Weather has been extremely good for cycling in Upstate New York. Usually in January you wouldn’t dream of riding on clear roads with little to no salt. Sunday called for a club ride, even though I missed out on my first team ride (My email wasn’t coming through from Yahoo Groups for an odd reason).
The weather forcast called for a sunny day with temps in the low 40s Fahrenheit. Problem is that I do not have a decent pair of booties to keep my toes warm. No problem, I will use Johan Museeuw and other Belgian Classics riders as my inspriation and use a pair of socks instead of Booties. The solution is as simple as it sounds. Get a pair of socks, put them on over your shoes. Once the socks are on snugly, take a pair of scissors and cut out around your cleat. I find it easier to trim the socks after you have them on than to try to guess where to cut beforehand. Make sure that you have a large enough opening so that any extra sock material does not get caught in the cleat.
Once you are done, you will be riding with old school Euro Style.
T-Mobile is following the latest trend among Tour contending teams by announcing their riders for the Tour long before anyone “turns a pedalin anger” as Phil and Paul like to say. There are 5 riders preselected for the Tour are Serhiy Honchar, Andreas Kloden, Eddy Mazzoleni (whos is dating Ivan Basso’s sister) and TT World Champ Michael Rogers. The rest of the lineup will be decided between Italians Lorenzo Bernucci and Giuseppe Guerini, Russian Sergej Ivanov, Spaniard Oscar Sevilla and the Germans Matthias Kessler, Stephan Schreck and Patrik Sinkewitz.
Olaf Ludwig says that this is not a completely firm list for the riders as they may change who is on the Tour team as the season takes shape.
“The role of the riders is to help Ullrich at every moment of the Tour” insists Rudy Pevenage, the director sportif in charge of Tour preparation.
Ullrich obviously is encouraged by the new approach and says that the new atmosphere is “Like a breath of fresh air”
Ullrich has not yet solidified his schedule for this season as he is still deciding on which race to start and he is not 100% on his participation for the Giro. Howwever, Der Kaiser is in a muchmore relaxed team atmosphere without internal pressure coming from Erik Zabel and Alexandre Vinokourov.
Cool short film about bike racing in New York City. Even though the Metro New York area has loads of scary traffic, there is a very active racing scene. Here is a breif glimpse into the life of a Cat 2 racer in NYC.
The new kits for 2006 are slowly dribbling out. Some teams have stayed the same, such as Bouyges Telecom and T-Mobile, while others are changed for various reasons.
Each year provides subtle gasps at the Euro-uglyness of some team kit, or the new cool style. Case in point is the Lampre team kit for 2006. Squares in non-symetrical alignment just don’t do it for me or anyone else. What is with the pink? It is distinctive, but it is not a corporate color for either Lampre or Fondital. Damiano Cunego does not look to happy with the new style. His face seems to be saying, who the heck decided on this design? Blah. The new kit is designed by Santini which usually makes some classy kits, but this one is average by comparison.
Winning races does make the kit look cooler, so we will have to see what the final verdict for the Lampre new look will be at the end of the season.
One feature that makes this kit stand out more is the toning down of the blue color. With several teams already sporting a mostly blue kit, there is fear that it would be hard to notice different teams. Remember Paris Roubaix 2005? Boonen, Hincapie and Flecha all had blue team kits, and they each looked a bit similar. It was hard to tell from some helicopter shots just who was who since they each blended in blue with grey or white. So points go to Lampre for adding a bit more pink to the kit to make it stand out more. Just don’t ride to close to any T-Mobile guys.
Allan Davis, the Aussie sprinter of Liberty Seguros took stage 2 of the Tour Down Under. The stage did not end in a sprint as Davis was in a two man break with Paul Crake of UniSA-Australia. Davis was able to outsprint his breakwaway companion to take the second stage win.
Stage 2 Results:
1 Allan Davis (Aus) Liberty Seguros-Würth Team in 3.27.21 (42.2 km/h)
2 Paul Crake (Aus) UniSA-Australia
3 Eladio Sanchez Prado (Spa) Liberty Seguros-Würth Team a 38”
4 Hilton Clarke (Aus) Navigators Insurance Cycling Team a 54”
5 Rony Martias (Fra) Bouygues Telecom
6 Mark Renshaw (Aus) Credit Agricole a 2’00”
7 Matthew Goss (Aus) South Australia.com-AIS Cycling
8 Fabio Sabatini (Ita) Team Milram
9 Mauro Da Dalto (Ita) Liquigas-Bianchi
10 Jens Renders (Bel) Chocolade Jacques-T Interim Read the rest of this entry »
The Tour Down Under tackled a few climbs today, and that broke up the final sprint. Robbie McEwen is in great form coming in third behind riders who are better climbers.
Gerrans , the young Australian on the AG2R squad is stepping up to the leaders jersey of the TDU. The stage win is significant since Gerrans beat defending champ Luis Leon Sanchez to take the leaders jersey.
1 Simon Gerrans (Aus) Ag2r Prevoyance in 3.38.33
2 Luis Leon Sanchez Gil (Spa) Liberty Seguros-Würth Team a 2″
3 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto a 11″
4 William Walker (Aus) United Water-Australia U/23 a 37″
5 Gene Bates (Aus) UniSA-Australia a 1′39″
6 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Ag2r Prevoyance
7 Chris Jongerwaard (Aus) UniSA-Australia a 3′10″
8 Simon Clarke (Aus) South Australia.com-AIS Cycling
9 Sebastien Chavanel (Fra) Bouygues Telecom a 3′32″
10 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Team Milram a 4′09″
Cycling legend Claudio Chiapucci much like Museeuw is lending his name to cycling. This time Il Diablo is giving his name to a small Italian team named System Cars-Co.Edil-Chiappucci. Claudio himeself was on hand for the recent team presentation. He has longer hair, darker tan and still looks like he could climb up Sestriere is decent time if he wanted to.
The team is not new and are coming off of a very successful 2005 that brought with several wins. The riders are a mix of amateurs and ex-pros that include Chiappucci himself. The 14 riders who are part of the System Cars Team have taken some very important and numerous wins including two Italian national championship jerseys. One was the indiviual time trial tricolore for Luca Magagnin and the other was the “Second Series Gentleman’s” Tricolore won by Salice. Check out CiclismoOnline for more pics of the team presentation and Claudio Chiappucci. Read the rest of this entry »
Johan Museeuw will be lending his name to the Three Days of Flanders. The Johan Mseeuw Classic is scheduled to take place March 3rd to the 5th.
(A fatter Velochimp with Museeuw in Hamilton, Ontario 2003)
The former King of the Cobbles wants to help build cycling further in cycling crazy Belgium by bringing big names to the Flanders region in early March. The three stages are Stage 1: Courtrai – Bellegem, Stage 2: Torhout – Handzame and Stage 3: Ichtegem – Ichtegem.
Robbie McEwen seems to be in top form throughout the year. The Australian sprinter is always primed when he rides on home turf in Australia. Robbie took the first prologue stage of the Tour Down Under which was a 50km stage. He beat out Italians Daniele Colli of Liquigas and Simone Cadamuro of Milram in a bunch sprint with a time of 1h01′06. Yahoo news summary
Jacob’s Creek Tour Down Under Classic
1 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto 1.01.06 (49.1 km/h)
2 Daniele Colli (Ita) Liquigas-Bianchi
3 Simone Cadamuro (Ita) Milram
4 Dimitri De Fauw (Bel) Chocolade Jacques-T Interim
5 Allan Davis (Aus) Liberty Seguros-Würth Team
The T-Mobile Giro team is begining to take shape as Jan Ullrich and now Michael Rogers are looking to the Corsa Rosa as part of their agenda.
(Ulle:Hey Mick, you going to Italy with me?…Rogers: sure Jan, I am not going to push you up the climbs though…. Kloden:Yeah, Jan needs a push up climbs in May)
Mick Rogers now of T-Mobile is planning on riding the Giro D’Italia with an aim to winning the time trials. The prologue TT in Seraing and the Pontedera Time Trial will be Roger’s main objectives, but not the race for the Maglia Rosa. Rogers simply thinks that the mountainous final week will be too difficult for his abilities, so he will ride for stage wins.
The new kits for 2006 are slowly dribbling out. Some teams have stayed the same, such as Bouyges Telecom and T-Mobile, while others are changed for various reasons.
