Officials in Reading, PA, are again gearing up for what has become the city’s largest single-day, free, sporting event, the Commerce Bank Reading Classic, this year on Thursday, June 5th. This world-class professional cycling race is the second leg of the Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling series and features nearly 200 of the sport’s professional athletes competing for the leader’s jersey.
Tour de Georgia organizers on Wednesday released details of one of the most anticipated stages at this year's race — stage 4's 10-mile team time trial, to be held at Road Atlanta, a race car track 50 miles outside Atlanta. At a media event at the track, race organizers spelled out the logistics for the event: four circuits on the hilly, 12-turn track for each 8-man team. Two teams will be on the track at at a time and the team's time will be taken from the fifth team member across the line.
Generalities — I’m heading deep into them here in the coming paragraphs. That said, the differences in racing styles from one country to another are pretty entertaining. Racing styles differ dramatically, and while some countries have an “international” feel, most manage to retain their individuality pretty well, even with a chunk of the field from afar. I’ve also noticed a little parallel between racing style, and the mentality of the country behind it (Warning: BIG GENERALITIES HERE).
Quick Step is so deep in talent on its classics team it can put up a half-dozen candidates for victory. With the team’s big stars Tom Boonen and Paolo Bettini resting their guns for Saturday’s Milan-San Remo, other riders are getting a chance to step into the spotlight. Last week, it was Gert Steegmans winning two stages at Paris-Nice.
With a surge in the number of teams requesting invitations to race in Georgia in April, the management company for the Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, Medalist Sports, has announced the elite field of 15 teams. With eight riders on each team, a total of 120 professional cyclists will compete in the 600-mile, seven-day event (April 21-27, 2008), beginning just 31 days from today.
Milan-San Remo will have an extra team after all, but it won’t be Rock Racing. Just a day after Mario Cipollini cut ties with the American team, race organizers of Saturday’s “La Primavera” announced that Miche-Silver Cross would fill the final slot for the classics season opener. Rock Racing and Cipollini were hoping for a last-minute bid to start Milan-San Remo, a race Cipollini won in 2002, but race organizers opted to go with the San Marino-based continental team instead.
Dear Readers; Tragedy struck the San Francisco Bay Area cycling community last week in a collision that killed two cyclists, and sent a third to the hospital with serious injuries. According to reports published in local newspapers and press releases from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s department, this is what happened:
Norco Performance Bikes is excited to announce the addition of Hans Lambert to our Factory Team for the '08/09 season. Hans is a downhill and 4X racer from St. Bruno, Quebec who has recently shaken up the Canada and Quebec Cup series' when he captured the 2006 National DH Championship title (Junior Expert). Hans is known on the circuit for his aggressive style and impressive ability to perform under pressure.
GE Energy is sponsoring one of 15 international teams—the GE Marco Polo Cycling Team presented by Trek—scheduled to compete in the sixth annual Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, a 600-mile, seven-day cycling race across the state April 21-27. This is the sixth year that Atlanta-based GE Energy is supporting the Tour de Georgia, one of North America’s premier professional bicycle races. GE Energy is a founding sponsor of the event, which will showcase some of the cycling world’s elite competitors.
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Sam Gowdi at the St. Patties Day Feast at Bootleg Canyon DH
Scott Johnson at the St. Patties Day Feast at Bootleg Canyon Super D
Sue Takes on Death Valley - 2008
Mario Cipollini’s relationship with the American team Rock Racing has ended, and the Italian is quashing rumors that he might jump into this weekend’s Milan-San Remo for a different team. “Unfortunately I've had to end my relationship with the American Rock Racing team that started a few months ago,” the former world champion said Tuesday. European papers had speculated that Cipollini would join the Tinkoff Credit Systems team for Milan-San Remo, but he said he was only interested in joining a team if he could be involved with its management and development.
Cycling teams from seven nations have been selected to compete in the American Eagle Outfitters Tour of Pennsylvania, presented by Highmark Healthy High 5®, a U-25 cycling stage race taking place from June 24 thru June 29, 2008, which is part of the year-long celebration marking the 250th anniversary of the naming of Pittsburgh. At least thirteen more six-man squads will be named by the end of March as organizers continue to review applications received from over fifty professional and elite amateur cycling squads from the U.S. and abroad.
The 2008 Redlands Classic Organizing Committee announces Scott Moninger as recipient of its coveted “Legend” award. The award was created in 2007 to honor a past RBC athlete “who has embodied enduring class, sportsmanship, and character throughout their careers, both on and off the bike. This individual represents all the best attributes of a professional cyclist and contributes to the sport in a positive way” according to RBC marketing director Scott Welsh.
The International Cycling Union says it will open discipline hearings on the French cycling federation and its president for their role in the UCI's spat with Paris-Nice organizer Amaury Sport Organization. And in a press release issued Tuesday, the UCI says it will meet with teams and rider representatives on March 25th to discuss "measures appropriate to the situation."
Consequences of Paris-Nice: UCI declaration In order to let the riders to concentrate on their race, the International Cycling Union (UCI) opted to refrain from making any declarations during the Paris-Nice event.
Dear Lennard, Question for you re: forks for long head tubes. I'm 6'4" and have a Seven Axiom with a roughly 30cm head tube and a Seven rebadged Reynolds carbon fork on it. It is a bit flexy when braking while cornering and I'd like to improve that. What options are out there and how do they rate vs. each other? I know Alpha Q makes one with a steerer long enough (as seen on your bike) as does Storck, but want to understand if they are better than the Reynolds vis a vis flex/rigidity. Ted Dear Ted,
CSC's Fabian Cancellara held on to win the 43rd edition of the Tirreno-Adriatico following Tuesday's seventh and final stage. Italian Francesco Chicchi of Liquigas won the 176km run around San Benedetto del Tronto. But the 26-year-old Swiss, the current double world time-trial champion, kept hold of the leader's blue jersey and set himself up as one of the hot favorites for Saturday's Milan-San Remo.
Inside Communications, Inc (ICI), the parent company of VeloNews, Inside Triathlon, VeloPress, VeloGear, VeloSwap and their eponymous Web sites, celebrated its 21st anniversary last Monday. There won’t be a 22nd.
Up the San Juan Trail - watch out for those bushes
Pink Bicycle by the Rhone River, Geneva, Switzerland
Bobby Julich (CSC) says cycling’s peloton gets the message when it comes to the doping issue. The 36-year-old veteran believes that the majority of riders support clean racing and realize the credibility gap facing the sport as it enters a decisive season. That’s not to say everyone is happy with new demands made by anti-doping agencies.
Team High Road's Linus Gerdemann will be unable to train for one to two months, his team says, after breaking his leg in two places in a crash at Tirreno-Adriatico Sunday. The 25-year-old says he hopes to back in time for this summer's Tour de France. "I will do my very best to be back on the bike as soon as possible and I will fight to become part of the 2008 Tour de France," Gerdemann said. Following the crash Gerdemann was flown to a Hamburg hosipital, where he was treated by a team physician.
Former professional rider, team director and television commentator Frankie Andreu is directing the ZteaM under-25 racing team at June's Tour of Pennsylvania, a U25 event. ZteaM is a national cycling club supporting the growth of masters, elite, and youth cycling through club riding and racing. The group is funded by national and regional sponsors, and its own members.
When a professional bike race rolls into town, it’s not that unusual for teams to visit local schools to talk to children about cycling and encourage them to attend the upcoming races and/or compete in the kids’ race. It’s a bit more unusual, though, for them to offer free helmets to 50 children.
Flanders is hell. Flanders is beautiful. The terrain and environment are terrible for cycling: the wind howls, the roads are bumpy, cracked or cobbled, the air is damp when it isn’t raining and rarely does the sun shine. But the roads are packed with cyclists. There is a race nearly everyday somewhere in Flanders that crisscrosses the bleak open muddy farm fields. The Flandriens know, feel, and live the sport.
Dede Barry’s 2002 win in Montreal stood as America’s sole women’s road World Cup victory before Katheryn Curi-Mattis out-sprinted breakaway companion Emma Rickards to take Australia’s 2008 Geelong World Cup last month. The two attacked with 75km remaining in the 120km race, then held off a hard-charging Team High Road — looking to set up sprinter Ina Teutenburg. The finished a minute ahead of the pack in the Feb. 24 race.
Rabobank's Oscar Freire won a sprint finish to the sixth and penultimate stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico race in Italy on Monday. Freire took the 196km stage from Civitanova Marche and Castelfidaro ahead of two Italians — Filippo Pozzato and Danilo Di Luca. Fabian Cancellara of CSC retained the overall lead ahead of Tuesday's final stage.
There's been a split at the company launched two years ago to provide cycling teams with independent anti-doping programs. The fissure leaves one of the founders working with Rock Racing and the other with Slipstream-Chipotle, BMC and High Road. Paul Scott and Paul Strauss, both from the Los Angeles area, launched the Agency for Cycling Ethics in 2006. Slipstream-Chipotle, Team High Road and BMC each contracted with ACE to provide athlete monitoring programs the teams hope will prevent scandals and protect their sponsors' (and the sport's) interest in presenting a doping-free image.
NEWS FLASH: I put Centaur Ergopower levers on my SRAM Red-equipped bike and have been riding it happily ever since with nary a hiccup in the shifting. I have a SRAM 10-speed chain, SRAM Red chainrings, SRAM Red front derailleur, SRAM Red rear derailleur, and SRAM Red 10-speed cogset mated with the Centaur 10-speed Ergopower levers. This means that Campagnolo and SRAM 10-speed road shifters, including their bar-end models, pull almost exactly the same amount of cable with each click.
Kristin Armstrong Excels In Exeter
In a hard, fast race full of attacks but few breaks, world-class German sprinter Ina-Yoko Teutenberg (Team High Road) triumphed in the final stretch of the Visalia Criterium on Sunday, pulling around Brooke Miller (Team Tibco), who took second just in front of teammate and lead-out, Lauren Franges. Rounding out the top five were Canadian Anne Samplonius (Cheerwine) and Meredith Miller (Aaron’s).