This Week in Road Cycling: July 28 to August 3

The Tour is over, and there is still not much bike racing in Arizona. Hold onto your chamois, it's This Week in Road Cycling.

Shazzam!!!

Local Racing

Races in August (Thank God it's no longer July):
-Mt Lemmon TT: Tucson, AZ - Aug 10; http://www.saguarovelo.org/infolemmon.htm
-Tortilla Flats RR (the last one): http://www.azcycling.com/08cal/FLYERS/tft_08.pdf
-Kitt Peak TT: Tucson, AZ - Aug 17; http://www.saguarovelo.org/infokitt.htm
-Skull Valley RR: Skull Valley, AZ- Aug 24; http://wmrc.org/skull/index.htm

Pro Racing

Tour de France:

-Stage 16: The riders climbed over the highest road in all of Europe. I don't really think any of the riders were very excited by this accomplishment. Since this stage wasn't a mountain top finish, there wasn't likely going to be very many big gaps between all the GC favorites. For the most part that was the case, except Denis Menchov(Rabobank) and Christian Vande Velde(Garmin-Chipotle) were dropped on the climb and couldn't manage to get back on the descent. Menchov lost 35 seconds, and Vande Velde lost 2:36 (He crashed on the descent). Frank Schleck stayed in yellow.

-Stage 17: Today was the day that many were saying would be the most important day of the Tour, and it lived up to the hype. Stage 17 was a hard day that was made up of a total of 3 Hors Categorie (French for, "Don't ride your bike up here, or you might die.") climbs, ending on the famous Alpe d'Huez In a brilliant display of what can happen if you have a team of the strongest riders in the world, CSC-Saxo Bank took control of the day and delivered Carlos Sastre into his first maillot jaune of his career. Their plan for the day was to keep the pace high for the whole day, having riders like Jens Voigt (badass) and Fabian Cancellara (robot) driving the pace over the first two Hors Categorie climbs of the day (the Col du Galibier and the Col de la Croi de Fer). After that it was all left up to the three climber of the team (Carlos Sastre, white jersey wearer Andy Schleck, and yellow jersey wearer Frank Schleck). Sastre attacked from the very bottom of the Alpe d'Huez and managed to get a over 2 minutes to Cadel Evans and the rest of the gc guys. This would give him a 1:33 advantage over Evans heading into the important time trial on Saturday.

Stage 18: After the excitement of stage 17, stages 18 and 19 would have little to do with the overall race. Instead, teams who hadn't won a stage were going to try their best to salvage their tour. One such team who had some salvaging to do was Quickstep. Carlos Barredo did his best to win the stage, but was outsprinted in the end by Columbia's Marcus Burghardt. Barredo was really mad (video). Sastre just sort of hung out with his yellow jersey. Also, Damiano Cunego's Tour de France, which was already going horribly, got even worse when he crashed. He still finished the stage 20 minutes down, but abandoned the next day.

Stage 19: Kind of the same thing as stage 18, except this time Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis) would beat out Jeremy Roy (Francaise des Jeux). Sastre stayed safely in yellow... until tomorrow?

Stage 20: This was supposed to be the day that Cadel Evans became the first Australian to ever win a Tour de France. The thinking was that Sastre isn't such a good TT'er and Evans would easily take back more than the 1:36 he needed. He didn't. In fact, Evans only managed to take back about 30 seconds, giving Sastre a comfortable minute lead to enjoy the final stage of the tour. The time trial was won again by Stefan Schumacher, who somehow found a way to beat the mighty Fabian Cancellara.

Stage 21: Even though the last stage of the Tour is technically a race, it isn't ever treated like won. Traditionally, the last stage of the Tour is reserved for doing stuff like this, this and this. In the end though, the sprinters try and make things dangerous, because winning a sprint on the Champs Elysee is really important or something. Gert Steegmans finally managed to salvage Quickstep's Tour with the win.


I just want to say that I loved this years Tour. It had some depressing moments, with several positive drug test, but watching a team like CSC-Saxo Bank totally take control of the race and get the win by racing unselfishly was amazing to watch. They managed to get: 2 stage wins (Arvesen, Sastre), the overall team classification, the white jersey (Andy Schleck), and of course the yellow jersey (Sastre). It's kind of hard to describe if you're not absolutely nuts about this sport like I am, but the way this team rides and acts is completely unlike any other team in professional sports. If you have the chance, watch the movie Overcoming and you'll see what I mean.

I'll try to tone down the geekiness in the coming weeks

Thanks for Reading,

Anthony

Solana Beach Triathlon

Congrats to all that competed in the Solana Beach Sprint Triathlon on Sunday. The ASUCTC had a great showing and some excellent results. Jocelyn placed first in the Female 20-24 age group, beat only by a handful of seasoned female triathletes in her very first triathlon while just learning to clip in on her bike the day before. Niko and Andrew had a blast doing their first triathlon, it was a close race between the two but Andrew beat Niko in the final stretch of the run. Phil had an awesome race beating Matt in the final stretch on the run too. Maybe it was the cowboy hat Phil wore for the run, staying up all night carb-loading, or because it was his birthday! Phil's brother John Allan from Cal-Poly took 7th in the Male 20-24 age group wearing only a speedo the entire race. I had a good race despite a slow swim from not swimming all summer. We couldn't have asked for better weather, a better race, or a better weekend.

Look here for our team race results.

Special thanks to the Allan family for letting us stay at their house and to Terrin, Rick, the Bellino family, the Kipper Family, and my dad for coming out and supporting us at the race.


Alan Brown
Triathlon Team Captain

This Week in Road Cycling: July 21 to July 27

Local Racing:

Races in July:
-Tortilla Flats RR (Series): Every (Except the second Tuesday of every month) Tuesday starting May 20 though August 12. http://www.azcycling.com/08cal/FLYERS/tft_08.pdf
-Flatjack Flats Time Trial: 7/26: Tucson, AZ http://www.summitveloracing.org/files/pdfs/FFTTFlyer_draft.pdf
-Picacho Time Trial Series: 7/27: Picacho, AZ http://www.saguarovelo.org/infopicacho.htm
-AZ Track Championships (San Diego Velodrome): 7/19-7/20. http://www.saguarovelo.org/velodrome.html

Pro Racing:

Tour of Qinghai Lake:

Tyler Hamilton (Rock Racing) got his first victory since his 2004 Olympic gold medal. I have mixed feelings about this. Not because of his past history of doping, but because he did this after winning stage 8. Who actually does that? I know Rock Racing is all about being edgy, but Hamilton just looks like a complete tool. I don't know if Michael Ball has mandated in Hamilton's contract that he has to do that whenever a camera is around, but I think the implementation of the rock fist (rawk fist?) in cycling is worse than blood doping and the UCI should work towards banning it.

Tour de France:

Stage 11: The day was characterised by a huge breakaway that consisted of 12 men and Filippo Pozzato (Liquigas). This group of 13 people worked well together and stayed away until the end. Kurt Asle-Arvesen (CSC-Saxo Bank) won in a 3-way sprint over Elmiger (AG2R) and Ballan (Lampre). Evans (Silence-Lotto) spent the day safely in yellow.

Stage 12: Probably the crappiest day of the Tour, but I won't talk about that just yet. Cavendish (Columbia) won his third stage. Evans still in yellow.

Stage 13: Cavendish again, Evans still.

Stage 14: Maillot Vert wearer Oscar Freire proved to be the best sprinter who can also climb. Winning the stage after the power sprinters like Cavendish and McEwen were dropped on a small climb shortly before the finish. Evans stayed in yellow.

Stage 15: The Tour went into the Alps on Sunday, and it was the most exciting day of the Tour so far. The stage was won by Simon Gerrans (Credit Agricole) out of a 4 man break that included Danny Pate (Garmin-Chipotle), Egoi Martinez (Euskatel Euskadi) and Jose Luis Arrieta (AG2R). I'm interested to know how many stages of the Tour have been won my people with braces. Further down the mountain, the favorites were battling out. Cadel Evans ended up losing time on most of the guys, and moved down to 3rd on GC. Frank Schleck took the yellow jersey, while there are 6 men within 49 seconds of the lead. The race is wide open, and there will definitely be a lot of action on Wednesday when the race finished atop Alpe D'Huez.

Everything Else:

I kind of have a rule that I don't talk about doping, unless I am making a joke about it, but this Tour has partially been characterized by a few doping controversies. The worst by far was on Thursday when Riccardo Ricco was arrested for testing positive for a brand new form of EPO. The two other positives were not really a big deal compared to this, because they were by riders who weren't really effecting the overall. The best thing about this though was the fact that the new drug wasn't even supposed to be detectable. The fact that it was, is proof that the antidoping authorities are catching up to the riders, which is important if the sport is ever to become clean.

Now that i've broken my one rule, I can show guys a funny video that I really wanted to post last week. This video is of Emanuele Beltran, who was the first rider to test positive during the Tour. The video shows him attempting to escape from antidoping officials by riding through a field.

That's all I've got for you.

-Anthony

Tribe Multisport "Bring on the Heat" Summer Sale!

We are rapidly approaching our sale this Saturday. We are all very excited for our annual "heat" sale. J Our hours will be a little different this Saturday (6am to 6pm). We are still having our Saturday ride which starts @ 5:30am.

Details of the sale are below; I hope that you all can make it.

Tribe Multisport "Bring on the Heat" Summer Sale!

20% off of everything in the store! *excludes 2008 bicycles.

50% off of all gloves.

50% off of all Adidas socks.

30% off of all Adidas clothing/shoes.

Free tube with every tire.

30% off all helmets in stock. *excludes 2008 aero helmets (they are 20% off)

Too many close-out items to list… these ridiculously priced items will be marked in store for crazy savings! Anywhere from 30-80% off!!!

Free gift to the first 100 purchases.

6:00am to 6:00pm!!! Saturday the 19^th of July.

Note: For those of you participating in the Mountain Man Triathlon; just bring in your race number the following week and your discount will be honored. ;-) Good luck at your race!

Note: First Wave Tri Club, AZ Tri Club, ASU Tri/Cycling Club, DuraPulse, GetFit, and JR Ironbody get an additional 5% discount!!!!! Note: Must be current active members/clients.

Enjoy the rest of the week and we'll see y'all on Saturday!!!

Kevin "Chief" Weitzel

This Week in Road Cycling: July 14 to July 20

Hey everyone, welcome to this week in Road Cycling. Your one stop shop for everything I feel like telling you about bike racing. I'm don't really have anything worthwhile to mention in this part of my post, so I'm just going to get on with it.

Local Racing:

Week in Review:
-See how blank this is? Pretty exciting right?

Races in July:
-Tortilla Flats RR (Series): Every (Except the second Tuesday of every month) Tuesday starting May 20 though August 12. http://www.azcycling.com/08cal/FLYERS/tft_08.pdf
-Flatjack Flats Time Trial: 7/26: Tucson, AZ http://www.summitveloracing.org/files/pdfs/FFTTFlyer_draft.pdf
-Picacho Time Trial Series: 7/27: Picacho, AZ http://www.saguarovelo.org/infopicacho.htm
-AZ Track Championships (San Diego Velodrome): 7/19-7/20. http://www.saguarovelo.org/velodrome.html

Pro Racing:

Tour de France:

Stage 3: Two French guys, an American, and an Italian went on a pleasant ride through the countryside. One of those French guys (Samuel Dumoulin - Cofidis) won and another French guy (Romain Feillu - Agritubel) took yellow. Also, Riccardo Ricco lost some time to the favorites as part of his sneaky plan -- more on that later.

Stage 4: The first time trial of the Tour was supposed to be really easy to call. Evans was going to gain time on all the other contenders, and Cancellara was going to win and wear the maillot jaune for a few days. Well, Evans did gain some time but Cancellara didn't win. In fact, Stefan Schumacher came through to surprise everyone, winning by 18 seconds over a strong Kim Kirchen. Moving himself into the maillot jaune. And what about Cancellara? When asked about his obviously pathetic fifth place for the day, he responded by saying, "I'm not a robot." That sounds to me a lot like something a robot would say to trick you into thinking that it's not a robot. Nice try Fabian...

Stage 5: Breakaway > Catch > Sprint > Cavendish. Throw in a little crash by Valverde, and you have a relatively boring day in the Tour. Schumacher remains in yellow.

Stage 6: Sneaky Little Cobra. Riccardo Ricco took the win on the climb to Super Besse in front of many of the races big guns. Race leader Schumacher crashed by running into Kirchen's wheel during the finale, and Kirchen moved into the lead. Ok, two things. One, how sweet is it that the stage finished in a place called Super Besse? Am I the only one who pictures a cow with a cape and super powers? Second, Schumacher losing the lead the way he did is eerily poetic. Several years ago he won the Eneco Tour by knocking down George Hincapie close to the line. The only difference is that nobody cares about who won the Eneco Tour, while leading the Tour is sort of a big deal.

Stage 7: Luis Leon Sanchez (Caisse D'Epargne) soloed in for a stage win. Behind him, CSC-Saxo Bank rode their bikes really hard.

Stage 8: Mark Cavendish (Columbia) proved that he's a really fast sprinter by winning again. Ricco decided to add another layer to his sneaky plan (that I will explain soon) by crashing. Kirchen stayed in yellow.

Stage 9: Ricco won again, and Evans crashed. This makes for the fifth(Cunego, Ricco, Valverde, Schumacher, Evans) big name to hit the deck in this race.

Theory Time!!!

Here's the thing. Riccardo Ricco got second in the Giro D'Italia back in May. He got second to a man who claims to have spent the week before the Giro on the beach, on vacation. To say that Ricco has an ego would be an understatement, he gave himself the nickname the Cobra, and he claims that he scares his opponents by staring into their souls. A guy like this doesn't like to lose, especially to a Spaniard who claims to have not really been trying. For that reason, I believe Ricco has been lying about his intentions during the Tour. He has claimed that he's only going for stage wins, and that he's not going to contest the overall, but I don't buy it. I think that Ricco is going to do his best to win the Tour de France, and if he does, will claim that he did it without even trying. I'm going to call this strategy "The Contador." Even if my theory is a load of crap, Ricco managed to steal back over a minute to Kirchen.

Stage 10: Ricco's good buddy and teammate Lenardo Piepoli (Saunier Duval-Scott) won atop the Hautacam. In fact, it was a 1, 2 for Saunier Duval with Juan Jose Cobo coming in with Piepoli for second. Meanwhile, a few minutes back the race was being completely changed. My pick for yellow in Paris, Alejandro Valverde, lost about 3.5 minutes to the rest of the pre-race favorites. Cadel Evans recovered from his crash yesterday and climbed steadily enough to get his first maillot jaune ever. Good for him. Frank Schleck climbed well enough to move into second, just one second back from Evans. Finally, some big news for American Christian Vande Velde who is now sitting in third place overall. There was way too much awesome today for me to properly convey it through sentences peppered with pictures. This years Tour is just awesome.


-Anthony

P.S. Versus is replaying their coverage of the Tour a lot this year. It's one of the plus sides to their being two American teams in the race. You can see the schedule here.

This Week in Road Cycling: July 7 to July 13

It's here!!! Le Tour has finally started, and we can all be witness to the greatest* Tour de France in recent history.

*I know that sounds a little ridiculous, but after the scandals of the last two years, and the boring racing that was the Armstrong era the Tour can only get better.

Before I get to the Tour I want to take a moment to recognize the great sporting achievements of Spain over these last several weeks. First it was Alberto Contador with the Giro win, Second came the Spanish victory in the 2008 Euro Cup, and today saw Raphael Nadal defeat Roger Federer for his first Wimbeldon victory. I forsee that the Spanish domination won't end at the tour and my boy Alejandro Valverde will be wearing yellow in Paris.

...Now back to your regularly scheduled program...

Local Racing:

Week in Review:
-Tortilla Flats RR: Tuesday July 1
-Picacho Time Trial: Sunday July 6

Races in July:
-Tortilla Flats RR (Series): Every (Except the second Tuesday of every month) Tuesday starting May 20 though August 12. http://www.azcycling.com/08cal/FLYERS/tft_08.pdf
-Picacho Time Trial Series: 7/27: Picacho, AZ http://www.saguarovelo.org/infopicacho.htm
-AZ Track Championships (San Diego Velodrome): 7/19-7/20. http://www.saguarovelo.org/velodrome.html

Pro Racing:

Tour de France:

Stage 1: There was no prologue to kick off the Tour this year, probably to avoid a week of Cancellara in yellow again. Because of that, and the fact that there are no time bonuses on offer this year, the winner of stage 1 is going to likely be sitting in yellow until the first time trial this coming Tuesday. The course profile was relatively mild, but the finish was on a pretty gnarly hill that guaranteed there wouldn't be a bunch finish. This type of finish is tailor made for the type of rider who excels in the one day classics that are prominent in the month of April. That's why in the finale such riders as Stefan Schumacher(Gerolsteiner) and Kim Kirchen(Columbia) were seen(Photos are not current). There was one rider who beat all of them though... Alejandro Valverede blew them all away to take the first stage win and the first yellow jersey of this years Tour(photos are current). Watch the video closely for the red/black/yellow blob that flys through the last 250 meters faster than everybody else.

Stage 2: Thor SMASH!!! Thor Hushovd(Credit Agricole) took stage 2 after a late catch of an all day break consisting of four Frenchmen: Moreau(Agritubel), Le Lay (Agritubel), Voeckler(Boygues Telecom), and Chavanel(Cofidis). Fabian Cancellara(CSC-Saxo Bank) tried to do one of his trademark last kilometer attacks, but he was marked by Filippo Pozzato(Liquigas) and was unable to get the win. Here is the video of the last kilometer. Valverde remains in the lead.

Random bits:
-Take a look at Valverde's special edition Pinarello Prince. On it, it says "Don Alejandro Prince of Spain." How arrogant/euro is that?

I apologize if I made This Week in Road Cycling seem more like This Week in Alejandro Valverde, but I think a man must be allowed at least one cycling related "man crush". Besides, he probably peaked too soon and might be hemorrhaging time once the race hits the mountains on Thursday.

Until next week,

-Anthony

P.S. Versus is replaying their coverage of the Tour a lot this year. It's one of the plus sides to their being two American teams in the race. You can see the schedule here.

This Week in Lateness: June 30 to July 6

This is a great week folks. On Friday the world will celebrate the 12th anniversary of that one time we defeated alien invaders, the US will celebrate it's Independence, and then on Saturday the Tour De France will start. Aliens, the birth of a Nation, and bike racing all in one week. It's so much goodness that my brain might explode.

Welcome to This Week in Road Cycling.

Local Racing:

Week in Review:
-Tortilla Flats RR, Tuesday June 24: I was too scared to go, so someone else will have to tell you about how terribly hot it was.
-Summit Center Stage Race: Some of us went up to Flagstaff for a weekend of high altitude bike racing. Here's how everyone did.
CAT 3: Will Allender: 14th on stage 2 (84 mile RR), 11th on GC
CAT 4: Anthony Molieri: 11th on stage 1, 25th on stage 2, 16th on GC
CAT 5: Alan Brown (Team Badass): 2nd on stage 1, 9th on stage 2, 7th on GC
CAT 5: Nikolai Skievaski: 18th stage 1, 18th* stage 2, 19th on GC
*Niko sacrificed his chances at a stage win in order to lead out Alan(Badass) for the bonus sprint.

Races in July:
-Tortilla Flats RR (Series): Every (Except the second Tuesday of every month) Tuesday starting May 20 though August 12. http://www.azcycling.com/08cal/FLYERS/tft_08.pdf
-Picacho Time Trial Series: 7/6. 7/27: Picacho, AZ http://www.saguarovelo.org/infopicacho.htm

Pro Racing:

Over this past week many European countries held their National Championship races here are the ones I care about enough to inform you of.

Belgium: Won by 22 year old Jurgen Roelandts. Poor Tom Boonen.

Netherlands: Who cares about the Netherlands right? Right now, everyone should. Lars Boom has won I think his billionth race this year. Here is a short list of things you could currently call him: National Champion of the Netherlands, WORLD Cyclocross Champion, WORLD Under 23 Time Trial Champion, Destroyer of Dreams. Look at his Wikipedia page he's won 4 different world championships and he's only 22 years old.

Spain: Alejandro Valverde won and will switch kits with his teammate Joaquim Rodriquez who won last year. I will say it right now, Valverde is my pick to win the Tour de France this year. My Spanish Grandmother would agree.

Italy: 2nd-4th place were a trio of pretty awesome bike riders (Visconti, Pozzatto, Rebellin). To bad they were defeated by Lance Armstrong's old buddy Fillipo Simeoni. Here is a little something from back in 2004 to refresh your memory on their great relationship.

The CSC Group:
Norway: Kurt Asle-Arvesen
Denmark: Niki Sorensen
Luxemburg: Frank Schleck
Switzerland: Fabian Cancellara (TT)
-Could it really be anyone else but Cancellara at this point? He won by over 1.5 minutes.

Non-Bike racing news:
-Landis Loses
-So does Rasmussen

I can't think of anything else at the moment, so I guess I'll leave as it is. Starting next week it will be all Tour all the time.

-Anthony