The End of the Classics

The Ardennes Classics

This week represents the end of the Spring Classics. With last Sunday's Amstel Gold Race followed by Wednesday's Fleche Wallone and today's Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the most important one-day races from the first half of the season come to an end. This is typically an opportunity for the GC men for the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France to test themselves and each others. The "Ardennes Classics" are as hilly as the "Flanders Classics" are flat. Although, the climbs of the Belgian and Dutch countrysides are usually significant enough to break things up, this week's races were almost an exact replay of last week's Amstel Gold Race. Large groups in good conditions brought danderous breaks back very late in the gam eto put a large group of the men you would expect to be at the front for these races together at the end.

Wednesday's Fleche Wallone ended with the peleton together for the third and final climb of the Mur de Huy. Although the Mur de Huy has areas approaching 20% it is only about 1.5km long so while it breaks things up on the final results, typically, the final attacks of the leaders only occur over the last 500m. Gerolsteiner's Davide Rebellin rode a solid race and found himself at the base of the final climb with the expected protaganists, DiLuca, Valverde, Kesler and Schleck together at the end. Ultimately, Rebellin easily rolled to a six second victory over Valverde and DiLuca.

Today's Liege-Bastogne-Liege almost seemed to be a replay of Wednesday's race. The leaders stayed together and out of trouble until the closing kilometers of the race. All of the expected contenders stayed together and watched each other as they raced back to Ans outside of Liege. Again with about 500m to go, the leaders attacked and Liquigas' Danilo DiLuca was able to ride away from Valverde and Schleck.

So, what do we take from this week's races? First, the men you expected to be strong were strong. The top ten from the Amstel Gold Race, Fleche Wallone and Liege-Bastogne-Liege were almost identical. Rebellin, DiLuca, Valverde, Kessler, Schleck all had good results. Rabobank and Saunier Duval-Prodir both had strong showings over the races. Second, the races were almost boring. The big riders all road defensively in the peleton, with largely unthreatening breaks getting away for most of the day, only to be brought in at the end. Third, Danilo DiLuca is in good form and will likely be in good form for the Giro d'Italia. He still probably cannot win a grand tour but he will contend for the podium and should spend some time in pink. Fourth, Liege, Belgium looks an awfull lot like Akron, Ohio. Having traveled through Liege a few years ago, its absolute ugliness cannot really be described.

Puerto Update

Italian doping officials reopened their investigation of Italian riders implicated in Operacion Puerto, in particular, Ivan Basso. With Jan Ulrich's blood having been matched to his DNA, Italian officials are looking to do the same and determine if any of the blood seized by Spanish officials was taken from the riders named by judicial officials. As a result of the reopening of this investigation by Italian officials, Ivan Basso has been removed from competition and is likely done for the season barring absolute proof that his blood is not in any of the bags held by Spanish police. Basso's season is likely over. Discovery Channel is in the hunt for a new sponsor and is not likely to go to the mat for Basso if it were to threaten its start at the Tour de France, the only race Americans care about. Levi Leipheimer was originally signed to be Discovery's GC leader for the Tour. The signing of Basso earlier this year resulted in some serious friction at Discovery Channel among the team's remaining few Americans, Leipheimer and Hincapie. Leipheimer has shown excellent form this spring at the Tour of California and the Tour of Georgia. Discovery has shown team strength at significant stage races this spring and the loss of Basso will not be a negative as both Levi Leipheimer and Alberto Contador provide strong GC riders for the Tour.

My Big Ride

Saturday marked the most significant ride I have taken in a long time. I rode to Bogus Basin, the local ski resort here in Boise. It is twenty miles from my front door to the parking lot at the base of the resort. The base is about 6,100 feet so the climb results in about 3,600 feet of vertical gain over fifteen miles. It is a long constant slog up the mountain. The first half of the climb has the steepest climbs. The second half, is fairly constant although it is not an easy ride finally flattening out over a couple of miles. What is amazing is the fact that the winner of the race typically does it in around 55 minutes. It took me about twice that to do it yesterday. However, I have been able to make some climbs over the past few weeks that I have not undertaken in several years. Thanks to a lighter bike and a signficant lighter me, I have been willing to undertake some challenges I have not ridden in close to seven years.