The Cycliste Moderne

End of an Era

2007-08-12T20:18:00.000-06:00

Discovery is no More.

Tailwind Sports the owner of the Discovery Channel Cycling Team has announced the team will disband after the 2007 season. Even though the team has had significant success winning eight out of the last nine Tours de France in the current climate in cycling it is not surprising that the team elected to disband. Although team officials had announced that they felt they were close to having signed a prime sponsor for 2008 to replace Discovery Channel, the fact that they had not announced anything at the Tour lead some to believe that the team's demise was imminent. Historically, new sponsors have always been announced and attached to teams during the Tour.

Discovery has been one of the largest and best funded teams in the peleton. As discussed in previous issues, however, it is not unusual for most riders to be on short term contracts of one to two years. The period following the Tour de France is typically the time that teams and riders begin to announce their line ups for the next season. While the loss of major sponsors does result in riders losing their jobs, invariably another team steps into the void.

When Motorola met a similar demise in the mid 1990's, it was a dark period in American cycling as it was the end of the 7-Eleven/Motorola legacy as the first American team in Europe. Jim Ochowitz found himself unable to find a replacement sponsor for the team and it too disbanded leaving many young American riders scrambling for rides elsewhere. Although 3-4 riders signed with the new French team Cofidis, including Lance Armstrong, it was the small American team Subaru-Montgomery Securities that filled the vaccum created by the demise of Motorola. The team had signed USPostal Service and had began to look to expand its presence in Europe. Many former Motorola riders ended up at US Postal Service which after a couple of years of growth became a mainstay of the peleton.

The demand for top talent, including American talent is always present even in an environment that is as toxic as the current sponsorship environment in cycling. Teams are always hiring riders. It is just that some teams do not have the budget that other teams have. Some teams look to move up by hiring top talent, i.e. Slipstream, which has already announced the signing of David Millar, Dave Zabriskie and Magnus Backstead. Other teams hire riders based upon the marketing goals of its sponsors. Prior to the doping announcement regarding T-Mobile's activities in the mid 1990's there had been some speculation that T-Mobile was going to become less German and more American. George Hincapie had previously been linked to a move to T-Mobile although that has yet to be confirmed. Discovery's Belgian national champion was sure to move to either Predictor Lotto or Quik.Step this year as both teams are willing to pay a premium to have the national champion wearing their jersey for the first part of the season.

In reality Discovery Channel had largely ceased to be an American team as Americans were in the minority of its riders and Discovery did not even contest the races that make up Philly week in June. Levi Leipheimer should have no difficult finding a ride for next season. Alberto Contador will likely have some difficulty unless and until Operacion Puerto is finally resolved.

Teams fold and teams are born each year. It is a difficult process and it is sad to see a team with the history of Discovery Channel calling it quits. Just like it was sad to see Mapei and ONCE disappear. The key to the ongoing viability of the sport, however, is long term sponsor support and that is jeopardized by a culture that still does not seem to understand the long term damage that doping in pursuit of short term gain causes. As Lance Armstrong noted in announcing Discovery's demise, the ASO's threat to return the Tour de France to national teams makes the search for sponsors difficult as sponsors want quantifiable return on their investment. They want to make sure that the team has significant exposure and that the team does not undermine its core marketing goals or injure its brand. Right now in cycling, that is difficult if not impossible to guarantee.

So What Happens Next Year?

At the end of the day, all cycling is driven by sponsorship. Sponsorship is driven by marketing. Marketing is driven by the desire to get products and brands as much positive recognition as possible in a cost effective manner. The UCI needs a top level team with strong ties to the United States. The ASO needs a top American team committed to racing clean. I would therefore expect that Jonathon Vaughter's Team Slipstream will not only be lining up for next year's Tour start but that it will be invited to join the ProTour in Discovery's absence.

There are other teams which will potentially fold this off season but there will be others to replace them. At the end of the day, the UCI's real difficulty is its desire to have a 20 team ProTour paying 20 licensing fees to it for entry into all the top races, the Grand Tour organizers really only want to have to invite 15-18 teams to their races and want freedom to invite more domestic teams. The Vuelta has long shown that the Italian teams do not take it seriously. There really are only about 15 teams that have the wherewithal to actually compete at the level the ProTour demands.

The loss of Discovery, the impending suspension of Astana, and questions around the ongoing sponsorship of Unibet.com, Cofidis, Credit Agricole, and Gerolsteiner all make it likely that this could be the end of the ProTour as the UCI has desired. The UCI formed the ProTour to ensure that sponsors got value for their commitment. The problem is that finding sponsors who want to run the risk of the baggage that comes with cycling is diminishing. Having a Tour de France contested by national teams may not be the worst thing that could happen.

Way Post Tour Recap

2007-08-05T20:11:00.000-06:00

For those of you waiting for my Post Tour Recap, who have been waiting a week, I apologize. First, having returned from vacation and having not seen much of the Tour's final week, it took awhile to get up to speed in the real world. Second, I followed up nine days of vacation by taking this Friday off to go to my niece's wedding. Third, I had committed to go climb a mountain with our older scouts on Saturday. So, when you have been out of the office for more than a week and you are going to be out of the office for a couple of more days immediately thereafter, you have to focus on first things first. Plus, I jokingly told someone who ask this week that this year I would not do a Post Tour Recap until all the drug tests had been processed. So here are my random thoughts on various things that transpired at the Tour.

Why Dope

The whole issue of drugs has been beaten to death by the cycling media, the regular media and average joes. However, in evaluating cycling, it is important to take a step back and evaluate what really causes the use of drugs in sport. It is easy to claim that cyclists are not very smart, but I think that is an argument which can be applied to all professional sports. First, have you ever noticed that with the exception of former US Senator/Rhodes Scholar and and New York Knick Bill Bradley, that there are very few athletes who had strong academic credentials?

But it is easy and elitist to claim that cyclists are just stupid. That ignores the fact that they like most people are rationally calculating hedonists who seek to maximize their economic return for their skill set. Cycling is no different that motorsports, soccer, baseball, basketball and other professional sports. Cyclists seek to maximize their economic return which is determined by their in sport success. In general, most cyclists are making very modest salaries. There are a few big named riders who make significant salaries. Most of the rest make very modest salaries with the riders on small teams making almost nothing. Very few of them have adequate health insurance. None of them have retirement plans. So, if you want to make money, you have to win. By winning, you get to keep the prize money you win, and you can turn wins into a move up to a bigger team and a better salary. Adding to that is if you win you can build your own brand through personal sponsorship arrangements.

Another factor cannot be ignored, and that is the fact that relationships in cycling are very short term. Cyclists are typically on very short contracts. The average guy in the peleton is on a one or two year contract. Only the top riders, i.e. dominating sprinters and strong GC contenders, ever get a three year deal. Deals longer than that are almost unheard of in cycling. If a rider has a bad year, it has very real economic impact on them. So there is a short term bias towards generating results now.

Moreover, with sponsors and team management demanding results, there is added pressure on cyclists. Teams want winners, and they claim they want riders to win clean, however, short of locking all your riders in their rooms when they are not training and racing, you cannot ensure that riders will not succumb to the pressure to get instant results and improvement. It is beyond dispute that many teams either engaged in active doping programs over the years or willfully ignored the evidence that their riders were engaged in systematic doping.

Cycling is a blue collar sport which, I posit, has much more in common with stock car racing than Americans would ever concede. If Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt, Sr., had been born in Belgium, I bet you that their names would have been Eddy Merckx or Freddy Maertens. However, there are a lot of other guys out there who want to be the Intimidator, the King or the Cannibal who will never accomplish that who spend their weekends racing at lower levels in hopes of moving up. Most never will. Of those who do, most will have modest success.

So why do riders keep doping when they know it is bad for their health, they know that they may get caught, they know that it is expensive? It is because the think they have to in order to remain competitive. While the long term ramifications of doping are serious and severe, when a guy is concerned about making a living next year, you will never get riders to think about the long term. So mediocre riders cheat to compete. Star riders cheat to win. They all cheat because doing so is what they think they sport demands for them to be honored and appreciate and most importantly to get paid.

Finally, I find the press attention that cycling got from the American press during this last edition of the Tour focusing on the impact that drugs has had upon the validity of the sport incredibly hypocritical when Barry Bonds pursues Hank Aaron's career home run mark in the midst of an ongoing drug investigation by federal officials. Everyone knows Bonds did steroids and he even conceded to the federal grand jury that he utilized drugs provided by BALCO although he thought it was "flaxseed oil." Yeah, Barry, Richard Virenque claimed the same thing.

On Contador

Alberto Contador won the Tour in a manner that he himself conceded was not the way to win it. The young Spaniard is, however, a legitimate GC leader as evidenced by his win at Paris-Nice earlier this year. He was not able to match Rassmussen on all of the climbs, and I think that all the main teams made a major tactical mistake when they let Rassmussen go on the first big climbing stage. I think they all believed that Rassmussen would follow the approach he had done in prior years to win the KOM polka dot jersey, which was to attack on the first climbs, get a big lead and then defend that jersey. I don't think anyone thought he would improve as he did on the time trial. Contador will continue to be hounded by his link to Operacion Puerto which resulted in his exclusion from last year's Tour before being cleared of wrong doing. Contador did provide a DNA sample and has not been linked to any of the blood seized in the Puerto investigation. He may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time riding for a team that it has become apparent now was engaged in a systematic doping program.

On Leipheimer

Levi Leipheimer gives hope to hard working normal guys. He has never been flashy, never been dominating in a Grand Tour, has had more bad luck over the years than good luck. I felt that when he returned to Discovery that he would go from being a perennial top ten GC rider to a top five and maybe a podium rider. He becomes only the second American to finish on the podium in two different Grand Tours with his prior third place finish in the Vuelta to join Greg LeMond who finished on the podium both in the Tour and the Giro. No one has ever questioned Leipheimer's skill and he has never been linked to doping. He has always just gone about getting the job done in a consistent manner.

On Rassmussen

Dane Michael Rassmussen has always been something of an enigma. He has always been strong in the mountains, but he never seemed to engender confidence of his teams or teammates. He was always at best a KOM rider not a GC threat. His downfall this year comes from the fact that he not only may have lied about where and how he was training but also that he attempted to engender confidence in his "cleanness" by telling everyone that he could be trusted. As one contributor to VeloNews noted, challenging the media a la Gary Hart, just guarantees someone is going to take you up on the challenge and catch you in inconsistencies. Most importantly, no one is going to get the benefit of the doubt for accidentally forgetting to tell doping authorities where you are in this day and age. There is no excuse for a professional athlete to not know that failure to comply fully with all doping regulations will bring you under suspicion regardless of whether you are clean or not.

On Vinokourov

The man let down a whole country that was supporting his effort to be the first Eastern rider to win the Tour. As much as I have enjoyed watching his aggressive riding over the years, Vinokourov's career is over. It is sad to see him become an even bigger Kazakh joke than Borat.

On Hypocrisy

I was dismayed by the protest by the French and German teams at the start of Stage 16 who to protest doping held things up. While it is good for riders to take responsibility and address the issue of doping and their objections to those who do, Cofidis participated in the protest only to withdraw from the Tour later after its rider Christian Moreni failed a drug test and was arrested and T-Mobile participated after Patrik Sinkewitz had dropped out but was found to have failed a pre Tour drug test.

On Testing

Testing is working. More people are getting caught and more importantly more people getting caught are conceding that they cheated.

Reforming the Grand Tours

If Tour organizers really want to recapture the moral high ground, then it has become apparent to me that they have to change the way they organize the race. All three mountain stages in the Pyrenees were nearly 200km long. The tradition of six high mountain stages in the Alps and Pyrenees probably needs to change. Especially where riders are forced to ride over 5 or more categorized climbs. The time trials are also too long. If you don't want riders to dope, then you cannot have courses that are so demanding that they all but encourage riders to cheat. So here is what I propose for reform of the course to improve the likelihood that riders won't be forced to dope:

1. Mountain stages shall be no longer than 15o km and have no more than four categorized climbs. Mountain top finishes shall only be permitted to cities/resorts which are capable of housing all the teams at the end of the stage. Are you really committed to clean racing when you put 13 categorized climbs and 600km of racing in the final mountain stages of a grand tour and riders have to face a long transfer back down the mountain after a stage?

2. Rolling stages like Stage 5 which mimic some of the one day classics with multiple small categorized climbs shall not 175 km and shall not have more than eight categorized climbs. If you are going to have a "dangerous" stage, make it important, but not decisive.

3. Flat stages shall be no more than 200 km long. Isn't this a stage race lasting three weeks as opposed to three classics or semi-classics strung out over a week?

4. There shall be no more than three time trials, including the prologue, all individual time trials, and any team time trials. No time trial shall exceed 45km and the total of all time trial mileage shall be no more than 100km. Who really wants to watch the 95th rider on GC slog through a 55km time trial to lose another 6 minutes on the leaders?

5. Let teams have ten man rosters with seven riders allowed to start every day. Four riders must ride every stage to be considered for the GC competition and any other competition, i.e. points, KOM, young rider. Of the other six riders, teams can use them as they like. Even soccer allows large rosters and substitutes.

6. Make the Team GC competition more meaningful by increasing the prize money and increasing the number of spots that are paid. At any given Tour, there will only be ten teams with legitimate contenders for the GC, Points and KOM prizes. To encourage better team performance, make the team award more meaningful and eliminate any team from the running for any doping violation or significant sanction. Individual pressure to keep up and perform caused this mess, so rewarding positive teamwork and team performance will hopefully improve the situation.

7. If you are going to change race history to remove past transgressors, then remove them all. If Riis cheated to win in 1996, then you cannot remove him, without also removing the whole podium which consists of Ullrich his teammate and Richard Virenque of Festina, all of whom have been touched by doping. You cannot claim the moral high ground only when convenient.

8. Move the prologue to Friday night and have rest days every Monday. That gives you a prologue and two sprint stages before a rest day and then two more rest days later on. By moving the prologue to Friday night, you keep the same number of stages in the race. Give the riders a legitimate opportunity to recuperate on a reasonable schedule.

9. As a corollary to number 1 above, no city hosting a stage finish nor stage start shall be selected that has inadequate hotel facilities to accommodate all riders. Before starting or after finishing the need for immediate rest and recovery for all riders is imperative. Long transfers are bad and must be eliminated.

10. Implement a "fair play" team and individual award that is significant. Recognize those teams and riders who embody what is good and reward them appropriately. Poor sportsmanship, rules violations and doping all detract/eliminate riders and teams from contention and are to be discouraged. Provide meaningful rewards will encourage good behavior.

Tour Top Ten

2007-07-19T20:35:00.000-06:00

I am going to be on the road for the next ten days. I am not likely going to see much of the rest of the Tour so I will be relying on Cyclingnews.com and VeloNews.com for my Tour fix. In light of the fact that Mrs. Cycliste Moderne will be attending Monday's taping of the Letterman Show, I am going to give you the Top Ten Things to Look For in the Last Half of the Tour de France:

10. Will Michael Rassmusen lose less than ten minutes over the two time trials? The "Chicken" cannot time trial. He is in the lead now but I expect him to be more than three minutes behind come Saturday.

9. How far back will Vinokourov come? Vino has shown strength over the last two days. Probably cannot win, maybe able to climb back to the top five. Who knows with how the Tour is progressing.

8. Will Moreau be able to attack? French champion Christoph Moreau got caught out in the cross winds today and suffered as Astana hammered away at the front. Moreau has never been an aggressive rider but he will have to attack in the coming mountains to climb back to the top three.

7. Has doping been reduced? I think from how up and down the racing has been, see Vinokourov, that there is some evidence that riders are suffering more and are less enhanced. The only doping issue so far has arisen from a pre Tour test. I think the answer is yes?

6. Will Discovery find a new sponsor? Typically if teams are going to get a major new sponsor they make the announcement at the Tour de France or shortly thereafter. If Discovery does not announce a new sponsor by August 1, it is likely that the team's current incarnation will change significantly.

5. What will happen at T-Mobile and CSC? Both teams have aggressive anti doping policies and practices, but both have been rocked by doping intrigue over the last month. While T-Mobile appears to be moving in the right direction, the latest scandal involving Patrik Sinkewitz may be too difficult to over come. If the team survives it is clear that it will have a much more American flavor.

4. Who will win the Green Jersey? The sprint jersey is wide open this year. Every major sprinter except Zabel has won a stage. It has been a different cast of characters everyday. The real question is who gets over the mountains and too Paris. Probably Boonen, but you never know.

3. Will Leipheimer win? I don't think so. I think he can finish top five but he has ridden much to defensively. We will see what happens with the time trials. He is not even the best climber on his team, that is Contador.

2. Which sponsor has the best podium girls: Credit Lyonnaise, Aquarel, Champion or PMU? That is a matter of personal preference.

1. Who will win? I really think that Cadel Evans is likely going to be the first Australian to win the Tour. Predictor does not have to defend Robbie McEwen's sprint interests since he went home already. The team has not had to put any real efforts in and Evans has ridden a perfect race to date. He sits in fourth and probably is the best time trialist of the current leading group.

I will see you all in about ten days. Enjoy.

But can Danes Time Trial?

2007-07-15T21:25:00.000-06:00

This Has Been Fun

This year's Tour de France has been much more exciting than I really thought it would be. The crashes and carnage has been wide spread. Team CSC, T-Mobile, Discovery and Astana have all had riders in spectacular crashes.

The first week has been marked with spectacular individual efforts. Michael Rassmusen's victory Sunday was a herculean individual effort. It was not unexpected as the stage was of the type that favored the former mountain bike champion. Rabobank's mountain goat has historically attacked on such stages and proven himself able to get off the front, seize the King of the Mountain's jersey. He rode a really strong race dominating the day.

In past years Rassmusen has taken a page from Richard Virenque and Laurent Jalabert who grabbed the polka dot jersey with a huge effort on the first climb and then defend the lead in the mountains competition for the rest of the Tour. While Rassmusen is a very strong climber, do not forget that he cannot time trial. Unless he has done significant work in the off season in the wind tunnel and worked on his equipment, Rassmusen could conceivably lose ten to eleven minutes in the two remaining individual time trials totaling more than one hundred and ten kilometers. The time trials are too long and too flat for Rassmusen. He can go uphill really well but just cannot keep it together on the flat.

T-Mobile's Linus Gerdemann had a short but quality stint in yellow with his win on Saturday's first Alpine stage. Because it was a downhill finish, it was unlikely that any of the expected leaders would have gotten away from the other leaders, so the stage favored the very type of breakaway that succeeded. Although T-Mobile did not expect to defend the yellow during Sunday's stage, it was good to see a young rider get yellow and enjoy it.

All of the sprinters you would have expected to win stages have done so. Quick Step's Boonen, Predictor's McEwen, Credit Agricole's Hushovd, Liquigas' Pozzatto were all deserving winners during the first week. Additionally, Team CSC's Cancellara honored the yellow jersey with his attack of the front to a second stage win. So far there has not been a single stage where the ultimate winner did not put in an effort that was worthy for the victory.

It is apparent that we may be seeing a return to some of the classic Tours. No team has been able to stamp its control on the race like Banesto, Telekom, and USPostal Service/Discovery have done in the past. Astana could not get Vinokourov back into the peleton after his big crash. That would not have ever happened in the past.

Moreover, Astana, Discovery, Team CSC and Caisse d'Epargne all came to the Tour with multiple leaders free to ride for themselves. The all for one approach is not being followed this year in large part because there are no really dominant riders on any of the team. Even though Astana was built for Vinokourov, it is clear that it came with more than one card to play with former podium finisher Andreas Kloden on its roster.

As impressive as Rassmusen's ride was on Sunday, Christoph Moreau gets my nod for the best old school ride. Historically, Moreau is not known for his attacking prowess. However, on Sunday Moreau rode like Bernard Hinault going off the front and aggressively attacking. Moreau very well may have his best chance to win the Tour ever.

My Saturday Ride

Saturday I raced my first triathlon in eleven years in Twin Falls, Idaho. I had a decent swim, a really good bike, and then totally blew up on the run with severe knee pain. At the end of the bike leg, I was ten minutes ahead of my goal for the race. Then I proceeded to have a disastrous five mile run. I am not too depressed about that.

I knew the run would be tough and I ended up only four minutes slower than my goal time. It was very frustrating to have a run that was as poor as it was. There were only four people that had slower run splits than I did. I can honestly say, however, that I had as good a day as I could have hoped for. My food and water intake were good, I had good legs on the bike, I got out of my wetsuit without too much difficulty. A year ago there is no way I could have done the race. I do not have any knee pain today which leads me to believe that it may just be a shoe problem that can be resolved with new shoes and more miles. So next year, I know I can easily shave fifteen to twenty minutes off my time if I can have the type of run that I know I can do.

I always liked doing "local" triathlons. The kind that attract the locals who want to prove themselves and who are not necessarily concerned about how much carbon fibre they have or how aerodynamic their helmets are. They are just there to do it and have fun. One older guy who racked his old Dave Scott steel Ironman bike without any aero equipment by me, raced in his 1980's navy blue shorts and old headband. Of course there was also the guy who rather than walk the 100 yards to the restroom to change into his race shorts. No, he stood behind a tree right in the corner of the transition area dropped his pants and took about thirty seconds to get his lycra pulled up. Buck naked in the middle of a city park in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Wild Week

2007-07-11T22:21:00.000-06:00

The first week of the Tour has been much more exciting than I really expected. Good crowds, exciting racing, the expected long breakaways and aggressive riding have all been present this week. Additionally, the fact that there has been no dominant team in the sprints and no team has seemed to be able to really put its stamp on the race and control the final lead out day after day after day may be evidence of the fact the peleton is cleaner than it has been in years. Teams and riders do seem to be paying for their big efforts. So here are my brief highlights of the first week so far.

The Big One

There is always a monster crash in the first week of the Tour. In variably it is some over aggressive inexperienced rider who causes it and knocks somebody important out. However, this year "the Big One" came during Stage Two and was caused not by a neophyte but rather Erik Zabel one of the best and most experienced riders in the peleton. Zabel swerved violently setting off the chain reaction that took down the Tour leader Cancellara from Team CSC, who initially seemed to have suffered a severe injury. Zabel is better than that and amazingly only Discovery Channel's Lithuanian sprinter Thomas Vaitkus had to abandon after the carnage.
However, Belgian Tom Boonen failed to win at home as he did not manage to get around his lead out man and settled for second.

It was Just a Flesh Wound

Proving that he was a worthy yellow jersey wearer and doing something that has not been seen since the reign of Bernard Hinault in the 1970's and 1980's, Team CSC's Cancellara roared past the four man break away in the final kilometer and held of the sprinters to win Stage 3 in Compiegne. Cancellara is not only the world time trial champion but he is also a former Paris-Roubaix winner which starts near the finish of Stage 3. It was an unbelievable finish as Cancellara showed grit, speed and determination in jumping off the front and managing to stay away to the finish. You do not see that much anymore. Obviously the winding finish over cobbles kept the peleton's speed low enough that the man in the Maillot Jaune could attack when he did.

Doping is not the Story

German officials and media continue to focus on doping as opposed to racing. Governmental officials threatened to pull funding for this year's world championships in Stuttgart due to doping issues. The ARD network took discraced pro Jorg Jaksche to Ghent for the finish this week. The ZDF network claims that cyclists are cheating because they are left alone. And then German rider Matthias Kessler's B sample comes back positive for testosterone which he claims must have been caused by the four packages of "natural supplements" with "chinese writing on them" he ingested before Fleche Wallone.

I am starting to think that the Germans just don't get it. If they want to combat doping then really take a stand as opposed to just keep threatening to shut down races or to stop TV coverage. Second, do not reward guys like Jaksche who has been under a cloud of suspician for several years now and who like Richard Virenque before, denied, denied, denied, before then spilling the beans on everyone he knew when it was good for him. Third, they need to recognize that the doping culture within German cycling arose largely in the context of the rise of cycling nationalism as Team Telekom/T-Mobile functioned as the defacto national team for Germany during the 1990's and early 2000's.

Cyclingnews.com has all of the details of the German media's frenzy but reported that irate viewers called demanding that the commentators covering the race stop talking about drugs and start talking about the race.

The Tour Begins

2007-07-08T19:14:00.000-06:00

Prologue Recap

This weekend's British launch of the Tour de France has to have made Tour organizers happy. London embraced the Tour with incredible crowds. Racing the prologue through central London past many of the famous sites resulted in huge crowds. The television coverage showed wall to wall people along the entire route. Because it was a slightly longer route than past prologue courses have used, it is clear that the British certainly have not turned their backs on the sport especially since Great Britain really is not a great cycling hotbed. Although there have been some great British cyclists the country's laws and sporting culture have not fostered a long term relationship with the sport.

Team CSC's Fabien Cancellara showed why he is the world champion in the time trial. His dominating performance was the ride of the day. To win by more than thirteen seconds is really impressive. My toddler and I sat down to watch the coverage off the DVR and he stood and screamed at the television "Go, Go, Go" which is exactly what the Swiss rider did.

As I had predicted last week, however, the prologue's length resulted in the unfortunate outcome that none of the sprint favorites will likely be able to wear the yellow jersey this first week. The time gaps are just too large as a result of the fact that the prologue took most of the riders nine and a half minutes to complete. A shorter prologue results in smaller time gaps leaving sprinters within shouting distance of the lead as the time bonuses available on flat stages can catapult a sprinter into yellow. However, all of the favorite sprinters, Milram's Erik Zabel, Credit Agricole's Thor Hushovd, Predictor-Lotto's Robbie McEwen, Quik.Step's Boonen and Rabobank's Oscar Freire, lost more than forty seconds to Team CSC' Cancellara. Even with twenty second time bonuses available to stage winners on flat stages, for a sprinter to wear yellow this week they will have to likely win three or more stages to close the gap to the leaders. That is unlikely to happen.

Team CSC will likely be somewhat motivated to keep and defend Cancellara's jersey this week. While Carlos Sastre is the team's leader, the doping news regarding team manager Bjarne Riis has clearly had an impact on the team and has caused Riis to stay away from the Tour. The team seems to have its sponsor's support, having only lost one secondary sponsor but naming a new important sponsor just before the Tour. CSC is a well disciplined team and knows what it needs to do to make sponsors happy and that is lead. I would expect Cancellara to be in yellow until the race hits the mountains.

Stage 1 Recap

Sunday's crowds for Stage 1 finishing in Canterbury were just as large and as impressive as Saturday in London. However, the amazing event of Sunday was Predictor-Lotto's Robbie McEwen who came from nowhere to win. McEwen had been involved in a crash about 20km from the end. His team dropped back and raced him back to the group with about three miles to go. McEwen did an incredible job getting through the peleton, getting to the front, and timing his sprint for the win. He won by a big margin.

Now, I am not a big McEwen fan but you have to give him a tip of the hat for today's performance. He did not panic, his team worked him back to the front and he positioned himself perfectly.

The tactics of Quick.Step, Lampre and Milram have to be questioned though. All three teams were at the front setting up the train over the last 10km for their sprinters: Boonen, Benatti and Zabel. However, their speed was not high enough. The basic physics of cyling dictate that if the peleton is moving along fast enough at the end, anyone dropped in the closing kilometers just cannot get back on. Although the three teams were cooperating to some degree at the closing setting up the trains for their leaders, the peleton was not strung out in the long single file line that you used to see for Mario Cippolini in his days at Saeco. The peleton was strung out but clearly was not moving along fast enough to keep McEwen from getting back on and getting to the front and then getting around the lead out men for those teams. Really smart riding by McEwen and his team. Really dumb riding by the others.

Tour Ephemera

Somethings you may have missed:

Discovery Channel is wearing green accented team kit to highlight its environmental program.

ESPN.com's Jim Caple gives you an irreverant explaination of why the Tour is still cool and relevant. Like Caple, I am debating whether it is time to buy a Slingbox so I can watch the last week of the Tour while I am in New York from my laptop.

Pezcyclingnews.com has an interview with Anthony Pope, the man behind ProCycling Magazine's Plastic Peleton People cartoons depicting cycling events with Playmobil people.

Lance Armstrong has released a strong and detailed rebuke of David Walsh's latest doping book.

Tour Preview and Who Will Win?

2007-07-04T23:22:00.000-06:00

Why I am not yet Excited about the Tour Preview

It is less than three days before the Tour de France’s historic launch in London and I really have yet to get excited or interested. It is a combination of factors really. First, with the doping cloud hanging over the sport, it has been tough to get excited about the most important race in the world when the media and even race organizers seem to surmise that everyone is cheating.

Second, organizers have shied away from some of the more classic stage finishes. While different is good, a race that included more of the classic climbs and finishes would better link the old with the new and help the race move beyond its recent tarnished history. Throw us a bone. Why not return to Mont Ventoux, L’Alpe d’Huez or have the classic finishing sprint in Bordeaux. Those are classic “comfort” stages.

Third, downhill finishes on Stages 9 and 15 waste the efforts of the riders. Stage 9 climbs the Col du Galibier from the north, which requires the riders to first climb up the Col du Telegraph, which results in nearly 40km of climbing over what is arguably the longest climbing section racers ever face in the Tour de France. However the short finishing climb into Briancon comes after a 35km downhill and almost trivializes the effort.

Fourth, the time trials will be boring. The opening prologue is almost too long at 7.9km as it will likely result in time gaps that will prevent the frequent changes of the yellow jersey among the sprinters the first week. With the start in London, Saunier Duval’s David Millar and Cofidis’ Bradley Wiggins will be gunning to win at home. The first individual time trial does not come until after the Alps in stage 13, but comes the day before the first stage in the Pyrenees. At 54km, it is quite long and will result in significant time gaps. Stage 19 is similar as it is even longer at 55km. Neither are particularly technical, so look for big time gaps as the strong time trialists should be able to put 4+ minutes on the climbers like Rabobank’s Michael Rassmusen and Team CSC’s Carlos Sastre.

Fifth, I have a conference in New York and then family vacation in Washington DC from July 20-29. Versus access is suspect at this point, so why get excited when you don’t have a guarantee that you will be able to see that much of the race anyway. For that reason alone, it may result in being one of the greatest Tours ever.

So who will win?

As is the case most of the time only a handful of teams come to the Tour with reasonable possibilities of having a rider win. So, you can automatically rule out the winner of this year’s race coming from Agritubel, Barloworld, Bouygues Telecom, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Francaise de Jeux, Gerolsteiner, Lampre, Liquigas, Milram, Saunier-Duval. Cofidis, Credit Agricole, and Rabobank will not threaten in the GC but will likely have multiple stage winners, but they likely cannot put a man on the podium either. So that leaves you with the possible winners.

Astana’s Alexandre Vinokourov is the favorite. He has been preparing to be a leader for years and is one of the most aggressive riders in the peleton. His team is focused on deliverying him to victory. He is the second most famous Kazakh in the world, after Borat, naturally. However, Vinokourov has never raced the Tour as a leader and that is very different from racing opportunistically as he has done in the past. If Vino does not win this year, then he probably never will win. I am not sure that he can, however.

Predictor-Lotto’s Cadel Evans has shown good form this spring in preparation for the Tour. He has had good results previously in the Tour, but Predictor-Lotto goes to the Tour to support Robbie McEwen in the sprints and in the Green Jersey points competition. The two long time trials and the lack of a totally dedicated team, probably mean that Evans can finish on the podium but cannot win.

Levi Leipheimer of Discovery is being advertised as the next great American hope. He has been consistent over the years at the Tour showing annual top ten potential when he stays out of trouble. The move to Discovery has paid off with strong time trial results this spring. However, Alberto Contador is probably a stronger climber and Johann Bruyneel’s stated goal of getting him on the podium probably is a reasonable one under the circumstances.

Alejandro Valverde of Caisse d’Epargne is advertised as the next big thing, however, he has yet to finish a Tour de France. You need to finish one before you can win one. Maybe a top 5 is possible although I think his time trialing will be exposed with the 110km of time trials squeezed into the last nine days of the Tour.

CSC’s Carlos Sastre should finish in the top 5 again, however, like Valverde, the long non-technical individual time trials likely preclude him finishing on the podium.

T-Mobile’s Michael Rogers should have no trouble with the time trial as a multiple world time trial champion, however, he has never shown that he can hang in the high mountains. Top ten is likely top five would be a surprise.

So, that brings us to AG2R which is not on any of the lists above. Christophe Moreau is my dark horse. He recently won the Dauphine Libere and capped off the French national championships with his first ever national title. He will race the Tour in the national champion’s jersey. He has twice finished fourth in the Tour and he is a perennial top 10 rider. Since moving to AG2R, he has shown more aggression than he did in all his years at Credit Agricole. He will have all of France pulling for him. Do you think the guys down at the Tour headquarters have noticed that it has been more than 20 years since a French rider won? If ever there was a year where the Tour de France needed a French winner to keep the home crowds and sponsors happy it is 2007. However, Moreau is the only French rider with the remotest possibility of being anywhere near the top 10. 2007 could be Moreau’s best shot ever at winning Le Tour.

A Few Races Have Happened

2007-06-24T21:52:00.000-06:00

There have been a few pre Tour tune ups that have happened over the last few weeks.

Dauphine Libere

AG2R’s Christophe Moreau had one of the biggest victory of his career with his win during last week’s Dauphine Libere. It was his second victory in the important Tour de France warm up, which he also won in 2001. He showed tactical acumen that he has rarely shown in the past. With a win in the stage finishing on Mont Ventoux, Moreau seized the lead and held on for the win. While Astana had a good performance as a team winning four of the eight stages, Alexandre Vinokourov did not show the form you would have to believe he wanted to show for this important Tour warm up. Vinokourov lost significant time in the mountains

While it is important to do well at the Dauphine, past winners have maybe peaked too early and have had Tour let downs. Although Lance Armstrong had won the Dauphine in 2002 and 2003, it has long been believed that his Dauphine victory in 2003 took so much out of him, that it resulted in his smallest margin of victory of just over a minuite over Jan Ullrich in clearly his most difficult Tour victory.

Astana has to be considered one of the favorite teams for the Tour, however, Vinokourov has never had the pressure of racing as a favorite at the Tour. He has performed well in the Tour when he had the ability to be opportunistic. It will be shown whether he has mental strength to win the Tour as a team leader.

Tour de Suisse

The Tour de Suisse ended with a major victory for French-Spanish team Caisse d’Epargne with Vladimir Karpets showing good form in the mountains and in the time trials. Karpets also won the Tour de Catalunya a few weeks before and is a former Tour de France white jersey winner (2004). However, much like the Dauphine, winning the Tour de Suisse is not really a good indicator of potential for winning the Tour de France because winning the “Fourth Grand Tour” two weeks before Le Tour just requires too much effort to keep one’s top form for nearly six weeks and have a team which can successfully defend for the better part of thirty plus race days.

Eindhoven ProTour Team Time Trial

Sunday was also the ProTour Team Time Trial in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Originally created as a way to provide the ProTour with a team time trial to help teams prepare for the Tour de France, Tour organizers ASO torpedoed the significance of the event by elminating the team time trial from the Tour. While organizers of both the Giro and the Vuelta a Espana have both added team time trials to their events, without a eam time trial in the Tour the event is largely irrelevant and has been plagued by a lack of sponsor support and general interest. Most importantly, the race always goes past the Holiday Inn where I always stay when I am in Eindhoven. Note, I have not informed you that Team CSC won the race because, well, it just does not really matter. Most teams send the B Team and no one is going to remember who won this year.

New Stuff I Have Purchased

I bought another bike two weeks ago at my friend’s garage sale. I felt like I was taking advantage of him, but hey, if someone offers me their KHS track frame as well as HED disc wheel for one ridiciulously low price, I will go ahead and take a set of tubulars wheels and Continental tires too. My seven year old daughter expressed her concern as to whether I was spending too much money on bike stuff and not enough on food for our family. Of course she thinks, correctly so, that she probably ought to get the next new bike at our house. So I doubt she will complain when I buy her a new bike for her birthday.

Early Summer Recap

2007-06-10T20:53:00.000-06:00

Giro Recap

Danilo Di Luca proved to be the strongest rider at the Giro and is a deserving winner. Saunier Duval-Prodir had the strongest team with four riders winning stages, the team winning the team GC competition and the king of the mountains competition being won by one of its riders. That said, there really was not a single moment of the race where you honestly thought that Saunier Duval would put Di Luca in jeopardy. He rode a smart race and was a deserving winner. That said, with all of the turmoil surrounding T-Mobile/Team Telekom and the other goings on in Italy and with weekend coverage only available on VS. it was not really easy to get excited about the race. I did however keep the live text recap of the climb up Monte Zoncolan up on my computer at work.

CoreStates/First Union/Wachovia/Commerce Bank Philly Week

With the loss of the US Pro Championship leaving the Philadelphia week in jeopardy as well as the in sponsorship support, it is clear things have changed for what was once the most important week of American cycling. This year, T-Mobile showed up and had a good week, although the T-Mobile men once again showed how to ride a tactically poor race where they had the final train lined up and could not deliver the win on Sunday in Philadelphia. The races have really lost some of their importance and excitement as evidenced by Discovery Channel's notable absence from any of the three Pennsylvania races. They just aren't as relevant or important as they used to be as noted by my lack of discussion of who actually won any of the races.

Maybe France Will Get It Together After All

In case you missed it, recently elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy received a clear legislative and ruling mandate with Sunday's first round of elections for the National Assembly. I think that the poor performances that the French have had in the last twenty Tours de France is a direct reflection of national malaise and a refusal to accept social responsibility. Sarkozy has struck a chord with the French public who are tired of the bureaucratic and economic chirrosis that permates French life. More importantly, Sarkozy's victory is a reflection of the fact that the French public is willing to support his desire to reform French society. So what does that mean? Nothing really, but the current generation of cyclists in France were born and raised during the Mitterand/Chirac eras. Sarkozy has already in just his first few months in office repudiated the notion that France is right to do things differently by pointing out that 40 years of doing things differently in Europe has resulted in an unproductive workforce and a clear lack of national identity. Maybe in 25 years France will be able to celebrate a French champion once again.

Various Things I Have Experienced Recently

1. Cat 5 blowing a tire and then blowing a gasket when no one would give him a wheel at the Tour of Eagle criterium. Dude, the rule "wheels in, wheels out" applies to everyone. It is not like you were leading the Tour de France.

2. Cat 3 indignantly asking where he was supposed to put his schwag bag after registering for the race. Dude, we gave you a couple of coupons, a t-shirt and some stickers. Put it where ever you want it.

3. Lady in pickup truck pulling on to turn 3 of the Tour of Eagle race course and when stopped telling me that "I know the road is closed but I want to go to my friend's house." When asked where her friend lived she noted it was a block away. She was totally put out at having to walk a block.

4. Saturday as I rode in on the final miles of the metric century at the Bob Lebow Ride in Nampa, Idaho (when you help set up and tear down a criterium course the night before, you don't get up to do the full century) I passed a guy whose bike gloves were leather roping gloves, a girl aparently doing the ten mile route in flip flops, and a guy riding a Specialized Allez with a kickstand.

5. For all that is said in Idaho about 2C and 2O drivers, I did not have a single car honk at me, make me think there was going to be an accident, scream at me, or throw anything during the Bob Lebow Ride. Never have either. The folks in Canyon and Owhyee Counties are always courteous and polite clearly recognizing that they have a great event.

The Killer, Rabbits, and the World Champion

2007-05-26T21:36:00.000-06:00

The Killer

Danilo DiLuca showed why they call him the Killer on Sunday. He got tag teamed by Saunier Duval-Prodir and found himself without teammates for much of the last half of Sunday's stage of the Giro d'Italia. However, he did not get anxious, rode a solid race and when the time came to put the hammer to the small group that was with him consisting of Cunego, Simoni, Schleck and Salvoldelli, he put the hammer to them and rode away from them to finish sixth on the stage. Now, his Liquigas team will need to provide more support for him than they have as Saunier Duval has two men in the top ten in Simoni and Ricco.

During the final week teams will start looking to defend their leaders which will provide Liquigas some assistance. Milram's Alessandro Petacchi is leading the points jersey and there are at least two more stages which should result in a sprint finish. CSC's Andy Schleck is leading the young rider competition by less than a minute over Saunier Duval's Ricardo Ricco. As such, Ricco and his teammates should expect CSC to watch them like hawks to protect Schleck, which will benefit Liquigas and DiLuca. Finally. Saunier Duval's Leonardo Piepoli is leading the king of the mountain competition. Although Saunier Duval has hopes of winning the Giro with Simoni or Ricco, if Ricco does not make up time on Schleck and DiLuca then the team will likely aggressively defend the climber's jersey before next Sunday's finish.

However, I do not think that Liquigas will let anyone get too aggressive over the final week and DiLuca has shown himself to be much stronger in the mountains this year than ever before. Stage 16 has climbs in the first portion of the race with a downhill run to the finish with a flat 15km before the end of the stage. DiLuca should lose no time on this stage to the top contenders. Stage 17 on Wednesday will likely be the decisive stage for this year's Giro. With the short, 10km, but very steep, 11.9% average with areas nearly 20%, final climb of the stage is up Monte Zoncolan, DiLuca should be in good shape if he gets to the base of the climb with one or two teammates. He is certainly stronger than any of the other favorites at the moment. With more than a three minute lead on both Simoni and Cunego, DiLuca should win his first Giro.

Look out Bunny !

Saturday was my first multisport race in almost 11 years. I raced the Bucyrus, Ohio YMCA triathlon Memorial day weekend in 1996 and then raced the Edinboro, Pennsylvania Triathlon the following weekend. I have done a few 5k's since but my multisport days ended with the birth of our first child.

Last summer I finally decided that I needed to get control of my diet, exercise and career. Since then, I have lost 70 pounds and last month I started running again regularly. I figured a good test for my new fitness would be Boise's Camelback Duathlon put on by the YMCA. The short course had a short 2k run followed by a 15k ride and a 2k run. I can run 4k and the bike is not a problem so I submitted my registration on Monday.

Tuesday morning I bent down to pick up a set of plans off my floor and decided just to kneel down and look at what I needed. Right then my right knee crumpled and I felt a knifing pain through my righ quadricep. I went over writhing in pain on my office floor. I did my best to stretch my right leg out but i was rather concerned about whether I had just kissed $39 away. Tuesday night I went to the gym just to see if I could get the right leg to relax a bit. The pain continued but as the week went on I felt pretty good by Friday afternoon.

Saturday morning I rode the three miled from my house to Camelsback Park. Eventhough Saturday was supposed to be fairly warm and the race did not start until 9AM, I decided to wear my Nike bib knickers due to the additional support and warmth they give my legs. It was a good decision because they did not end up being too hot and did not constrict my run.

So, how did it go, and where is the bunny? I started the opening 2k like I typically do in a duathlon. I run from the very back of the pack because I am really slow. I don't really run. It is more of a waddle. I passed a few grandmothers and found my pace with the heavy guys. I ran a slightly slower than 10 minuite pace for the first 2k. Then, I had a very solid ride. This last week I converted my old Trek 1220 road bike into a dedicated time trial machine. It is much heavier than my new Trek 5200 and it only has a 7 speed rear cassette. I put cowhorns on it and my aero bars. I had about 45 minutes total of training on it prior to the race. So I was very happy with my performance.

The first two miles were up Bogus Basin Road which is a very constant climb. Then you got to turn around and come back down. I was going 8 miles an hour going up hill but 38 miles an hour coming down. About 400M after the turn around, I just tucked into my aero position and was really pushing my biggest gear, when a small grey rabbit ran across the road in front of me. We made eye contact and I think he knew we were both gonners if he did not move faster so he did. I would hate to think what would have happened to both of us if I had hit him at 30+ miles an hour. Anyway my hear rate spiked and I just flew down the hill rode a solid time trial and got back to the transition area to be greeted by my wife and two youngest children. We high fived and I went out and ran an 11 minute mile pace for the final 2k.

Now, I have lost 70 pounds this last year and now weigh about 198. Had I sandbagged, I could have still raced in the Clydesdale category. I was tempted to register for the Clydesdale category but my fear was that race officials would catch me as a sandbagger who raced with weights in his pocket just to race in the big guy category. I am glad I did not, although I would have won the shortcourse Clydesdal category. As it was I finished 3rd in the 30-39 men. There were actually 6 men in the category so I did not finish 3rd by default. Had I realized how well I had done, I would have stayed for my ribbon. As it was, we came home, I took a shower and we went to Lowe's.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Becker Ridge Road.

The long and short courses (30k and 15k) used the same first 12k which included a climb up past the intersection of Bogus Basin Road and Becker Ridge Road before descending back down to Hill Road and then riding along Hill Road to the ultimate turnourounds for both courses. As I pushed my way up the Bogus Basin climb, I heard the distinctive sound of a disk wheel coming up behind me. Boise's own world champion Kristin Armstrong came flying by me in her world champion kit. It was really cool. She rode the 30k course almost 9 miles an hour faster than I rode the 15k course. She was part of a relay that of course had the fastest time of the day. My eyes glazed over as my hear rate spiked as I rode up Bogus Basin Road because I don't recall seeing her come down the hill.

Unnecessary, Unseemly and Revolting

2007-05-17T22:29:00.000-06:00

I don't think that I am going to waste any more time blogging about the Landis doping hearing. Thursday's events at the hearing with Greg LeMond's testimony will reverberate for a long time. Ultimately, LeMond's testimony neither addresses the issues of the science nor does it establish any "confession" on the part of Landis. Landis and his entourage have not acted in the way that you would expect an innocent person to act in this type of matter. I have no objection to his "Wiki defense" or his aggressive attacks on the lack of commitment to due process that WADA, USADA and LNDD have shown in this matter. However, hacking and witness intimidation are never appropriate defense strategies. At the end of the day, it is hard to believe that a guy is innocent where such egregious conduct can be directly attributed to him and his advisors.

Again, as a former prosecutor, I am a firm believer in due process, I am a firm believer in innocence until proven guilty, and I am a firm believer that you have no obligation to incriminate yourself. However, if you are ever accused of anything do not talk, to anyone, at any time. And most importantly, the more you try to cover up things, or appear to do so, the more guilty you look. Cover up always results in bad things.

So if you want to read what is going on go to Cyclingnews.com or VeloNews.com. You are not going to hear any more on this subject from me until I get this horrible taste out of my mouth.

The Giro and Dope

2007-05-13T20:41:00.000-06:00

The Giro Starts

Saturday was the start of the Giro d'Italia with a very difficult team time trial. Many of the teams criticized organizers for creating a stage that was not really suitable for a team time trial as the course wound over and between the islands of Caprera and Maddalena. An undulating course which crossed the road between the islands, the results showed it was difficult as few of the teams were able to keep their riders together. Astana rode a good race for its team leader Paolo Salvoldelli but Liquigas won the stage.

It was not without some internal controversy however, as Liquigas' sprinter Enrico Gasparotto crossed before team leader Danilo Di Luca and took the first pink jersey. Although the team tried to play down the result claiming it was intended, it appeared that Di Luca was quite agitated at his team mate for failing to let the team's GC leader take the first pink jersey. Discovery had a solid ride, but team leader Yaroslav Popovych crashed in the final kilometer and the team finsished fifth as it had to wait for its leader and fifth rider on the road.

Sunday's stage ended with a sprint finish which was taken out by Predictor-Lotto's Robbie McEwen. The Giro follows a difficult course with a mountain top finish on Tuesday's Stage 4, which could set the GC for most of the rest of the race. A short stage of 150km the final climb is approximately 17km and averages 5%. The Giro's organizers have put similar stages as early in prior editions and with no clear strong favorite, it may not be too decisive, however, it is potentially difficult enough to end someone's Giro if they are not paying attention.

Dopes Part Un

The cycling world was rocked early this week as news reports indicated that Ivan Basso had confessed to Italian authorities that he had doped and had been involved with the key targets of Operacion Puerto. Within 24 hours, however, Basso had indicated that he had only confessed to "attempted doping" and that all of his major victories had been clean.

As a former death penalty prosecutor, I can tell you that I have heard a lot of excuses for why people do the things that they do. The ones who iritate me the most have always been those who confess to their wrongdoing and minimize what they did based upon the claim that while they attempted to do something they did not follow through. Evidently Basso is not naming names, however, I would have had a lot more respect for him had he said nothing after he had confessed his involvement other than to say his confession spoke for itself.

Basso's admission appear to open the door to others as Michele Scarponi also confessed to his involvement in the scandal to Italian officials as well. This appears to be the crack in the wall of silence and denial as press reports indicate that some thirty Spanish cyclists are seeking to make a deal with Spanish authorities to accept bans in hopes of returning to race by next year's Vuelta a Espana. So it appears that there was merit to the Puerto investigation and at a minimum some of the implicated riders are now ready to come clean.

Dopes Part Deux

There have also been reports that the non-Spanish ProTour teams are considering a boycott of Spanish ProTour races if Spanish authorities do not move more quickly to resolve the outstanding issues regarding the eligibility of certain riders implicated in the Puerto matter. Althought the Vuelta a Espana organizers have claimed that they will not let any rider implicated in Puerto start its race, there seems to have been a very laissez faire attitude to the participation of Spanish riders and teams implicated in the scandal. Vuelta organizers have also bemoaned the lack of action against Spanish riders and have noted the quicker action by other federations and nations outside of Spain.

What is most disconcerting however, is the fact that while stating that they are concerned about doping in the sport, Vuelta organizers have stated their desire and anticipation that Alejandro Valverde will start the race this fall, even though Valverde has been identified as a rider whose blood was seized in the Puerto investigation and showed evidence of EPO treatment. While Valverde is the biggest name in Spanish cycling at the moment, Vuelta organizers cannot have it both ways.

Dopes Part Trois

The Floyd Landis doping hearing starts Monday. Landis fired a major shot across the bow of WADA and USADA alleging that they offered him a deal if he would implicate Lance Armstrong in doping during his Tour de France victories. Landis' take no prisoners defense has started to get attention outside of the cycling media as evidenced by these articles in Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. I do not know if Landis doped or not. If he did then he is one of the most stupid people ever to compete in sports, with his kamikaze ride to regain the lead and having been in yellow previously, Landis knew or should have known that use of testosterone would more likely than not be detected.

The whole matter has been unseemly and will not result in an outcome that anyone can be confident will result in the correct outcome. From Dick Pound's salacious comments, to the appearent sloppiness of the French lab, to the apparent lack of due process in the retesting of Landis' B samples by the same French lab that found the initial positive test, to Landis' claims that USADA is just using him to get to Armstrong. I have come to the sad conclusion that while most of the Puerto riders, including American Tyler Hamilton, probably are guilty, the Landis matter reeks of a witch trial where the top doping officials in the sport either conspired to create the scandal or ignored the very safeguards intended to protect the innocent. Either way, no one wins, and no one will ever be sure what happened with Landis.

Getting Ready for the Giro

2007-05-06T21:01:00.000-06:00

Tour de Romandie Recap

Former Giro d'Italia winner Paolo Savoldelli of Astana showed that he should be a contender for the GC this year, as he won the opening prologue of the six day Tour de Romandie, the final stage race tune up before next Saturday's start of the Giro. Although Rabobank's Dutch phenom, Thomas Dekker won the overall with his win Sunday in the final 20km time trial, Savoldelli showed strength in both the prologue and final time trial, where he finished second, as well as Saturday's queen stage when Savoldelli finished fifth behind the group of Dekker and Lotto-Predictor's American Chris Horner and two other riders. Horner wore the leader's jersey for one day but finished overall in fifth after he lost almost a minute on the time trial. All in all, Savoldelli has to be a favorite for the Giro. He is on a strong team, he has had good results, and he has won it before on just pure guts. Dekker also returned to the form that caused many to say he was the next big thing two years ago at the age of 20 before injuries sidelined him last year.

Operacion Puerto Update

The news early this week was Ivan Basso's requested release from Discovery Channel. This gave Discovery an out leading up to the Giro with its team leader having seen the investigation into his relationship with a Spanish doping ring reopened in Italy. Already, small Italian team Amore & Vita McDonalds has expressed its desire to sign Basso. Although the team's ownership rails against the big time evils of drugs in sports, the timing of the announcement was likely just a publicity stunt for the team sponsored by the Catholic Church's anti-abortion program and the American fast food giant.

Spanish news outlets are also reporting the impending relase of another, larger dossier implicating another fifty cyclists, among whom are reported to include some of the largest names in the sport. It is unclear why these documents were not previously released with the prior documents but they promise to keep the scandal on the front burner.

In other Puerto news, Alejandro Valverde who has continued to race this spring as rumors surrounded him as to his link to the scandal is now being linked to EPO tainted blood recovered in the investigation. Although blood purportedly belonging to Ivan Basso has been identified by media sources as not containing EPO, Valverde's blood has now been identified as blood which showed evidence of EPO boosting. Regardless of whether EPO is used or not, blood transfusions are banned.

Here is the latest from Cyclingnews.com's archive on Puerto.

The Little 500

ESPN.com's Page 2 had this excellent account of Indiana University's Little 500, which inspired the great cycling film, Breaking Away.

The End of the Classics

2007-04-29T20:52:00.000-06:00

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.

Amstel Gold Recap

2007-04-22T16:03:00.000-06:00

Amstel Gold Recap

Steffan Schumacher of Team Gerolsteiner won the 2007 edition of the only Dutch classic, the Amstel Gold Race. On yet another unseasonably warm day, the peleton rode under clear sunny skies as the peleton raced through multiple laps and turns in the southeastern region of the Netherlands, in and around Maastricht, finishing in Valkenburg on the famed Cauberg.

Once again the mild weather changed the race a bit as most of the peleton stayed together far longer than had occurred in the past. An early break of no-names went away early and with about 50km to go, Jens Voight of Team CSC and last year's second place finisher Stefan Wesemann of Wiesenhof, who was also fresh off his Paris-Roubaix podium, attacked in what looked like could have been the decisive move of the day when they bridged up to the early break. However, they did not stay away even though Voight and Wesemann certainly are strong riders who have shown strength in these types of races.

The peleton ulitmately shook things up and the final move came on the Eyserbosweg which was the twenty-eighth climb of the day. In the decisive move was an elite group of former winners, including Gerolsteiner's Davide Rebellin, Rabobank's Michael Boogerd, Liquigas' Danilo Di Luca as well as Paolo Bettini of Quickstep, Matthias Kessler of Astana and Alejandro Valverde of Caisse d'Epargne in the group. However, this group of strong men spent the last 20km watching each other and riding defensively with Gerolsteiner's Rebellin and Schumacher in the group.

As the potential victors watched each other as they raced towards the finish on the Cauberg in Valkenburg, Schumacher attacked with about 3km to go and road away from the group and to the win. Dutch favorite, Michael Boogerd failed in his attempt to win as he was left covering the riders in the chase group and finished fifth on the day. Boogerd has had an impressive career at home with one win, four second places and two thirds over the last ten seasons at the high point of the Dutch season. Boogerd has announced his retirement.

The "ride" of the day may have to go to last year's winner Frank Schleck of Team CSC who crashed hard with about 50km to go but managed to ride hard back to the peleton to finish the race in 10th. Cyclingnews.com's account of the race does to provide some detail of the amount of "assistance" that Schleck received from his team car, but the video stream covered his chase back closely and even the race commentators had to note that Schleck seemed to be getting an inordinant amount of assistance. The race commissars did not sanction Schleck but probably could have for improper assistance.

Tour of Georgia Recap

Discovery Channel showed dominance again this week at the Tour of Georgia. The race was over on GC after a thirteen man breakaway put twenty nine minutes on the peleton. Discovery won three stages with Gianni Meersman won Stage 3, Levi Leipheimer won the individual time trial in Stage 4, and the climb to Brasstown Bald, Georgia's highest point on Stage 5. Discovery's Slovenian all arounder, Janez Brajkovic, was in the Stage 3 breakaway, had a strong time trial in Stage 4 and spent the rest of the race marking Team CSC's Christian VandeVelde ultimately winning by 12 seconds. Discovery's Tom Danielson also looked very strong on the climb to Brasstown Bald, finishing second to Leipheimer.

Like occured in the Tour of California, only Toyota United was able to steal a stage win in Stage 2 away from the European based teams with Discovery, Predictor-Lotto, Team CSC and Tinkoff Credit Systems getting the rest of the stages. The gap between the european teams and the domestic US teams is still very large. The Stage 3 gap created a somewhat distorted GC with thirteen riders gaining 29 minutes on that stage, including many of the smaller domestic teams. However, the reality is that the domestic teams are still far removed from even the weaker teams that Saunier Duval, Tinkoff and Predictor-Lotto sent for the race.

#$%@# Global Warming and Subaru Drivers

2007-04-15T21:21:00.000-06:00

Global Warming Sucks

Well, Al Gore is right. Global warming is a catastrophe waiting to happen, and truth be told, this week's unseasonably warm and dry conditions ruined my favorite week of bike racing. With temperatures in the 80's, no rain, and nothing but sun, the Northern Classics were lacking everything that makes them both northern and classic.

Now, I cannot fault the winners of the races this last week. Ballan at the Ronde, Burghardt at Ghent Wevelgem and O'Grady at Paris-Roubaix all road strong races and were deserving winners. Ballan and O'Grady are certainly riders who have shown in the past that they could win these types of races. However, the conditions were too good for races of this caliber and the fact that large groups stayed together right up until the last 20km of both the Ronde and Paris-Roubaix evidenced that fact.

However, Team CSC's Stuart O'Grady rode an excellent race on Sunday to become the first Australian winner of Paris-Roubaix. He did not panic after a flat in the Arenberg Forest, latched on to Tom Boonen's group and followed what proved to be the decisive attack at about 30km to go. O'Grady then powered away to win by a minute over Rabobank's Juan Antonio Flecha and Wiesenhof's Steffen Wesemann. Boonen again lacked the legs he has shown in the past and none of the main Belgian protagonists showed anything today.

Team CSC once again showed why they are such a great tactical team. Team CSC had excellent numbers at the front of the race throughout the day. They covered the dangerous breaks and made strong attacks that put everyone else on the defensive. T-Mobile continued to show throughout the day that even with a retooled team, their tactical acumen still is pathetic. They once again had the numbers and failed to capitalize in the Hell of the North. Maybe it is the pink kit that keeps them from winning it.

Still a great race and O'Grady is a very deserving winner. But I really prefer the race when the temperature is in the 40's, it is raining, and it is an all day long war of attrition. When you see spectators in mini skirts and flip flops, you know that global warming has claimed yet another casualty.

Subaru Drivers Suck Too

After an exhilarating ride Friday afternoon after taking the day off to work in the yard with my wife in celebration of our 16th anniversary, I was brought back to reality by a fool in a Subaru as I rode down Idaho Street at 5:30 pm. Now, this individual may just be an idiot, but Subaru drivers tend to be rather sanctimonious about their outdoor bona fides and their love of the environment. Take a look here at my friend, Bike Boy's blog entry earlier this year where he had an exchange with a self-righteous Subaru owner.

Anyway shortly after climbing all the way to the end of the pavement on Shaw Mountain Road (800 feet of elevation gain over 2 miles with segments at the very bottom and the very top of the climb at or near 10% grades) for the first time ever on my road bike, after taking the steepest approach to it (Haines Street to Shenandoah Drive), something I had only ever done on my mountain bike using the full capability of my compact triple, I was accosted by a guy in a white Subaru at 6th and Idaho who did not like the fact that I was riding along with traffic on the right side of the road. He was the second idiot that day who had decided that me riding along with traffic somehow precluded them from getting where they wanted to be. Now, when you are riding at 20-25mph in traffic you are not slowing anybody down and not making anybody late.

While turning to give him a long "Lance glare" I refrained from pointing at him or showing him who was number one. But that did not mean that I was going to not protect myself from SubarDude. So, I moved over to the center of the lane to make sure he did not try to put me into the parking strip and held my line. When I crossed Capitol Boulevard, I dropped into the bus lane, sped off and chuckled as SubarDude was left in the mess that occurred at 10th and Idaho as a result of the closure of two lanes at rush hour for construction. I think he may still be stuck in traffic.

I do have to give thanks, however, to the school bus driver and the construction worker who patiently waited at intersections along my climb leaving me the right of way as I struggled through two of the steepest segments of the climb. They got a smile and a waive.

Easter in Flanders

2007-04-08T21:49:00.000-06:00

De Ronde Recap

Sunday was an unusual Tour of Flanders. With sunny weather and warm temperatures, the conditions were not going to dictate who won. That did not keep Gerolsteiner riders from falling off their bikes however. Crashes did take their toll as an early crash probably kept Tom Boonen from getting his third title.

I was somewhat disappointed with the Versus coverage today. I went to my cousin's wedding in Salt Lake and when you share a hotel room with your two little boys, you cannot fire up the laptop and watch it live, so I recorded it on the DVR and avoided looking at the results. So when I realized after sitting down to watch it that they only had an hour's worth of coverage and of that hour only about 40 minutes was devoted to actual race coverage and that they only picked up the last 40km. Thus, while it is better than no bike racing and no Ronde, it kind of left me unsatisfied.

Anyway, Lampre's Alessandro Ballan had a great day as he rode the type of Ronde that proved why it is a classic. He had been riding well all spring and has showed good form. After covering Boonen's attack on the Muur of Geraardsbergen Ballan rode away with Predictor's Leif Hoste. The two got a lead and worked well together. Hoste has come close to winning in both 2004 and 2006 when he finished second. However, the final sprint between Ballan and Hoste proved to be about 100 meters too far for Hoste who looked to have the race won before Ballan came around him at the very end.

Hoste now has three second place finishes over the last four years. That is really hard luck for a Belgian in his home town race.

US Whatever They Called It on NBC On Saturday

In case you missed the race that almost was not, the Belgian weather on Saturday was in Virginia. NBC committed two hours of prime Saturday afternoon sports coverage to the US Open Cycling Championships which was run on a course from Williamsburg to Richmond, Virginia. The first year race had been plagued by management and sponsorship issues. However, they had the A-team out for race coverage with Bob Roll, John Eustice, and Frankie Andreu working the race with Al Trautwig. They had helicopters and motorcycles providing pictures just like you would expect in Europe. Unfortunately, bad weather delayed the start of the race and some of the domestic teams were upset about having to ride in cold, snowy and wet conditions. The course was more difficult than some of the domestic races that get run with cobbles and climbs making it Belgium like over the closing circuits in Richmond. Symmetrics Svein Tuft won the race. It is good that the race got TV coverage. However, poor weather, poor organization, poor racing and poor spectator turnout made the race less than appealing to watch on TV.

Domestic Sponsorship Blues

With the excitement permeating American cycling last fall with everyone announcing their big races, the concerns I expressed then about saturation in the market and sponsorship issues have come true. The US Open Cycling Championship failed to land a major sponsor and slashed its prize budget by 2/3rds. The Tour of Georgia only got a replacement for Ford last week announcing that AT&T would be its presenting sponsor. The Tour of Utah announced a one year hiatus to get things lined up for 2008. None of this is good for the sport. Many promoters do not realize how expensive putting on top races can be. There is a reason that great domestic races like the Coors Classic, Tour Du Pont, San Francisco Grand Prix and the Ore-Ida/HP Women's Challenge have gone out of business: expenses exceeding sponsorship revenue ultimately doom even the best events.

The Best Week of the Year

2007-04-05T23:47:00.000-06:00

My focus this week has unfortunately been on my legal practice. It made me miss Criterium International, which is one of my top ten favorite cycling events. It made me ignore last weekend's great racing in Flanders with both Boonen and Freire having impressive wins. It made me miss the NCAA finals. Yes the law really gets in the way of cycling.

However this next week is the one week of the year that I live for: this Sunday it is the Ronde van Vlaanderen, Wednesday, Ghent-Wevelgem, and next Sunday, Paris-Roubaix. That is like having Christmas, your birthday and your anniversary all in the same week. It is the week you wait for gleefully each year.

So for you neophytes, here is what you need to know about each:

De Ronde Van Vlaanderen: If you are Belgian and you win this race you will not have to buy your self for a beer for a year. If you win it twice you won't have to buy a beer every again. The winner of the Ronde, if he is Belgian is a hero for ever. They have an entire museum dedicated to this single race. While luck is important, the Ronde produces winners who have earned it. There are no flukes here. It is a race of pure aggression where each cobbled hill further reduces the size of the main group. It generally does not end in a sprint.

Ghent-Wevelgem: This is the entertaining intermission next Wednesday. It is the transition to Paris-Roubaix. Not as many of the hills as De Ronde, shorter, crazy stuff likely to happen. It produces great sprint finishes. Mario Cippolini won this race three times, including in 2002 when he bridged to the leaders on his own and outsprinted Americans Fred Rodriguez and George Hincapie.

Paris-Roubaix: If the Ronde is a race of pure aggression, Paris-Roubaix is a race of pure power. Not a single hill on the route. Pan flat. Riders head northeast from Compiègne to the Belgian border and then take a left heading northwest. The cobbled sections are not like in the Ronde where they are well maintained. These are farm roads and alleys. This race requires a monster chain ring, a strong team and a lot of luck.

So, if you have not already done so and you are in the United States, get to Cycling.tv, pay your annual subscription and get ready for the greatest week of the year in cycling.

The Hardmen Rule

2007-03-25T21:15:00.000-06:00

Milan-San Remo Recap

The longest of the Classics celebrated its 100th Anniversary with an exciting and satisfying finish. Oscar Freire, Rabobank's Spanish one day rider once again showed that he is one of the smartest and most competetive riders in the world. I have sung his praises in the past because, when healthy, he is consistently one of the strongest riders there is today. He is not necessarily as fast as the absolute fastest sprinters and does not necessarily have the strongest team support. He consistently keeps himself at the front, picks the right wheels to follow in important races.

Freire has won three world titles, two Milan-San Remo titles, consistently wins Grand Tour stages and sprint stages in minor tours. But for back problems that have plagued him most of his career, Freire probably could have had significantly greater successes. Clearly he is the best Spanish classic rider of the current generation. While Feire rode an excellent race and beat an excellent field, the day was most impressive by some of the shows of strength by the peleton.

With Boonen, Petacchi, Zabel, McEwen and O'Grady all finishing in the top 10, it was a strong field and a strong sprint. However, Milram and Petacchi need to be concerned with his recovery from last year's freak accident during the Giro d'Italia where Petacchi broke his kneecap. Even "Ale-Jet" conceded after the race that he does not have the speed he used to have. Milram set everything up perfectly for their leader and he could only muster a top 10 finish.

World Champion Paolo Bettini got caught behind a crash on the Cipressa, the second to last climb, some 30km before the finish. Bettini is racing with broken ribs and has had a couple of rough weeks. Yet, he raced back to the leaders and animated things on the Poggio for his teammate Boonen.

Discovery Channel's Yaroslava Popovych attacked on the Cipressa, then attacked again when caught on the Poggio. It was the type of move that really showed how strong Popovych is this year. I think the jury is still out on whether Popovych can be a GC contender in the Grand Tours, however, he has shown himself to be a much more opportunistic rider this year than in years past.

Saunier Duval's Ricardo Ricco, is really young but has had a good week coming off of a good showing at Tirreno-Adriatico. He had told the press he would attack on the Poggio and after Popovych was caught attacked and nearly got away to the finish with Francaise de Jeux's Philippe Gilbert. They unfortunately were caught before the finish but made the peleton race hard to bring them back.

Nasty Crashes

Gerolsteiner suffered two nasty crashes in the race that put two of their riders in the hospital. The first, David Kopp, went down hard and suffered facial injuries. TV did not capture the crash, but any time you see a rider lying on the ground and his bike is nowhere to be seen you know it was a bad accident. The second, Andrea Moletta, suffered a broken leg. Moletta had been in the attack with Popovych initially, however, coming around a curve, he could not hold his line and ploughed directly into the concrete utility pole seen at the right of the linked photo. He took the utility pole head on ending up stradling it and being whipped around. Maybe if Gerolsteiner had more manly kits, the asphalt gods would not be so hostile to them.

Better Coverage?

Today's two hour broadcast on Versus gives me some hope for the future of cycling broadcasting in the United States. Phil Ligget and Bob Roll did the race commentary as you would expect. However, Versus ran a profile and interview of Paolo Bettini and also had an interview with Charlie Wegilius of Liquigas on what it is like riding for Filippo Pozzato. Next week is Criterium International which should have more Americans racing in it but if today's coverage is any indication, Versus may have realized that banking all of your cycling coverage on one or two Americans may not be the best way to build a long term audience.

This, That and the Other

2007-03-17T22:13:00.000-06:00

I recognize it has been a while since I have posted. We spent last weekend at the Seattle International Bike Expo and that travel, together with work, has kept me away from the keyboard as well. So here we go:

Seattle International Bike Expo Recap

We took Cyclista and CyclingMovies.Com on the road to the Cascade Bicycle Club's Seattle International Bike Expo for the third straight year. Here is what we did and saw.

I rode a prototype of Kona's AfricaBike which Kona has built for distribution to NGO's and nonprofits in Africa. It will be available hopefully in April to consumers here in the United States and I have already gone to my local Kona dealer to tell them that I want one as soon as they get one. It is the ultimate in utilitarian commuter bike and it is a product which is making meaningful differences in people's lives in Africa.

I actually rode the Kona AfricaBike on E Motion Rollers built by Inside Ride. They build an idiot proof set of rollers as evidenced by the fact that they had people up and riding them on a Kona AfricaBike. Most impressive was the fact that Troy of Inside Ride spent almost two whole days riding on the E Motion Rollers. Their booth was next too ours and it was like being next too the freak show as Troy spent probably twelve hours over two days riding on rollers and Larry got everyone who was willing to try up and riding the AfricaBike in about fifteen seconds.

We met Brett Horton the foremost collector of cycling memorabilia in the world. You can find portions of his collection on line here. You can buy his book "Cycling's Golden Age" here. Mrs. Cycliste Moderne attended all three presentations that Brett made on cycling memorabilia and history. He even gave our business a pitch. Most impressive was the fact that he came and spent over an hour discussing cycling history and memorabilia with me in our booth on Saturday afternoon. Among the memorabilia he not only showed me, but let me handle and discussed with me were the original stopwatch from the Tour de France and the Tour de France Start flag both visible here. He also let me handle the winner's medal from the first Paris-Roubaix in 1896 and the winner's medal from the first Paris-Brest-Paris in 1891 both visible here.

Met the cool guys at Pedal Dynamics, a small shop in Seattle that has developed its business based upon serving corporate clients. They go on site to service bikes so the big companies can keep their geeks in their cubicles longer.

Operacion Puerto: No Smoke, No Fire

Spanish judicial authorities last week shelved the Operacion Puerto investigation for lack of a crime having been committed under Spanish law. Prosecutors have appealed the decision, however, it has become apparent that Spain's lack of specific doping laws at the time in question probably precludes further prosecution of the matter. The UCI, WADA and the French teams are all up in arms but the reality is that Operacion Puerto was more about meia attention than it really was about cleaning up sport. No other sport has had athletes named in the investigation even though the principal doctors have all been affiliated with some of Spain's largest and most important soccer and basketball clubs. Here is CyclingNew.com's recap of the status of Operacion Puerto.

Paris-Nice Recap

Sunday concluded Paris-Nice the first ProTour race of the year. It managed to go off after a last minute deal was struck between the UCI and the Grand Tours. What did we learn from Paris-Nice:

(1) Discovery Channel has no friends in the peleton. As evidence at the Tour of California, Discovery Channel has no friends left in the peleton and none of the other teams are willing to help them out. Obviously animosity over the signing of Ivan Basso runs deep and still lingers and Discovery cannot expect other teams to help them out. Case in point, during Armstron's last Tour de France, Team CSC with Ivan Basso clearly road defensively to protect Basso and second place in the final few mountain stages. That was great assistance to Discovery as it could count on Team CSC to assist it in marking T-Mobile's efforts. There is no love lost between the teams now and Team CSC will attack Discovery at every chance.

(2) Discovery Channel is still one of the strongest and most tactically savy teams in the peleton. Winning the race on a last stage attack on the final climb, Alberto Contador overcame Davide Rebellin's six second lead on the final climb after Discovery had put Leipheimer, Popovych and Danielson at the front as the peleton raced over the mountains above Nice ending on the promanade in nice. Contador won two stages, Popovych won another.

(3) If the French really believe that they cannot win because everyone else cheats, you have to think that the early part of the season is where they should have some success. Clearly, they cannot. Only JP Nazon of AG2R won a stage and there were no French riders in the top 10. You have to show up at home, especially in a race that the French teams had made it clear they would race in even if the UCI had forbade it.

Sprinters Cannot Count

Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico both showed this week what happens when sprinters and their teams lose count of who was up the road. Both Tom Boonen and Bernard Eisel celebrated what they theought were victories but were in fact sprints for second place and fifth place respectively after they failed to keep track of the number of riders in breakaways.

ProTour RIP: Unibet Gets The Shaft

The UCI and the Grand Tour organizers reached a "settlement" last week permitting Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, the first two ProTour teams to go forward. Basically, the UCI sold out Team Unibet to ensure the season goes forward. The Grand Tours seem now to be parroting French officials that Unibet is an "illegal" sponsor and thus not eligible to race in their respective countries. Unibet was not offered a start at either of the ProTour races this week, however, Italian officials have now invited it to race at Milan-Sanremo this weekend.

Ironically, the ASO, the organizer of the Tour de France, Paris-Nice, Paris-Roubaix, and Liege-Bastogne-Liege had no qualms about inviting Unibet's predecessor "Mr. Bookmaker" to some of their races over the past few years as Mr. Bookmaker had a podium finish as recently as 2004 with Roger Hammond finishing third at Paris-Roubaix. It has also been reported that the ASO had attempted to recurit Mr. Bookmaker as the sponsor of the sprint jersey a few years ago for Paris-Nice. How Unibet can be an illegal gambling company while Mr. Bookmaker is a legal one that French race officials actively sought as a sponsor is beyond me. Maybe some one in the ASO's office failed to realize that "making book" is not the same thing as printing books.

The Real Season Begins

2007-03-04T21:16:00.000-07:00

This needs to be a really short post because I am in the midst of multiple Idaho Supreme Court appeals and am getting ready to go the the Seattle International Bike Expo this weekend with Mrs. Cycliste Moderne.

The Real Season Begins

Saturday marked the begining of the real European season with the first major Belgian races of the year: Saturday's North-South traverse of Flanders, Omloop Het Volk, and Sunday's East-West traverse, Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne. Fillipo Pozzato and Tom Boonen won the races respectively and both are worthy winners and will be in good form for the rest of the Spring Classic season, assuming we have any racing.

The Stand Off Continues

Friday's meeting of the council of ProTour teams failed to result in any action, other than for the teams to sternly announce their displeasure with both the UCI and the Grand Tours. Something will have to give by next weekend's start of Paris-Nice, otherwise the season will be thrown in to turmoil. Unfortunately, it will be the riders who suffer from this stand off. My prediction: the French and German teams disregard the UCI's warning and show up for Paris-Nice. The Spanish, Belgian, Italian and remaining ProTour teams hold out and boycott Paris-Nice. Ultimately, the UCI will blink and the ProTour will be dead as the sponsors will demand their teams race.

Boise Bike Swap

This year's Boise Bike Swap was something of a let down. Now, I have bought bikes at the event each of the last two years and in the years prior to that purchased a lot of parts. This year seemed to be poorly advertised. Additionally, the selection of bikes was not as good as in years past. Finally, even the selection of used parts and components was disappointing. Maybe my recent purchase of a Trek 5200 clouded my judgment but others I talked to were of the same belief. At least my parents managed to sell their older 5 speed tandem. They bought a brand new Raleigh road tandem at last year's event and decided to part with their old red tandem. Of course they only sold it in the parking lot after they picked it up after it failed to sell at the swap.

A plague o' both your houses

2007-02-24T20:31:00.000-07:00

"A plague o' both your houses"
-Mercutio
--From Romeo and Juliet (III, i, 94)

Mercutio had it right in Romeo and Juliet when he cursed both the Montagues and the Capulets. We all should sit back and say the same thing to the UCI and the Grand Tour organizers as their actions threaten the start of the season. For those that have not been following events and how we got here or who have not taken time to review all of Cyclingnews.com's archive, here is the Cliffs Notes version:

Former UCI President Hein Verbruggen organized the ProTour in an attempt to provide greater assurances to sponsors of top cycling teams entry into the top events; increase the television revenue; and provide greater control over the top of the sport.

The ProTour replaced the former Division 1, Division 2, Division 3 structure the UCI had maintained which had resulted in some lower quality European teams in the top division of the sport, but the top races did not necessarily invite all of the top teams. Sponsors would bet everything on getting into the Tour de France and when they did not, sponsorship would dry up midseason resulting in turmoil for riders.

The ProTour structure was intended to provide greater professionalism and greater consistency for teams. ProTour licenses would be for multiple years and would entitle the holders of ProTour licenses entry into all the top races. ProTour teams were required to meet certain requirements in terms of finances, roster size, and ethics.

The ProTour replaced the World Cup which consisted of one-day races as well as the UCI's confusing ranking system based upon a rolling point system over the course of two seasons.

Races given entry into the ProTour calendar would include the Grand Tours, the World Cup one day races, and the important secondary stage races.

Immediately, teams and race organizers began voice their objections. No longer would the Grand Tours be able to show the domestic bias they had in inviting teams. Historically, the Giro d'Italia was primarily Italian and the Vuelta a Espana was primarily Spanish. Although the Tour de France was historically the "Super Bowl" of cycling, it typically invited minor French teams. The Grand Tour organizers would have their own selection requirements which frequently resulted in the exclusion of quality teams with strong results.

Historic races excluded from the ProTour calendar were limited as to the number of ProTour teams that they could invite. Additionally, because all ProTour teams were required to race all ProTour races, when there were overlapping ProTour events, even with the larger ProTour squads, ProTour teams were stretched thin and quit racing races that they historically had participated in Portugal, Spain and Italy.

That had an impact on television coverage as national TV channels were no longer interested in covering national races when the top national teams were racing at that time in the ProTour races.

So how did it play out?

Some smaller races have gone by the wayside.

Television coverage and sponsorship has increased for the big events, decreased or ceased for smaller races.

The organizers of the Grand Tours have seen their power increase as a result of the fact that the three organizers, the ASO, RCS and Unipublic, actually promote and control the most significant races of the year: Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico, Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix, Fleche Wallone, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Giro d'Italia, Tour de France, Vuelta a Espana, Paris-Tours, and Tour of Lombardy. These races constitute well over 100 days of racing and are controlled by three entities.

The Giro and Vuelta have balked at having to invite teams that really have no interest in participating in their race. The Tour de France has balked at only being able to select minimal wild cards.

From the beginning, the Grand Tours have declared their independence from the ProTour.

This year the ProTours announced that they would recognize not the 20 ProTour teams designated by the UCI, but rather the 18 teams that existed at the end of last season, and would put into place their own structure for points, prices, and invites for their races in the future.

To start this season the ASO announced the invited teams for Paris-Nice and excluded the newest ProTour team, Unibet.com. Similarly, RCS announced the teams for Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo and also failed to include Unibet.com.

The Grand Tours and the UCI attempted negotiations to end the impasse last week but those negotiations broke down in acrimony.

With just over a week to Paris-Nice, the UCI announced that ASO could not exclude Unibet.com or it would not sanction the race. The ASO announced that it would sanction and run the race under the auspices of the French Cycling Federation. The UCI announced that its regulations precluded the participation of ProTour licensed teams and Professional Continental teams (the second tier of professional teams) were prohibited from participating in nationally sanctioned races.

Of course the French ProTour teams have now announced they will ride Paris-Nice while the rest of the ProTour teams have announced that they will not.

Thus, Mercutio had it right. "A plague o' both your houses." The Grand Tours and the UCI are screwing up big time.

Tour of California

In case you have not watched or followed any of the Tour of California here is the recap:

Vs. has had excellent television coverage this year. The production quality is better than ESPN's coverage last year and it has been on at reasonable times.

The race has upgraded the competition with the inclusion of Liquigas, Quick.Step, Rabobank, and T-Mobile.

Levi Leipheimer has led the race since winning Sunday's opening prologue in San Francisco.

Team CSC has been very strong and very aggressive. Their team tactics have put Discovery in difficulty during Stages 3 and 6 where Team CSC has aggressively put riders into breakaways that have left Discovery chasing for most of the day without much help from the peleton. Discovery has defended well. However, letting Jens Voigt get away in Stage 3 and Stuart O'Grady get away in Stage 6 when both were well positioned on GC, represents a tactical error on the part of Discovery. Discovery spent a lot of time and manpower shutting down long breakaways that threatened Liepheimer's lead.

The domestic American squads have largely been pack fodder. The top domestic squads, Health Net, Navigators, and Slipstream have tried to flex their muscle but have been no real match for the European ProTour squads. The smaller squads have done virtually nothing.

Team CSC and Discovery are clearly the most disciplined teams in the world as evidenced by their collective performance in the Solvang Individual Time Trial where the two teams had the top nine riders on the stage.

Domestic teams frequently have hideous uniforms: Jelly Belly, Priority Health, and Slipstream should be fined for bad fashion sense. However, Liquigas is pretty bad this year as well.

Discovery clearly brought a strong team with the intention of winning, however, for the Grand Tours, Discovery is really going to miss Slava Ekimov who retired this year. I really do not think that Discovery has the horses that it has had in years past. They don't seem to have the roleurs that they have had in the past.

Sunday Update: Adding to the herculean effort of Discovery Channel on Saturday was the fact that George Hincapie actually broke his arm in the crash early in Saturday's stage. He finished the stage and provided the strength the team needed to defend Liepheimer's lead. Sunday, Hincapie had surgery to put a plate in his arm ending his Spring campaign. Hincapie will not contest Paris-Roubaix in the stars and stripes jersey which is unfortunate.

Update on Landis

Reports from the Los Angeles Times indicate that there is evidence that the French lab that tested Floyd Landis' sample, which was found to have an impermissible testosterone ratio, may have violated WADA protocols for testing. If true, the Landis test may be invalidated as was the case for Inigo Landaluze whose positive EPO test was thrown out for the French lab's similar violation of protocol in 2005. We will see if this is really a story with legs.

The Season Begins

2007-02-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

President's Day weekend is typically my "unofficial" beginning to the cycling season. The last couple of years we have spent it at the Seattle Bike Expo. In prior years I have used it for the first really big ride of the year. The European season really starts to ramp up mid-February. The last couple of weeks have been a real grind at work. I have had numerous public hearings, appellate briefs, mediation events, and other projects which have consumed most of my time. I had a significant brief due on Friday and I did not get it done early enough to get a ride in Friday. Anyway, I have not worked at all this weekend, although I will work on Monday to get a jump on things. Here are assorted news, thoughts and stuff for your President's Day weekend.

The Tour of California, Part 1

Sunday was the start of the Tour of California with the Prologue in San Francisco. Levi Leipheimer won the uphill prologue for the second year in a row. This year he did it for Discovery Channel. The field for this year's Tour of California is a significant upgrade over last year's event with additional ProTour teams from Europe participating. Even better, the television coverage appears to be much improved over last year's middle of the night, ESPN8, broadcasts. Vs., the home of the Tour de France, is broadcasting this year's race and after one day, the prodution quality is greatly improved. We will see how it goes over the mountains, where last year's coverage kind of fell apart. Here is Cyclingnews.com's home for the Tour of California.

The Tour of California, Part 2

One of the greatest innovations at last year's Tour of California was the Specialized "Angel," America's answer to the Devil seen in Europe. Here is PezCyclingNews.com's interview with the Angel detailing her experiences last year. She returns for a second year. To be "fair and balanced" here is PezCyclingNew.com's interview from 2004 with the Devil.

The Tour of California, Part 3

The Tour of California organizers and sponsors were chagrined this week when they confirmed that there had been no testing done last year during the Tour for EPO in a story by the New York Times. Amgen, the Tour's sponsor, had viewed the race as a way to promote the benefit of EPO for cancer patients while distancing itself from the taint of the recent drug scandals. It appears someone screwed up and based upon past experience and the reporting of Cyclingnews.com, it was probably someone at USACycling.

Will the Riders Boycott?

Team Unibet.com continues to get bad news. Giro d'Italia organizer RCS announced its invitations for Tirreno-Adriatico, Milan-San Remo and the Giro d'Italia on Friday, omitting Unibet.com from the list of participating teams. Unibet.com became a ProTour team after Phonak withdrew from the sport. The Grand Tour organizers had announced that they would only recognize and invite the 18 ProTour teams left at the end of last season. The Spanish team that was Liberty Seguros and then became Astana ultimately was reforumlated as a Swiss-Kazakh team and recieved the other ProTour slot for the season. Astana has been given a "wild card" into the Italian races and is a much more attractive team than Unibet.com. Cyclingnews.com had an interesting article about the responses of some of the teams to Unibet.com's exclusion from the ProTour races so far this year by RCS and ASO. If the ProTour teams do not show solidarity and actually show up and race Paris-Nice after the exclusion of Unibet.com and if the UCI fails to take some action, then the Grand Tours will have won and the ProTour will be dead. If the teams boycott the opening ProTour races, Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, then they will once and for all show a maturity in the sport that has never been shown before. Regardless of what happens, I expect a train wreck.

First Family Ride of the Year

Saturday was sunny and in the mid 50's here in Boise. Andrew and I replaced the old 650C tires and tubes on his Fuji road bike I bought last year, which even though just a 43cm frame was too big for him. We put on the odometer he received from his grandparents as a Christmas present and he, Kristin and I went for a family ride on our road bikes. We had our Cyclista.com jersey's on over longsleeves. We ended up going nearly 18 miles on the first ride of the year and Andrew's bike handling skills have greatly improved. The first nice day of the year is always the most dangerous in Boise as you have to dodge the twice-a-year Greenbelt crowd who dust off the Wal-Mart specials and take to the Greenbelt with all 26 kids in tow. Either that or you have old folks on cruisers who think you can ride two abrest. Once we got past Municipal Park we were alone with the more serious riders. One dude even asked which club we rode for, I told him we are the corporate team for Cyclista.com and he thought that was cool. No one cried, no one complained of pain, and Andrew did his best Marco Pantani impersonation riding up Amity road to Federal Way as he struggled to get up the hill in his smallest gear.

I am Glad People Ride, but Really . . .

Last Wednesday night, heading home in rushour traffic, I passed a family riding from the Albertson's grocery store on Overland down Orchard. They had been shopping and the mom had one kid plus the groceries in her trailer. I like seeing families out on their bikes, but it was a cold day, none of the kids had adequate coats on to be riding. None of them had a helmet. The kids were probably 6 and 8 and were weaving down the sidewalk ahead of the mother who was talking on her cell phone. Unfortunately, this was a situation with an accident waiting to happen.

Random Thoughts When You Do Not Have Time

2007-02-11T16:25:00.000-07:00

Well,

I am in the midst of a really pressure packed period at work. With multiple public hearings, appellate briefs, and other important meetins, as well as a speech at BOMA Boise's Commerical Real Estate Symposium this week, I have not had a lot of time. So here are some odds, ends and random thoughts:

Discovery Channel Ends Sponsorship

Discovery Channel is ending its sponsorship of cycling at the end of this season. While the company has indicated it was a decision driven by internal marketing objectives and a major management shakeup, the current toxic environment in cycling could not have helped.

You Have Got To Love The French

Gambling is a waste of time and money. Gambling preys upon those least able to afford it. The gambling industry has amazingly convince much of the world that throwing money away on what is inherently a guess or luck is in fact entertainment. However, you have to shake your head at the French. French authorities have barred ProTour team Unibet.com from wearing their jerseys in the opening races in France this season. So Unibet.com has raced in France with a question mark jersey. Now, French authorities could do it for the fashion travesty that is the team kit of the Swedish-Belgian team. Instead French officials have barred the team from advertising the online gambling site because such gambling violates French law. Nevermind the fact that Francaise de Jeux, used to be FJD.Com and is the French lottery and gambling site, or that PMU is an official sponsor of the Tour de France and is off track parimutuel betting, that Predictor Lotto, is sponsored by the Belgian national lottery and that Unibet.com's predecessor Mr.Bookmaker.com raced throughout Europe before the team was rebranded.

What Would The Response Have Been If They Weren't Teammates?

The European cyclocross season is coming to an end and there is always animosity among the riders, even frequently on the same team. However, you have to wonder what Richard Richard Groenendaal's reaction to Sven Nys' recent victory would have been had they not been on the same team.

Dick Pound Gets Slapped Down

WADA chief Dick Pound was reprimanded this week for his vocal criticism of Lance Armstrong and allegation that Armstrong won the 1999 Tour de France as a result of performance enhancing drugs. No word yet if he will have to write on the blackboard 100 times "I will try to be impartial and not defame cyclists" when he gets sanctioned for his tasteless comments about Floyd Landis.

On Cyclocross and Las Vegas

2007-01-29T17:36:00.000-07:00

US Dominance at Cyclocross Worlds

This weekend was the greatest showing ever by Americans at Cyclocross Worlds. With Jonathon Page taking Silver in the Men’s Elite final after riding a dominant race, Katie Compton taking silver in the Women’s race, and Danny Summerhill taking silver in the juniors, it was the greatest weekend the United States has ever had in any world championship event. All three were in contention for the victory until the bitter end. All three over came poor staring positions due to their respective rankings.

Page came back from an incredibly disappointing early season as he found himself in early October with an injured shoulder from a fluke accident which resulted in surgery. Without the ability to race and earn UCI points until December, it was a miracle that Page was able to get to the front of the race as early as he did on Sunday.

Compton similarly lacked UCI points which put her farther back on the starting grid. She too overcame the poor starting position to dominate the race. With more experience racing at the top levels, Compton should be able to become America’s first women’s world champion in cyclocross.

Even more exciting is the UCI’s confirmation that the United States will host a world cup race next fall. The world cup season will kick off in the United States in October.

They don’t ride bikes in Vegas except inside the Aladdin.

I was in Las Vegas this weekend for meetings for the commercial real estate trade association I am the president of here in Boise. The weather was perfect with temperatures in the low 60’s. We were staying out at the JW Marriott Resort which is on the northwest side of Las Vegas in Summerlin. While the roads in and around Summerlin are posted with bike lanes in the western hills above Las Vegas, I only saw three cyclists in four days. Of course all three were bundled up like it was a snowy day in Belgium. What a bunch of little girls.

The only other cyclists I saw were the pedicab drivers and garbage guy inside the Aladdin who rode their cab and garbage bikes through the streets of the Aladdin’s “bazaar.” Although there is talk of having a criterium in conjunction with Interbike, I just don’t know where you would have a criterium in the vicinity of the Strip. I guess they could race up and down the faux Champs d’Elyssee entrance to Paris, I just don’t know where they would go when they turn left. Now, you certainly could set up an awesome cyclocross course in and around the construction sites along the Strip. Maybe an indoor cyclocross course starting inside the Bellagio, heading through the construction site to the south and then racing into the Monte Carlo and back again would be the perfect course.

Odds, Ends, and my New Bike

2007-01-21T15:20:00.000-07:00

It has been two weeks since I last wrote. I have had a lot of work to do and other things but there are a lot of odds and ends that I have gathered over the past few weeks.

Odds

Prosecutorial Misconduct

The biggest problem with WADA and its attempt to clean up sport is the fact that it has the least discreet attorney at its head. Canadian attorney Dick Pound has been in charge of WADA since its formation. Pound's recent comments on the Landis affair are completely unacceptable for someone in his position. Pound's comments were offensive and evidence the fact that Pound is lacking the temprament to be the head of the crusade against doping. If WADA wants to be relevant and wants to occupy the role as the moral authority of sport, then Dick Pound must go.

Just ask Mike Nifong, Durham County prosecutor, who is not only facing ethical sanctions for his out of court comments on the Duke lacrosse case but has also been removed from the case, about the impact that prosecutorial misconduct has on ensuring that justice is done. Both Pound and Nifong may be right and the individuals they are prosecuting may be guilty, however, the more prosecutors talk about matters under their jurisdiction and the more bombastic they are in their comments, the less right they appear to be and the less moral authority they have.

WADA Code Revisions

WADA also announced that it is working on revisions to its code which would strengthen testing procedures but also attempts to address issues related to athlete privacy. The new proposed revisions include language which Dick Pound is clearly incapable of following: "[no official] shall publicly comment on the specific facts of a pending case (as opposed to general description of process and science) except in response to public comments attributed to the Athlete, other Person or their representatives." Another potential change to the testosterone threshold test would likely have not resulted in a positive test for Floyd Landis had it been in place.

If WADA Won't do it then L'Equipe Will

In another interesting turn of events, Oscar Pereiro, who finished second to Floyd Landis at the Tour de France and who announced he would not take part in the race this year if he was not awarded the victory, confirmed French press reports that he tested positive for using salbutamol, an athsma medication, during the 14th and 16th stages of the Tour de France this year. Pereiro has a "theraputic use exemption" for the drug and has been prescribed it by his doctor. As such, the UCI does not necessarily view his tests as a positive. However, French racing, doping and media officials have over the past few years publically railed against the use of permitted substances by athletes.

Puerto Silliness

In more surreal news out of Spain, the lab conducting the analyses of the Operacion Puerto samples is refusing to perform any more tests until the Spanish proscutors pay more than 25,000 Euros. I guess the Spanish prosecutors have been a little slow in getting invoices paid.

ProTour Silliness

With the European season just around the corner, there is no end in sight to resolution of the dispute between the UCI, the ProTour teams, and the organizers of the Grand Tours. The ASO, organizer of the Tour de France, Paris-Nice, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Fleche Wallone among other events, announced its invitees to this year's Paris-Nice and invited all of the ProTour teams except the newest ProTour edition, Unibet. That sent UCI officials into a fit over the failure of ASO to invite all ProTour teams. ASO officials responded by claiming that they had withdrawn from the ProTour two years ago. UCI officials had earlier gone to the European Commission claiming that the Grand Tour organizers are violating antitrust laws.

Ends

New Blog Link

Check out the blog by my friend BikeBoy, who rides his bike to work everyday, regardless of conditions here in Boise. He has moved his accounts of his riding from his website to his new blog "The Bike Nazi," which is rather ironic for how mild mannered and non-militant BikeBoy really is.

New Bike

I went and bought myself a new bike this week. I purchased a Trek 5200 from World Cycle this week. However, I have to go to a conference in Las Vegas this week and it has been particularly cold and icy here over the past few weeks, so I will not actually pick it up for a few weeks as they get my bike built and tuned. But riding a 5200 on Friday afternoon was really sweet. Smooth ride, smooth shifting, responsive in traffic. And best of all, since Trek has withdrawn the 5200 from its line for 2007, and because it was a 2006, it was on sale.

What a Cyclist can do When Motivated

2007-01-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

It has been a quiet week for cycling news. Although the European National Cyclocross Championships are being held this weekend, those races just are not that important. I have also been busy with the law this week having had to travel to Grangeville, Idaho for a hearing on Thursday. Due to the weather the drive was five hours there and five hours back in windy, slick conditions. Typically it takes about three hours and fourty five minutes. Basically it was 40 miles per hour the whole way there.

As I pulled back into Boise, Thursday night about 9 PM, it was snowy, wet and windy. As I pulled up to the intersection of State Street and 27th Street, to turn right on 27th Street, I noticed a guy on a mountain bike slowly making his way diagonally across 27th Street. He was trying to get into the cross walk before the light changed but was riding against traffic. Once he got to the cross walk ramp, he pulled up on to the sidewalk. It was only then that I noticed why his speed was slow and his control was somewhat suspect. Attached to his bike was a beat up kid trailer and on the trailer was a fulsized washing machine bungie corded onto the trailer. I was tempted to go around the corner and see where he was headed. You have to hand it to a guy who is that motivated and committed.

Why Doping Is Different in the United States

2007-01-01T13:21:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone has had an excellent holliday season. Unfortunately, tomorrow we all have to go back to the drag that is the first week in January. Having taken the last week off, I am sitting hear surfing between bowl games waiting for the Rose Bowl to get started.

This week several US sports doping stories have gotten attention on talk radio. Neither are cycling related, however, it has illustrated for me the difference that American athletes and American sports writers have on the issue performance enhancing drugs in sports. Here are the stories that have recently gotten my attention.

Dolphins' Taylor takes on Merriman, positive test

Track star Gatlin works out for Texans

Court: Feds may use drug testing data from 2003

In case you missed these stories or don't have the attention span to finish the articles from ESPN.com, here you go.

Shawne Merriman has had an incredible season for the San Diego Chargers. The second year linebacker has lead the NFL in sacks for the just completed season. Impressively, Merriman did this playing just 12 games as he served a four game suspension for failing a steroid test during the season. Merriman initially intended to appeal the suspension but ultimately decided to abandon his appeal and get the suspension served so he could return in time for the most difficult portion of the Chargers' season. Merriman blamed the positive test of course on a tainted nutritional supplement.

Justin Gatlin is the former olympic 100 meter champion who failed a test for steroids earlier this year. Gatlin had been suspended as a junior, thus this year's test was deemed a second positive test. Gatlin retained the right to appeal the duration of the suspension but agreed not to challenge the result of the failed test. As a result, Gatlin has been suspended from track competition for eight years. That has not stopped NFL teams from trying Gatlin out to play for them next year. Ironically, Gatlin has not played football since high school but due to the fact that he is a very fast athlete, Gatlin may come out of this suspension with an even better paying job as an NFL running back next year.

In pursuit of perjury charges against those athletes involved in the BALCO drug investigation federal prosecutors have obtained a court order entitling them to access the 2003 Major Leage Baseball drug testing data. In 2003, as part of the collective bargaining process, baseball players agreed to a testing program designed in part to establish a baseline for how much drug use had occurred in baseball. The program had triggers that would escalate the amount of testing in the event certain thresholds in the number of positive tests occurred. No one was supposed to be identified or disciplined as a result of the 2003 tests.

I have been surprised by the response from athletes and sportswriters to these stories. Having seen and heard several discussions on these stories on ESPN and ESPN Radio I have been surprised byt he almost universal response of those interviewed who have not been troubled by the positive drug tests and have been more concerned with the legality and equity of the process. Peter Gammons, one of the greatest American baseball writers, expressed his outrage over the actions of federal prosecutors in the BALCO matter. He objected to the use of the data and the fact that prosecutors seem to have focused exclusively on indicting Barry Bonds. Gammons outlined the timing for expected action by the federal government and noted that the prosecution and review of the 2003 data would not adversely affect Bonds' quest to surpass Hank Aaron as the all time home runs leader in baseball as it was unlikely any trial would occur before the end of the season.

Jason Taylor was criticized on ESPN Radio by comentators and players for not leaving his objections to Merriman's inclusion on the Pro Bowl roster in the locker room. The essence of the discussion was that Taylor should not have gone public with his objections due to the fact that Merriman was being honored even though he was suspended for failing steroid tests. The various comentators noted that Merriman still had the best season of any NFL defender even though he was suspended for 25% of the season, ignoring the fact that he was found to have taken a performance enhancing substance during the course of the season.

As for Gatlin, NFL teams have no problem working out a player who is a two time drug cheat and who has been closely affiliated with those involved in the BALCO mess. The NFL coaches interviewed have had a very unconcerned attitude regarding Gatlin's history. They are jsut focused on his speed.

This all has been very different from the European cycling doping coverage especially in Operacion Puerto. Unlike in the United States, the European riders were immediately suspended from competition. Cyclists have had difficulty finding new teams to ride for even though they have yet to be charged with any wrong doing. Clearly the Anglo-American notion of "innocent until proven guilty" and due process are different from the Euopean inquisitorial model of jurisprudence. Additionally, cycling has become almost a witch hunt when it comes to doping and drug usage. Cyclists have been black listed based solely on suspicion. European media outlets are doing all they can do to investigate and expose cyclists as drug users.

The treatment of cyclists in Europe, however, has been very different from the treatment of soccer players who have failed drug tests. There seems to be little or no impact on soccer players who have failed drug tests and suspended. Even though there have been some high profile drug supensions in soccer, in particular in England, the suspended athletes have had no difficulty finding jobs and have not been the subject of significant media speculation. In fact, European media outlets seem to be significantly less interested in exposing drugs in soccer than in cycling. Even though Operacion Puerto has been linked with some of the largest Spanish soccer teams there has been none of the naming of names that has occurred in cycling.

Cycling has a problem, however, its problem has been magnified by those that are unwilling to apply the same standards to all doping in all sports. In the United States however, we have not been outraged enough by the use of drugs in professional sports. As a new year begins, I hope for some meaningful resolution of Operacion Puerto, I hope that Americans take doping in sports more seriously, and that we can once again have clean heroes.

Never Lie to the Feds and Other Thoughts

2006-12-15T21:17:00.000-07:00

This next week I have one argument before a judge, two briefs due, and all my Christmas shopping to start. So I will get an early start especially since I am on the road on Monday.

Tammy Thomas Gets Indicted

Former USA national team member Tammy Thomas, whose liftime ban was discussed by Charles Pelkey in a VeloNews editorial in 2002, was indicted by a federal grand jury this week in conjunction with the BALCO matter for perjury and obstructing justice.

In 2004, the New York Times provided an account of how far Thomas had fallen after her 2002 suspension for steroids. Supporting herself on $240 a week she earned as a personal trainer, Thomas was engaged at the time in litigation as a pro se litigant suing the drug testing facility and those involved with her suspension.

It is a very sad situation, but the moral of the story is do not lie to grand juries. Ever. You have the protection of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Use it. Don't think you can lie and get away with it. Moreover, if two FBI agents ever show up and start asking questions, know that lying to them is also a crime. If you have something to hide, know that they probably already know it and that they will set you up to make false statements. Tell the truth or do not say anything. Anything else is always bad.

The moral of the story: when you use steroids, everyone will know it and they will catch you.

Predictor: Not as bad as it could have been.

Predictor-Lotto (the team formerly known as Davitamon-Lotto) had its team launch earlier this week. The "salmon" jerseys for the team now sponsored by a European home pregnancy test is not as bad as it could have been or as I feared. I just cannot see Belgians running out to buy the kit though.

US Cyclocross Nationals

This weekend is US Cyclocross Nationals being held again this year in Rhode Island. Last year frigid weather and snow storms took their toll on masters and junior competitors. This year the only suspense is how much Ryan Trebon will win by. Dominant American Jonathan Page is coming off an injury that has kept him from racing this season in Europe. If Trebon wins, he will become the first American to win the national title in both Cyclocross and MTB Cross County in the same season. Trebon, however, has already been to Europe this season and has had strong results in addition to his dominant perfromance in the Crank Brothers USGP Series. Here is the link to Cyclingnews.com's main page for coverage of US Nationals.

Sunday Post Script

Trebon did win. Good job.

Mrs. Cycliste Moderne's Brush with Greatness

In looking more closely at the exhibitor registration form for the 2007 Seattle International Bike Expo we realized page four captures Mrs. Cycliste Moderne's 2006 brush with greatness as if you look at the photo on the fourth page of the pdf you will see her in line (she is next to the bald guy at the end) to get Sean Kelly's autograph on a photo we had of him during the 1985 Paris-Roubaix. So far in her career, Mrs. Cycliste Moderne has met Frankie Andreu, Dale Knapp, Bob Roll, Chris Wherry, Marla Streb, Kristin Armstrong, Davis Phinney, Maynard Hershon, Freddy Maertens, and Sean Kelly. She has also had a very personal and intimate encounter with George Hincapie and a porta-john at the 1999 race in Trenton.

Basso, the UCI, the Grand Tours and the EU

2006-12-10T21:49:00.000-07:00

To make things clearer in the Cycliste Moderne Archive, I am going to start titling each issue. The reference soley to entries by date does not really make this a reader friendly blog. Anyway,
I have been swamped with the law leading up to Christmas. I am in a rather intense cycle of briefing, hearings and more briefing. As such, I have not written for quite a while. The issue though that has merited some attention, however, are the latest twists in the Operacion Puerto saga. For the best coverage of what all has happened, take a look at the archives at cyclingnews.com.

Saturday, the International Professional Cycling Teams (IPCT), a trade association of nineteen of the twenty UCI ProTour teams voted to exclude two of its members, Discovery Channel and Active Bay, which is the management company that owned and operated Liberty Seguros before the collapse of that team as a result of Operacion Puerto. The IPCT is not the ProTour and has no authority over ProTour races and entries. In fact, for whatever reason, Francaise de Jeux has never been a member of the IPCT. The ProTour teams took the action because they believed that Discovery had breached the agreement of the teams not to sign any rider implicated in Operacion Puerto. The other ProTour teams are livid that Discovery would sign Ivan Basso especially since Discovery’s directeur sportif Johann Bruyneel had been one of the strongest voices for the exclusion of Basso and the other implicated riders from last year’s Tour de France.

No rider has been convicted yet of any wrong doing related to Operacion Puerto and no rider has been disciplined by any national anti doping authority yet either. Earlier this year, officials in Spain ordered anti doping officials to stop using Operacion Puerto documents in doping cases, putting a stop to all disciplinary actions. Prior to that, however, Italian cycling and anti doping officials had cleared Basso of any wrong doing based upon the documents that had previously been provided to the UCI by Spanish justice officials. They determined that based upon the records provided, that there was no evidence that Basso had been involved with the Spanish doping ring. From the evidence that had been released, it appears that Basso may have been mentioned in code by some of the targets in the investigation during wiretapped phone conversations. However, unlike other riders implicated in the matter there does not appear to be any evidence of the type of doping regime for Basso that purportedly existed for many of the other riders. Discovery sent their lawyer to the Saturday IPCT meeting and has indicated that it will be evaluating its legal options.

What is intriguing, however, is how EU law is going to eventually come into play with the sport. The EU has rejected claims from suspended athletes found to have doped that they have been deprived of their livelihoods in contravention of EU law. However, Operacion Puerto raises a different and distinct question, whether the top level professional cycling teams can agree not to sign riders who have only been tainted by doping investigations but have not yet been subjected to discipline by sport tribunals or convicted of criminal wrong doing by national tribunals. I think this issue will come to a head if and when Discovery Channel and Ivan Basso are denied entry into any ProTour events.

A couple of weeks ago several national federations and race promoters announced their intentions to bring an antitrust action against the UCI for the structure of the ProTour. The ProTour was intended to create a much higher level of competition in cycling along the lines of the UEFA Champions League in soccer. The ProTour was intended to be a league where the best teams were all ensured entry into the top races. The formation of the ProTour ensured that teams at the top did not have to rely upon the caprice of race directors to get into the Tour de France and other top races. The ProTour teams were all guaranteed entry into the ProTour selected races but they were also required to race every ProTour race as well. The ProTour teams had greater assurances of getting into the Tour de France, but they were now also obligated to race a much more strenuous schedule. Historically everyone wanted to be in the Tour de France, but the demand to race the Giro and the Vuelta was much less, as a result, those races were national in nature.

As a result, the cost of sponsorship increased as ProTour team rosters increased as for the first time, teams had to field riders for all three Grand Tours. More importantly, however, was the fact that teams would typically have to field race teams for simultaneous events. Gone were the days when top teams rode either Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico, now the teams had to field riders for both, essentially doubling the amount of infrastructure that teams required. US Postal Service never really participated in Italian races, instead focusing on races in France and Spain. With the advent of the ProTour, when US Postal Service became Discovery Channel, it raced and won the Giro.

Second tier events, however, struggled to put together competitive fields. Minor races found themselves without the star power necessary to attract sponsors due to the demands of the ProTour schedule. TV outlets were not interested in televising a race without notable stars. ProTour teams were also unable to earn points when racing in non ProTour events.

So where does the EU come into play? In the mid 1990’s a minor soccer player for a minor team in a minor country sued under the EU’s employment regulations setting off a revolution in sport employment in Europe. The “Bosman Ruling” put an end to transfer fees being paid or required for soccer players to move from one team to another even when their contracts had concluded. That was followed with a judicial ruling which struck down nationality quotas for players on teams and has resulted in the internationalization of soccer in Europe. Teams that used to be made up almost exclusively of players developed by a club’s soccer academy for junior players are now multinational all star teams. Top English teams Arsenal and Chelsea have virtually no regular first team players that are English.

If the top teams, the Grand Tours and the ProTour go down the path of excluding riders and teams suspected of wrongdoing, I think it is ultimately the laws of the EU which will be called upon to put cycling’s house in order. The EU does not have any direct authority over the UCI which is based in Switzerland and is governed by Swiss law. However, it does have authority over virtually all the race teams and the race organizers.

I do a fair amount of antitrust litigation work. I kind of wish that I was a European antitrust and employment bike attorney at the moment because they are the only ones that are going to profit from the current mess of things at the top levels of cycling.

The Cycliste Moderne, Thanksgiving Edition

2006-11-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

This is the Thanksgiving Day edition of the Cycliste Moderne. There has not been a lot of really meaningful bike news over the past few weeks and I have been really busy over that time with work. As a result, the news has been slower. Think of today's edition as your Thanksgiving meal: too much at one time.

Skibby Comes Clean

Retired Danish pro, Jesper Skibby, has published a book about his career including his admission that he doped. Skibby had a long career with marginal success. He is most famous, however, for getting run over by the race commisar's vehicle while leading the Ronde Van Vlaanderen on the Koppenberg in 1987 as captured by Graham Watson. While honesty is in fact the best policy, I am concerned that when retired pros write their memoirs, i.e. Paul Kimmage, it just reaffirms the believe that everyone has been doping. Clearly, during the 1980's and 1990's the teams had to know and had to have been active participants in the doping activities of their riders. I am really concerned, however, with the approach that the ProTour teams are advocating now of refusing to let any rider under investigation for doping compete while an investigation is underway. The teams helped create this mess. It is too easy a solution for the teams to feign ignorance and claim that they have taken meaningful action merely by turinng their backs on the problem.

Cyclist gets tasered.

Last week police in Salt Lake City tasered a cyclist who refused to pull over. Here is the Salt Lake Tribune's account of the event. Now, the man was ultimately found to have drug paraphernalia, drugs, bolt cutters and a four inch knife. He had stolen the bike and had been riding down the sidewalk late at night when he attempted to evade police. So the moral of the story is while evading police probably is a good interval workout, a stolen bike does not give you the fit necessary to be able to get away and drugs and burglary tools just slow you down.

Sad Christmas Season at Chez Cycliste Moderne.
The Christmas Season got off to a sad beginning at Chez Cycliste Moderne when my original bike sculpture "Bikewinkel A" was sold this week. It is kind of like the kid who wins the 4H prize for the best steer or lamb and then cries when it is sold for far more than he ever thought it would. Anyway, here is a print you can purchase. Now I make art to sell when I am not busy slaving for the law. Mrs. Cycliste Moderne had taken to decorating Bikewinkel each Christmas as it held a special place in the middle of the living room wall above the piano. She even used it for Cyclista's Christmas cards last year with a red nose on it. Now I have to go build Bikewinkel B.

Thoughts while riding this week.

Here are my thoughts and experiences while riding this week:

Kids on cheap chopper bikes have no clue how to ride them. Two juvenile delinquents almost t-boned me in an intersection last week.

Slime is good. After replacing my tubes with Slime tubes for the winter, they paid off yesterday when I came out to find my back tire flat. I spun it quickly, pumped it up and went and got a quick ride in afterwards. Tire ended up a little soft, but the ride was a success.

Support your local independent bike retailer. My shop is World Cycle here in Boise. Tom Patek runs a great shop that really focuses on service. I try to make all my purchases there. If they don't carry something, they go to whatever lengths necessary to get it for you. It is great when you have a shop that provides excellent service, listens to what you want and need rather than telling you what you want, and knows you by name. So go to World Cycle and tell Tom, Alex and Matt that the Cycliste Moderne sent you.

The Cycliste Moderne, November 12, 2006

2006-11-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

So what is the deal with Basso and Discovery Channel?

Discovery Channel announced its signing of Giro d’Italia champion Ivan Basso this week. That signing immediately produced very public responses from other teams and the Tour organizers. To make sense of it all, here is a short recap. For a comprehensive account of Operacion Puerto, check out Cyclingnews.com’s archive of coverage.

During the Giro d’Italia, Spanish police arrested Manolo Saiz, then the directeur sportif of Liberty Seguros on alleged doping violations. That was the beginning of the unraveling of Operacion Puerto, an ongoing investigation of doping by Spanish officials which came to light as a result of the May raids. Liberty Seguros and Communidad Valenicana both had managers and soigneurs implicated in the raids which focused on the medical practices of Eufamiano Fuentes a Spanish doctor who was alleged to have provided doping services to a broad array of cyclists, tennis players, soccer players and track athletes.

Very early on, Spanish press reports named Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich as clients of Dr. Fuentes. Of course both denied involvement with Dr. Fuentes or any of the other targets of Operacion Puerto. Before the Tour de France, a list of riders implicated in Operacion Puerto came to light and immediately Tour de France organizers sought to have the riders and teams involved excluded. ProTour team managers voted to withdraw any rider implicated in Operacion Puerto from the race. As a result, Ivan Basso was pulled by Team CSC, Jan Ullrich and Oscar Sevilla by T-Mobile, Francisco Mancebo by Ag2R, Astana-Wurth which took over the sponsorship of Liberty Seguros was excluded after the team was forced to withdraw because it had too many riders implicated in Operacion Puerto.

There has been a lot of rumor an innuendo as a result of Operacion Puerto. Fuentes is alleged to have had hundreds of units of blood in his possession and detailed doping histories on many pro cyclists. Basso, Ullrich and others have proclaimed their innocence. UCI, WADA and ProTour team leaders have suggested that the implicated riders ought to offer up their DNA to prove that their blood was not among that in Fuentes possession. So far the riders and the association of professional cyclists have refused to agree to DNA testing in the peleton.

The ProTour teams have met repeatedly this summer and fall trying to decide what to do about the riders implicated in Operacion Puerto. The UCI began transmitting Operacion Puerto documents to the national federations of the cyclists implicated in the investigation. As the federations received the documents they began disciplinary proceedings against many of the riders.

Most of the riders named in Operacion Puerto found themselves out of contracts as they were either fired or found themselves in limbo as they were not fired but not allowed to race. Then in early October, Spanish judiciary officials sent notices out that the documents produced to the national federations as a result of Operacion Puerto could not be utilized for disciplinary proceedings until the investigation had been concluded. During much of the summer, Spanish judges had also issued various orders indicating that certain riders had either been cleared or that they would not be criminally charged as a result of the investigation. However, that was in part due to the fact that Spanish antidoping laws were considerably weaker than those found in Italy and France. Only in November did the Spanish government pass more stringent anti-doping and sporting fraud laws. It is questionable if any of the riders implicated in Operacion Puerto could even be charged with criminal violations in Spain under the regulations that existed prior to November.

During all of this, Ivan Basso aggressively contested the doping allegations against him. It appears that much of the evidence of doping against Basso is circumstantial and is based on other people talking about Basso, not direct evidence of doping by Basso. Team CSC did not fire him but did not let him race. The FCI, Italy’s cycling federation, initiated doping proceedings but determined that there was not enough evidence to proceed against Basso and recommended disciplinary proceedings be dismissed. The Italian Olympic committee, CONI, which has ultimate disciplinary responsibility closed the investigation claiming there was not enough evidence to proceed against Basso but indicated that proceedings could be reopened if more evidence were forthcoming. Team CSC then announce it had agreed to release Basso from his contract and Basso started looking for a new team.

The organization representing the ProTour teams indicated at the launch of next year’s Tour de France route that they had reached an agreement that the teams would require DNA testing of their riders and that no team would sign any of the implicated riders until the results of the full investigation was known. Spanish officials have indicated that the investigation and trial will not conclude until the middle of 2007.

As a result of the ProTour teams’ agreement it was expected that the implicated riders would be relegated to signing for the smaller continental professional teams. Basso had been linked with a couple of minor Italian teams and Ullrich, while trying to find a federation that would issue him a license had been linked to the new Russian-Italian Tinkoff team.

This week, Basso and Discovery announced a multi year deal which would make Basso and Levi Leipheimer the clear grand tour GC riders for Discovery. The response was swift. Some team managers claimed Discovery had violated the agreement of the ProTour teams not to sign implicated riders. Representatives of the ASO, the organizer of the Tour de France, commented that Discovery and Basso could be excluded from next year’s Tour. Basso showed up training this week in Discovery team kit.

So, Discovey signs one of the best riders in the world, CSC loses their best rider, and nothing is really answered.

So what is the deal with the Cofidis trial?

Meanwhile in France, riders implicated in the French investigation of doping at Cofidis faced trial this week. The trial is the result of the investigation that arose from the arrest of Philippe Gaumont, David Millar and other Cofidis riders and employees in 2004. The investigation of Millar resulted in his two year suspension for EPO use. It appears that most of those named and who were compelled to testify admitted their involvement in doping while at the team. It appears that the French judiciary is looking to send a message as prosecutors have recommended suspended sentences for most riders and individuals implicated in the matter.

Now, the Cofidis investigation has an interesting twist in French allegations of doping by Lance Armstrong and US Postal Service. In 2000 US Postal Service signed French rider Cedric Vasseur, who had worn the yellow jersey for about a week during the 1997 Tour de France while with GAN. Vasseur rode the Tour that year as Armstrong defended his 1999 victory.

However, Vasseur’s stay at US Postal Service ended in acrimony as he did not take to the team’s all for Armstrong approach to racing and when he was excluded from the Tour roster in 2001 he was highly critical of Armstrong and the team. Evidently, Armstrong did not provide Vasseur with the same bonus that he had paid the other riders on the 2000 team. He moved to Cofidis in 2002.

As a member of Cofidis in 2004, Vasseur was arrested and interrogated as a result of Philippe Gaumont’s arrest. Vasseur spent several days in custody of French police. Ultimately, Vasseur was cleared of any wrong doing and is not a defendant in the Cofidis doping trial. In light of the manner in which Vasseur was treated by Armstrong, and Vasseur’s publicly stated animosity towards Armstrong and the US Postal Service team, had Vasseur had any evidence or suspicion of doping at US Postal Service, it would have likely been disclosed during police questioning. I have to believe that Vasseur was questioned at length about the practices at US Postal Service while he was in police custody in 2004. Clearly, French officials have been seeking information on doping and have clearly shown leniency to riders who names named. If anyone every would have named names it would have likely been Cedric Vasseur. The fact that he apparently did not can be considered as evidence that at least in 2000 and 2001 US Postal Service and Armstrong were clean.

Where have the manly Flemish men gone?

In a final, even more disconcerting note, Omega Pharma, the owner of the Davitamon brand and sponsor of the Davitamon-Lotto team announced that after four years of sponsoring teams under the Davitamon brand that the sponsorship has run its course and that they would promote another brand this next season. Omega Pharma’s “Predictor” brand will replace Davitamon and the Predictor-Lotto team’s jerseys will be salmon pink next year. Now, there have been some questionable sponsorships over the years. Now, Eddy Merckx rode for Molteni, a maker of sausage. Greg LeMonde rode for Z a children’s clothing retailer. Stephen Roche rode for Tonton Tapis a hideous carpet vendor. I cannot see, however, any of them riding in a salmon jersey advertising a HOME PREGNANCY TEST.

The Cycliste Moderne, October 31, 2006

2006-10-31T21:49:00.001-07:00

I have not written for a while due to the man keeping me away from bikes that and the fact there has not been a lot of true bike stuff to write about. So here we go:

Head Injuries are Bad

I had been getting a lot of rides in prior to the time change. Last week, however, things got sidetracked as a result of me slipping and falling down my garage stairs. I hit my head on a filing cabinet, gashed open the back of my head, bled all over the place and spent the rest of the week trying to make my brain work right. As a result it was late in the week before I felt well enough to go for a ride. Once I finally got rides in on Friday and Saturday they were not very good rides as it did not take long for my head pain to return. It reaffirmed to me the importance of protecting your head when you ride because as my wife put it, “if anything happens to your brain, we are pretty well screwed at Cycliste Moderne.” A week later I am still dealing with a constant headache and occasional brain scatter.

Tour de France Launch

The ASO announced the route for the 2007 Tour de France. Notwithstanding the speculation as to the course next year which proved to be incorrect, i.e. no return to Mont Ventoux, no return to Puy de Dome for the first time in a generation, no team time trial, a fairly classic route was announced. However, the one big change is the fact that the first individual time trial does not come until Stage 13, until after the race goes through the Alps. With two individual time trials of 54km and 55 km in the last eight days of the Tour before sandwiched around three tough mountain stages in the Pyrennees, next year's Tour will be boring for two weeks and incredibly exciting for the last week. Unfortunately, I will be at a conference that week and likely not to have access to Tour coverage on VS. (what OLN has become now that it also has football and boxing). We will talk more about this in coming editions.

Competing Trade Shows

Velonews.com and Bicycle Retailer and Industry News both reported this week that the organizers of Eurobike, Europe’s largest cycling trade show, were going to go head to head with Interbike, America’s largest cycling trade show, starting next year. Eurobike will come to Portland, Oregon, next year. Typically, a few years after two trade shows take each other on, neither exists. Hope it does not happen, but it may be a lot of fun to road trip to Portland next fall.

Operacion Puerto Shake Out is Good for Lawyers

I kind of wish I was a Euro-Bike-Lawyer at the moment. Between the contractual disputes over the ProTour license for the Astana team, the Spanish judiciary’s announcement that its investigative files cannot be used for discipline until the criminal investigation is concluded, the Italian cycling federation’s absolution of Ivan Basso, threats of litigation over the injury to careers and reputations after the exclusion of ten of the biggest names in cycling from the Tour de France, and the contractual negotiations of all the riders who are now looking for teams, Euro-Bike-Lawyers are fully employed right now.

The Cycliste Moderne, October 15, 2006

2006-10-15T21:15:00.000-06:00

STP Preview

It is not too early to think about next summer's rides. I think I have convinced Mrs. Cycliste Moderne to do Seattle to Portland with me on our tandem in one day. I have a conference in New York the following weekend and I do not ride on Sundays, so that means a one day ride, July 14, 2007. It is a great event but an event that you need to have a buddy to do right. I figure a tandem is the best way to ensure your buddy sticks with you. If anybody is interested in joining us next July, let me know. We are thinking about driving to Portland on the Thursday before the ride, then taking the bus they run from Portland on Friday and staying in the UW dorms Friday night, ride Saturday and drive home on Sunday. Another buddy is talking about doing LOTOJA in September, which is a much more intense event. STP is like riding in Flanders, LOTOJA is like riding in the Alps.

Giro di Lombardia Recap

The last significant race of the season and the final ProTour race of the 2006 season was this weekend’s Giro di Lombardia or the “Race of the Falling Leaves.” A hilly race around Lake Como in northern Italy it is a race that typically favors an all around rider. Paolo Bettini repeated as champion having won last year, but doing it this year by proving he is one of the strongest riders in the world as he road away from a strong breakaway group to win in the race in the world champion’s jersey. It was an emotional victory for Bettini as his brother had recently passed away.

The race was not without controversy, however, as RCS the organizer of the Giro di Lombardia is also the organizer of the Giro d’Italia and is locked in a fight with the other Grand Tour organizers, the ASO and Unipublic, over control of the sport refused to have a podium ceremony for Alejandro Valverde, who won the ProTour title this season. Valverde and his team Caisse d’Epargne had threatened to boycott the race as a result of RCS announcement that it would not have a separate ProTour jersey awarding ceremony. As a result, no podium celebration for the winners was held either as the other teams refused to participate in post race celebrations if there was not going to be an award to the ProTour title.

All in all, it was a good conclusion to a crisis filled season.

Dope #1

Saturday’s edition of L’Equipe included an account of a 2005 instant message exchange between Jonathon Vaughters and Frankie Andreu regarding doping practices at US Postal Service. Vaughters is now backing away from statements attributed to him. Here is the account from Cyclingnews.com.

Dope #2

Spanish judicial officials have ordered federations not to use information from Operacion Puerto for disciplinary purposes until the legal process plays out in Spain. However, Italian officials have already closed their disciplinary action against Ivan Basso declaring that there is not enough evidence in the information that has been provided to them to support a disciplinary action. The UCI has threatened to appeal the action of Italian doping officials to drop the prosecution of Basso.

Dope #3

Meanwhile, Swiss officials have provided diverging information as to the status of disciplinary action against Jan Ullrich. Some accounts say disciplinary action is imminent, other say that nothing is pending. Who knows, but this whole mess will take years to get resolved.

Dope #4

Floyd Landis posted his defense on his website this week. Here is the link if you are interested.

The Cycliste Moderne, October 8, 2006

2006-10-08T20:50:00.000-06:00

It has been a while since I wrote.

Paris-Tours Finale

There has not been much significant cycling news since the World Championships in Austria two weeks ago. Sunday, however is the 100th running of Paris-Tours, the sprinters’ fall classic that recently has not been won by sprinters. Paris-Tours this year was decided by a long break which managed to stay away with Francaise de Jeux’s Frederic Guesdon out sprinting Team CSC’s Kurt-Asle Arvesen for what is only France’s fourth victory in the race in the last fifty years. Of course, Guesdon’s victory came not as a field sprint but rather with two men riding the breakaway off their wheels and contesting it themselves. Guesdon will be thirty five next week and this is his first significant win since his 1997 victory at Paris-Roubaix. With the Giro di Lombardia next weekend, the European cycling season is at its end. Fortunately, Australian racing is just starting to ramp up as are the European and North American cyclocross seasons.

American Calendar Grows

The domestic professional cycling calendar has been finalized for next season. With the placement of events like the Tour of California and the Tour of Utah on the UCI calendar and the announcement of new stage races in Missouri and Colorado which also have UCI status, USA Cycling announced significant changes to the calendar next season. USA Cycling’s National Racing Calendar and competition is being revamped. The NRC will continue, but without any events that are on the UCI calendar. All domestic UCI recognized events will be placed on the USA Cycling ProTour Calendar. The USA Cycling ProTour competition is not to be confused with the UCI’s ProTour, however, or the UCI Americas Tour either.

A new one day race the “U.S. Open Cycling Championship” which is not the US Championship, has been introduced for next April and will be broadcast on NBC. The race will take place in Virginia. The new stage races in Missouri and Colorado will be organized and managed by Medalist Sports which also manages and organizes the Tour of California and Tour of Georgia.

It is great to see the interest in cycling at the professional level here in the United States. States have recognized the benefit to their tourism and marketing efforts from cycling. Georgia, Utah, Pennsylvania and South Carolina have all increased state involvement with cycling as a means of state promotion.

My concern, however, is that we are merely seeing the same thing we saw in the mid 1980’s with the emergence of 7 Eleven and the Coors Classic. There was a lot of interest in cycling and there was pretty good media coverage. Greg Lemond and Bernard Hinault came to the US to participate in the Coors Classic. It was the golden age of cycling. However, the Coors Classic did not last, notwithstanding the emergence of the Tour de Trump which became the Tour du Pont and which died with the loss of sponsorship support, and American cycling reverted to local criteriums and few significant stage races.

From my very limited experience as a criterium promoter, it is clear to me that you only get to have races if you have sponsorship interest to underwrite the cost. Without significant sponsorship support you are relegated to doing small criteriums in conjunction with community festivals. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but point to point races and stage races are very difficult and very expensive.

I hope all of these events survive and I hope that they truly enhance domestic racing. With the enhanced UCI status of many US events and races such as the Tour of Utah getting UCI status, we hopefully will be seeing more Europeans and top pro teams coming to America to race. More importantly we hopefully will see the level of professionalism rise in the domestic peleton. Navigators, Health Net and Toyota-United have solid programs. TIAA-CREF is also a solid professional squad with excellent management. It has signed some new Europe based Americans to help it improve next season. However, TIAA-CREF appears to have some changes coming in its sponsorship and has stated its desire to become more of Europe based team next season. It is the marginal domestic pro teams which will need greater financial support to be competitive. After watching much of this year’s Tour of Utah, I can attest to the fact that between those three teams and the rest of the domestic peleton, there is a huge gap in talent and support between the top four domestic teams and the rest.

Night Rides

As noted before, I have been getting most of my rides at night. Last week the biggest raccoon I have ever seen crossed my path after crossing ParkCenter Boulevard and wandering over into the Albertson’s headquarters. Since we used to live in that neighborhood, I was used to the occasional raccoon sighting, but this one the other night looked like a small child crawling through Albertson’s landscaping.

Last Thursday night I was out for what I had hoped to be about an hour, leaving the house at 8:45. A few weeks ago, I flatted and had not carried my seat bag so I had to call Mrs. Cycliste Moderne and she brought the official Cycliste Moderne Toddler and picked me up. So when my back tire started getting squishy, about a half an hour into my ride, I thought I was ready for the impending flat. I got to the brightest street light I could find and opened my seat bag to realize I had moved the smaller one which holds patches, tools and CO2 cartridges, not a replacement tube.

I got the tire off, found the leak, and started to patch it, only to discover I had missed the hole by a good inch. My eyesight has gotten progressively worse thanks to the law and in the dark my depth perception is poor as well. Ultimately, it took me about 15 minutes to patch the tube in the dark. I had used part of a CO2 cartridge finding the hole so I knew I would either need to ride home on what was left in that one, or run the risk that I had missed the hole entirely and be stranded if I filled the tire completely. So I put the wheel back on discharged the rest of the cartridge and climbed aboard. I knew that was not going to be enough but just did not want to use the second cartridge. The wheel seemed firm enough, but when I leaned hard into the curve when I made the turn to cross the West ParkCenter Bridge I felt my still squishy rear tire not grip the pavement and slide through the turn. At that point, I realized I would just have to nurse it home as my wife would probably not want the come get me call with three small children in bed. So I got home without any further problems and was surprised to find my late night patch job had worked. But Saturday I broke down and decided to go ahead and put Slime tubes in for the winter. Slime is generally fine for your wife and kids bikes, but it is not something you put on your own bike. However, when you ride at night in the fall and winter, you cannot rely upon your cell phone as your sole source of support.

So Saturday afternoon when I went out to ride, I grabbed an extra tube and put it in my jersey, having spent time working today instead of replacing the tubes with my new Slime tubes. I realized though that I had lost one of my bar caps and so I set of to ride to the street light where I patched my tube, and sure enough there it was, lying on the ground under the street light where I patched my tube.

One other thing I have noticed on recent night rides is that Democrats in Idaho do not put that fact on their campaign signs. To the contrary, Republicans in Idaho put that fact on their signs.

The Cycliste Moderne, September 24, 2006

2006-09-24T20:24:00.000-06:00

2006 World Championships Recap

This weekend marked the crowning of this year’s world champions for men, women and under 23 riders in the road race and time trial. With a hilly course in Salzburg, Austria, the road race was expected to favor an all around strong rider as opposed to a sprinter. However, recent hilly worlds’ courses, like Lisbon, Portugal in 2001, which saw Oscar Freire win his second world championship jersey, have not been sufficiently difficult to create a significant selection and keeping the race from resulting in a field sprint. Hamilton, Ontario in 2003 did have enough climbing to break up the race, although the winner Igor Astarloa, who has won a fair number of technical races, was kind of a fluke.

Paolo Bettini of Italy proved a deserving winner as the race ended with a field sprint. Bettini, Il Grillo or the “Cricket,” is a deserving winner. He is a fairly quick sprinter but he also is an accomplished all around rider who has shown his ability to stay with the toughest men in the peleton. He has won most of the big one day races that have any climbing to them. He has won the World Cup in the past. He is the reigning Olympic gold medalist. He probably would have won in Lisbon in 2001 had a teammate not chased him down. Bettini has never whined about his bad luck at Worlds or criticized his team. Bettini is a deserving winner.

However, the course for the World Championships needs to be revisited. It has been ten years since there was a truly climber focused world course. Although this year was expected to shake things up more than in recent years, that did not happen. Bettini is a deserving winner and would have likely been able to win this year on a flat course or a mountainous course. However, every four to five years, there ought to be a World’s course like Liege-Bastogne-Liege that truly tests the peleton and does not end with 30 riders in the main group. Additionally, the course has to be difficult enough that it does not result in a one-hit wonder like Oskar Camenzind in Valkenburg, Netherlands in 1998 or Romans Vainsteins in Plouay, France in 2000 or Igor Astarloa in Hamilton.

The Americans had an excellent Worlds. Americans brought home gold, silver and bronze, all in the time trial. Kristin Armstrong won the women’s time trial with a dominant performance. California physician Christine Thorburn finished a strong third. Dave Zabriskie finished second to his CSC teammate, Swiss time trial champion and general all around rider Fabian Cancellara, who blew the field away. Idaho now has its own world champion.

The American Press is Stupid

Many mainstream press websites picked up a wire service story about significant turnover after the season on Discovery Channel. Most reports focused on the fact that eleven riders who had ridden with Lance Armstrong would be leaving at the end of the season. There seemed to be some insinuation that recent doping allegations or personality conflicts were the cause of the departures. Additional discussion occurred regarding the fact that George Hincapie was the only rider who had ridden with Armstrong in the Tour de France who was remaining with the team.

What was largely unreported was that eleven riders represented only about a third of the total riders on the team and that one departure was caused by the retirement of Slava Ekimov, who was moving into team management, and Jose Azevedo’s decision to ride domestically at home in Portugal so he could spend more time with his family. Moreover, the media seemed to have no knowledge of the fact that most riders are only on one or two year contracts with contracts of three years or longer being incredibly rare in cycling thus, each team has the potential of losing one third to half its riders at the end of any season.

To the contrary, the cycling press focused on who Discovery had signed for next season, including Levi Leipheimer who is returning to the team after three seasons at Rabobank and two at Gerolsteiner, the signing of the first Chinese national ever to sign with a top professional team, Fuyu Li, who had become the first Chinese rider to win a UCI rated race when he won the Tour of Thailand. Also joining Discovery are Uros Murn, a Slovenian rider currently with Phonak, Olympic medalist Sergio Paulinho of Portugal, currently with Astana, and Tomas Vaitkus, AG2R’s Lithuanian sprinter. As a ProTour team, Discovery will have approximately 30 riders, so a change of eleven is not that significant of turnover in the grand scheme of pro cycling.

Discovery continues to demonstrate its commitment to having a roster that is diverse and international, just like the network. Next season, the team will continue to have a strong international flavor with riders from at least 12 countries under contract. The team will continue to have a strong Belgian and American flavor reflecting its management. So contrary to what some think, Discovery, although an American team, does not view itself as the American national team, but rather a team that expands the network’s branding internationally.

The Cycliste Moderne, September 17, 2006

2006-09-17T20:45:00.000-06:00

Vuelta Recap

Alexandre Vinokourov was a deserving and aggressive winner of the final Grand Tour of the season. Having been forced out of the Tour de France as a result of the implication of four teammates in the Operacion Puerto matter prior to the Tour, which left the team with fewer riders than regulations permitted, Vinokourov was clearly motivated. His new team, Astana, exists solely because of his efforts as he brought in a consortium of Kazakh businesses to sponsor what was left of the Liberty Seguros team.

There are questions about the team's future as a ProTour team as its relationship to Liberty Seguros has caused both the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana to attempt to exclude the team outright. Additionally, former management continues to contest the charges that destroyed Spain's number one team, Liberty Seguros. Astana rode incredibly aggressively througought the race and Vinokourov won his first Grand Tour showing the fearlessness he has exhibited througout his career.

Discovery Channel won the team classification, had a stint in the amarillo jersey, had two stage wins and put four riders in the top 12 on GC. It was an excellent result that will be unappreciated by Americans because (a) the Vuelta was not widely covered and (b) an American did not win. In the post-Armstrong era, Americans will have to become more sophisticated than they have been previously in following cycling.

The race also is a warm up for next week's World Championships in Austria. Although the Austrian course does not favor the bunch sprint finish that occurred last year, the winner of the Arc En Ciel World Champion's jersey will likely be worn by a rider who showed good form at the Vuelta. I think this year's World Champion could be Thor Hushovd, the Norwegian hardman who rides for Credit Agricole.

The Cycliste Moderne, September 14, 2006

2006-09-15T22:43:00.000-06:00

Ride When You Can

I have been getting rides in when I can and the result has been that I have been riding after dark. With my lights and with the lack of traffic, it is a pretty relaxing time to ride. Plus, ride time passes much more quickly when you cannot see your bike computer or your watch.

I am surprised however, at the number of people that ride in the dark without lights, reflectors, or bright clothing. They also ride against traffic, ignore traffic signals, and weave all over the place. Just one more obstacle that you have to deal with to get your ride time in. A little bit of common sense goes a long way.

More Dope

Frankie Andreu's admission this week in the New York Times that he had doped leading up to the 1999 Tour de France spawned the expected quick and direct response from Lance Armstrong and US Postal Service/Discovery Channel management, as well as the immediate claim of Dick Pound that Armstrong obviously must have doped since people around him had doped.

Andreu was terminated by the Toyota-United team after returning from doing Tour de France coverage for OLN. The explanation had been that he had failed to attend to team duties. However, the termination came on the heels of leaked arbitration testimony that Andreu had given in Armstrong's action against the insurer who had refused to pay bonuses after he won the Tour de France for the fifth time.

Andreu reiterated this week that he never had seen Armstrong dope, that he was not aware of any other riders doping on his team, and that he had not done it during the 1999 Tour. That said, Discovery has threatened legal action, and the UCI said they don't know what Andreu thought to accomplish with his late admission.

The Cycliste Moderne, September 10, 2006

2006-09-10T17:09:00.000-06:00

David Millar

David Millar won Saturday's time trial at the Vuelta a Espana. Overall, the top general classification riders matched each other's performance and as a result there were no real changes in the GC. After winning Saturday's stage, Cyclingnews.com reported that Millar proclaimed that he had done it on "bread and water" and that professional cyclists can perform at the highest level in the biggest races without "medical help."

Millar had announced that in coming back to race after his two year suspension for using EPO that he would be racing to show it could be done clean. Millar's suspension came about, not because of a failed drug test but was discovered only when his house was searched a couple of years ago in the then ongoing Cofidis investigation and police turned up used vials of EPO which Millar had used and kept after winning the World Championship in the time trial in 2003.

While it is good to see a rider come back from suspension with a new outlook on racing and a commitment to racing clean, I do have difficulty with riders who come back from doping suspensions and attempt to draw attention to the problem of drugs in sport by being vocal as to how well they now race without drugs. I also have issues with Millar, who has always seemed to have more promise than commitment and who has engaged in a variety of “enfant terrible” acts over the years.

In 2002, after crashing several times and getting hit by a team car on the stage of the Vuelta a Espana ending on the feared slopes of Angliru, Millar was given an “abandon” after he got off his bike a meter before the finish, removed his race numbers and place them on the ground and left without crossing the finish line. He had started the day in the top 10 in the GC but ripped into race organizers for a stage that was too difficult under poor conditions.

Millar had long been predicted to be the Anglo heir to Lance Armstrong. However, a few years ago in a profile of Armstrong by Sports Illustrated as its sportsman of the year for 2002, the difference between the two was demonstrated. During an interview for the article, Armstrong took a call from Millar. Armstrong had been training, Millar was out partying and drunk.

After the 2002 season, Millar was quoted by French sports paper L’Equipe as criticizing his team Cofidis for compensating the team’s riders based upon their performance. Millar felt that he was lacking the support of the team to win big races because the team’s compensation structure encouraged riders to ride for themselves.

Millar never had the maturity to be a great champion. Maybe he has it now having been suspended, losing two seasons on the bike, being forced to come back with Saunier Duval, not the biggest of teams. However, the more you hear a guy proclaim he is changed, the less you believe it. It is unfortunate that every professional athlete who announces that they have learned from their poor decisions, generally have not.

Riding in the Smoke

Air quality has been horrendous here in Boise the last week due to the large number of forest fires burning in Idaho and the hot stagnant weather. Last Thursday, the soccer league canceled all practices and games for the rest of the week. So having left the office early to come home and coach my daughter’s practice, I found myself with a free evening. So, once the Boise State-Oregon State game hit half time I decided to go for a ride. Mrs. Cycliste Moderne thought I was just going to hop on the trainer but instead I went out for ride on the roads.

The wind picked up and there was a fair amount of dry lightening. The amount of electricity in the air wreaked havoc with my heart rate monitor as a portion of my ride took me along a segment of old power lines in our neighborhood. As I was doing big laps around the Morris Hill Cemetery, my heart rate would go from 165 BPM on the side of the cemetery without power lines but then spiked to 229 BPM on the side with the power lines. I knew I was not having a heart attack just a malfunctioning heart rate monitor.

Anyway, I paid for my hour ride in the smoke on Friday as my eyes were sore and red and my lungs congested. So what did I do? Went for a ride Saturday night as well. The air was slightly cleaner and my heart rate monitor worked just fine.

The Cycliste Moderne, September 4, 2006

2006-09-04T19:41:00.000-06:00

USPRO Recap

The Labor Day weekend was the revamped USPRO Cycling Championships in Greenville, SC. Historically the USPRO Champion was crowned at the Philadelphia CoreStates/First Union/Wachovia race in June. As an open race, the first American finisher was named USPRO Champion. While Philadelphia was the richest one day race in the United States and attracted top European teams to a difficult course, because the Philadelphia race was open to all nationalities, over the past few years, the USPRO Champion was typically an American who finished third or worse. Additionally, many seasons, a minor American pro would get into the break with 4-5 europeans and sit back and get hauled to the line. The result was less than recognizeable US Champions.

Because the race conflicted with the Giro d'Italia and the Dauphine Libere, over the past eight years or so the top Americans have not been in Philadelphia. With the loss of the sponsorship of Wachovia and a desire to head in a different direction USA Cycling did one of the smarter things they had done in a while. They opened the USPRO road and time trial chamiponships up to a request for proposal and decided to move the race from Philadelphia in June to Greenville in September. The later date provided greater opportunities for top European based pros to come back and race for the Stars and Stripes Jersey.

Additionally, the USPRO time trial championship had been contested in conjunction with the US Elite Amateur races and had not been contested by top US pros based in Europe for a long time. Putting the events together meant that odds were good that the national championship jerseys would see more time in Europe next year.

Last year, Chris Baldwin won the time trial and Chris Wherry won the road title. This year they both road for Toyota-United and the team was clearly motivated to defend their titles. With the USPRO Championships open only to US riders holding professional licenses the domestic pro teams showed up clearly outnumbering the European based professionals that came to contest the race. David Zabriskie of Team CSC, Levi Leipheimer of Gerolsteiner, George Hincapie and Jason McCartney of Discovery Channel were the only pros to return from Europe as Fred Rodriguez and Chris Horner of Lotto Davitamon were both riding the Vuelta a Espana, Bobby Julich of Team CSC has wrapped his season up and Floyd Landis is well, that is another story.

In the time trial, on what to proved to be a very difficult course, Baldwin put in an epic effort to defend his title. He had the lead over time trial specialist Zabriskie until he went down in the final turn and was forced to switch bikes. Zabriskie ended up winning by thirty seconds. Baldwin would have won but for the crash. Zabriskie was expected to win due to his time trialing prowess so while disappointing, Baldwin certainly showed he is an international caliber time trialist. Zabriskie maybe could have gone faster if he had been more aerodynamic.

Toyota-United lined up at the start of the road race with 9 riders as did Health Net. TIAA-CREF showed its domestic development focus by bringing fifteen riders to Greenville. Navigators showed up with four riders evidencing the fact that it is a truly international team in its focus. The other minor domestic teams showed up as well to try their luck against the handfull of European pros. At the end of the day, they all should have just stayed home.

I have previously documented the unlucky season that George Hincapie has had. With a disasterous crash at Paris-Roubaix when his fork disintegrated and having been taken out in the final 50 Meters of the Benelux Tour which he was leading, Hincapie was in excellent shape and was in no mood to lose the USPRO Championship. It also helped that Hincapie's domestic base is Greenville, SC and he is very familiar with the course and the one big climb on each lap. Sure enough, even though the European based pros were outnumbered, Hincapie and Leipheimer worked the domestic riders over what proved to be a very difficult course. Hincapie won his second USPRO title of his career. It will be great to see the Stars and Stripes Jersey racing at the Ronde Van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix next spring.

Less Racing, More Cycling

With all the negative press about cycling at the moment, I sometimes forget that I loved bikes long before I knew what the Tour de France was or before I could even spell pave or Vlaanderen or Roubaix or Ventoux or Anquetil. Sometimes, you may wonder even if I can spell in English. From the time I got my first bike it was the most liberating thing I ever received from my parents. I remember in detail every bike I ever owned or rode. I remember every significant crash that I ever had. I remember all of the truly epic bike rides I have done since I was a kid.

So, I am not abandoning what I love, just trying to focus it again. I want my kids to love bikes and the freedom they afford, even if they never "turn a crank in anger" as Phil Liggett would say. Today, I don't race. I gave that up a long time ago. But I do love bikes and that is why we started Cyclista and CyclingMovies.Com. I have also written a lot about bikes. As such, I am going to try to include more in the future of the Cycliste Moderne about cycling, not just cycle races. Obviously, this is a seasonal thing as well as the Vuelta a Espana is the last major event before the World Championships.

And Finally

Oh, the stuff you find on the Internet that is bike related.

The Cycliste Moderne, August 27, 2006

2006-08-27T10:04:00.000-06:00

Sorry it has been almost two weeks between posts but with home improvement projects and work and just a general malaise induced by the recent doping news, it has been difficult to find time or motivation to write. Anyway, here is a variety of topics to discuss and debate.

Vuelta a Espana

The Vuelta a Espana started Saturday with a 7km team time trial prologue. CSC won and Carlos Sastre started in the mustardy gold jersey of the overall leader. However, the Vuelta is kind of difficult to get excited about with Operacion Puerto continuing to shadow the sport. The Vuelta is frequently preparation for the World Championships. Probably not going to be different this year either. Needless to say, I am not very excited, although the Vuelta frequently has some of the most exciting racing during the season.

Hamilton

Tyler Hamilton's two year suspension ends on September 22nd. He has been riding and racing in unsanctioned races to keep in shape with an eye towards racing at the World Championships in late September. Now a few questions need to be answered. First, would USACycling even select a rider who has not raced in two years? David Millar's suspension ended right before the Tour de France and he came back to make a reasonable showing, however, Saunier Duval had signed him and Millar was incredibly repentant stating that he would be coming back to race clean and show it could be done. Second, would USA Cycling select a rider implicated in the Operacion Puerto affair. None of the riders named prior to the Tour de France, except those who have now been cleared by the Spanish courts, are currently racing. I cannot see USA Cycling selecting such a rider. Third, a lot of criticism has been levied at Hamilton's recent victory at the Mt. Washington Hill Climb which he has won in the past. Second place went to cycling legend Ned Overend. Hamilton had a strong performance but there were none of the pros who have attended and participated in the past, most likely a result of the threat that USA Cycling and the UCI levied at licensed pros who raced in unsactioned races with a rider who was currently suspended.

Clearly, Hamilton was playing by the rules, but he is not really a sympathetic character at this point. Although USA Cycling typically has difficulty even filling the full US roster at Worlds, I would recommend that it not name Hamilton to the Worlds team. Mrs. Cycliste Moderne is very upset by the latest Hamilton news. As she put it "everything he did at CSC looks like it was a lie." Indeed the epic rides he made during 2003, winning Liege-Bastogne-Liege, winning the Tour of Romandie, winning a stage at the Tour de France with a broken collarbone, now appear to have been "enhanced" performances.

Hincapie

If George Hincapie did not have any bad luck this season, he would have no luck at all. In a position to win Paris-Roubaix for the first time in April, Hincapie's steerer tube shattered, ending his day with a severely injured shoulder. After multiple second place prologue finishes this year, Hincapie came into the Eneco Benelux Tour with a race he could definitely win. He spent most of the Benelux Tour in the leader's red jersey, but with Gerolsteiner's Stefan Schumacher just three seconds behind, the final stage which retraced the Liege-Bastogne-Liege course course the final stage would be decisive. Phillipe Gilbert of Francaise de Jeux held off a hard charging chase to win the final stage, however, with Hincapie and Schumacher together, the GC would be decided on the line. With 50 meters to go, Schumacher swerved across the course to avoid a spectator and in doing so, took out Hincapie. Schumacher then took third, got four bonus seconds and then won the overall by one second. Discovery protested but the race jury found Schumacher's swerve was not his fault, however, rather than neutralize the time bonuses as would have been the just thing, race officials let the result stand.

Cyclingnews.com is reporting Hincapie's second place trophy is now in a bar in Zwolle, Belgium. Hincapie probably ought to be the favorite for the upcoming United States Professional Championships since they are being held in Greenville, SC, where he keeps his domestic base. He is in great shape. However, the season may unfold as it has and as such, I would expect the unexpected.

Bike Style

I had to attend a public hearing for a client this week before the local highway district. At the hearing there was a matter on the agenda that was fairly contoversial as it dealt with the site for constructing a new bridge. Many residents showed up to testify both for and against construction of the bridge as well as its proposed alignment. Now, I have been to enough of these hearings over the years to know the local bicyclists that typically show up and testify and sure enough, there was a guy who I have seen in the past. There is nothing wrong with testifying on transportation issues when you are a cyclist. I support that and have done it myself. There is nothing wrong with wearing your bike clothes to such a hearing as it shows you probably rode there. However, this night when this gentleman gets up to testify, he has on casual shoes -- not his bike shoes. No problem. He has on slacks -- not his shorts. No problem. He has on a red lycra jersey tucked into his slacks. Big problem. Do not ever, ever, ever, tuck your jersey into anything, especially Dockers! It makes you look like a dork.

The Cycliste Moderne, August 13, 2006

2006-08-13T20:44:00.000-06:00

I have returned from my vacation. Boy, is there a lot to catch up with for just one week passing. I came home to two issues of VeloNews, both with Tour de France coverage, neither with the aftermath of the Landis doping scandal. I have tried to tune the whole Landis affair out, but when my in-laws, who know little if anything about cycling, want to know your opinion or what is going to happen to Landis after watching him on Leno, you know that this is an affair which is just not going to end well.

We spent part of our trip working on our new site, CyclingMovies.Com. It is currently in beta mode and has some rough edges, but all of our cycling films have been moved from Cyclista.com to the new site. We did that to make marketing cycling movies easier and to provide better brand definition for Cyclista. Please take a look and let me know if you have any thoughts or comments.

Vacation was driven in large part by two events, the Tour of Utah and Real Salt Lake v. Real Madrid. Both were worth the trip.

Tour of Utah Recap

The Tour of Utah marked its third edition, its second year with Larry H. Miller as its sponsor. With a move to August from Memorial Day and a course designed to challenge the top domestic professionals, the Tour of Utah is intended to provide a more "alpine" experience than the Tours of California and Georgia. I have to admit that I was somewhat skeptical of the ability of race organizers to upgrade their event. The first Tour of Utah was actually a stage race in and around Thanksgiving Point, Utah two years ago. We went to Salt Lake City that weekend intending to check out the race, only to have it rain and snow the whole weekend, causing us to decide not to drag our kids out for it. The race ended up a disaster as weather affected nearly every stage.

Last year's event was only slightly better. They still had some weather issues, but we had committed to take Cyclista on the road to their first ever cycling festival. That event was a disaster from a vendor perspective. The "Festival" area was half a mile from the afternoon criterium course. There was no foot traffic. We totaled $4.00 in sales for the Saturday festival. The "booth" they rented to us was a broken down picnic awning that they appeared to have purchased at "All a Dollar" which we took down after the first gust of wind. Fortunately, our kids got to participate in their kid's race, they got to meet Frankie Andreu, Kristin was interviewed by the Provo newspaper and we met author Dave Shields and started carrying his books.

This year Larry H. Miller stepped up its support and the race was recast to attract top professional teams for the first time. With some obvious growing pains, the race certainly lived up to its enhanced status. We attended Stages Three, Five and Six and made an aborted attempt to attend Stage Four. With the financial support of Larry H. Miller, the race was significantly upgraded over its prior two editions as was the media attention. Amazingly, one of Utah's AM radio stations broadcast each stage live with race commentary interspersed with actual race radio communications and team interviews.

The first two stages were designed for the sprinters and finished with sprint finishes. I do not care about sprinters and the family was not ready to commit the whole week to bike racing, so we skipped them.

Stage Three was the time trial held in Heber City, Utah. It was a relatively short, but technical, out and back course. The winning time was just under sixteen minutes. Current US National Road Champion, Chris Wherry of the Toyota-United team, won the time trial to follow up on his sprint win the day before in Stage Two. Unfortunately, the Tour of Utah had changed the start time for the stage from the fan guide they published on their website and we arrived in time to see the last five riders on the course finish. By moving the event start time up an hour from what they initially posted, Tour of Utah officials made what was one of several miscommunications and miscalculations regarding event times. Anyway, we had a front row spot for the podium celebration complete with podium girls and schwag. Our ten year old was the recipient of a Tour of Utah t-shirt thrown into the crowd and our six year old was prominently displayed on television coverage as the bored little girl in pink. We did pick up the official race program at the stage and were happy to have the definitive schedule for all of the stages. We would not make a mistake on timing again, or so we thought.

Stage Four was the first big mountain stage with a climb to the top of Mount Nebo in central Utah. This stage has always been the queen stage of prior editions of the race but due to the date over Memorial Day the last two years, weather and snowpack have affected the length of the stage. Not this year and not in August. However, as we departed to drive to Mount Nebo from our base of operations in Park City, we were horrified to lean from race radio that they had started the stage an hour earlier than published and as a result, we would be unable to reach the race route before the riders would. Although we were grateful for race radio, we had a very upset ten year old who had visions of running along side racers like he sees during the Tour de France on the final climb to Mount Nebo. So, we went back to our condo, bought him off with the kid activity offered that afternoon by the Marriott Resort where we were staying and called it a day.

Stage Five was to be held Friday evening downtown Salt Lake with a circuit race around the Utah State Capitol, finishing behind the Delta Center. We got there three hours before the race started, grabbed some dinner, and proceeded to see how much schwag we could acquire from the race festival. We scored numerous product samples, three Zion's Bank frisbees, a Toyota-United cowbell, a Larry H. Miller helmet cover, and three sets of thunderstix. Kristin wandered off in search of schwag only to run back and say, "I found Bob Roll." Bob was in town to ride in the charity ride that was held Friday night and to provide race commentary on Saturday. He was giving an interview to one of the radio stations and my wife immediately went and camped out next to him waiting for him to finish. Our ten year old went with her and got to meet Bob Roll. Kristin had gotten his autograph at the Seattle International Bike Expo last year when he signed a race used Team 7-Eleven Musette for her. She reminded him of that encounter, he signed a program for her and shook our ten year old's hand. "Bobke" is cool, but of course the radio guys wanted to talk about Landis.

We spent the first half of the race on the fence, and then moved to the Delta Center steps above the finish line. For a short six lap circuit race with a single climb you would not expect the group to fracture but it did. An eight man break went early in the race and stayed away. Amazingly a significant number of riders missed the time cut and were eliminated. That stage showed there was a big difference between the top domestic professional teams of Navigators, TIAA-CREF, Toyota-United and Health Net and the top amateur teams participating.

Stage Six was the queen stage with the race starting in Park City and then climbing over the Alpine Loop above Sundance ski resort, around the Point of the Mountain separating Salt Lake County and Utah County, and finishing at Snowbird. More than 12,000 feet of climbing. We did not trust the published start times, so we checked out of our rooms and headed straight to Snowbird. We left Park City about 40 minutes after the riders did and in that time the decisive break of the day had already left with four TIAA-CREF riders and already had a four minute gap. We hurried to Snowbird and arrived in time to have race officials announce that the peleton was about 45 minutes ahead of schedule. At least we made it to the finish before they closed the canyon.

To keep our ten year old entertained during the two hour wait until the racers arrived, Kristin and he headed off to the alpine slide only to have him crash in the second turn and peel the skin off his knees and elbows. He was then grumpy, sore and hot the rest of the day. After all the hiking around we had done, I decicded not to force the issue with Kristin and our son so we staked out a place on the bleachers at the finish line and waited the hour for the riders. Evidently, spectators had been on all the climbs of the day and had marked the roads like they do in Europe so our presence at the finish line and not along the course was not missed. TIAA-CREF made their early aggression count with Blake Caldwell winning the stage and Scott Moninger of Health Net taking the overall. As we wandered back towards our car after the stage was over and the roads opened, we were standing outside the Snowbird lodge when Toyota-United's Chris Wherry walked up. I thanked him for coming and told him it was good to see him back in action after a spring marred by health problems. He thanked us for coming out to watch and took a moment to talk to our ten year old. He is another really classy good guy in the peleton.

The domestic pros spanked the top amateurs. Only 54 riders completed the race out of more than one hundred that started. Toyota-United won three stages, Navigators, TIAA-CREF, and Health Net each won one stage. Health Net had the first and third spots on GC with Moninger and Jeff Louder respectively. Navigators had second and fourth with Glen Chadwick and Burke Swindlehurst. In fact, domestic professionals held the top ten GC spots, and won all of the jerseys.

All in all, the Tour of Utah was a lot of fun and fairly well done. Obviously the poor communication of start times was annoying to us cyclistas and although the comentators were enthusiastic, they were not Phil, Paul or Bob. That said, next year's vacation might be back to the Tour of Utah.

Real v. Real

Saturday night was the other big event of the weekend with us attending the exhibition between Real Madrid and Real Salt Lake. Real Madrid won 2-0. It was a lot of fun to see "Los Galacticos" play in America. Many fans were there just to see David Beckham, who came on as a second half substitute. Both teams substituted freely and emptied their benches. Robinho, Emerson, Roberto Carlos, Van Nistelrooy and Raul all played like the world class stars that they are. However, the most impressive was Italian captain and recent Real Madrid signing, Canavarro. He dominated the central defense and showed all of the skill that he possessed in leading Italy to the World Cup. Until America develops defenders like Canavarro, we will never be a world power. At one point in the first half, Real Salt Lake striker Jeff Cunningham, who is probably one of the fastest players in the league, got the ball and headed towards Madrid's goal. Canavarro was momentarily out of position but moved over, shut down the center, forced Cunningham to move to his left and drove Cunningham off the ball. No fouls, just skill. After a long day of cycling, hiking, and soccer, sitting there watching a meaningless exhibition of real soccer skill capped a really good day. Now, I just have to convince myself to go back to work on Monday.

The Cycliste Moderne, August 6, 2006

2006-08-06T19:29:00.000-06:00

Landis' B-Sample Positive

Saturday French doping officials confirmed Floyd Landis' B Sample confirmed the result of the A Sample. It was expected as even Landis indicated that he expected it to confirm the intial result. The matter has been referred to USA Cycling and US AntiDoping Agency for action. Tour de France organizers stated that they do not consider Landis to be the winner of the race but will take no action until the matter is finally resolved by US officials.

This is an unfortunate result and will take months to play out.

Levi Leipheimer wins in Germany

Today's climbing stage of the Tour of Germany had bad weather, rider protests, and a victory by Levi Leipheimer. The riders protested poor weather conditions and forced organizers to rerout the state so that they avoided frozen conditions over the highest climb of the day. As a result the race was shortened and did not have as big an impact on the GC as was to be expected. Tomorrow's climbing stage may be decisve for the GC. Jens Voigt of Team CSC rode into the lead today finishing fourth on the stage finishing just two seconds back from Leipheimer.

Tour of Utah

I am in Utah for the next week on vacation. It coincides with the Tour of Utah which starts tomorrow in Provo and concludes with a race on Saturday from Deer Valley over the Alpine Loop finishing at Snowbird. With 12,000 feet of climbing, the stage follows the other big mountain finish on Thursday which races up to the summit of Mt. Nebo in central Utah. This is probably the best stage race for climbers held in America since the demise of the Coors Classic. The winner of the Tour of Utah will be a rider who can climb as two mountain finishes will determine the GC. The time trial stage will shake things up on Wednesday but is not long enough to determine the GC.

Saturday will also be for soccer as Real Madrid is in town to play Real Salt Lake. I will be back in Boise on Sunday the 13th.

The Cycliste Moderne, July 30, 2006

2006-07-30T21:26:00.000-06:00

This week has been an incredible downer. If you did not hear, Floyd Landis’ drug test after his incredible ride into Morzine on Stage 17 of the Tour de France came back with an abnormal result for testosterone.

Landis’ test did not show an impermissibly high level of testosterone, rather it produced a result showing a discrepancy in the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone. That ratio is outside of the permissible parameters, not the level of testosterone in Landis’ system.

It is a shame that this cloud has emerged at this time. Landis has acknowledged that there is not a single positive outcome from these circumstances. His victory will always be overshadowed even if he is able to prove he did not take any performance enhancing substance that caused this anomalous result. With all the doping crises in cycling, people are no longer willing to give the benefit of the doubt to riders who have positive tests.

With respect to the testosterone/epitestosterone ratio, there are many professional cyclists who have proven they have naturally high testosterone levels or naturally occurring ratios that are outside of the normal parameters. It is very likely that Landis will be able to prove that his test was the product of a natural occurrence. That does not mean that he will be believed.

It has been interesting to see how this matter has played out in the press. The cycling press has been full of rider and organizer reactions. Some of it positive, much of it negative. It is to be expected from a sport that has been almost under siege when it comes to allegations of doping. Some of the most informative, analytical and thoughtful commentary has actually come from some of the more mainstream sporting press. Check out this piece by Bonnie DeSimone at ESPN.com and Austin Murphy on at CNNSi.com

Cycling has done a lot to clean its sport up. It is aggressive and quick moving in stamping out doping, yet the ones who suffer are the athletes. Everyone believes they cheat, while turning a blind eye to the doping cesspool that exists in such other high profile Euro centric sports like track and field and soccer. It is disappointing, but it does not mean that I am not going to continue to watch and enjoy cycling.

Track Positive Gets Little Attention

What has been amazing, however, is the lack of attention that other doping stories have received. Current world record holder in the 100 meters and Olympic gold medalist, Justin Gatlin, has acknowledged that he failed a drug test for “testosterone or its precursors” which in dope speak means his testosterone level was elevated and could be the result of steroids. You have to ask, however, why it is that Gatlin’s test occurred in April and we are just now finding out about it. In cycling, positive tests have become almost instantaneous. Typically in cycling the results of the A sample are known within a week or two. With the ProTour’s code of ethics that all of the top level teams subscribe to, a rider with a positive result will be removed from competition immediately. Since failing that test, Gatlin has tied the world record and has raced numerous times. Gatlin is facing a life time ban as this would be a second offense, the first having been for amphetamines in 2001. Additionally, Gatlin has been trained by Trevor Graham, the coach of now banned sprinter Tim Montgomery. Graham has had numerous clients serve drug bans over the years. In cycling, such coaches and trainers are drummed out of the sport. Amazingly, a quick Google search turns up in excess of 2 million pages referencing Floyd Landis and drugs while less than one hundred thousand turn up for Justin Gatlin and drugs.

Sorry, Move Along, There Is Nothing To Look At Here

In a story getting no coverage outside some of the cycling press, the five members of the Astana Wurth team implicated in the Operacion Puerto scandal prior to the Tour de France, which caused the withdrawl of the team from the Tour, thus ending Alexandre Vinokourov’s hope of winning the Tour, have been cleared of involvement with the doctors at question. So even though the team’s management was implicated in doping with the arrest of former manager Manolo Saiz, none of the riders named in the Operacion Puerto investigation are now subject to investigation and are free to ride.

The European inquisitorial system of the law leaves a lot to be desired to the Anglo American notions of a presumption of innocence before being proven guilty.

The Cycliste Moderne, July 23, 2006

2006-07-23T16:21:00.000-06:00

Tour Recap

The Tour de France has concluded probably the most memorable race since Greg Lemond's 1989 victory over Laurent Fignon by 8 seconds. No team was dominant. No rider looked infallible. It was mano a mano from day one.

To start the Tour with the shadow of Operacion Puerto over the race, you had to wonder how exciting the race would be. The loss of the first five riders from last year due to Armstrong's retirement, the suspension of Basso, Ullrich and Mancebo and the withdrawal of Vinokourov's team cost the race its biggest names. Valverde's crash during the first week robbed the race of another of the emerging talents in the sport. The Tour overcame those difficulties to provide more excitement and entertainment than we have seen in some time.

The American cycling press and mainstream press was too focused, however, on the effect that Armstrong's retirement would have on the sport. The pre Tour hype surrounding Hincapie, Leipheimer and Julich was too much. I unfortunately bought into it to thinking that Hincapie could finish in the top 10 at the Tour. I thought the Leipheimer's win at the Dauphine Libere marked him as a potential podium finisher. I thought Julich would have on last chance to ride for himself with Basso's suspension. In reality, Hincapie has not had enough experience as a GC leader to be a threat, Leipheimer continues to be snakebit and it has been eight years since Julich finished on the podium in a Tour depleted of its top riders due to the Festina scandal.

Clearly, Landis was a threat as he had won three significant stage races already this year by showing the mix of time trialing and climbing that top GC riders needed. Landis was in reality the only American threat for the podium.

Team Phonak was not particularly strong, although it was more focused than it has been in recent years due to the fact that it had a designated leader in Landis. We all have been spoiled by years of the Blue Train dropping Armstrong off about 5km from the summit of the final climb where he then put enough time into his rivals to be able to win convincingly. Most people forget that Armstrong's wins in 1999 and 2000 were with teams that were not as strong, skilled or focused as his teams over the last five wins. Armstrong won his first Tour on the Stage 2 trip over the Passage du Gois when eventual runner up Alex Zulle lost six minutes after getting caught behind the crash that ended the Tour for Armstrong's Postal teammate Jonathan Vaughters. He then reaffirmed his individual strength on the slopes up to Sestriere. He did that without the Blue Train.

Team Phonak was strong enough to get the job done. No additional teammates could have prevented Landis' collapse to La Toussuire. On the ride to Morzine, Landis proved his individual capacity after his team attacked the first climb like Armstrong's Blue Train used to attack the final climb to blow the race apart. Next year, Phonak becomes iShares. It is not clear if Landis will return to iShares or if he will even be able to race once he has his hip replaced. If the team does get him back and if the team does want to win the Tour again, then they absolutely need to invest in some climbing assistance for their leader. I do not see the reformation of the Postal/Discovery Blue Train but as this Tour showed, you need riders who can stay with the team leader. T-Mobile had 3-4 riders who could make it to the final climb as did Rabobank, Caisse d'Epargne and Team CSC. Any team with GC aspirations needs 2-3 climbers and 2-3 strong domestiques who can ride all day keeping their leader out of trouble.

Ekimov Retires

One of the highlights of the Tour's final stage had to be Phonak letting Discovery Channel's Viatscheslav Ekimov ride alone on to the Champs-ElysÃ©es the first time the riders rode onto the finishing circuit. Ekimov was one of the most important components of Armstrong's legacy. As younger riders, they had been strong competitors. I remember watching Armstrong and Ekimov battle it out during several editions of the Tour du Pont with Armstrong riding for Motorola and Ekimov riding for Word Perfect and Novell.

Ekimov had retired once before but managed to stay retired for less than six months coming out of retirement to rejoin Postal in time to help Armstrong to victory. Ekimov is retiring this time for good at 40 having come back from a horrific injury last year. He was anOlympicc medalist on the track and the road and is one of the last riders who came up through the old Soviet sports system. He was one of the strongest and most tactically skilled riders in the peleton. People make a lot out of the fact that George Hincapie was on Armstrong's team for all seven victories. Hincapie was a very important part of Armstrong's legacy, however, Ekimov was probably the rider that contributed the most to Armstrong's overall success. Ekimov will serve as a director sportif for Discovery next season. With Bruyneel and Ekimov guiding the team, any failure of the team to win will be due to a lack of skilled riders, not poor tactical guidance from team management.

The Cycliste Moderne, July 20, 2006

2006-07-20T22:42:00.000-06:00

WOW!

I do not know what more you could say about the last three days at the Tour de France. I have never seen three more exciting and compelling days of racing than we saw in the Alps. The story lines are amazing and it is not just Floyd Landis either. Consider the following:

1. We have two French riders in the top 10 from the same team during the final week of the Tour. AG2R has got to be thrilled with its performance after the exclusion of Mancebo at the beginning of the Tour for his implication in Operacion Puerto. Moreau has always been a top ten threat but to have Desell there as well is incredible.

2. Everyone has had bad days and good days. In the past you could always expect the leader of the Tour to have an off day and look somewhat human. This year every single one of the top 20 riders in the GC have had some really bad performances and some really good performances. I think that evidences the fact that the race is fairly clean.

3. T-Mobile has overcome the adversity of seeing Ullrich and Sevilla tossed from the Tour. They have consistently been the strongest group of riders in the peleton, but they lack that one rider who can stamp some authority on the race. Had Ullrich been in the race, you would have to think that we would have seen a repeat of the five Indurain victories, the two T-Mobile victories and the seven Armstrong victories. Unfortunately, for them they are not likely to put a man on the podium for the first time in ages.

4. Looking back at the Tours from 1991 to the present, with the exception of Pantani's victory during 1998 and the Festina scandal, the winning formula of Indurain, T-Mobile and Armstrong was to have a strong leader who was the best time trialist in the peleton who could also climb among the top 5-10 riders in the race. Get the lead after the first time trial and then defend, defend, defend with a strong team which has no personal ambition. This is the first Tour in a generation where we have seen the yellow jersey move from rider to rider to rider with no team either willing or able to defend it for more than a few days.

5. In 2000, Marco Pantani made a suicidal attack on almost an identical stage, at almost the identical point that Landis did today. Pantani's attack was driven by his animosity for Lance Armstrong over the famed "gift" on Mt. Ventoux. Armstrong's team nearly destroyed themselves chasing him back. They did, Pantani abandoned, and Armstrong bonked on the Joux-Plane losing nearly two minutes by the end of the stage. Landis just went out and did his thing. Not because he was angry, but to just show he could.

6. Floyd Landis is a manly man. His disastrous finish on Wednesday would have finished off many riders, including many of the "leaders" of the top teams. He blew up in a spectacular fashion, in a humiliating fashion. He did not make any excuses, he did not place any blame, he did not pack it in. He showed up the next day to do his job. That is a role model. Interestingly, Landis told Austin Murphy of CNN/SportsIllustrated that when it became apparent that he was going to put his team on the front of the race on the first climb and launch an attack on the first of the five mountains climbed today other riders encouraged him not to do stupid he told them exactly what he was going to do "Go drink some Coke, 'cause we're leaving on the first climb if you want to come along."

Today's ride is something we have not seen in almost twenty years. Maybe it is something we have never seen before. Floyd Landis joined the ranks of such Tour heros as Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault. Men who could go out and put themselves in the lead of the race by daring everyone else to follow their lead. The teams today really did not think Landis could do it expecting a spectacular flame out like Pantani in 2000. They did not chase and they lost the Tour de France as a result. Floyd did not play poker today. He told them exactly what he had and what he intended to do, and he did it.

He probably will not go on to win five Tours like Merckx and Hinault and probably will not win a world championship or any of the Spring Classics. Landis is not the second coming of the "Cannibal" or the "Badger." His impending hip replacement surgery could be a serious threat to his career. However, Landis will probably win this Tour de France and he will win it by being the most focused and the mentally toughest guy in the race.

The Cycliste Moderne, July 16, 2006

2006-07-16T22:34:00.000-06:00

I have been too busy with work to really be as engaged in the Tour this year as in years past. I do not want OLN to think that I have not been tuning in because Armstrong is out, however, with the elimination of Basso, Ullrich, Vinokourov prior to the start of the Tour, and then the crashes that have claimed Valverde, Julich and others, and the poor performances of Hincapie and Leipheimer I am sure that the folks at OLN have been sweating the ratings as well.

It has been an exciting Tour, however. No single team has stamped its authority on the Tour, with the yellow jersey having been so far worn by Credit Agricole’s Hushovd of Norway, T-Mobile’s Gonchar of Ukraine, Quick.Step’ Boonen of Belgium, AG2R’s Dessel of France, Caisse d’Epargne’s Pereiro of Spain, and Discovery’s Hincapie and Phonak’s Landis of the United States all spending time in the jersey.

The stage wins have been passed around the teams and countries as well with German, Spanish, Australian, French and Ukrainian riders all winning stages to date. Credit Agricole, Davitamon-Lotto, T-Mobile, CSC, Agritubel, AG2R, Bouygues Telecom, Cofidis, Rabobank have all won stages to date. In fact the French have one three stages already and five out of six French teams have either won stages or have held the yellow jersey. Moreover, Quick.Step, Phonak, Gerolsteiner and Saunier Duval have yet to win a stage but all have riders who have not won stages but have lead one of the jersey competitions at some point in the race.

With the exception of Euskaltel-Euskadi, Francaise de Jeux, Milram and Liqugas, every team seems to have had their moments in the sun.

With the constant attrition that every team has suffered due to doping or injury, it is a wide open race as no one shows the ability to or desire to control the race as has been the case for most of the past fifteen editions of the race. Additionally, riders are having bad days and then good days which mean that it is always a different group who may be contending on any given day.

During OLN’s coverage the other night Phil Liggett opined that this may be the cleanest Tour in years as evidenced by its unpredictability and the apparent fatigue that has set in among the riders. Today’s stage evidence that fatigue as the leading breakaway of six riders hit a patch of gravel and slick asphalt outside of the finishing town of Gap putting half of the break over or into the roadside barricade and sending two riders to the hospital. Certainly the hot conditions contributed to the crash, much like Joseba Beloki’s crash a few years ago as the Tour raced into Gap. However, after watching the replay several times, it just seemed like people were not paying attention as neither the descent nor turn were that severe.

Does that mean that I think everyone in the past doped? No, but I think there is probably much less “preparation” going on than in past seasons. This year’s Tour will likely not be decided until the time trial on Saturday as I am not convinced that either Landis of Phonak of Evans of Davitamon-Lotto, have the team strength to go out and seize the Tour lead on Tuesday on L’Alpe D’Huez and then just defend through the Alps.

The Cycliste Moderne, July 9, 2006

2006-07-09T22:00:00.000-06:00

Well with the end of the World Cup, I have to hand it to Italy. It is a deserving champion and has played as a true team. Its defense has been solid throughout the World Cup and it has never looked rattled. Italy did not play particularly well during the second half and overtime on Sunday but the shocking actions of France's captain Zinedine Zidane in the overtime period cemented the equity and justice of the Italian victory in penalty kicks.

Zidane had almost single handedly gotten France to the World Cup after he left international retirement to play for the team during the closing stages of qualification. The French emerged from the first round of games without Zidane having shown anything that would cause anyone to not believe that the 3 time world player of the year was indeed past his prime. However, in the knockout stages, Zidane put the country on his back and almost single handedly dragged them to their second World Cup. He had announced prior to the tournament that he would not only retire from international football but also from his club Real Madrid. For nearly two hours Zidane put in an effort that would end his career with the type of glorious memories that are reserved for the likes of Pele, Beckenbauer, and Platini.

Then Zidane completely lost it. So far behind the play that the main television feed did not capture the image, Zidane turned and lunged head first into Italian defender Marco Materazzi as the two exchanged words heading back up the pitch. It was several seconds before the referee stopped the match and the cameras returned to Marco Materazzi lying on the pitch. Only then did the graphic nature of what Zidane doen become apparent. In one minute he went from beloved elder statesman to crazed psycopath. Neither the referee nor the assistant referee saw the act but the fourth official on the side line did and after several minutes, Zidane was shown a red card and sent off the field. What a way to end your career. And it begs the question, will the French press go easy on him or will they hound him like they hound others they perceive to be cheats?

Time Trial Recap

On Friday you would have thought that after the Stage 7 individual time trial on Saturday America would have been asking “Lance who?” The national press services picked up articles about the next crop of American cyclists.

Non cycling outlets were all over the impending conquest of European cycling. The Associated Press ran a story about Levi Leipheimer emerging in light of him being the highest placed returning rider from last year, having finished 6th. Reuters ran an article picked up by ESPN.com among others about George Hincapie’s impending ascendancy as the captain of Discovery and leader of the Tour. Bobby Julich was reported to now be able to ride for himself in light of the doping scandal at this year’s Tour de France. Even the cycling press like Velonews.com was breathlessly awaiting another 1-2-3-4 sweep of the time trial by Americans like happened at the Dauphine Libere.

The result was not what everyone had anticipated. Levi Leipheimer had the worst time trial of his life finishing 96th on the stage and losing more than six minutes to the leader and stage winner T-Mobile’s Serguei Gonchar. George Hincapie was only the third best rider on the day for Discovery Channel finishing 24th on the stage. Bobby Julich had the misfortune of crashing hard and ending up in the hospital with a sever injury to his hand. Even Team CSC’s Dave Zabriskie lost almost two minutes on the stage and finished outside of the top ten.

Leipheimer was not the only projected contender to have a disaster of a race. Liquigas’ Steffano Garzelli who was looking to the Tour to redeem a poor spring lost more than five minutes Euskaltel-Euskadi’s Iban Mayo who looked to be returning to the form he had a couple of seasons ago and a real threat in the mountains lost five and a half minutes. Lampre’s Damiano Cunego who is a past Giro winner also lost more than six minutes on the stage.

Floyd Landis, however, showed that his results in time trials this season have not been a fluke and finished second on the stage just over a minute behind Gonchar.

The T-Mobile team, significantly injured by the ejection of Jan Ullrich and Oscar Sevilla at the start of the Tour placed four riders in the top 8 on the stage an now occupy 4 of the top 6 spots on GC. T-Mobile has already had a Tour to be proud of with two stage wins and the yellow jersey. They will likely attempt to defend the jersey through the Pyrenees due to the strong showing they have among the leaders. Strategically that will benefit Floyd Landis’ Phonak team as they will be able to defer to T-Mobile in defending the lead.

Landis has to be the favorite at this point. He put in a strong ride on a day when many contenders saw their races probably lost. Landis is a better climber than any of the remaining T-Mobile riders however, and Gonchar cannot climb, so even though Gonchar will likely be the favorite for another strong performance in the final individual time trial, he will not be a threat to the overall.

All in all, Lotto Davitamon’s Cadel Evans had a good day and is well positioned heading to the mountains. T-Mobile’s Michael Rogers and Andreas Kloeden are both strong climbers but not as strong as Evans and Landis. Denis Menchov of Rabobank and Vladimir Karpets of Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears are well positioned also heading into the mountains.

However, I think the Tour will be much more competitive and unpredictable this year due to the withdrawals, injuries and poor form of many expected to contend. It very well may be a race of attrition or a race where a few riders have some really good days and some really bad days with no one being like Armstrong and steady everyday but one.

We all have been spoiled by sixteen years of racing where, with the exception of 1998, the model has been to be the best time trialist in the field, and then defend in the mountains only attacking when time can be gained. This year it is likely to be a knife fight.

ProTour Fight Continues

The ongoing knife fight between the organizers of the Grand Tours and the UCI took another twist over the weekend with the ASO, organizer of the Tour as well as Paris-Roubaix and Liege-Bastogne-Liege, announced that they would never join the ProTour, nor would Unipublic in Spain or RCS in Italy and that the ProTour was essentially dead to them.

The UCI responded by pointing out that the riders excluded from the Tour as a result of Operacion Puerto were only excluded because of the ProTour’s ethical code and that the UCI as the governing body controls the calendar.

Girls, girls, girls. You are in the midst of a crisis that threatens the very soul of the sport and you cannot even come to an agreement about who gets invited to what. Quit acting like a bunch of 8th grade princesses deciding who gets to come to your party.

Landis Health Disclosure

The rest day Monday will include a major announcement as Velonews.com is reporting that Floyd Landis will have a press conference where he will confirm a report by the New York Times that he will undergo hip replacement surgery after the Tour.

Landis has developed osteonecrosis in his right hip that was caused by a crash a couple of years ago. As a result, the hip joint has deteriorated. Landis is reported to have had surgery to correct the problem which resulted in a leg length discrepancy of one inch. It has also been reported that Landis has been given dispensation by the UCI to receive cortisone injections to alleviate inflammation and pain.

The French are going to have field day with this one if Landis wins. Just like they did not believe Armstrong, they certainly are not going to believe that a one legged Mennonite rocker dude could stick it to their countrymen like Landis has without being on drugs.

I have heard criticisms of Landis based upon his laid back demeanor. Generally the criticism is that he lacks the killer instinct of a champion and that he does not have enough ambition to be great. I think he is a guy who loves to ride his bike and knows what is important in life.

The Cycliste Moderne, July 4, 2006

2006-07-04T12:37:00.000-06:00

Before we get to the cycling stuff, it is important to keep things in perspective. Portugal is just two wins away from being World Cup Champions. Most importantly, the get Deco back for the match against France. Regardless of the outcome of Wednesday's match I guarantee there will be riots somewhere in Europe.

Doping Update

I wrote last week’s preview just as the full impact of Operacion Puerto was emerging. I can say that I am shocked and saddened by the result of that investigation. I don’t want to say everybody dopes, but it sure looks like everybody dopes. The most surprising information coming out of Spain is that the doctors at the center of the investigation had made upwards of $10 Million from helping athletes dope over the last 3-4 years. It also looks like systematic team wide doping was occurring at some of the Spanish teams.

The unfortunate victims are the riders not implicated in the scandal. Alexander Vinokourov lost his chance to race and potentially win the Tour with the dismissal of five of his teammates. With the removal of Ullrich, Basso and Mancebo before the race started, Vinokourov would have been the highest placed finisher from last year’s race. Meanwhile, sponsors like Wurth and Communidad Valenicana have pulled their sponsorship from the Spanish teams they supported.

Additionally, WADA chief Dick Pound is proclaiming that if he had a child he would not let them compete in cycling since you can only win if you are drugged. Pat McQuaid, the UCI leader, has already announced that Tyler Hamilton will be getting a life time ban and Basso and Ullrich will be getting four year bans if Operacion Puerto results in findings of doping. Tyler Hamilton’s attorney is already holding press conferences on the lack of due process afforded his client and pointing out that the information coming out now deals with the period of time for which Hamilton is currently serving a suspension.

FIFA gleefully announced, today, however that contrary to prior reports, no soccer players showed up in the Operacion Puerto dossier. However, two time French Open winner Rafael Nadal has already announced he will seek legal action against the newspapers that have implicated him in the doping scandal. I believe that Nadal probably does not dope since he only manages to win consistently on the slowest tennis surfaces and is generally incapable of matching the big serving speed players on hard and grass courts.

Tour Update

Anyway, the opening stages of the Tour have produced the carnage that is typically expected over the opening stages favoring the sprinters.

The Prologue

Thor Hushovd of Credit Agricole became the first Norwegian cyclist ever to wear the maillot jaune. Having won the green points jersey last year, Hushovd’s time trialing ability is frequently forgotten. He is however a past under 23 world champion in the time trial. With an opening week of stages favoring the sprinters, Hushovd’s performance was obviously designed to get the yellow jersey and give him and his team the opportunity to defend it. George Hincapie and Dave Zabriskie put in stellar performances in the opening time trial to finish second and third, with Hincapie missing out on yellow by just .73 seconds. The biggest surprise was Floyd Landis’ late arrival at the start house due to a last second tire change. Landis would have certainly been in the top three but for that lost time.

Stage 1

Stage 1 marked the first Tour victory for Cofidis’ sprinter Jimmy Casper. The French managed to get the “when are they going to win a stage” monkey of their backs early this year. No doubt that the French press is noting that the early victory is because the Italians, Germans and Spanish dopers got sent home. Anyway, the carnage of the sprint finish of Stage 1 is best exemplified by this photo of Hushovd.

Both Hushovd and Tom Boonen were struck by objects held out into the course by fans. As a result, neither were in a position to really contest the sprint and Hushovd ended up in the hospital getting stitches to close the gash in his arm that was reported to have been caused by green jersey sponsor PMU’s green promotional cardboard hands. As a result of that, PMU and the Tour have announced that PMU’s hands would not be distributed within the last 2km of a stage. Hushovd finished the stage, however, he finished in 9th and lost the yellow jersey to George Hincapie who managed to steal two seconds in the final intermediate sprint of the day to take the lead and wear the yellow jersey.

Liquigas’ superstar Danilo Di Luca abandoned the race after the stage due to an ongoing illness. He was looking to have a strong Tour after a less than impressive Giro.

Stage 2

Robbie McEwen won the stage in Luxembourg, but most impressively, a bandaged and sore Hushovd managed to take third on the stage to reclaim the yellow jersey. Even more impressive was the fact that Hushovd pulled out of his pedal with 25m to go and still managed to have enough speed and power to pedal through with one leg to get the time bonus associated with third place. Although T-Mobile’s Matthias Kessler put in a late attack and almost stayed away, he was caught in the final 200 meters as it was a day for the sprinters. Of course, the requisite mid-pack crash in the closing kilometers capped the day and split up the peleton.

Stage 3

Stage 3 from Luxembourg, through Belgium and finishing in Valkenberg, Netherlands. The finish came 2km after the climb up the Cauberg where the Amstel Gold Race finishes. Although the finish was flat and straight, that last climb up the Cauberg was expected to break things up. T-Mobile’s Matthias Kessler again attacked late, this time halfway up the Cauberg and managed to hold on for the win.

The climb did shake up the overall as Hushovd was unable to stay in contact with the leaders and eve though Tom Boonen only managed a fourth place finish, Boonen pulled on the yellow jersey for tomorrow’s start in Huy, Belgium due to Hushovd’s group being unable to reconnect to the main chase group before the finish. Boonen is huge in Belgium and it really means a lot for a Belgian to be in yellow when the race goes through Belgium. On the podium to congratulate Boonen was former world champion Freddy Maertens who Mrs. Cycliste Moderne and I had the pleasure of meeting last November at the Belgian National Cycling Museum when Mrs. Cycliste Moderne walked into the museum and asked him where she could get some lunch and then as we walked out said to me "isn't he that one guy?"

This was a stage that I thought a rider like Spaniard Alejandro Valverde could win with a late attack in the hills of the Limburg region of the Netherlands. Valverde can sprint and climb. He has improved his time trialing ability and with the dismissals of Basso, Ullrich, Mancebo and the withdrawal of Vinokourov, Valverde would have been on my revised podium. Than ended, today, about 20km from the finish when he crashed and broke a collar bone. It always seems like the first week results in the elimination of a certain top 10 finisher due to a stupid mid-pack crash.

Additionally, Rabobank’s Erik Dekker and Davitamon Lotto’s Fred Rodriguez crashed about 50km from the end of the stage with both of them ending up with a trip to the hospital as well, Rodrigeuz with a broken collar bone as well and Dekker with a concusion. Both riders were important to supporting their team sprinters and for possible stage victories. The peleton just keeps shrinking.

The Cycliste Moderne, June 29, 2006

2006-06-29T21:08:00.000-06:00

I was forced to make a very difficult decision on Saturday morning. Prologue or England v. Portugal. That is a difficult decision made easier through OLN's incessant Tour coverage and the fact that England v. Portugal is a do not miss event on Saturday. Forca Portugal!!!

Tour Preview

In the last issue I gave a preview of who I thought would win the Tour de France. Let’s now look at what they will have to do to win it.

Prologue – This year’s Prologue in Strasbourg is absolutely flat but does have some hard 90 degree turns to complicate it. I expect American Dave Zabriskie of Team CSC to win, however, the wild card is David Millar, whose two year doping ban ended this last week just in time for the Tour. Millar will likely be inspired to redeem himself.

Stages 1-6 – The opening week of the Tour de France continues the Tour’s recent homage to the spring classics. With a stage following a portion of the course of Liege-Bastonge-Liege and ending in Valkenberg, Netherlands, the finishing town for the Amstel Gold Race and a stage beginning in Huy, Belgium the finishing town in the Fleche Wallone, the first week covers five countries with long, relatively flat stages. The sprinters should dominate, however, the conditions are ripe for successful breakaways especially once the race turns west on Stage 4.

Stage 7 – The first individual time trial of the Tour is in and around Rennes. At 52km, the time trial will provide the first real separation for the general classification leaders. It is not a particularly difficult course favoring a power rider like Jan Ullrich. Ivan Basso should also do well, but Dave Zabriskie may get his second stage win of the Tour on Saturday, July 8.

Stages 8-9 – These two stages are wrapped around the first rest day. They theoretically should favor the sprinters again as arguably this is the most sprinter favorable first week of the Tour in probably eight years. Coming after the time trial and after the rest day, these stages may result in a surprise winner. With ten days of riding before the first climb, the top contenders will have time to ride themselves into peak shape. As a result these stages could result in a long breakaway with a rider like Thomas Voekler positioning himself to wear the yellow jersey into the Alps in a week.

Stages 10-11 – These two stages in the Pyrenees are not the most difficult stages in the Pyrenees. Stage 10 goes over the Col de Soudet but that is 90km from the finish and the last climb occurs about 45km from the end. The riders will hurt, but Stage 10’s long downhill into Pau is not likely to result in a big shakeup on the GC. Stage 11, however, should be the first stage to shake up the overall. The first of five categorized climbs is the Hors Categorie Tourmalet, followed by four consecutive Category 1 climbs over the Col d’Aspin, the Col de Peresourde, Cold Du Portilon and then the long climb up to Pla-de-Beret in Spain.

Stages 12-14 – Stage 12 on Bastille Day, July 14, runs out of the Pyrenees over an undulating course with four small climbs. As is typically the case, on Bastille Day a French rider will go on the attack to win. This is the perfect route for that to happen especially after Stage 11 finally instills order in the GC. Stages 13 and 14 are both difficult stages, leading the riders to the big climbs in the Alps. They too will likely favor attacking riders well down the GC.

Stage 15 – The first day in the Alps is a classic with the riders first going over the Co d’Izoard, then the Col Du Lautaret, finishing on the L’Alpe d’Huez. This stage will give someone the chance to put some pain into the other leaders and will show who is the top dog at the Tour.

Stage 16 – The day after L’Alpe d’Huez is even more difficult with the long 40km slog up the Col du Galibier to start the stage followed by a climb up the Col de la Croix de Fer and a finish at La Toussuire. This stage was ridden during Stage 6 of the Dauphine Libere and was won by Iban Mayo. This stage will be another difficult day for the peleton and the big teams will look to deposit their leader at the base of the final climb to La Toussuire.

Stage 17 – The last day in the Alps is a lot like Stage 11 in the Pyrenees with a sawblade profile. However the final climb up the Col de Joux Plane is followed by a down hill run into Morzine. This finishing course has seen some of the most aggressive riding in the past primarily driven by the late Marco Pantani, who soloed to victory in Morzine in 1997 and who attacked Lance Armstrong in 2000 resulting in Armstrong’s famous bonk on the final climb. The GC should be decided before the Joux Plane, but it is stage that can shake things up for the riders.

Stage 18 – This stage gives the sprinters their first chance to win a stage in over a week. With a largely downhill run punctuated by a series of category 2, 3 and 4 climbs, the day will likely result in a group finish as the green jersey leaders will look for any advantage they can get. If the green jersey is close, the stage will finish in a bunch sprint.

Stage 19 – This 57km individual time trial is a long and technical course. With an undulating profile and winding narrow roads, this stage will once again cement the final general classification. Ullrich, Basso and Landis will again slug it out for supremacy against the clock. This course could cause the type of meltdown that we saw last year when Rabobank’s Michael Rassumusen lost it and tumbled down the GC.

Stage 20 – The parade into Paris winds through the southwestern suburbs of Paris before the riders race up and down the Champs-Elysees.

This year’s Tour de France will result in a worthy champion. With four difficult mountain finishes and two long time trials, this is a course that would have favored a rider like Lance Armstrong. It certainly is a course that favors a true stage racer like Ullrich, Basso or Landis. The long individual time trials will prevent any pure climber from having a chance at victory. The stages are long and difficult this year. The flat stages are largely going to be contested with headwinds or crosswinds. The climbing stages are unrelenting.

If you only could watch three stages of this year’s Tour, I would recommend Stage 11 on July 13 to Pla-de-Beret, Stage 15 on July 17 to L’Alpe D’Huez and Stage 16 on July 19 to La Toussuire.

More Doping

If my rant earlier this week that they are all doing it needs any reaffirmation, then check out the latest from Spain, where almost every favorite at this year’s Tour de France has been named by any one of the Spanish papers falling over each other to name names. It really makes you wonder where the truth lies.

This is a bigger scandal than the 1998 Festina affair because of the number of riders and teams implicated. As Mrs. Cycliste Moderne said the other night “Operacion Puerto is the Euro-BALCO.”

If you want to stay up to date on the current status of the current euro dope scandal be sure to check out the Cycliste Moderne’s links to the major cycling news services.

The Cycliste Moderne, June 27, 2006

2006-06-27T22:12:00.000-06:00

Long Time, No Write

Sorry things have been quiet. I have just spent four days in Dallas for the annual commercial office building conference and trade show. That consumed the better part of all four days and getting ready to leave also consumed every waking moment I had. First things first, however, England v. Portugal will likely be a 1-0 game and will not be pretty but it could be the most compelling match of the quarter finals. I just cannot see Germany continuing its run and beating Argentina, I cannot see Italy losing to Ukraine and I cannot see the French beating Brazil. England v. Portugal is a toss up. At the end of the day it will be Brazil v. Argentina in the World Cup final as Italy has not shown enough scoring ability to get by Italy and Brazil is gradually getting better and Brazil's second 11 is probably better than the starting 11 that either Portugal or England can put on the field.

As for Dallas, Mrs. Cycliste Moderne went with me and she got to see the highlights of life in Big D: Neiman Marcus, Dealey Plaza and the Texas Book Depository, the Cotton Bowl. I got to sit in the air conditioned Dallas Convention Center which is exactly what you would think a city like Dallas would build for a convention center. She got to watch my team Portugal defeat the Netherlands as I sat in a speech by Malcolm Gladwell. At least I had my Blackberry so I could watch the match tracker and she would e-mail me her commentary from the hotel.

At night I got to get out though and we did go to the new soccer stadium in Frisco, Texas for FC Dallas as well as hit a Brazilian churrascaria where it is essentially all you can eat meat. The only bikers I saw in all of Dallas, however, were the 100 or so Harley riders parked at a bar in the North Dallas suburbs. I did not see one person on a bike in four days.

Dope

Well, the big news is dope. Lance Armstrong and Tyler Hamilton have been in the news. It was interesting to be in Texas and see the sports commentators rise up to defend Armstrong from the latest allegations by Frankie Andreu’s wife and Greg LeMond. Both the Austin and Dallas sports pages had local commentaries and stories that largely blamed the latest issues on the French. I got back late last night from Dallas and saw Armstrong on ESPN defending himself and calling everyone else a liar.

The Spanish press continued the press barrage over the weekend with stories linking Tyler Hamilton to the doctors at the center of the latest doping scandal there. The Spanish papers offer doping schedules they purport showed Hamilton’s doping regime as well as a financial statement purportedly faxed to Hamilton’s wife. Jan Ullrich has also been alleged to have been involved in the Spanish doping affair as well.

The UCI and ASO, the organizers of the Tour de France, are awaiting the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s decision on whether the former Liberty Seguros, now Wurth-Astana team will be allowed to start the Tour on Saturday. The UCI has approved the license for the new sponsor and will not sanction the team until the Spanish authorities take some action. The ASO does not want the team there. The CAS has now promised to hold a hearing on the matter and issue a ruling by Friday.

I have come to the conclusion that yes, probably every athlete has cheated in one form or another in their careers. Some times the cheating occurs during the course of the event or on the field of play. Some times the cheating occurs off the field or outside the running of the event but has an effect on the outcome. In some sports, cheating has become a game inside the game. Those who get caught just get sneakier. Those who don’t get caught think they are invincible. When athletes do get caught, they frequently are willing to name names.

Cheating does not affect, however, the popularity of the sport. NASCAR is not less popular due to the rampant cheating that exists in the sport. Baseball has never been more popular than during the drug induced boom years of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Professional wrestling has never been affected by the illegal drug use and fixed results that exist in the “sport.” Why? Because people want to be entertained.

The Dick Pound’s of the world do not comprehend that sport has always been about entertainment. People go to sporting events to escape. Athletes cheat because (a) they can and (b) they honestly believe everyone else is doing it. We need to reconsider how we are fighting the war on doping. The current model is broken. It results in athletes categorically proclaiming their innocence. It results in WADA and the press declaring everyone to be a cheat. The truth is in between. Most athletes have probably doped at some time in their career. Most of that doping has had virtually no effect on the outcome of the events. The more authoritarian the response from doping officials, the less likely they are to be able to root out the problems and to end doping.

Most importantly, has doping really affected the popularity of any sport? Absolutely not. Is track and field any more or less popular as a result of doping? Is boxing? Is swimming? Is cycling? None of them have had their popularity affected by doping.

Tour Preview

I will try to get a Tour preview out for Friday. However, if I am not able to do so, know that while the Tour is likely to be exciting due to the fact that Armstrong is not there, it is interesting to note that Ivan Basso’s CSC team, Floyd Landis’ Phonak team and Jan Ullrich’s T-Mobile team have been named and clearly have a single focus, that is getting their leaders to the front and keeping them there. As CSC showed during the Giro d’Italia, the Armstrong-Bruyneel model of a strong team coupled with strategic attacks by the leader which occur only when the leader can gain an advantage will likely prevail in the ProTour era. All three teams have had excellent results this season for their leaders using this model. With larger teams and larger budgets, some teams will be going to the Tour knowing that they can get a rider into the top 10 and that is all they really want to do. As is usually the case, there are probably only five riders capable of winning the Tour: Basso, Ullrich, Landis, Leipheimer, Valverde. Of those Valverde probably does not have the team or experience to do it. Leipheimer has yet to show really strength in the Tour de France. That leaves the final podium as Basso, Ullrich, Landis in that order.

The Cycliste Moderne, June 18, 2006

2006-06-18T22:23:00.000-06:00

Tour de Suisse Recap

Jan Ullrich looks to be in good shape for the Tour de France. He stayed close to the lead throughout the race and won the final time trial today as expected. It did not look like he had to expend too much energy in winning and he certainly has shown that he is in shape to be one of the top five riders at the Tour de France next month. Ullrich also appears to be thinner than he has in a few years. I don’t think that Ullrich can win the Tour but he will once again contend and will once again finish on the podium. Sorry there is not more, I just have not had the time or energy to really follow the race. The World Cup is on and that is the most important thing right now.

Armstrong Calls Out Pound

Lance Armstrong fired off an eight page letter to the IOC this week calling upon the organization to take action against Dick Pound and WADA for the breaches of ethics that have occurred as a result of the L’Equipe investigation of the 1999 Tour de France. A copy of the letter has been published by Cyclingnews.com. This month, Dick Pound was interviewed by Outside Magazine and reasserted his belief that Armstrong doped in 1999. The war between the two certainly has not ended and will continue. At the end of the day, however, the IOC is going to have to step up and decide whether WADA is best served by having such a polarizing figure as Dick Pound as its leader. Moreover, if the IOC and all of the individual sports federations want to truly do something about doping WADA needs to be led by a strong figure whose integrity is above reproach and who does not appear to have a personal ax to grind. Dick Pound is neither. If you want to know more about the Canadian lawyer who publicly defended Ben Johnson’s doping in 1988, check out this column by Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post in 2004.

Eindhoven Team Time Trial

The ProTour added a team time trial last year to give ProTour teams an opportunity to train and compete in the event. However, the Tour de France has now removed the team time trial and it really is not an event which attracts the best line ups from the ProTour teams. Moreover, the event suffered significant lack of sponsor support in its first few years. It is still around and was contested today in Eindhoven. The coolest thing about the race is that it goes right by the Eindhoven Holiday Inn where I always stay when I am in Eindhoven. (Before you judge me for my hotel choice, the Eindhoven Holiday Inn is a four star hotel within walking distance of the city center, the train station and Phillips Stadium where PSV Eindhoven plays.) Even the Eindhoven Team Time Trial organizers recognized the importance of the World Cup as its start time was adjusted to avoid competing with the World Cup matches today. Team CSC won the race and clearly took it seriously since it brought Dave Zabriskie, Bobby Julich and Jens Voight as part of the team to contest it. Discovery Channel and Gerolsteiner finsished second and third. Of course the best placed French team was in ninth place and no Spanish team cracked the top ten.

Just Riding Along

Yesterday we went out for an hour and a half ride so that my ten year old could complete his Cycling Pin for Cub Scouts. It never ceases to amaze me the things you see people doing when you are out for a ride. So here are some of the things we saw:

Old guy on a Trek Cyclocross bike with his button down long sleeved shirt tucked into his cycling shorts.

Old guy on a Cannondale with his bike jersey tucked into his cycling shorts so far that he covered up half of his pockets.

Couple on cruisers who obviously having mechanical problems pull off the Boise Greenbelt into the area marked “Warning Stay on Path: Puncture Vine.”

Family out for a ride where the parents ride without helmets, but the kids ride in flip flops.

A really big 6 year old out on his 16 inch wheels with his little legs spinning at about 200 rpm while wearing his hooded winter coat.

It is good to be out riding but a few notes for people:

Wear shoes not flip flops
Wear your helmet especially on the Greenbelt because you never know when a kid will take you out.
Do not tuck your jersey into your bike shorts. Jerseys and shirts go over shorts not under them.
If you have a mechanical go somewhere that is safe for you and your bike to do your repair

World Cup Recap

The United States played one of the gutsiest games it has ever had to play holding on to tie Italy 1-1. The United States can advance with a win over Ghana and an Italian win over the Czech Republic. Any other scenario is unlikely for the United States to advance as it lakcs the goal differential needed to advance if the Czech Republic beats Italy. You have to wonder, however, why the Uruguayan referee who officiated the US-Italy match, who had been suspended by the Uruguayan FA for corruption in 2002 would ever be called up to referee at the World Cup with that mark on his resume.

Anyway, Brazil has not yet looked like Brazil in the tournament. Argentina has looked the best of anyone so far in the tournament as they have the total package of defense and offense. None of the African or Asian have looked like they belong in the tournament. Costa Rica and Trinidad and Tobago have not won but they have at least been competitive. Ecuador is probably the surprise of the tournament so far. The difficult South American qualifying process has benefited them. The best game of the Second Round will likely be Portugal versus the Netherlands as both teams play an attacking style with significant possession in their midfields. It could be either a 6-4 or a 0-0 outcome but it should be exciting.

The thing that has been most evident to me is that the draw this year just has not resulted in terribly exciting or competitive matches except for in the US’ Group.

The Cycliste Moderne, June 11, 2006

2006-06-14T10:21:00.000-06:00

Dauphiné Libéré Recap

The Dauphiné Libéré concluded today with Gerolsteiner’s Levi Leipheimer winning the general classification. Last year Leipheimer was in a position to win the race but did not defend his lead as aggressively as he should and as a result, he lost when his team allowed Euskaltel Euskadi’s Inigo Landaluze get away in a break away. The Basque rider managed to get a lead that was insurmountable and as a result, Leipheimer finished third.

This year, the Dauphiné was an attractive pre Tour de France warm up with a stage virtually identical to the Tour’s 16th stage and a tour like long time trial. This attracted top Tour contenders who were in various states of condition. Vinokourov and Landis came to test the time trial course and get some miles in their legs. They certainly rode within themselves and did not aggressively contest the climbs.

Most impressive was the finish of the Americans on stage three. CSC’s Dave Zabriske once again dominated the time trial, but Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer and George Hincapie finished second, third and fourth. All four are clearly on their game when it comes to the individual time trial as their dominating performance showed.

Leipheimer showed that he was one of the strongest climbers in the race as he was glued to the wheels of Christophe Moreau of AG2R and Denis Menchov of Rabobank, the only two riders who were able to match Leipheimer during the climbs. AG2R was really impressive with both Moreau and Francisco Mancebo having strong showings. The French team may have their best Tour ever.

Leipheimer ran the risk of peaking too early, but he certainly showed the type of power on the climbs and time trial that he needs to finish on the podium in Paris.

Tour de Suisse

The Tour de Suisse started on Saturday and will run through next weekend. The Tour de Suisse has not attracted the deepest field when the number of Tour contenders are compared with the Dauphiné. Jan Ullrich is contesting the Tour de Suisse with a very strong team, however, other than Steffano Garzelli of Liquigas and Cadel Evans of Davitamon Lotto, there are not really any of the riders expected for the overall in France in July. The Tour de Suisse will likely be won by a member of T-Mobile as Ullrich has the support of Michael Rogers and Patrik Sinkewitz, both of whom are capable stage racers. Ullrich will likely not expend the resources to win the Tour de Suisse as most of his other main competitors either just finished the Dauphiné Libéré or are recovering from the Giro d’Italia.

Tour of Eagle

I spent Friday night helping my friend Gary Casella put on his annual criterium as part of Eagle Fun Days. It is a great little race as running it in conjunction with Eagle’s festival ensures excellent police support and a captive audience. Amazingly, the crowd thinned out before the end of the final race of the night with the Category 1/2 race. Perfect conditions, slightly overcast, high 70’s, no wind.

That said, you know you are still in Eagle, Idaho when the guys with their blue farmer jackets, cowboy hats, cowboy boots and wranglers mix with the tube top and flip flop crowd. Maybe I will wear my bike kit to the Snake River Stampede rodeo this summer and see how out of place I look.

Bob LeBow Ride

Saturday, my wife and I and the three kids did the Bob LeBow Ride in Nampa, Idaho. My mother had made the youngest two outfits that matched our Team Cyclista kits. She did point out that when I was the age of my 10 year old I would not have agreed to have the whole family wear identical outfits in public. She had a point there, but when you have subjected your children to cycling from birth and they are conditioned to want to look like the pros, it is not a very big problem.

World Cup

Cycling is really going to have to be secondary to the World Cup for the next month. I cannot guarantee that soccer commentary will not find its way into the Cycliste Moderne. After this weekend, I can say the Dutch look good, the Germans can score but not defend, the Poles are a disaster, the English ought to be grateful just to win, and the Argentines are the best that have played so far. Most importantly, I would encourage you to check out the long version of the “Jose +10” ad of Adidas where two kids pick their dream teams to play and then play a match. Great ad, great inside jokes.

The U2 promotions for ESPN are pretty cool as well.

The Cycliste Moderne, June 4, 2006

2006-06-04T20:42:00.000-06:00

It was a good weekend for Americans

Tour of Luxembourg

Christian Vande Velde won the Tour of Luxembourg for Team CSC on Sunday. Vande Velde became just the second American to ever win the Tour of Luxembourg, which ironically, had been won mostly by cyclists from Luxembourg. Vande Velde rode aggressively and won the overall by sticking with the leading groups in the final three stages. Lance Armstrong won the event in 1998. The Tour of Luxembourg is difficult due to the rolling terrain that the riders face as they race in and around Luxembourg.

Dauphine Libere

Dave Zabriske of Team CSC won the prologue, kicking off the Dauphine Libere in France today. Discovery Channel's George Hincapie finished second. The Dauphine Libere has become one of the most important pre Tour de France preparation races on the calendar. It takes place in southeastern France and frequently covers many of the climbs that will be contested in July. This year the race has a stage finish on Mont Ventoux and its 6th Stage from Briançon to La Toussuire mirrors Stage 16 of the Tour going over the Hors Categorie Col du Galibier and the Col de la Croix de Fer before finishing on the first category climb in to La Toussuire.

The Dauphine Libere has attracted a very strong field with Tour de France contenders, Levi Leipheimer of Gerolsteiner, Floyd Landis of Phonak, Alexandre Vinokourov of Wurth, Denis Menchov of Rabobank, Alejandro Valverde of Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears and Discovery Channel's Tour hope Yaroslav Popovych all lining up at the race. Some riders have peaked too early and ridden too strongly at the Dauphine Libere as Iban Mayo did a couple of years ago and as Lance Armstrong did the year before that.

With the climbing and time trialing required to win the Dauphine Libere, it is always a good race to test the form of the top Tour contenders a month before the Grande Boucle departs.

Doping Item Number 1

The UCI's independent evaluation of the L'Equipe investigation into Lance Armstrong's purported use of EPO during the 1999 Tour de France was released this week to the consternation of the UCI, WADA, L'Equipe and others. Dutch attorney and former Dutch doping chief Emile Vrijman issued a report highly critical of WADA and the French lab that conducted the tests that L’Equipe claimed proved Armstrong had doped during the 1999 Tour de France. The UCI immediately criticized Vrijman for releasing the report independently without letting the UCI review it first. WADA and its chief, Canadian attorney Dick Pound, criticized the report and Vrijman alleging that WADA and Pound had been defamed by Vrijman's findings. L’Equipe claimed it stood by its account

The 132 page report is available at Velonews.com. I would recommend you read it and draw your own conclusions. Even ESPN.com ran a story about how no one is a winner in this mess and how even when Armstrong is vindicated that more issues are raised. At the end of the day, Vrijman’s report does not prove Armstrong did not dope. Instead Vrijman’s report does establish that the tests that were performed and the surrounding issues would preclude any determination that Armstrong did dope.

Most importantly, Vrijman’s report does call into question WADA’s commitment to its own regulations, the French lab’s commitment to valid science, and the validity of any testing on samples more than five years old that lack any semblance of a chain of custody to actually believe they are what the are purported to be.

Doping Item Number 2

As discussed last week, Liberty Seguros/Liberty Insurance terminated its sponsorship of the Spanish team it sponsored with Wurth. The team lined up to race this week in plain blue and white jerseys with the Wurth logo on the front. Cycling media outlets are reporting that a consortium of companies from Kazakhstan will sponsor the team for the remainder of the season to support Kazakh national hero Alexandre Vinokourov. However, reports also suggest that the ASO, the organizer of the Tour de France, will seek to exclude the team from the Tour de France as a result of Manolo Saiz arrest. The ASO is waiting to see what action the ProTour will take against the team before it will act. Although the ProTour and the organizers of the Grand Tours had apparently come to an agreement to end their bitter dispute, this issue is likely to inflame tensions between the two if the ProTour fails to take action against the team. Needless to say, Alexander Vinokourov finds himself the likely victim of whatever wrangling occurs as he seeks to improve his aggressive performance in last year's Tour de France for T-Mobile where he finished fifth overall, winning the final stage on the Champs Elysees.

Uni Watch

Paul Lukas, ESPN.com’s fashion maven and biweekly contributor to Page 2, has recently launched a daily blog on sports uniform issues.

It is a shame that he is a Paul come lately and failed to recognize the Cycliste Moderne as the original blog on sports fashion, particularly cycling fashion. That does not mean that he is not a really enjoyable read, especially if your sporting interests cover the whole gamut of sports.

Anyway. here are the links to last July’s Tour fashion ratings. We will do the same again this season.

The Cycliste Moderne, May 30, 2006

2006-05-29T21:53:00.000-06:00

We made the annual trek to Salt Lake City for Memorial Day this weekend. For the third straight year, we were welcomed by a weekend of rain in the valley and snow in the mountains. My 9 year old and I went to see Real Salt Lake play the Colorado Rapids to a 2-2 tie. It rained the entire game except for the last five minutes. Mrs. Cycliste Moderne and the two littlest ones did not go to the game. We saved even more as the only way to keep cold and wet kids happy is generally with hot dogs. However, the oldest discovered he stayed dry and warm if he did not move and he had a hot dog for lunch so we did not move until half-time. The hot chocolate/snow cone line was at least 50 people deep and most, if not all, were selecting hot chocolate in stead of snow cones. I guess Utahoos do have some intelligence.

Additionally, listening to Salt Lake Radio is a lot like listening to my iPod, but that is not enough yet to get me to move back. Although that is another plus.

However, as we drove out of town we heard an ad on the radio for the “Cereal Café” in Salt Lake’s Sugarhouse neighborhood. 20 kinds of cereal and 12 kinds of milk. Although your unit cost has got be fairly low, I don’t know about the long term viability of a cereal restaurant. That is a Utah minus.

Giro Recap

In the end, Team CSC proved it had the strongest team and the strongest rider. Ivan Basso put a stranglehold on the race once it went uphill much like Lance Armstrong. He was the equal of Jan Ullrich in the long flat time trial and was really unmatched in the mountains. In the end, neither Cunego, Simoni, nor Savoldelli could match Basso. The question is whether Basso spent too much to win the Giro d’Italia to win the Tour de France in July. Right now he is clearly an unmatched stage racer. Ullrich will be strong in France, but has not shown the climbing ability of Basso over the last several years.

Rather than recap the final week of the Giro, which had some of the most intense climbing that has been included in a Grand Tour in some time, it is necessary to comment upon Gilbert Simoni’s antics over the end of the race. This year’s Giro should have favored Simoni with the intense and frequent climbs over the final week. However, it did not as Basso extended his lead over the final week. Simoni showed some strength but he could not match Basso and as a result Simoni finished third, almost twelve minutes behind the winner.

Gilberto Simoni, however, should hang it up and retire because he has become nothing more than a has-been whiner. After Basso sealed his victory with a win in Saturday’s stage, where he and Simoni destroyed the field and picked up major time on the rest of the peleton, Simoni criticized Basso for asking him to wait on the descent of the Mortirolo, Simoni apparently expected Basso to gift him the stage. The two worked together until the final climb where Basso ultimately dropped Simoni.

Afterwards, Simoni asserted that he thought they had a deal and that Basso would not contest the finish. Then Simoni did the unpardonable and referred to Basso as an “extra-terrestrial” and a “phenomenon,” phrases that the French media had used to insinuate Lance Armstrong had doped. After the stage, Cyclingnews.com reported Simoni stating that “Basso offered me money to gain the stage victory” and that “he asked me for money to let me win the stage.” Simoni’s words showed him to be the bitter loser he has become. While there has long been “gentlemen’s agreements” in cycling determining the outcome of races which sometimes involve the exchange of cash or something other between riders in the lead group, that does not happen as much today as it used to. Moreover, I can never recall a cyclist being accused of both seeking to buy and offering to sell the very same stage.

Basso was clearly the stronger of the two and in wining Saturday’s stage by over a minute, it is nothing but speculation on Simoni’s part that had he dropped Basso on the descent from the Mortirolo, he would have been able to get a big enough gap to hold Basso off on the finishing climb into Aprica. Moreover, for as strong as Basso was, it is beyond belief that he would feel the need to negotiate for the stage win. The final climb was not nearly as steep or as long as the three climbs earlier in the stage including the climbs over the Passo di Gavia and Passo del Mortirolo. As the leader, Basso had shown nothing that would indicate that second placed Simoni would be able to get away from the leader of Team CSC and that Simoni would be able to stay away.

Simoni has in the past said incredibly stupid and vindictive things in defeat. His criticism of Damiano Cunego two years ago after Cunego won his first Giro caused Simoni to lose significant public support as he appeared as nothing more than a washed up whiner. After losing significant time to Armstrong in the Tour a few years ago, after Simoni had announced that Armstrong had never had to face a climber as good as himself in winning the Tour, Simoni slinked off claiming that he never liked riding the Tour anyway. Simoni has now impugned Ivan Basso. Cunego, Armstrong and Basso are all significantly more popular in Italy than Simoni.

What Simoni seems unwilling to recognize is that Basso had the best team, the best preparation and over the last two seasons has shown that he is far and away the best Italian rider in a generation. Basso has the complete package while Simoni is an aging climber who has lashed out at everyone over the last few years and has never been able to back up his strong words with action. Armstrong, Cunego and now Basso have all felt the wrath of Gilberto Simoni, although Simoni has not defeated any of these riders over the last few years. Simoni needs to decide if he is going to train and race smarter or retire. Simoni cannot win a grand tour because he lacks the team and focus of Armstrong, Basso or even Ullrich. Being a great climber is important, but it will not win you a Grand Tour. This year’s Giro should have favored Simoni over the last week. However, as the results have shown, Gilberto Simoni is not even a great climber any more.

Gilberto, it is time for you to go.

Liberty Seguros Update

If you have not been following the main cycling news outlets this last week, you probably missed Liberty Seguros/Liberty Insurance’s termination of its sponsorship of the Spanish Liberty Seguros team due to the arrest of team manager Manolo Saiz in a wide ranging doping investigation in Spain. Saiz has been released from jail but the allegations against him and the others arrested this last week are significant. There have been indications that Saiz was released because he was merely a “customer” and not a ring leader. Spanish police have arrested several medical professionals and cycling managers who were in the possession of hundreds of units of blood and other doping products. The police have reported that more than 100 athletes may be implicated in the Spanish doping scandal.

What is disconcerting is the fact that after having Roberto Heras stripped of his 2004 Vuelta a Espana title as the leader of Liberty Seguros and being fired, Saiz agreed to modify the sponsorship agreement with Liberty Insurance so that if the team were ever implicated in doping the sponsorship would be terminated immediately. Liberty Insurance has now done that and it makes you wonder what it is going to take to clean up the sport. Liberty Seguros’ results this year have been mediocre at best this spring.

This latest incident has convinced me that there should be a lifetime ban for all team managers and directors convicted of doping offenses. Sponsors do not want to buy headaches and this is definitely a headache. Although the team intends to proceed and Liberty Insurance has agreed to pay its obligation for the remainder of the season, albeit without its logo on the team’s jersey, if the UCI and the ProTour are committed to the fight against doping then the team needs to be immediately suspended and the riders given their release. Individual riders should not be punished solely for their association with the team unless and until they are convicted of doping offenses but the team should be given the death penalty as should any manager or employee convicted of doping.

Tour of Utah

The Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah has finally provided specifics of this year’s race in August. Having moved the event to August and having focused it upon professionals this year by eliminating the amateur divisions, the race has developed at least one stage that rivals anything raced in Europe. More importantly, I have changed my vacation plans this summer so I can see a portion of Stage 6, the final stage on August 12, 2006 (Okay, since Real Madrid is coming to Utah to play Real Salt Lake that day and has promised to bring Ronaldo and Beckham, it made it an easy decision to change my vacation plans to August, especially after my parents offered up their Park City timeshare).

The Tour of Utah will have two mountain top finishes, an individual time trial, two rolling to flat stages with finishing circuits favoring sprinters, and a downtown Salt Lake circuit race with a climb up Capitol Hill each lap. The race will have local television coverage on KJZZ and is being underwritten by Larry H. Miller and Zions Bank.

The final stage of the Tour of Utah is a truly epic ride. With the riders climbing over four passes before finishing at Snowbird with the finishing line at 8,300 feet, the 114 mile stage will put the hurt on a lot of domestic pros. I would expect that by the finish most of the teams will be decimated and riders will be strung out all along the Wasatch Front. I am so there.

The Cycliste Moderne, May 22, 2006

2006-05-21T22:44:00.000-06:00

Giro Recap

Well, we could provide stage recaps but in reality, watching this year’s Giro d’Italia is a lot like watching Armstrong win six of his seven Tours de France. The first climb and the first time trial put such a strangle hold on the race that it is pretty much over after those two events, usually during the first half of the race. That is exactly what happened this last week.

Ivan Basso has reaffirmed his stature as the best Italian stage racer in probably 20 years. That may be sacrilegious for Pantani fans, but let’s remember that Pantani was never a well-rounded stage racer. He was a marginal time trialist at best and he never had strong teams around him. Pantani’s victory in the Tour de France came during the Festina doping scandal which decimated the peleton. Pantani could put major time into opponents on major climbs, but he would give a lot of that up during time trials or during the transition stages where inattention can cost an inattentive rider time in a difficult finish, finishes like some of those during the first week of this year’s Giro.

Basso, on the other hand, has shown strength in all areas. He is tactically aware, not permitting time to slip away to rivals. Over the last two years his time trialing ability has greatly improved. As shown this week when he finished second, about thirty seconds behind Jan Ullrich, Basso’s skill against the clock has greatly improved. The Stage 11 course was a very flat course that favored those riders that could generate big power. Ullrich was expected to do well and he did. Basso was expected to do well, but he almost matched Ullrich on the course. The pure climbers again lost a lot of time to Basso.

Basso has also shown that he learned well from watching Armstrong. He attacks when it makes sense to attack, like he did on the first mountain finish of this year’s Giro, a stage that was not expected to create big time gaps but that had the potential to break up the leaders due to the short but steep finish. He has put the hammer down against the clock showing that like any of the great Grand Tour champions a rider cannot consistently win a Grand Tour if he is not one of the best time trialists in the field. He is on a team that has a director who understands the importance of the team to win a Grand Tour and his team sacrifices everything for him.

Basso is far and away the most complete rider in the Giro this year. His ride has been truly Armstrongesque as he attacks to put his stamp on the race, conserves his energy when appropriate and has ridden a race that leaves his rivals scratching their heads. Savoldelli, Cunego, Simoni, and Di Luca really have not been able to match Basso’s efforts at all. Rujano had been a disaster being more than nine minutes behind after the time trial in Stage 11. Rujano could have have put the hurt into Basso and his team this final week with three mountaintop finishes, but he abandoned on Saturday demoralized and at odds with his team. Basso very likely can win both the Giro and the Tour de France this year.

Final Week Preview

This final week starts with a flat stage on Monday for the sprinters. Then the route heads into the mountains for a brutal slog to Milan. With the midweek forecast being for rain, the climbs are not going to be easy or fun. The heavily awaited finish on the Plan de Corones is likely to be a complete mess as they just finished “surfacing” the dirt road to the summit in the last week and it has been very wet, so wet that there is serious concern about the integrity of the road surface over the final stretches to the summit. Pictures of the last 5km to the ski lift at the summit can be seen at both Velonews.com and Cyclingnews.com. If it keeps raining, I do not see how they can keep the finish at the summit. If they are forced to move the finish down the mountain, it will certainly benefit Basso who only has to play defense on the road to Milan.

Just Riding Along

Saturday was the annual charity ride for the Treasure Valley Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind. Cyclista has supported this event for several years and Mrs. Cycliste Moderne served on the organizing committee. It has been a good event for our family and supports a cause that we feel is important due to the family history we have with blindness. Saturday was the first time the entire Cycliste Moderne family rode together in a charity ride. It was not supposed to happen.

Mrs. Cycliste Moderne had intended to put up the Cyclista booth, help the event organizers and wrangle the two-year-old while I rode with one kid on the tandem and the other on his bike. With a child now wanting to ride his own bike, I am no longer riding centuries or dragging a kid for 25-35 miles. So we committed to just ride the 10-miler thinking the 9-year-old was ready for that.

However, Friday night as Mrs. Cycliste Moderne was getting stuff ready we lost power in the midst of a nasty thunderstorm. In light of her interrupted preparation and the possibility of bad weather she announced that we were not going to put the Cyclista art out for display and purchase. I said, “Well you wanna ride?” She said she would but having flatted earlier in the week, her new Specialized was not in rideable condition. So I did what any reliable bike mechanic would do, I took the front wheel off of my road bike and put it on hers. Solved that problem.

Saturday morning, we lined up with my parents, all decked out in our Cyclista team kits and rode the 10-mile route. My parents actually finished first of the Team Cyclista group. My tandem with the Burley kid stoker kit and the Bell trailer was not able to stay with them because, well, kids won’t eat bananas on the road and that is a lot of weight to drag up very small rises in the road. You have to stop at the rest stops and let them out. The toddler tried to escape to Sunset Park’s playground when I let him out and that added five minutes to the rest stop. Mrs. Cycliste Moderne rode with the 9-year-old and showed him he is not yet Ivan Basso if the climb up Collister and Pierce Park are too much for him.

Anyway, we all got back safely, we all had fun, and we actually sold some bike stuff. More importantly, the power finally came back on at our house after 12 plus hours. We now know that all five of us can go do charity rides if they have a route that is fairly flat and about 10 miles long. I cannot wait until they get a little bigger and we can go at least 25 miles for our $30 entry fee. One thing to be said for the National Federation of the Blind: they don’t give out water bottles, they don’t give out t-shirts. They give out socks. Everybody needs socks.

The Cycliste Moderne, May 14, 2006

2006-05-14T21:35:00.000-06:00

Sunday, May 14, 2006, 9:15 PM

I wrote my Giro update Saturday night. I knew better than doing it, but I did. Sunday was the first mountain top finish of the Giro. Stage 8 was important but I did not really think that it would have any effect upon the general classification as the finish was the only climb on the day. While the finish on the Passo Lanciano involved a 12km climb at 8+%, it was a stage where you expected the leaders to be at the front and not a major change on the general classification.

Danilo di Luca and Paolo Savoldelli both lost significant time today to the winner Ivan Basso. On the first major climb of the Giro, Savoldelli found himself isolated without any of his teammates on the only climb of the day. Not a good day for Savoldelli or Discovery Channel. None of Savoldelli’s teammates even managed to stay with him as he proceeded to lose more than two minutes to Basso.

I would have expected Damiano Cunego to win today’s stage, but did not expect any shake up in the overall. However, Basso had help from teammates and set himself up for a late attack. No one could stay with him as Cungeo lost thirty seconds, Simoni lost a minute and a half, Di Luca lost a minute and a half, Rujano lost a minute fifty. At the end of the day, Basso was in pink with a minute and a half back to second place. Savoldelli is now in fourth but is two and a half minutes behind Basso. The race is not over, especially if Basso has another bad day like he did last year, but again Basso is head and shoulders above the rest of the peleton.

Now, feel free to read on but disregard anything that is not consistent with reality.

Saturday, May 13, 10:20 PM

Sorry I have not written for ten days. I had intended to write an update of the Giro d’Italia on the first rest day but I have had to write two appellate briefs this week. You've got to pay the bills first. Anyway, I am sitting here watching Armageddon, which definitely is the Dirty Dozen of my time and is probably the greatest summer movie of the last ten years, for about the 20th time on TV. I also have the Match tracker fired up and it looks like Real Salt Lake will get its first win since I took my kids to see them play last August in Salt Lake. Eighteen games in a row with like three ties and fifteen losses is not cool. I cannot imagine them blowing a 3-0 lead in the 89th minute.

Today also was the FA Cup Final in England with Liverpool winning in a penalty shoot out against West Ham United. We used to have a FA Cup Breakfast party but the last few finals have been so boring that it was really a waste of the pay-per-view dollars so we quit having them. That is a shame because Liverpool came back from a 2-0 deficit and a 3-2 deficit to tie the game in injury time and then take the match in penalty kicks 3-1 after thirty minutes of scoreless extra time. I was working early this morning at the office before going to coach my oldest son’s final soccer game of the season today so I had the match tracker fired up for that game as well.

So on to bikes . . .

Giro Recap

For those that have not been following, here is the short of it:

Paolo Savoldelli, last year’s champion and Discovery Channel leader looks really strong. He won the opening time trial and has been very aggressive. Discovery Channel has a significantly stronger team this year around him than last year. Discovery Channel had some issues in the team time trial losing 39 seconds to Team CSC and Ivan Basso. Not a big loss, but a little surprising with such experienced TTT horses as Slava Ekimov, Benoit Joachim, and Pavel Padrnos on the team.

Ivan Basso’s Team CSC won the team time trial and Basso has stayed out of trouble. He is in an excellent position to win his first Grand Tour. Team CSC looks good but may not be as strong in the mountains as Discovery who has committed the services of Manuel Beltran, Chechu Rubiera, Tom Danielson, and Jason MaCartney which are as good as or better than Team CSC’s mountain support for Basso of Bobby Julich, Jens Voigt and Carlos Sastre. Basso and Savoldelli sit second and third overall just seconds apart.

T-Mobile is looking really strong after an excellent Team Time Trial with Sergei Gonchar having spent a couple of days in the leader’s jersey and Michael Rogers sitting in fourth after one week. Rogers has been considered the next great Australian Grand Tour rider and can time trial really well, after all he has won the world championship in the discipline. It will be interesting to see how the team fares in the mountains, but it really has surprised people over the first week.

Damiano Cunego and Danilo Di Luca both had strong Team Time Trials, which is surprising as neither Lampre or Liquigas have ever been known for the discipline. They have both lost a little time due to their failure to stick with the leaders over some difficult stages but not enough to be too concerned. Both are within a minute of Basso and Savoldelli.

Gilberto Simoni, however, has lost almost two minutes already which is unacceptable. He lost time in the opening time trial, the team time trial and on a couple of difficult but not too difficult finishes. Simoni is showing his age and may be able to mix things up in the mountains, but having lost two minutes so far, he may have already seen his Giro over.

Jose Rujano, last year’s climbing discovery, has had a disasterous Giro to date. He had been in a contractual dispute with his Selle Italia team and will be moving to Quick.Step in July. He had not really raced this season and it has shown. He has already lost 3:30 to the leaders. He will likely lose another five minutes in Thursday’s Stage 11 individual time trial. The mountains will suit him but he will be closely marked and unlikely to get the 8-9 minutes back that he will need to finish on the podium. A top 10 for Rujano would be a moral victory and a miracle at this point.
Alessandro Petacchi’s Giro ended tragically, however, in Belgium. The Italian sprinting ace, and Milram’s star for the race, broke his kneecap during Stage 2 and will now miss the Tour de France as well. Petacchi has had a good but not great spring and this is a devastating blow for Milram.

With Petacchi out, Davitamon-Lotto’s Robbie McEwen has already won three sprint stages and has such a commanding lead in the points contest (the “ciclomina jersey” competition) that he has actually talked about finishing the race this year to win the points title. He will likely be able to win every sprint stage, although there are not very many that are remaining in this year’s Giro. He has turned around what had been a dismal spring for him and his team.

The Giro has been exciting, but I have been too busy to commit time to the pay-per-view internet stream this year. I may do it for the last week of the Giro depending upon how much time I have.

Non Cycling Cyclist Non Story

One of my running buddies, not that I run, but he does and he is a buddy, wondered why I had not written about Lance Armstrong running the New York Marathon. Now I have, and here are the links to the letter exchange that Velonews.com has had about the topic. Here is the link to the letter from the dude who obviously has let the pounding get to his brain. Here is the link to the appropriate responses from the cycling community.

Remember, friends don’t let friends run. Friends bike. And remember that runners will pretend to be your friend but that is only to seduce you to the dark side of the force. My running buddy has convinced a bike buddy that the bike buddy ought to run the Great Potato Half Marathon next Saturday instead of bike buddy joining Team Cyclista for the annual National Federation of the Blind Cycle for Independence Ride. And remember that your runner buddies just look at you as potential fresh meat for their ponzi schemes for getting you to run races.

More Cycling Odds and Ends

Today was Boise State University graduation. As I came back from the midday game with my two boys, a freshly minted BSU alumna passed in front of our car on her aqua cruiser, with her cap, gown and heels all in place on her way back from commencement. Glad to see that she had not let that new liberal arts degree go to her head and make her think she could afford a car.

This evening, my oldest and I rode our tandem out to Lucky Peak Dam. For those of you not acquainted with Boise, a ride to the Dam is a pretty good training ride as it is about a 25 mile round trip. The ride is relatively flat, but you typically have a tail wind going out and a headwind coming back. We have had such a wet winter and spring that the Boise River is at flood stage so we decided to ride out and watch the water shooting out of the dam at 7,500 cfs. It is a fairly rare sight in our arid climate. Because of our late start, the headwind, the long day including soccer, we did not make very good time. The park at the base of the dam was packed with picknickers out to do the same thing: look at the water. We did not get there until after 6:30 PM so most of the serious cyclists had already gotten their ride in for the day. As Andrew hopped off the tandem to take a picture of the water shooting out of the dam’s valves, a couple rode up on their thrift store mountain bikes. They had cycling gloves but obviously were not really committed cyclists as instead of sitting down like we did to watch the water and eat a Clif Bar, they both sat down with their water bottles to have a smoke. Yep, you ride the ten miles from town to Discovery Point State Park just to have a smoke.

The Cycliste Moderne, May 5, 2006

2006-05-04T22:19:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the delay but I wanted to wait and do a Giro d’Italia preview shortly before the event to capture any last minute news.

Giro Preview

Saturday is the start of the Giro d’Italia, the first of the three grand tours. This year, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of a mining accident in Belgium that killed one hundred and thirty six Italian coal miners, the Giro will spend its first four stages in Belgium before transferring to Italy to finish the race. Only one of the stages in Belgium will favor the sprinters as the opening time trial includes a significant climb and the third and fourth stages cover many of the same climbs as the Ardennes Classics.

The Giro does not get any easier when they get to Italy with organizers introducing the first team time trial in almost twenty years at the Giro. The last week is incredibly difficult with four mountain top finishes, including a new climb this year that finishes with the final 5km over dirt roads as they climb up to the summit of the ski resort at Plan de Corones.

So, who will win?

Liquigas’ Danilo Di Luca had a breakout season last year with multiple stage wins at the Giro and holding the pink leader’s jersey for several days. Di Luca has finally found the type of success that he seemed destined to achieve. His focus this year has been on the Giro and he has maintained a fairly low profile spring. Di Luca is not enough of a pure climber and is not a strong enough time trialist to do much better than third overall. That will be an improvement over last year’s fourth.

Selle Italia’s Jose Rujano was the surprise of last year’s Giro. Nicknamed “the little pirate” due to his similarities to the late Marco Pantani, Rujano surprised many on the most difficult climbs last year. Rujano, however, lost about seven minutes to Ivan Basso in the time trial stages of last year’s Giro and with the team time trial, Selle Italia is sure to lose a lot of time to Team CSC, Discovery Channel and T-Mobile. Moreover, Rujano had a major falling out with team management over his salary and has signed to move to Quick.Step July 1. Even though the climbing stages will favor Rujano, the big teams will mark him closely and not let him go on the attack like he did last year.

Team CSC’s Ivan Basso was on his way to victory last year when a nasty stomach bug wiped out his chances. He toughed it out, stayed in the race and had a couple of stage victories. This year, Basso is trying to win both the Giro and the Tour de France. That has not been done since 1998 when Marco Pantani managed to win both after the Tour was rocked by the Festina drug scandal. It has been a long time since a great rider has managed to win both races against full strength teams. Basso can do it, but with Armstrong having retired, he would have been the favorite to win the Tour. Does Basso try to win both, only to win neither? That is the biggest risk he faces.

Discovery Channel’s Paolo Savoldelli won his second Giro d’Italia last year. He did so with his top lieutenant in the mountains, Tom Danielson, abandoning during the second week and with little team support. “Il Falco” showed his descending prowess to stay close to Simoni and Rujano and managed to preserve his lead after the epic second to last stage last year where he got dropped and just held on over the unpaved final climb of the Giro. This year, Savoldelli has Armstrong-like support with Discovery Channel sending Ekimov, Beltran, Padrnos, Joachim and Rubiera, all of whom helped Armstrong win at least one Tour. Additionally, the team is sending Australian hardman Matthew White who has Grand Tour experience, and young American climbers Tom Danielson and Jason McCartney who showed excellent form in the mountains at the recent Tour of Georgia.

Lampre’s Damiano Cunego is the young Italian phenom who surprised everyone, including his then team leader Gilberto Simoni, when he won the Giro in 2004. Cunego has shown moments of brilliance since and is a strong rider. However, it is questionable if Lampre has the horses to match Team CSC and Discovery Channel. Moreover, Cunego has not had good luck as a team leader in a Grand Tour since his victory in 2004.

Former Giro winner Gilberto Simoni has moved to the Spanish Saunier Duval-Prodir team. He gives the team its first real Grand Tour threat. Simoni finished second last year, unable to keep up the pace on the penultimate stage where he had taken the lead on the road.

So, who is going to win?

Basso and Savoldelli are significantly better time trialists than the other leaders. Basso and Savoldelli both have the two strongest teams at this year’s Giro. With the team time trial and the long flat time trial on Stage 11, it is possible that they both could have put seven plus minutes on their top competitors before the really difficult second half of the Giro starts. The last week is so difficult that they will need strong teams and big gaps after Stage 11. However, I fear that this year’s Giro could be like some of the Tours won by Armstrong where he had such an insurmountable lead by the time the real mountains started that the leading teams will just have to play defense the last half of the race.

Rujano has had too much drama this spring and is too much of a pure climber to be threat this year as he could come out of the Stage 11 time trial with a nearly ten minute deficit to Basso and Savoldelli. I think he is going to be like Iban Mayo in the Tour: after a really promising start, he could flame out the first week this year. Di Luca probably cannot climb well enough to be a threat. Simoni, too, could be facing major time losses by stage 11. Cunego has all the weight of Italy on him as the next Bartoli or Coppi.

So, my final podium:

1st – Basso
2nd – Savoldelli
3rd – Simoni
4th – Cunego
5th – Di Luca
Rujano will not finish the Giro this year.

Chris Horner is Having Fun

Christ Horner moved from Saunier Duval to Davitamon Lotto over the winter. I have not ever been a big Horner fan because he always seemed to be whining. Horner emerged in the mid 1990’s as the next great American rider. He moved to France to ride for Francaise de Jeux and did absolutely nothing for three years. He moved back to the US to race for Mercury Viatel only to have that team blow up when it did not receive a Tour de France wildcard. He spent the next five years dominating the US domestic scene with a variety of large and small teams, always talking about the lack of respect he received and whining about negative race tactics. Last year he had a few good races for Saunier Duval, winning a stage of the Tour de Suisse and nearly winning a stage of the Tour de France. He has had a strong spring including a stage win in the Tour of Romandie. He really seems to be enjoying racing and he has certainly matured. Horner will be riding the Tour de France to protect his team leader Cadel Evans.

Just in Time, My Marriage is Saved

Mrs. Cycliste Moderne was ready to go get DirecTV because she was convinced we could not live without the Tour de France, but I was not. Even though Dish Network had eliminated OLN and cycling is really important, I just could not bring myself to switch platforms. As a result, I had been streaming my coverage from Cycling.tv and reading the written race coverage for this spring’s races. I was not about to have a second satellite dish in my back yard. That would brand me as some type of permanent couch potato.

Then Monday, April 24th, a day that will be celebrated in the Cycliste Moderne home in perpetuity creating a two day Cycliste Moderne holiday (in combination with Portuguese Revolution Day, April 25th), OLN was returned to my satellite service. Late that night I found myself watching hockey, something I have not been able to do without OLN, the home of the NHL. I was thinking that it was kind of cool that ESPN Classic was showing classic Stanley Cup playoffs, when I realized that it was not ESPN Classic, but it was live game in the second overtime.

Of course, Dish Network sent out an e-mail to make us all think that we had received something new and wonderful, not mentioning that it had previously ripped our cycling coverage away from us. My life is now complete. I will be able to watch the Tour de France once again from the comfort of my own bed and not have to hit refresh on my laptop.

The Cycliste Moderne, 25 de Abril 2006

2006-04-25T22:09:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the delay. The man got in the way of getting stuff done, the wife, three kids and 25 de Abril, the celebration of the overthrow of fascism in Portugal, certainliy did not facilitate a timely post either. Now we can catch our breath and look back at the spring classics.

End to Classics

Sunday marked the end of the spring classic season. Historically, the spring classics were the most significant one-day races of the year. They had more history, significance and color than the post Tour de France one-day races. It is fitting that the spring classic ends with the oldest bike race in the world, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, which began in 1892. Wednesday was the Fleche Wallone with its three trips up the incredibly steep Mur de Huy.

Fleche Wallone

Fleche Wallone is not as long as Liege-Bastogne-Liege, not as old as Liege-Bastogne-Liege and is frequently overshadowed by its older neighbor. Fleche Wallone starts in Charleroi and winds its way to Huy for the first of three trips up the Mur de Huy and then into the rolling hillsides south of Huy. The Ardennes classics are not like the Flemish climbs that were raced over a few weeks ago. They are longer and steeper and it is much more a race for climbers and even stage race riders.

Wednesday’s Fleche Wallone was ridden very aggressively with all of the expected protagonists staying at the front. That morning, both of my boys were wide awake at various times between 3:30AM and 4:30AM. At 4:30 I announced to my wife that I was going to the office. That was fortuitous as I was able to turn on the stream and catch the last half of the race. Oscar Freire of Rabobank and Alexandre Moos of Phonak made an aggressive move with 60km to go and managed to get a lead of more than one minute before the peleton really responded.

The Freire/Moos break stayed away until about 10km when they were swallowed up by the chase. The leading group stayed together until the final trip up the Mur de Huy. All the big teams had their leaders together at the base of the Mur, with Ivan Basso of Team CSC riding to set up his teammates Frank Schleck and Karsten Kroon. It was not enough, however as former world champion and 2003 Fleche Wallone winner Igor Astarloa first attacked and got a gap only to then be passed by Euskaltel’s Samual Sanchez and Alejandro Valverde of Caisse d’Epargne and the Team CSC riders. At the end Alejandro Valverde took the win showing he remains a unique talent who is able to sprint and climb.

Liege-Bastogne-Liege

The midweek race in Huy always shows who has the form leading up to “La Doyenne” on Sunday. Although Valverde was clearly a favorite, in a unique bit of historic cycling trivia that makes you go “huh?” no Spaniard had ever won Liege-Bastogne-Liege. The race on Sunday played out very similarly to the Wednesday’s race. However, Liege-Bastogne-Liege is significantly longer and has 10 significant climbs on the way back to Liege including the uphill finish in Ans. Liege-Bastogne-Liege is a fantastic race due to the unrelenting climbs that the peleton faces town after town.

Rabobank’s Michael Boogerd got in a late break with Joaquin Rodriguez of Caisse d’Epargne that got a good lead. However, with less than 10km to go the break got caught by the leading group that had all of the potential winners you would expect: Bettini of Quick.Step, Basso and Schleck of Team CSC, Di Luca of Liquigas.

Valverde watched his opponents until 300m to the finish when he wound up and finally came around T-Mobile’s Patrick Sinkewitz’s wheel for the win. Paolo Bettini finished second and young Italian star Damiano Cunego finished third. This should have been a race where “the Cricket” Bettini would have been expected to win, but Valverde is coming into his own and showing the same skills that Bettini has used for much success over the years. If Valverde learns to time trial really well, then he has the potential to become the next great Spanish stage race champion as he can climb and he can sprint.

Interestingly, the final group of 12 included Davitamon-Lotto’s American rider Chris Horner who has had some really good results this spring and has shown he belongs at this level. He does not whine nearly as much as he did when he was racing in America and dominating the National Race Calendar.

Tour of Georgia

While Horner was finishing the hilly classics with a 20th at Amstel Gold Race, a 19th at Fleche Wallone and an 8th at Liege-Bastogne-Liege, most of the rest of the Americans in the professional peleton were racing around Georgia. As was the case at the Tour of California, it was pretty clear that the ProTour teams are significantly better than their domestic American counterparts. Floyd Landis won his third stage race of the season holding off repeated attacks by the Discovery Channel team as they raced up the final climb of Saturday’s fifth stage which finished on Brasstown Bald, the highest point in Georgia. Alone with three Discovery Channel riders, Landis defended his four second lead over defending champion Tom Danielson of Discovery. Danielson won the stage but had to settle for second place on GC.

Landis had collapsed last year under the unrelenting pressure of his former team in the Brasstown Bald finish as Danielson took the stage and overall in 2005, beating Landis by more than a minute. Armstrong had harsh words and gestures for his former lieutenant during the stage last year. This year Landis again showed himself as a leader for Phonak and a potential Tour de France podium finisher if Phonak can provide him more support. Throughout the spring, Landis has time trialed exceedingly well and has shown incredible climbing power. However, he has frequently found himself isolated in the final climbs. Phonak could have its best Tour finish ever, as long as they give Landis the support he has proven he deserves.

Danielson and Yaroslav Popovych of Discovery Channel are both showing good form. Discovery probably cannot expect to win both the Giro and the Tour this year but they can expect to have 2-3 riders in each capable of top 10 finishes.

Moreover, Salvoldelli may have more support in the Giro this year than he did last year when he managed to hold off Gilberto Simoni for the win. Discovery will not have to commit quite as many resources to defending Armstrong’s Tour de France streak and the team has other emerging riders who can climb and work, like Jason McCartney. He probably worked harder than anyone else during this year’s Tour of Georgia as he won the KoM prize and seemed to be in every meaningful breakaway.

The Cycliste Moderne, April 16, 2006

2006-04-16T22:27:00.000-06:00

The Amstel Gold Race Recap

Sunday was the 41st Amstel Gold Race in the Netherlands. Amstel Gold Race marks the end of the flat classics and the beginning of the mountainous classics ridden largely in the Ardennes with Amstel Gold Race taking place in the Dutch portion of the Ardennes in the region around Maastricht, Fleche Wallone taking place midweek in and around Huy, Belgium and next Sunday’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege finishing the spring classic season. Cycling.tv has all three races live this week, so I got up this morning, not quite as early as last week and watched the final 50km of the race through the Limburg region of the Netherlands along the Belgian and German borders.

As it is the only classic in the Netherlands, Amstel Gold Race has special significance to Dutch riders and in specific to Dutch sponsors. As a result, Rabobank was expected to be strong today as they have each of the last seven years when they managed to put a rider on the podium. Rabobank’s Michael Boogerd beat Lance Armstrong to win in 1999, and the team won again in 2001 when Erik Dekker again outlasted Lance Armstrong. Since then, Boogerd has finished second three consecutive years.

The Amstel Gold Race has 31 climbs including three trips up the Cauberg in Valkenburg where the race finishes. The Dutch climbs are short but steep with many averaging over 15% including some over 20%. Even with those types of climbs, it is not uncommon for the race to finish with a sprint up the final kilometer to the summit of the Cauberg from the valley floor in Valkenburg.

That did not happen today as the peleton rode aggressively and Rabobank rode defensively. Rabobank spent much of the day at the front controlling the pace of the race to set up Boogerd, Dekker or Spaniard Oscar Friere for the victory. In the end, even though the team managed to close down a dangerous late break with Quick.Step’s Paolo Bettini in it, it was not able to control late attacks. T-Mobile’s Steffan Wessamann was probably the strongest rider today but did not ride very tactically and although he animated the race late in the day, he found himself out of position and reacting to the final attack with 10km to go when Team CSC’s Franck Schleck, the national champion of Luxembourg, quickly rode away from the peleton managing to open an insurmountable thirty second lead within a couple of kilometers. When Wessamann finally attacked, it was too late and Team CSC had their second classic victory in a row.

Team CSC had ridden a perfect race and had two men in the final break with Dutch rider Karsten Kroon well positioned to counterattack if Schleck fell short. In the end, Rabobank failed to get the race back together but Boogerd managed to follow Wessamann across the finish to complete the podium.

Why Team Tactics Matter #1

Sunday showed once again that if you are going to try to control a race, then you better keep it controlled or you will end up with almost nothing to show for it. After Milram rode at the front most of the day at Milan-San Remo to try and control the race, the team found itself at the end of the race with just two riders, Petacchi and Zabel, contesting the finish. While both are strong riders, Petacchi needed more of a leadout than he got as he just fell short of chasing down Quick.Step’s Filippo Pozzato.

Rabobank did the same thing today. Although most of the rest of the peleton was willing to let the early break get a big gap, Rabobank tried to control the race and ended up expending too much energy to be able to keep the race together for its leaders at the end. Rabobank failed in its home race because it rode like it was afraid of losing, which is exactly what happened.

With the larger budgets and larger rosters that ProTour teams have today, there is much more depth in the peleton than ever before. Most of the ProTour teams are now able to have a classics team for the flat classics in Flanders and an essentially different team for the hilly classics later in April. As such, all the top teams come with a full complement of strong riders, something that did not typically happen under the old racing calendar.

Why Team Tactics Matter #2

Although Steffan Wessamann was clearly one of the strongest riders today, he probably lost because of poor tactical awareness. T-Mobile managed to place four riders in the top 21 with three in the top 10 on the day. Wessamann attacked repeatedly and put in a really big attack with about 40km to go. He had teammates in the chase. However, he had to settle for second place on the day. Why? Because he was significantly stronger than his teammates and his late attacks put his teammates under too much pressure to make them be of any assistance late in the race. When Schleck finally attacked, Wessamann found himself essentially alone as neither Serguei Ivanov nor Patrik Sinkewitz could match his pace at that point. They all had good results, but Wessamann’s early attacks and his teammates inability to counterattack thereafter made second place the best that he could do on the day.

Hincapie Update

George Hincapie of Discovery Channel returned to the United States for medical treatment after his hard crash last Sunday at Paris-Roubaix. Throughout the week there were various conflicting reports as to whether he would or would not need surgery. It now appears that he did not break anything, but instead separated his shoulder and surgery will not be needed. It is expected that Hincapie will be back on the bike in a couple of weeks and the injury should not affect his Tour de France preparation.

It is interesting to see the volume of letters to the various cycling websites who are once again calling on Hincapie to move to a different team because of the failure of his bike’s steerer tube. Hincapie has become great rider, however, two men are responsible for that greatness: Lance Armstrong and Johann Buyneel. As we have discussed before, any rider who wins Paris-Roubaix has to be strong and incredibly lucky. Hincapie is fairly strong but he has not had the luck that was truly needed to win the race.

The Cycliste Moderne, April 9, 2006

2006-04-09T19:10:00.000-06:00

Today was going to be all about Paris-Roubaix, but it isn’t. As Kristin and I watched Cycling.tv’s live webcast of the race we got the call from my father that we had been expecting all week. My grandfather died early this morning, three days short of his 94th birthday. Kristin and I were married on my grandfather’s 79th birthday and as a result, spent our first anniversary in 1992 traveling from Salt Lake to Boise with my family to celebrate his 80th birthday. As such, our relationship has always had a personal link to my grandfather.

When Kristin and I started Cyclista.com, we had an image in mind that captured our love of bikes. That is the photo of my grandfather that we display on our website. Although he had spent much of his life as a teamster or a hard rock miner, as a young man my grandfather was a Western Union delivery boy in Nampa, Idaho. We took this picture from the mid 1920’s of grandpa on his bike, added our logo, and Cyclista.com was launched. I am eternally grateful for his example of hard work that has affected us all during our lives.

Heamer Wayne Wardle
April 12, 1912 - April 9, 2006

Paris-Roubaix Recap

Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix was certainly epic and certainly what you would expect from the “Hell of the North.” However, it reaffirmed for me why, for me, it is second to the Ronde Van Vlaanderen in significance. To win the Ronde a rider has to be the strongest. To win Paris-Roubaix a rider has to be strong and lucky. Certainly, weak riders cannot win Paris-Roubaix. However, the role that luck plays in the race is just too significant to claim that Paris-Roubaix is proof of who is the strongest rider in the peleton. I love Paris-Roubaix, but watching it is like watching a car wreck.

Fortunately, this year Cycling.tv arranged to provide live race coverage for North American subscribers. Friday night I whipped out my credit card and became a premium subscriber. Even though my DSL service typically only runs at about 400kps, not the 1.5mbps that I pay for, Cycling.tv’s free race coverage typically comes through just fine. I was concerned, however about the effect that all the demand for the greatest one day race in the world from the cycling starved masses of North America would have on the service. So when Kristin and I woke up at 6AM Sunday morning to fire up the laptop and watch the race from our bed (isn’t wireless technology great?) and the stream immediately worked, I was a very happy man. It has been about 4 years since OLN last offered live coverage of the race and I have been without OLN since Dish Network removed its programming last fall.

We picked up the race about 15km before the Arenberg Forest, which is section 17 of cobbles. Last year the Arenberg Forest was removed from the route because it was considered too dangerous due to damage to the path and subsidence caused by coal mining in the area. After the local government rehabbed the 2km segment, it was returned to the race. The “new” Arenberg Forest certainly had more cobbles as the path had been widened, but it is not clear if it is any real improvement. Tom Boonen complained before the race that the improvements had actually made it harder by eliminating the dirt path that many riders would typically take along the main cobble road. Others had complained in years past that the Arenberg Forest played too important a role in deciding the outcome of the race. Needless to say, as the peleton approached the Arenberg Forest the race speed increased, the riders got nervous, and it was clear that, as is usually the case at Paris-Roubaix, any rider who was not in the top 25 coming out of the forest was probably through for the day.

Just as he had done last week at the Ronde Van Vlaanderen, Tom Boonen went to the front and attacked on the most difficult stretch of the race course. Boonen showed why he is one of the strongest riders in the peleton as the peleton shattered once the road narrowed and the riders entered the forest. By the end of the Arenberg Forest, Boonen had ended the race for such teams as Milram, Credit Agricole, and Gerolsteiner, which had failed to stay at the front and make the break.

By the time the carnage was done, Boonen had shown he was strong but probably cost himself the race in doing it. A leading group of fifteen ended up with Boonen with a 30 second gap to the chasing group behind. The leading group contained all of the pre-race favorites. In addition to Boonen, past winners Frédéric Guesdon of Francaise de Jeux and Peter Van Petegem of Davitamon-Lotto was in the break as were past Paris-Roubaix top ten finishers Lars Michaelson and Fabian Cancellara of Team CSC, Juan Antonio Flecha of Rabobank, Steffan Wesseman of T-Mobile and George Hincapie of Discovery. Spring strong men Alessandro Ballan of Lampre, Leif Hoste and Vladimir Gusev of Discovery also made the final selection.

Boonen found himself isolated without a single teammate in the leading group with Team CSC, Francaise de Jeux and Discovery all with multiple riders in the lead. Quick.Step immediately sent its entire team to the front of the chase group to try and bridge up to their leader but even with seven riders on the front of the chase, the motivated leading group managed to increase its lead as everyone worked to make sure Boonen got no more help. And with that, 90km from the end of the race, it was clear that the quality of the leading group was so high that they would stay away and the winner would come from that group.

As the race wore on the leading group was gradually reduced in size to the point that there were just a dozen riders left and it looked like George Hincapie would become the first American to win Paris-Roubaix. Paris-Roubaix is Hincapie’s favorite race. He has come very close to winning the race before with numerous top ten finishes. US Postal Service and Discovery Channel have ridden the race for Hincapie and over the past three to four years have sent strong teams to support him in the race. Last year Hincapie matched Boonen’s moves the entire race but was unable to get past his former teammate in the closing stretch of the race on the Roubaix Velodrome. Boonen is simply faster than Hincapie.

However, even though Discovery had ridden the perfect race to deliver Hincapie his first victory at Paris-Roubaix, it was not to be. With 45km to go, Hincapie was thrown to the ground as his steering tube failed, causing his handle bars to collapse and Hincapie to go over the handle bars on his uncontrollable bike. He crashed at full speed having no way to slow down and no way to steer and landed hard on his right shoulder. Hincapie’s day was over and although he did not appear to have broken any bones, Belgian press is reporting that Hincapie is going to require surgery on his shoulder.

By this point our two youngest children were awake and in bed watching the race with us on the laptop.

Although his teammates waited momentarily, Hoste and Gusev chased to get back to the leaders who were continuing to splinter into smaller and smaller groups. Boonen looked human without his teammates and Flecha and Team CSC continued to attack the world champion. Ultimately, Boonen cracked when Gusev attacked and only Cancellara managed to go with Discovery’s Russian rider. Cancellara and Gusev built up a thirty second lead and then Cancellara, a former Swiss time trial champion and Tour de France prologue winner, rolled off the front and away from Gusev. Van Petegem attacked next with Hoste and they managed to bridge up to Gusev. Boonen was now more than a minute behind Cancellara and more than thirty seconds behind the chasing group of three.

Then another twist of fate intervened to affect the outcome of Paris-Roubaix. With 10km to go, Van Petegem, Gusev and Hoste were forty seconds behind Cancellara and Boonen was another minute back. Cancellara passed over a train crossing only to have it close after him. The first chase group rode around the closed barriers to keep up the chase of Cancellara. They were followed by the neutral support motorcycles and the TV motorcycles. Boonen and his group arrived just in time for a freight train to pass through, losing even more time. Typically, train schedules are modified for the race so there is no possibility of the type of conflict happening that did today. The rules generally provide that if there is a temporary obstruction of the course that causes the leader of the race to stop, losing his advantage that the race will be restarted and chasing riders held to restore the advantage. However, if chasing riders are stopped at a train crossing, then they are to wait and no adjustment will be made to their times or to the race organization. Clearly, had the first chase group waited like they were supposed to and not cut through the closed barricades, Boonen would have caught them and they all would have been back together with Flecha as well.

Cancellara then raced in to Roubaix alone and circled the historic velodrome for his first classic win. Hoste, Gusev and Van Petegem began attacking each other over the closing kilometers and when they entered the velodrome Hoste and Gusev engaged in a classic track attack on their faster Belgian rival. In the end, Hoste came around Van Petegem to finish second just like he had last week at the Ronde Van Vlaanderen.

Boonen came in later and won the sprint for fourth. However, Boonen was elevated to second place as Hoste, Van Petegem and Gusev were all disqualified for cutting through the barricades.

Cancellara was a deserving winner. He has finished in the top ten each of the last two years and he is a strong rider on a strong team. He had focused all season on this race so it was not a surprise that he won. He was very lucky, however, as he was not taken down by Hincapie’s crash, he managed to avoid the train delay, and Boonen had destroyed his own team. Cancellara was one of the strongest riders today, but he was certainly the luckiest rider today.

Hincapie will most certainly come back and try to win Paris-Roubaix again next year, but you have to wonder if he has become like a golfer who is looking for that elusive major and manages to always been in the hunt but never quite win. Hincapie will go down as the best American classics rider ever, but he will always be shadowed by his inability to win the race that he loves. Discovery has built him a team focused on winning spring classics. He has the form to be competitive. However, there is always something that keeps Hincapie from winning the Hell of the North.

Don’t Be a Whiner

Spaniard Juan Antonio Flecha is the best classic rider in Spain. He has shown skill and ability in the northern classics, something that no other Spaniard of the current generation has done. Today he was very aggressive, almost too aggressive and that probably cost him the race. However, afterwards, when asked to comment on the train passage, the disqualifications of the Discovery and Davitamon riders, and the outcome of the race, Velonews.com reported Flecha commented that although it was good they stopped Boonen’s group at the train crossing because of safety, he was sure that they would have caught the Discovery/Davitamon group had they not jumped the barrier and that would have changed the race. Really, if you make somebody who has nearly a minute lead stop and wait for a minute, then yes Juan Antoino Flecha you probably would have caught the guys ahead of you. In reality, it sounded of Flecha’s sour grapes for not being able to beat Ballan in the sprint at the end. Boonen for his part has acknowledged that the train crossing should not have affected the outcome as the positions of the final seven riders were already set by that point.

Wearing Your Helmet

Young American talent Saul Rasin, who rides for the French Credit Agricole team, is currently in a coma, having crashed 2km from the finish of Tuesday’s stage of the Circuit de la Sarthe in France. Although he broke a collar bone and some ribs in the crash, Rasin was alert after the crash. However, by Wednesday his condition worsened, his brain began to swell and as a result of bleeding in his skull, doctors put him in a drug induced coma and operated on his brain. Raisin took the whole crash on the top of his head and would most likely have died from the impact like Andre Kivilev did a few years ago had he not been wearing his helmet. Raisin’s condition has stabilized but he remains comatose.

Cycling.tv

Cycling.tv launched a web based cycling station a few years ago. Initially, the content was quite limited: old mountain bike races, minor Belgian races, and the like. Over the last year, they have seriously improved the quantity and quality of their offerings. Additionally, they added a premium subscription service that offers some of the best races out there. With Dish Network’s elimination of OLN and OLN’s reduction in live coverage, Cycling.tv is a great resource. OLN and Cycling.tv have combined their resources to host OLN’s daily live coverage of the upcoming Giro d’Italia. Cycling.tv has also announced the development of a new channel of content which will include track events organized by the UCI. Cycling.tv has also added a daily news broadcast on cycling. It is short on actual race coverage but has timely information and interviews. If you have a broadband connection and you just cannot get enough cycling, you definitely should check it out at Cycling.tv.

The Cycliste Moderne, April 2, 2006

2006-04-02T21:01:00.000-06:00

Ronde Van Vlaanderen/Tour of Flanders Recap

Quick.Step’s Tom Boonen won his second consecutive Tour of Flanders today by out-sprinting Leif Hoste of Discovery Channel. Boonen became the first rider in 30 years to win consecutive Tours of Flanders and became just the second rider to win in Flanders wearing the World Champion’s jersey.

The day started wet and cold and there were serious concerns about the course. Due to several days of constant rain, portions of the course were considered unrideable. The Koppenberg was a significant concern due to significant accumulations of mud on the cobbles of the steep climb. Saturday, race organizers inspected and cleaned the Koppenberg, but everyone knew that if it continued to rain, the climb could prove to be decisive.

The weather turned better after the riders headed away from the coast, with the rain stopping and the sun coming out. As a result, it became clear that even though conditions were difficult, the rain would not decide the race. The roads dried up as the day wore on and the race got serious once the first climbs were encountered after 145km.

Boonen and Quick.Step showed their strength once the climbs started. Discovery also showed its strength as the day wore on. Amazingly, the decisive climb of the day turned out to be the Koppenberg. Quick.Step rode strong for Boonen, delivering him to the base of the Koppenberg where he attacked, creating the decisive split of the day. Boonen’s attack destroyed the peleton as he rode away from such big names as Erik Zabel of Milram, Thor Husovd of Credit Agricole and Juan Antonio Flecha of Rabobank.

As the leaders regrouped at the top of the Koppenberg, the lead group had about 20 riders in it. Boonen found himself with teammates Serge Baguet, Filipo Pozatto, and Paolo Bettini, Team CSC had Karsten Kroon and Fabian Cancellara in the break, and Discovery had Leif Hoste and George Hincapie. Former winner Peter Van Petegem made the break as did last year’s runner up Andreas Klier and Lampre’s classic man Alessandro Ballan. With the configuration of that group it was clear that the day was over for anyone not in the front 20. Everyone else should have just ridden back into Oudenaarde and taken a shower.

The Koppenberg proved to be decisive because most of the peleton ended up getting off their bikes and hiking to the top. That would lose them significant amounts of time and would leave them demoralized.

Meanwhile, Quick.Step put Pozzato and Baguet on the front and they put the hurt on the rest of the leaders. Boonen’s team rode the perfect race today and when Hoste attacked on the Valkenberg with about 25km to go, Boonen marked him and the two rode away from the peleton. Bettini then played defense covering every attempt to bridge to the two leaders and Hincapie was left to ride defensively in support of his teammate, Hoste.

Hoste and Boonen then proceeded to get a two minute lead as they reached the final climbs of the day. Hoste is strong, but he cannot match Boonen in the sprint and in the final 1km the riders played games to see who would lead out the sprint. Hoste attacked with 500 meters to go but Boonen would not lose and came around him to win by a second. The race for third would result in George Hincapie out-sprinting Van Petegem to complete the podium.

Lessons from the 2006 Ronde

1. Predicting that Tom Boonen of Quick.Step would do well during the Ronde Van Vlaanderen is a lot like predicting the Yankees will make the playoffs. These just are things that are pretty likely to happen. Boonen has cemented his status as the best Belgian rider of his generation and certainly is a rider in the mold of Johann Museeuw. He has speed, he has power and he showed today why he has all the tools to be the greatest classic rider in the last twenty years.

2. Discovery Channel has built a classics team that is rivaled only by Quick.Step. Although there has been some criticism by American “fans” about not having enough American riders on the team, it is clear that with its current classics team of Americans, Belgians, Russians, Dutch, Australians and Brits, it is every bit as good as Quick.Step and Davitamon Lotto, the Belgian classic machines. Those are the same American “fans” who complained that Discovery/US Postal Service did not take the classics seriously enough. You cannot send out boys to do a man’s job, which is what US Postal Service used to do when they sent largely American teams to the classics.

3. George Hincapie is one of the strongest all-around riders in the peleton; however, for those Americans that think he should be winning more one day classics, it must be pointed out that while he is as strong as Boonen, Van Petegem, Petacchi, or Zabel, he lacks the pure speed of a sprinter. He will never beat Boonen heads up in a sprint, although George can time trial and climb as he showed during last year’s Tour de France.

Paris-Roubaix Preview

Next Sunday is Paris-Roubaix and Boonen again has to be a favorite to win the race. Right now he has the complete package. He is as fast as Petacchi, as strong as Hoste and Hincapie and he has the strongest team in the world right now. Quick.Step has won the first two classics of the season and if Boonen falters then his teammates Nick Nuyens, Filippo Pozatto and even Paolo Bettini could all be victorious.

Clearly, Discovery Channel should be strong although the loss of Roger Hammond in a crash during the Ronde and Max Van Heeswijk to a crash during this week’s stage race in De Panne will weaken them somewhat.

Lampre’s Alessandro Ballan continues to show early season strength and should be a factor. Sooner or later he will have to win this spring in light of how strong he has been.

So far, the Milram superteam has been a disappointment, after riding to win at Milan San Remo but failing to deliver Petacchi to victory and having Petacchi abandon during the Ronde.

Paris-Roubaix has none of the climbs found at the Tour of Flanders but it does have a lot more cobble stones sections. Additionally, unlike the Tour of Flanders which heads west to the ocean to start, Paris Roubais heads northeast to the Belgian French border and then turns west to the ocean making wind much more of a factor.

It will be interesting to se what condition the Arenburg Forest is in after being removed last year for renovations to the cobbles to make the sector safer. The Arenburg Forest is a lot like the Koppenberg. If you are not at the front at that point, you might as well call it a day because you probably won't get back in contact with the front thereafter.

The Cycliste Moderne, March 26, 2006

2006-03-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

Criterium International Recap

The 75th Criterium International took place this weekend in the hilly region of northern France along the Belgian border. The race is unique as it is intended to be a “mini-Tour de France.” Three stages take place over two days. Saturday is a flat stage for sprinters, Sunday morning is a short but hilly stage for the climbers, and Sunday afternoon is the usually decisive short time trial.

Historically, the winner of Criterium International has been a strong general classification rider who does well in the climbing stage and then either wins or finishes high up in the time trial. The list of past winners is a whose who of grand tour podium finishers. Jacques Anquetil, Raymond Poulidor, Bernard Thevenet, Bernard Hinault, Joop Zoetemelk, Sean Kelly, Miguel Inderain, Laurent Fignon and Laurent Jalabert are all past winners. American Bobby Julich has won the race twice in 1998 and again last year.

This year marked Team CSC’s third consecutive win at the race following Jens Voight’s 2004 win and Julich’s win last year with Tour de France favorite Ivan Basso winning Sunday morning’s climbing stage and taking second in the afternoon time trial.

Saturday’s sprint did not go as planned as an early break got away including most of the expected favorites including Floyd Landis of Phonak who had already won Paris-Nice and the Tour of California. However, Landis crashed late in the stage ending his chance to win the race. Rabobank’s Erik Dekker was aggressive and ultimately won the stage finishing just ahead of Basso.

Dekker stayed with Basso on Sunday but had a late mechanical that gave Basso the stage win and GC lead. Basso then rode a strong time trial to secure his victory. Criterium International is a good barometer for who is on track for quality results in the Grand Tours come May and July. Certainly Basso is on form and should be strong for both races if he elects to actually ride both this year.

One Week to the Tour of Flanders

Next Sunday is the Ronde Van Vlaanderen or Tour of Flanders. It is probably my favorite race of the year because you do not win the Tour of Flanders by being lucky (as many recent Paris-Roubaix winners have been). The winner of the Tour of Flanders wins by being able to ride away from the peleton.

Tom Boonen will be back to defend his title and won his third consecutive E3 Prijs Vlaanderen on Saturday in Belgium. The race is an important warm up for the Tour of Flanders including many of the same climbs that the riders will go over next week. The key move of the day came on the Paterberg about 40km from the end. The Paterberg is very short but very steep with an average gradient of over 12%.

Oscar Friere of Rabobank showed good form winning Sunday’s Brabantse Pijl. Although Boonen did not ride Brabantse Pijl, Friere defeated a strong field and showed that his ongoing back problems may be resolved.

Discovery Channel has had strong rides from its classics team this spring with Leif Hoste, Roger Hammond, Stijn Devolder and Max Van Heeswijk all riding well at the moment. Discovery could have the most depth of any of the teams at the Tour of Flanders next week, but that depth did not help them last year when the team failed to cover the late move of Tom Boonen even though they had Armstrong and Hincapie in the final group.

The dark horse could be Alessandro Ballan of Lampre-Fondital. The Italian rider has had good form this spring and has been very aggressive. Ballan was part of the almost decisive break at Milan San Remo last weekend finishing 8th and finished second to Boonen on Saturday. He has shown excellent form and is not intimidated by any of the main riders.

During the Tour of Flanders, the Paterberg comes too early to be decisive, however, if you are not in the lead or close to it after the Koppenberg you probably won’t win it. The Koppenberg is the place where riders lose the Tour of Flanders.

The Cycliste Moderne, March 22, 2006

2006-03-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

Milan-San Remo Recap

Quick.Step raced a perfect team race in Saturday’s first one day classic of the year. It was perfect strategy which yielded a surprise winner. Although Tom Boonen was clearly on form and Paolo Bettini had recovered from his hard crash in last week’s Tirreno-Adriatico, it was the surprise finish of Filippo Pozzato who took the win for the Belgian-Italian team.

Pozzato had covered a late break for his teammates. It appeared that Quick.Step had intended to have Bettini attack on the Poggio and save Boonen for the sprint. Milram had ridden hard all day in order to keep leader Alessandro Petacchi out of danger and ready for the sprint. By the end, though, Milram had spent the team and Petacchi only had Erik Zabel for the final sprint. Rabobank’s Oscar Friere was looking good late in the race as well; however no one expected the manly man performance of Pozzato who managed to ride away at the end to victory.
When a small group got away late in the race, Pozzato covered the move for his team and the six man break away held off the peleton until the last 600 meters. At that point Rinaldo Nocentini of Acqua e Sapone attacked and Pozzato covered his move. The two stayed away and with 400 meters to go Pozzato jumped of the front and road away. Although Petacchi was able to close the gap, the race was 100 meters too short and Pozzato got the win. Petacchi was second, Luca Paolini of Liquigas was third and an elated Tom Boonen finished fourth.

You can see the last kilometer of the race at OLNtv.com if you have a broadband connection.

The happiness of the Quick.Step team in the victory was refreshing to see. Boonen and Bettini were both obviously thrilled by their younger teammate’s result.

Teams that ride strong races should be thrilled to win. Clearly Quick.Step rode a better tactical race than Milram. Had Milram not spent its entire team on chasing the breakaways all day long, Petacchi would have likely won. Milram will have a long classic season if they ride the way they did on Saturday. If you are going to try to control the race and set it up for your sprinter, you better make sure the team is up to it and that you have not expended the entire team 20km before the finish.

How not to Prove Rehabilitation

The UCI and USA Cycling cracked down on domestic professionals this last week after photos and results showed upon the internet for an unsanctioned criterium in Boulder, Colorado and showed Tyler Hamilton racing and finishing in the top 10 against top US domestic professionals. The Tyler Hamilton Foundation was a sponsor of the race series and race organizers decided not to sanction the races with either USA Cycling or the ACA, the other primary sanctioning body in Colorado.

The UCI swiftly announced its intention to punish any professional with a UCI license who participated in races with Hamilton. USA Cycling similarly announced that domestically licensed professionals would be sanctioned for participating in races that permitted suspended riders to participate. Last year, Hamilton had participated in the Mount Washington Hill Climb without any repercussions as it too was not sanctioned by USA Cycling.

Rather than risk punishment for any of the domestic professionals Hamilton announced that he would not participate in the charity criteriums but that his foundation would continue to sponsor them.

All of this has transpired while Vileness has run a very detailed account of the Hamilton doping case from both Hamilton’s perspective and that of USA Cycling, the US Anti Doping Agency and the World Anti Doping Agency. Many of the letters to the editor in the various online cycling publications have been highly critical of Hamilton over the past few weeks since the decision was handed down on his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The moral of the story is that as seen in the case of Richard Virenque, David Millar, and Adam Bergman that even convicted dopers who do not admit that they doped until after they are punished will be embraced by the public for their heroism in admitting their guilt after they are caught and punished but that those who proclaim their innocence will be vilified as liars and cheats. Now as I have indicated earlier, I do not know if Hamilton doped. There certainly is evidence to support both his guilt and his innocence. However, it is disconcerting to see dopers be rehabilitated merely by confessing their guilt.

Certainly, Hamilton’s continued profession of innocence and willingness to not just go and hide during his suspension but to try and race wherever he is legally permitted to do so is an irritant to the bodies that suspended him.

The moral of the story and it is something I discussed frankly with clients at various times in my career, is that everyone loves a repentant sinner and that people are highly suspicious of and hostile towards individuals who proclaim their innocence. Unfortunately, it is often cheaper and easier sometimes to admit to wrong doing, even if you don’t think you did anything wrong, to take whatever punishment is levied and move forward than it is to attempt to prove your innocence.

Marla Streb Pregnancy Photos
For those that did not know, gravity goddess and scientist, Marla Streb is pregnant, however that did not keep her from the first media appearance of the season for the Luna Chicks team this last week. Here is evidence that they make race outfits in maternity sizes. Scroll down the page to the best shot of the last woman in the world you every would have thought would be having a baby.

The Cycliste Moderne, March 13, 2006

2006-03-12T21:27:00.000-07:00

Paris-Nice Victory for Landis

American Floyd Landis became just the second American winner of the first ProTour race of the year by winning Paris-Nice on Sunday. Having shown strong form in winning the Tour of California, Landis was certainly among the favorites heading into the “Race to the Sun.” However, Landis won the Tour of California by destroying the field in the individual time trial. Landis won Paris-Nice by destroying the field during the first significant mountain stage, accompanied by little known Spaniard Patxi Vila, who one the stage.

Amazingly, Landis’ team managed to keep him out of trouble, even if it looked week at times and did not face any real attack from Vila who appeared to be happy racing for second place overall. American Chris Horner was also impressive with his tenth place finish for Lotto-Davitamon but he certainly benefited from the early season start in California as well. Discovery Channel teammates Jose Azevedo and Chechu Rubiera finished sixth and ninth respectively showing early season stage racing form.

American Bobby Julich, last year’s winner of Paris-Nice, won the opening prologue for this year’s race and wore the leader’s jersey for one day. However, Julich did not start on Sunday.

Milan-San Remo Preview

Next Sunday is Milan-San Remo the first of the classic single day races of the season. Based upon early form it is clear that current world champion Tom Boonen of Quick.Step has to be considered a favorite. With three stage wins at Paris-Nice, Boonen already has ten wins this season. His chances may have suffered a blow, however, with the injury to his teammate Paolo Bettini, during this week’s Tirreno-Adriatico while leading the race. Bettini had won two stages before crashing hard and ending up being transported to the hospital. Certainly the teammates would have been formidable requiring all the other teams to mark them as they hit the final climbs of the race before the finish in San Remo. Boonen is strong enough currently that he can win with power and does not necessarily have to ride a strategic race.

Another rider to watch is former world champion Oscar Friere who is also showing good form at Tirreno-Adriatico. Friere has been limited by back problems over the past few years. He is currently leading Tirreno-Adriatico and has shown he is still the equal to some of the fastest men in the peleton. The only legitimate sprinter/hard man Spain has produced in some time, it would not be surprising for Friere to duplicate his victory in 2004.

The final rider to watch, last year’s champion Alessandro Petacchi, has also shown excellent form this spring. Petacchi already has a handful of victories this year but the integration of Petacchi and German supersprinter Erik Zabel at Team Milram has shown some difficulties as Petacchi was beaten on Saturday at Tirreno when his lead out train did not show the precision that Petacchi is clearly used to and Thor Hushovd of Credit Agricole got around Ale-jet at the finish.

The Cycliste Moderne, March 6, 2006

2006-03-05T22:51:00.000-07:00

Paris-Nice Kicks Off ProTour

Paris-Nice, the first ProTour race of the year, started Sunday with a prologue outside of Paris. The “Race to the Sun” is an important race to kick of the season, however, over the past few years it has declined in stature and was ultimately acquired by the ASO, the organizer of the Tour de France. Moreover, the winner of Paris-Nice generally is not a factor in the Grand Tours later in the year.

With their strong showings at the Tour of California, Team CSC’s Bobby Julich and Phonak’s Floyd Landis should be primed for strong finishes next week when the race ends in Nice on the 12th. Bobby Julich, last year’s winner, had a strong prologue on Sunday in Issy-les-Moulineaux to take the first leader’s jersey. Tom Boonen of Quick.Step rode strongly to finish fifth in the prologue just three seconds behind Julich. Boonen will likely take the leader’s jersey after Monday’s opening road stage.

ProTour Protests

The fight between the Grand Tours and the UCI over the ProTour does not show any sign of abating. The Grand Tours announced their wild card selections for each of the races. Each of the Grand Tours will have the twenty ProTour teams together with two wild cards. The wild card selections are not a surprise. The Giro d’Italia announced that Ceramica Panaria – Navigare and Selle Italia-Serramenti Diquigiovanni would be invited to participate. Both teams have participated before and both have had Latin American climbers that have made the race exciting in the past, although being small Italian teams they both wear jerseys that look like something NASCAR would find too much. I think Ceramica Panaria – Navigare is sponsored by a ceramics company and a shoe company, while Selle Italia-Serramenti Diquigiovanni is sponsored by the bicycle seat manufacturer. I have no idea at all what a “Serramenti Diquigiovanni” is or whether I would need one.

The Tour de France selected Comunidad Valenciana and Agritubel. Comunidad Valenciana (formerly Kelme) is probably the strongest non-ProTour team in Europe and Agritubel is the top non-ProTour team in France and was nearly the recipient of a wild card last year during its first year at the top professional level. (Agritubel is sponsored by a French manufacturer of agricultural tubing and fixtures, so I guess that if I had an agricultural tubing or fixture need in France, then I would call Agritubel and their sponsorship would have been effective.)

The Vuelta a Espana also selected Comunidad Valenciana as well as Team Relax. Neither selection is a surprise as both teams are strong domestic Spanish teams and have historically been invited to the Vuelta. (Relax is a Spanish mattress company.)

The announcement of the wildcards this early in the season removed some of the politicking that had happened in years past. However, it did not end the controversy, even though all six wild cards go to teams that are deserving. Cyclingnews.com is reporting Team Unibet protested over the weekend at its exclusion from the Grand Tours by racing with black armbands and hinting that its sponsor would be leaving the sport after its non selection. Being the fourth best team in Belgium and wearing green jerseys will not win you any friends at all.

Moreover, Team Unibet has hardly built itself to be competitive at the top levels of stage racing. The team is a collection of second tier racers, non-descript Belgians and a few convicted dopers. It is not like a great travesty of justice was done when this minor team was not selected for the Grand Tours. Even if the ProTour system were not in place, which would guarantee the first 20 starting positions at all three Grand Tours to ProTour teams, and if each of the Grand Tours were free to invite 20-24 teams of their own choosing, I guarantee you that Team Unibet is not on anyone’s top 30 list of professional cycling teams. The number one rule of protesting is to make sure your protest has merit and will appeal to a sense of injustice. Team Unibet’s protest is a lot like the protests you saw in college where affluent, privileged, white students protested social injustice by refusing to go to class. It was never like anyone cared what they did or thought.

Bikes Galore

This weekend was the annual Boise Bike Swap. I had been eyeing a new road bike for Kristin and was inclined to buy her a Trek with Shimano 105 components. However, I managed to pick up two bikes at the Bike Swap for what I had budgeted for Kristin’s new bike. I found a 43cm Fuji with 650 wheels and a “parts is parts” Shimano drive train which is just about the right size for my nearly 10 year old aspiring racer. Kristin meanwhile got a brand new Specialized Allez with the super compact 50cm frame. It too has a “parts is parts” Shimano drive train but she is not planning on racing the domestic criterium circuit so I got a good deal on it as well. My parents purchased a 2004 Raleigh tandem that is just like my 2004 Raleigh tandem so you will likely see me and a child out with my parents on their new scarlet and black tandem. Both tandems were new inventory that World Cycle put out at the swap each of the last two years. Now, I just need to figure out what I will purchase for myself.

The Cycliste Moderne, February 26, 2006

2006-02-26T23:12:00.000-07:00

I get to guest blog again as Geoff is busy with “real” work and I made the mistake of calling attention to some omissions in his last blog. Moral: if you don’t want to write a blog, don’t comment on it. – Kristin

Seattle International Bike Expo

As mentioned, Mr. Cycliste Moderne and I spent President’s Day weekend at the Seattle International Bike Expo. What he failed to mention is the fact that two really really cool bike legends touched my Sharpie.

Included as guest presenters this year were Sean Kelly, seven time (consecutively!) winner of Paris-Nice and four time winner of the Tour de France points jersey, and the great Davis Phinney, the US cyclist with the most career wins ever. While Geoff manned the Cyclista booth, I slipped away with cycling memorabilia in hand and went over to the stage area where Kelly and Phinney were musing on their careers. While I only caught the end of the session, I found it very entertaining. First, the combination of Sean Kelly’s Irish accent and his quiet voice (or distance from the microphone) made him hard to understand, but he came off as a very down-to-earth guy. Davis Phinney was very animated. While it took him ten minutes to answer the moderator’s question, you enjoyed listening to every tangent. What struck me most was not the shaking of head and hands brought on by early-onset Parkinson ’s disease, but how he ended every segment with praise to Sean Kelly. Even cycling gods have cycling gods.

After the discussion, they sat down to sign autographs. I managed to be fifth in the line. The guy in front of me had a copy of Graham Watson’s “20 Years of Cycling Photography.” He was going to have Davis Phinney sign his picture on page 71, the picture with Phinney on the ground after going through the windscreen of a team car in 1988’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Phinney had earlier reminisced about this experience when asked about his scariest moment on a bike. In my hands I held a black and white photo of Sean Kelly and Marc Madiot racing Paris-Roubaix in 1986. When it was my turn, I handed Mr. Kelly my Sharpie, explained the background of the picture, and he smirked. “Nice roads, eh?” Chills went down my spine. He signed the mat “Best Wishes – Sean Kelly.” Ooooh.

Mission one was accomplished, but Davis Phinney was nowhere to be found. I just couldn’t leave with having the great legend sign the same Team 7-Eleven musette that Bob Roll signed during last year’s Expo. I scanned the crowd and found him entering the door. Apparently even cycling gods have to use the porta-potty. Rather than wait for him to make it over to the table, I hurried over to him. After waiting for him to sign a picture for a fan who met him at the Tour de France umpteen years ago, I asked him to sign the musette and thanked him for coming to the Expo. Wow.

So, you see, my Sharpie is very cool now. Poor Geoff had to stay behind to sell bike stuff, but I got to shake hands with Sean Kelly and Davis Phinney. I win. I even got to shake Sean Kelly’s hand twice. While wandering through the booths, I saw him standing outside the Celtic Trails tour booth. I asked if I could shake his hand again because he was just too cool. He did and I walked away before he would think I was a stalker.

Clif Bar Moments

Last year’s great Expo moment involved getting an autograph from Marla Streb while chewing on a Clif Bar sample. This year, our booth was located across from the Clif Bar booth and everyone brought their samples into our booth. I can’t count how many Clif Shot cups I threw away or how many MoJo samples made it into our prize drawing box. Ew. We did score a box of MoJo’s by helping set up the Clif Bar canopy on Friday so it all evens out.

Spring Fever

Geoff must like me a lot because he let me sit on a Trek Pilot 5.0 on Saturday afternoon. I proved that I would fit on a 50cm frame (just barely) and that I would not have to share a road bike with my nine-year-old. I’m very excited. My Cannondale hybrid has served me well over the past 11 odd years but I’ll take a new bike, sure. It will probably be a Pilot 1.2 instead of a 5.0, but I’ll still take it.

I do realize that by buying me a new bike, Geoff is simply paving the road for a new bike of his own. I’ll still take a new bike.

Tour of California

I haven’t watched any of the Tour of California coverage because my daytime TV has been relegated to watching Teletubbies or Olympic coverage. However, it’s been nice to follow it online. Poor George Hincapie missed the final sprinters jersey to Olaf Pollack of T-Mobile, but Floyd Landis held on to the GC. Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner) came away as King of the Mountain and Tom Peterson of TIAA-CREF held on to the Best Young Rider jersey by a thread.

Euro News

The Belgian season is underway with Philippe Gilbert (Franciase des Jeux) taking Omloop Het Volk on Saturday and Tom Boonen setting up his teammate Nick Nuyens for victory at Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne on Sunday. Who needs the Olympics now that the real cycling season has begun? Having driven over many of the hills they ride in those races it is exciting that the real racing season has begun.

It has also been announced that a new and improved Arenberg Forest has returned to the Paris-Roubaix route. It’s not too new and improved, of course, but supposedly a little less dangerous. We’ll see about that if it rains on April 9th.

The Cycliste Moderne, February 21, 2006

2006-02-21T21:09:00.000-07:00

Amgen Tour of California Kick Off

The Amgen Tour of California has kicked off the domestic cycling season in a big way. I have to admit I was skeptical of the ability of Anschutz Entertainment Group to pull of a world class event. The early coverage shows that they have been able to do it. Anschutz Entertainment Group is affiliated with such disparate entertainment enterprises as Walden Media, Edwards Theaters, Major League Soccer and the ADT Velodrome in Carson, California.

I questioned the ability to put on a world class event so early in the season. The weather was likely to be poor, the course too easy and February was too early for a significant stage race in North America. When they signed on Amgen, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures doping favorite EPO, as their title sponsor you had to wonder who was giving them advice.

Well, the weather has been good, the European based teams very competitive and the crowds huge. The early results have also showed that the early predictions that the European teams would send weak teams and that the North American teams would be the only ones taking the event seriously were proven wrong when the top riders in the Prologue were all Europe based and the difficult finish to Stage 2 where the peleton was shattered on the final climb resulted in the top 10 riders on the stage were all Europe based. The domestic teams have not been equal to the European teams. With just two stages completed and a week of racing left to go, I can certainly predict that the winner will be a European based American. The domestic professionals are just not good enough to compete with the stronger ProTour teams.

There have been some things that make you scratch your head, like the organizers’ failure to have a clock at the finish of the opening prologue and the fact that the television coverage on ESPN2 is on after midnight in much of the United States. Having reportedly purchased the time for race coverage from ESPN you would have thought that AEG would have obtained earlier time slots as 1AM on the East Coast is too early for coverage. I watched Sunday’s coverage on ESPN2 in Seattle where it was broadcast at 10PM locally. Since getting back to Boise, I have been recording the race coverage and watching it the following day.

The coolest thing about the Tour of California is the Specialized Angel. What a great marketing idea by Specialized as she is almost as cool as Luk’s Devil Didi.

Seattle International Bike Expo

Mrs. Cycliste Moderne and I spent Presidents’ Day weekend in Seattle at the Seattle International Bike Expo selling bike art and movies. It was again a well attended event and I had major bike envy as I was sorely tempted by a Redline Cyclocross Bike priced at $800 and a Raleigh frame and fork at $300. In the end, Mrs. Cycliste Moderne bought herself a couple of jerseys including an incredibly cool wool retro French national jersey. I got a new pair of clear glasses for those early morning rides and the kids got new jerseys.

Really cool to see some of the new equipment out including the new Francaise de Jeux team issue bikes from LaPierre. One of the most surprising displays was a company selling shaft drive bikes. Shaft driven bikes were actually raced with some success during the early 1900’s on the track. However the sprocket and chain drive ultimately proved too successful and shaft drive bikes disappeared. Now a manufacturer has returned with the bike and although their booth was just down and across from the Cyclista.com booth, I have to say that I just am not convinced that I want to be riding what amounts to a giant egg beater.

I also got to meet United States cyclocross legend, Dale Knapp, who is now the cyclocross coach for Rad Racing Northwest, one of the largest and most successfully junior development programs in the United States. Jim Brown of Rad Racing Northwest wowed us with his cyclocross knowledge when he walked into the Cyclista.com booth and said “wow you have a lot of pictures of Adri Van Der Poel” to which I responded “and Stammsnijder and Simunek as well.”

However, the next person to spend 45 minutes looking at our art who then says “you really have some cool stuff here” and then proceeds to walk away without buying anything will find themselves beaten about their head and shoulders with a matted photograph of Radomir Simunek and the framed photograph of the winning six man break during the 1981 Paris-Roubaix, arguably the greatest collection of one day riders in modern history together so late in the race. If you think our stuff is cool then please give me your credit card and I will make sure you own it.

Finally, I am convinced that thermostats and thermometers do not work in Seattle as thirty five degrees in Seattle feels like twenty Boise degrees, even when the sun is out.