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Peeing, crashing, eating, teasing and riding really fast: a day in the Garmin team car.
Editor's Note: Mark Johnson spent stage 4 of the Amgen Tour of California in a Garmin-Slipstream support car with team director Matt White and mechanic Tom Hopper.
Two Garmin cars follow the field. We are in the first car, in third position behind the Astana and Columbia. Position in the caravan corresponds to each team’s best rider on GC. Garmin’s Dave Zabriskie is in third, so that’s where we sit.
Valverde faces CONI hearing, court inquiry
Anti-doping prosecutor Ettore Torri said Thursday that a blood sample found in the laboratory central to the Operación Puerto scandal belongs to Alejandro Valverde. Torri made his claim following a hearing attended by the Spanish rider at the headquarters of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) in Rome. Upon Valverde’s arrival, the public prosecutor's office in Rome announced its own investigation into his actions.
On Tap at AToC: Stage 5 – The Longest Day
By taking in more of California’s varied terrain this year, the organizers of the Amgen Tour of California have given the peloton some challenging new courses. But the downside has been the logistics. In order to include the Golden Gate Bridge on Monday, the Sierras on Wednesday and Palomar Mountain for the finale this coming Sunday, long transfers have been inserted between every stage.
MTB News and Notes
In its eighth year, British Columbia’s TransRockies Challenge will debut a three-day solo mountain bike race that will run concurrently with the first three days of the seven-day duo race. Called the TR3, the three-day event includes 150-200 kilometers of racing, and stretches from the TransRockies’ starting line at Panorama Mountain Village to the town of Nipika.
Over the mountains
We had the opportunity to review power data from three riders from the 4th stage of the Amgen Tour of California. In addition to Gustav Larsson (Saxo Bank) and Rory Sutherland (OUCH), we also reviewed the download from Liquigas' Kjell Carlstrom. The three filled different roles on Wednesday and their power data shows just what sort of effort each of those jobs requires.
Gustav Larsson
The chart above shows Gustav Larsson's summary data for the first five days of racing.Juice Plus Folds in the 11th Hour
No one was surprised when former NRC champion Laura Van Gilder got the call-up at the start of the Amgen Tour of California’s Women’s Criterium in Santa Rosa on Sunday. What did come as a surprise, though, was that the 44-year-old Pennsylvania-based rider with more than 300 career wins wasn’t wearing the team kit of Juice Plus as expected, but was instead outfitted as a guest rider for the local Sugar CRM team.
Rolling Turns, Pacelining, Echeloning
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Robert Gesink is targeting his third straight Best Young Rider award at the Tour of California
Just how confident is Rabobank that its Dutch phenom will win the Amgen Tour of California’s best young rider’s competition for a third consecutive year? Consider this: the Dutch bank is sponsoring the best young rider’s competition, the leader of which wears an orange and blue near-replica of Rabobank’s team jersey. Asked about the color coordination, the 22-year-old Gesink laughed.
2009 AToC stage 4, Live Coverage archive
- 10:32 AM: Good day and welcome
to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the fourth stage of the Amgen Tour of California.
We're about 30 minutes away from the start of today's 116-mile stage from Merced to Clovis.
The weather Gods appear to have smiled on the Tour today and the weather has improved considerably.
AToC Stage 4: Cav’ clips Boonen, Leipheimer keeps lead
Even Mark Cavendish didn’t expect to win stage 5 of the Amgen Tour of California on Wednesday. “It wasn’t a stage I’d targeted,” he admitted after bringing home a furious field sprint in Clovis, just holding off Tom Boonen of Quick Step, with Saxo Bank’s J.J. Haedo in third. The field sprint meant that there were no changes in the GC, with Levi Leipheimer of Astana keeping the yellow jersey by a 24-second margin over Columbia’s Michael Rogers.
Too hot to handle? Armstrong’s TT bike reportedly recovered
Sacramento police reported recovering Lance Armstrong’s stolen time trial bike on Wednesday. The custom Trek 1274/27.5 TTX vanished from a Team Astana truck parked outside a hotel after the Amgen Tour of California prologue, along with three road bikes belonging to Janez Brajkovic, Steve Morabito and Yaroslav Popovych. Brajkovic's bike was found Tuesday at the hotel from which the other bikes had been stolen. Hotel employees told police that the bike had been in storage and there had been "a miscommunication between the rider and the hotel."
Davide Rebellin wins stage 3 of the Vuelta a Andalucia
This might be Davide Rebellin’s last season, but don’t tell him that he’s done just yet. The veteran Italian pulled off a thrilling victory in Wednesday’s third stage, a hilly course from Marbella to Benahavis through the hills along Spain’s Costa del Sol, out-kicking a stellar field to win for the first time this season. Rebellin took down Filippo Pozzato (Katusha) and relegated Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) to third in a victory that reveals the classics specialist might have one more trick up his sleeve this April before riding off into the sunset.
Cervelo’s Heinrich Haussler takes stage 1 in Portugal while Garmin’s Will Frischkorn grabs the mountain jersey.
Racing is clicking into gear all over Europe and several big names are revving up their 2009 racing legs at this week’s Volta ao Algarve over the green hills draped along Portugal’s southern Atlantic Coast. The five-day race marks the season debut for triple-crown winner Alberto Contador (Astana), who admitted he’s here only to stretch his legs.
Cane Creek 110 Headset
Price: $150 Colors: Black, silver, blue, red, and purple Weight: 77 grams Web site: www.canecreek.com The Cane Creek 110 headset, which was released last year, is now available in most of the common platforms on the market, including the tradition 1-1/8-inch, 1.5-inch, integrated, and now the Zero Stack, which is common on Giant, Scott, BMC, and Fisher frames.