The Cycliste Moderne, September 6, 2005

Vuelta Recap

The first long time trial of the Vuelta a Espana was held on Sunday with Rabobank’s Denis Menchov wining his second stage of the Vuelta and retaking the lead in the General Classification. Liberty Seguro’s leader Roberto Heras rode well for a time trial but saw his lead evaporate and now trails Menchov by 47 seconds.

Interestingly, Vuelta organizers did not completely close the time trial course near Barcelona. They only closed one lane of the road for the time trial with traffic cones. Heras was penalized 10 seconds on the stage for crossing out of the closure zone. The organizers purportedly agreed not to close the road to placate local tourism officials who were afraid of the effect closing the roads during the summer weekend would have on local tourism and the beaches of Lloret de Mar. Supposedly it was part of the agreement to enable the race to be held in Lloret de Mar.

A rolling time trial course with a third category climb on it really should not be open to traffic under any circumstances. Having been involved with promoting and running a significant number of local races it is a little surprising to see what is largely considered to be the third most important race in the world being run like a local Tuesday night time trial in an industrial park. From the accounts of the stage that I have read, it appears that there were numerous situations where riders had near collisions with automobiles. I would expect more from a grand tour.

Monday saw the first big mountain stage. The leaders Heras and Menchov finished with stage winner Francisco Mancebo of Iles Baleares who currently sits in third place 1:53 back. All three riders have shown strength in the Vuelta and one of the three will be the overall winner with the race now half over.

San Francisco Grand Prix

Sunday was the final major US domestic race with the Barclays Global Investors Grand Prix in San Francisco. Although many of the US riders based in Europe competed in the event, they did not really have any involvement in the outcome. Ivan Basso of CSC, George Hincapie of Discovery, Levi Leipheimer of Gerolsteiner, Chris Horner of Saunier Duval and Fred Rodriguez of Davitamon Lotto were all there but had no real effect on the race. Gerolsteiner’s Fabian Wegmann managed to bridge up to Jason McCartney of Discovery Channel and John Lieswyn of Health Net late in the race and get away for the victory. To a certain extent the major US races contested by the top European based American Pros have become anticlimactic. Maybe Chris Horner is right when he has criticized the negative racing that typically goes on in the big US races. It seems like the US domestic teams just watch the big teams and mark the big names until late in the race and then you have an outcome that just makes you scratch your head.

Labor Day Cycling Disaster

I took Friday off with the intention of getting some good riding in during the long weekend. Thursday night I got home from soccer practice to find my wife and parents working on a landscaping project that quickly became apparent would take most of my potential riding time for the weekend. My late Thursday, early Friday and Saturday rides I had envisioned were replaced with the setting of 1000 pounds of stone in my front yard. Digging out the area where we put the stones, shoveling the sand base into place and acutally placing that much rock pretty much sapped my energy for the weekend. That and the two world cup qualifying soccer matches I had to watch on Saturday afternoon.

My Labor Day weekend concluded with an attempted ride with my 9 year old son on our tandem. As we left our driveway and mounted up we were suddenly stopped by the sound of aluminum on aluminum. Somehow, three of the five chainring bolts which attach the double chain rings needed to run the child stoker attachment had come loose and the force of my pedal stroke turned the inner chain ring into an aluminum pretzel. Now our Raleigh tandem is sporting two bright silver gouges into the bright red finish. While I have enjoyed this tandem, which I bought in March, it has really seemed to be a money pit. Looking at the empty holes on the crank arm, I know that I am now looking probably at a new set of cranks, two new 36 tooth chain rings, 5 chainring bolts and a lot of Locktight to get it back on the road. We then mounted up on our mountain bikes and went for a short ride around the neighborhood.

When we got back we found my 5 year old daughter our riding her bike. She had her full cow girl outfit on, including holstein pattern skirt. Of course she had no helmet on because there are no cowgirl helmets. When she pulled into the garage, she lost her balance could not get off her saddle because of her skirt and went head first onto the concrete. She was dirty and surly but fine and it let me give the wear your helmet speech again. For a perfect four day holiday weekend I ended up riding about thirty minutes.