compatriot Matthew Lloyd joining Belgian Jurgen Van den Broeck and Dutchman Thomas Dekker on duties of helping Evans in the mountain stages. Germany's Sebastian Lang, who has recovered from a crash at the Dauphine Libere stage race last week, is also included.
Europe is the middle of national championship week, with most nations holding their respective time trial races Thursday and Friday ahead of road racing action this weekend.
Here’s a wrap-up of the some of the main events:
Spain: Contador
Alberto Contador (Astana) confirmed his favorite status for the upcoming Tour de France as he won the Spanish national time trial title Friday in Cantabria in northern Spain.
Former world road champion Zinaida Stahurskaia was killed Thursday in a training accident after being hit by a car. She was 38. Officials from the Interior ministry in Belorussia confirmed her death Friday. Stahurskaia won the 2000 world title and the 2002 women’s Tour de France, but saw her legacy tainted when she served a two-year racing ban in 2006.
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A short-term agreement between the UCI and USA Cycling has made room for Team BMC, the only American UCI-registered Pro Continental team, to field full squads at national-level stage races for the remainder of the season. The Swiss-American team will now be allowed to field a full team at the Fitchburg-Longsjo Classic, the Cascade Classic, the Tour of Elk Grove and the Tour of Utah. All are part of USA Cycling’s National Racing Calendar series.
“Press Camp” is a new event for the cycling industry. Positioned somewhere between Interbike and the elaborate, expensive, private media launches by the biggest brands in cycling, it’s an intimate affair designed to give the small- to medium-sized players in the industry some one-on-one time with reporters. Almost twenty brands have convened in Sun Valley, Idaho, and gathered about the same number of editors for two days of focused meetings, product introductions, and demos. Look for reports to trickle out over the next week or so as we gather the stories and bring them to you.
Liguigas is betting on youth for the Tour de France overall, with improving youngsters Roman Kreuziger and Vicenzo Nibali selected to head the Italian team’s hopes. With star rider Ivan Basso skipping the Tour to focus on the Vuelta a España later on this season, Kreuziger and Nibali will be aiming to slot into the top 10 overall.
The USA Cycling Masters Road National Championships is headed to Louisville, Kentucky, June 28 – July 4 with nearly 1,000 riders age 30 and above already registered to duke it out for national titles. Louisville welcomes the event for the second year in a row with a full seven days of competition in the road race, individual time trial, tandem time trial and criterium events.
The Tour of Utah (August 18-23) will feature at least eight professional teams this year, including: BMC Racing; Garmin-Slipstream, OUCH-Maxxis, Bissell, Team Type 1, Land Rover-ORBEA, Fly V Australia, and Colavita-Sutter Home. In addition, eight amateur teams are confirmed: Trek/Livestrong, Cal Giant, Bobs, Rio Grande, Waste Management, Ciclismo Racing, ZteaM Cycling, and Team RideClean.
Team Type 1, Bissell, Colavita-Sutter Home and Kelly Benefit Strategies are the latest team to be confirmed for the 2009 Tour of Missouri in early September. The teams will join most of the best known domestic and ProTour squads at the Missouri race, including Astana, Garmin-Slipstream, Columbia-Highroad, BMC, Saxo Bank, Cervelo TestTeam and OUCH-Maxxis.
Chris Horner won’t be starting the Tour de France after he was overlooked as part of the nine-man squad revealed Wednesday by Astana. The veteran Horner crashed out of the Giro d’Italia in May and was hoping to be back in top shape to earn a Tour slot, but he was not awarded one of the nine spots on the loaded Astana team. Another surprise name missing from roster was reliable Spanish workhorse Benjamin Noval, a veteran of Tour-winning campaigns of Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador.
At 50, Jeannie Longo is showing no sign of slowing down as she won her 56th national champion’s jersey, successfully defending her French national time trial title in Saint-Brieuc on Thursday. The Grenoble native easily defeated a strong field of challengers, covering a 23.5-kilometer course in 33:42, some 33 seconds faster than second-placed Edwige Pitel. Marina Jaunatre took third, with a time more 59 seconds off of Longo’s.
Gert Steegmans ? the Belgian sprinter who’s refused to sign an anti-doping charter that includes hefty penalties for violations ? has been left off Katusha’s nine-man Tour de France team. Steegmans was put on “non-active” status and not included in the Russian team’s nine-man roster. “All I can say is it’s too bad, I can’t say much more on the topic,” Steegmans told the Belgian daily La Derniere Heure. “I cannot answer anymore questions. I am not even sure I am going to be able to race the Belgian championships (Sunday).”
Ten days before the start of the Tour de France is a busy time for any ProTour team manager, but Wednesday was a particularly crazy day for Garmin-Slipstream team manager Jonathan Vaughters. During the same news cycle that reported rumors of Garmin’s interest in signing 2007 Tour de France champion Alberto Contador, the team also released its nine-man Tour roster, leaving off three active riders from last year’s squad.
The Cervélo TestTeam named an experienced team on Wednesday to support Spanish reigning champion Carlos Sastre in this year's Tour de France, which begins in Monaco on July 4. Sastre, 34, will be notably supported by his 40-year-old compatriot Inigo Cuesta. Norway's Thor Hushovd, 31, will be the other leader in the team, along with Germany's 25-year-old Heinrich Haussler, who finished second in Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders this year. Australia's Simon Gerrans, who won one stage in last year's Tour and another at the Giro d'Italia in May, was not selected.
The Caisse d'Epargne cycling team on Wednesday released a short-list of 10 riders from which the team will select nine to start the Tour de France, which runs from July 4-26. Six of them, the Spaniards David Arroyo, Ivan Gutierrez, Luis Pasamontes, Luis Leon Sanchez, Xabier Zandio and 2006 Tour winner Oscar Pereiro are assured of their places on the start line in Monaco. The three final places are being contested by Portugal's Rui Costa, Frenchman Arnaud Coyot, Spain's Jose Joaquin Rojas and the Colombian Rigoberto Uran.
The Versus cable network will broadcast the 2009 Tour de France in high definition for the first time. The network will begin its coverage on July 4 and 8:30 a.m. Eastern with a one-hour feature on Lance Armstrong. The race coverage will start at 9:30. The network says it will broadcast an average of 13 hours of Tour coverage each day. A complete schedule is available at Versus.com.
Garmin-Slipstream brings back some familiar faces with a few new ones for the 2009 Tour de France. The squad released its nine names for next months’ Tour, with Christian Vande Velde as the team captain and Tour debutante Tyler Farrar the man for the sprints. Returning with Vande Velde from last year’s Tour team are David Millar, Ryder Hesjedal, Danny Pate, Dave Zabriskie and Julian Dean. New riders for the team’s Tour hopes this year include Farrar, Irish national champion Dan Martin and Olympic gold medalist Bradley Wiggins.
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Rabobank’s Pedro Horrillo, the rider who suffered a disastrous crash in last month’s Giro d’Italia, was released from a Spanish hospital on Wednesday and said that he wants to ride again. The 34-year-old Spaniard fell nearly 150 feet after vaulting over a traffic barrier on a treacherous descent of the Culmine di San Petro in the eighth stage of the Giro on May 16. Horrillo suffered a broken femur and knee, several broken ribs and a punctured lung, plus head and chest trauma.
Don’t tell Alessandro Ballan that there’s some sort of curse that goes with the world champion’s rainbow jersey. Most world champions are highly marked in races, making it even harder to win, but at least they’re racing. Ballan’s world champion season has been short-circuited by illness, but the gangly Lampre-NGC rider is hoping to get things back on track for the Tour de France. “I am about 60-70 percent my condition, nothing more, I must rebuild,” Ballan told L’Equipe.
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Do vintage Campy rear derailleurs have non-standard mounting bolt threads?
USA Cycling and the Colorado-based American Cycling Association (ACA) have renewed a reciprocity agreement that allows riders to compete in races sanctioned by both organizations. The agreement restores the provisions of an earlier cooperative arrangement that expired at the end of 2008. “The agreement aims to provide the best cycling experience for the riders in both organizations by honoring equivalent ability categories within each organization,” USA Cycling noted in a press release issued on Tuesday.
A French judge is expected to hear arguments on Thursday in Tom Boonen’s bid to overturn his exclusion from Tour de France, the rider's lawyer said on Tuesday. Boonen’s attorneys filed a civil court challenge to a decision by the Amaury Sports Organization (ASO) to keep Boonen out of the Tour after he had tested positive for cocaine this past spring. The cyclist's legal team decided their case stood a better chance in a civil court rather than before the French sports tribunal, in the limited time available before the race starts at Monaco on July 4.
In 1999, Lance Armstrong came into the Tour de France as a cancer survivor, not a favorite for the overall. In this exclusive video series, VeloNews takes a look back at how he won what was to become his first of seven consecutive Tour de France titles. VeloNews.tv will release segments of this 15-video series daily right up until the eve of the 2009 Tour de France.
Controversial Spanish rider Alejandro Valverde will not take part in this year's Tour de France, his Caisse d'Epargne team announced on Tuesday. His absence removes a potentially embarrassing stand-off as the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) last month banned Valverde from racing in Italy for two years due to his alleged involvement in the Operation Puerto blood doping scandal. That ostensibly ruled him out of the race in any case, as this year it passes through Italy's Val D'Aosta region on July 21.
Milram, the peloton’s lone German team starting the Tour de France, will place its trust and hopes on a pair of young talented but untested riders. Linus Gerdemann and Gerald Ciolek headline Milram’s nine-man Tour squad that includes six German riders.
Silence-Lotto confirmed Tuesday it has signed a contract with promising Belgian rider Kenny Dehaes through the 2010 season. The 24-year-old sprinter had joined Katusha for the 2009 campaign, but wasn’t happy with the Russian organization and wanted an early exit. Silence-Lotto was more than happy to step in, offering to take over his contract starting July 1. Dehaes will stay with the Belgian team next year, with an option for 2011.
The UCI has tabled a process to pull the Astana team's ProTour license, after the team's sponsors have come up with the money promised to keep the team afloat. The group's licensing commission is leaving a door open to renew the process, however, it said in a brief press release issued Tuesday morning.
This past May the Food and Drug Administration moved to ban the diet product Hydroxycut after receiving 23 reports of health problems
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France’s Française des Jeux team has narrowed its Tour de France list down to eight. The team will largely forget about challenging for the GC, and instead hope to earn some headlines through attacks, perhaps a spell in some of the jerseys early on or, ideally, win a stage or two. “We want to be in breakaways, add a spark to the race and give something for the fans to cheer about,” said team manager Marc Madiot. “Casar will be our top man, but is it better for him to try to win another stage or finish in the top 15 again?”
Andrew Bajadali (Kelly Benefit Strategies) won Sunday's Tour de Winghaven road race in Missouri, but OUCH-Maxxis's defending National Racing Calendar champ Rory Sutherland remains solidly atop the NRC standings. Bajadali's win was the second NRC victory of the year for the Kelly team, following Zach Bell's win at the Bank of America Wilmington Grand Prix last month.