Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

Now that Operation Puerto has completely up-ended anyone’s Tour de France predictions, it is time to hastily draw up a new set of favorites for the upcoming Tour. The dust has yet to settle on the fiasco caused by Operation Puerto, but we must move on and pick favorites.

It looks very good for an all American podium now that most of the top faves are gone. Top picks should now go to Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer and Paolo Savoldelli. With all of the fallout even Hincapie has a strong chance at an overall win…psyche, just kidding George.

Yaroslav Popovych, Carlos Sastre and maybe even Bobby Julich could place very well in this Tour de France.

Unfortunately the entire Tour will be overshadowed by the Operation Puerto mess, and the sporting side will be minimized. It almost makes me not want to follow the Tour this year.

With all of the news on Operation Puerto and the polemics between Lance Armstrong and Greg Lemond, lets take a minute to watch the video below.

Feel better? now go out a ride your bike.

Assuming the Tour de France does not degenerate into a gigantic orgy of performance enhancing drug innuendo, I will quickly post my predictions for the 2006 Tour de France. This post may be updated and embellished before the official start on Saturday. Seeing as everybody and their mother is posting their picks, I might as well join in.

2006 Tour de France Predictions
1) Ivan Basso – pretty much the top favorite, but I like Basso’s style and the class that he shws when riding. He crushed the competition in the Giro and got a taste of winning a Grand Tour. His progressive rise to the top spot shows that he is getting better each year. At age 28 he is hitting his prime for winning Grand Tours. The timing is right, he has extensive experience in fighting for the top spot. The only knock is that he has historically been a wheel sucker, and he lacd well by sticking to Lance’s wheels the longest. Last year Ivan did laucn a few attacks in the mountains to try and shake Lance. The attacks managed to rattle Jan Ullrich and not Armstrong.

2) Floyd Landis – Landis is ready to step up. After a year of learning what it takes to be team leader, Landis is ready to take over and vie for a top spot. He will give Basso a hard time, but may not be able to beat him completely.

3) Jan Ullrich – Jan is determined, he is thin and fit, but he has not placed higher than third in two years. Ulllrich is getting older too and the competition out there is hungrier and smarter.

The Time Trials are by far in Jan’s favor, but I see Jan probably faltering in the back to back mountain stages. He climbed well in the Tour de Suisse, but he did not attack, he just grinded away. In the Tour he will probably face serious climbing battles between Valverde and Basso that would probably leave him choking up some dust. If the Tour had 300km of TTs then Jan would win, but this year, say hello to the third spot on the podium yet again. He’s been beaten by Basso in the past two editions of the Tour already, so this year is the same ol’ Jan pattern.

Other riders to watch out for, but in no particular order:

Alejandro Valverde – This year Valverde will try and finish the Tour, but he may come away with a stage win at some point. With his sprinting and climbing abilites he will probably cause problems for grind-it-out climbers such as Ullrich.

Levi Leiheimer – Levi looked very good in the Dauphine Libere and in the Tour of California. No doubt he will improve upon his fifth place of last year, but it is always tough to gauge Levi in the Tour. He always looks strong before the season, but when the pace gets really serious he is not in the top three. His form seems to be much better, so he could even break into a podium spot.

Paolo Savoldelli – Il Falco was not as good at the Giro, but the brutally tough mountain climbs did not work to his favor. Johan Bruyneel wondered aloud if the Tour de France would be a better fit for Paolo this year. It just may be. Paolo won the Giro twice by riding smart and always being in the right place. He has a strong team and plenty of GC leadership experience. If his form is good he may well make it top 5 or even the podium.

Jose Azevedo – Wearing the number 1 by virtue of aplhabetical order, Azevedo could end up as the main GC guy for the Disco team. He rode to a fifth place in 2004 riding in support of Lance Armstrong. He has the TT skills and the climbing skills, but the big question would be if he could take the pressure of being the leader?

George Hincapie – I only mention Hincapie in this list because many have touted him as a GC contender, but I have serious doubts. One mountain stage win a GC contender does not make. Eos Poli and Jens Voight did not switch to go for an overall win in the Tour. Poli won a mountin stage up Ventoux years ago, while Voight came in second to Garate in the toughest Giro Mountain stage. George has good TT skills and can climb much better than before. But George has never been a GC leader, and the first time pressure may be something he cannot handle. Afterall, George gets full team support each year for the Classics and always comes up just short. Now he is going into uncharted territory and hopeing for a good result. Hincapie will probably place between 10th and 12th in his first try, but that is assuming he does not resume his domestique role for Savoldelli, Azavedo or Popovych.

Yaroslav Popovych – Popy was deemed the new Eddy Merckx as an amateur. He was so promising that Ernesto Colnago financed a team around the young Ukranian. Then the Disco team came calling and Popy has been under the wing of Armstrong for the last two years. Popy has been carefully groomed to take over the Disco team, he has the skills, but is he ready?

Last year Bruyneel wondered aloud if Popy might need a few more years before he is ready to be a true GC man. It would not be a bad idea to throw support behind Popy and see how far he can go as opposed to running a four pronged approach. But all of the four pronged approach stuff is probably smoke and mirrors. I have a feeling that Popovych is going to place very well in the Tour this year.

Sprinters stages
Look for Benati to break through for a surprise win at some point. Bennati has been beaten by Boonen enough this year. He also showed very good form in the Tour de Suisse.

Don’t forget about Erik Zabel who has the full support of the Milram squad. Zabel finally broke through for a win recently, and while that may not mean much, Zabel may still have something to prove int he Tour. He has been very quiet in recent weeks too.

Hopefully the craziness from Operation Puerto dies down long enough for some racing to take place in the next few days. I am all for stopping cheaters, but the way El Pais, and the Spanish authorities have run this latest scandal it is very irresponsible. The who scandal is being played out in the press and the A.S.O is willing to go with the innuendo and press reports rather than wait for cold hard evidence. It is also very contradictory that the A.S.O would give Jan Ullrich the green light to compete in the Tour while at the same time keeping out Astana-Wurth.

A.S.O, CAS, El Pais, LeMonde, L’Equipe and other organizations have been busy acting on drug stories ranging from reports on Lance Armstrong saying he used EPO to the latest list of implicated riders associated with Operation Puerto. All of these stories help to sell newspapers, especially as journalist are hungry for cycling related news as Tour time approaches.

What is disturbing is that the A.S.O is basing decisions on press reports that are not totally substantiated. El Pais seems to be the judge, jury and executioner as far as Jean Marie LeBlanc is concerned. They say most of the Astana-Wurth team is dirt, then good enough for him. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence from the past, but any decision to ban a team should be based on something more substatial.

Meanwhile, names of riders such as Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, Alehandro Valverde, Franciso Mancebo and more are having their names associated with the scandal. Should they all be excluded from the Tour based on the latest news?

At this point unless it is a story about someone who already tested positive such as Tyler Hamilton or Roberto Heras, the press and Spanish Authorities should keep the info to themselves and wait until they have a case or actual charges. What is the benefit of throwing names out to the public when there are no formal charges?

Jan Ullrich’s waistline is a huge issue each year. Here is an inside look at Jan’s early season training. You can see just how much weight Jan has lost from the spring time until now.

Video from http://www.tourdefrancegids.nl/

Ouch, the Paceline has links to some very bad commercials featuring Bob Roll all decked out in Disco gear. OK, it is not as bad as having Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwan goofing off on the set of OLN TV while trying desparately to win Trek gear. At least this time Bobke keeps his clothes on for the duration of the commercial. What ever happen to the cool Bob Roll? Here he is just being plain goofy.

(Damiano Cunego will scope out the Tour course just to get a taste)

The Italian contingent looks fairly strong in a race that traditionally is not a high priority. Twenty four Italians ranging from the oldest Giovanni Lombardi at 37 years old to Ricardo Ricco at 23 years old. Paolo Savoldelli and Ivan Basso are contenders for overall victory and several Italians such as Danilo DiLuca, Paolo Bettini and Stefano Garzelli will be hunting for stage wins. Sprinter Daniele Bennati will try to contest the sprints and possibly go for the Green Jersey against the like of Boonen, McEwen and Hushovd. Here is the list of Italians.

Discovery Channel
Paolo Savoldelli

CSC
Ivan Basso
Giovanni Lombardi

T Mobile
Giuseppe Guerini e Eddy Mazzoleni

Lampre
Damiano Cunego, Alessandro Ballan, Daniele Bennati, Marzio Bruseghin, Salvatore Commesso, Daniele Righi, Paolo Tiralongo

Quick Step
Filippo Pozzato e Matteo Tossato

Credit Agricole
Pietro Caucchioli

Cofidis
Cristian Moreni

Saunier Duval Prodir
Riccardo Ricco e Gilberto Simoni

Liquigas
Danilo Di Luca, Stefano Garzelli, Luca Paolini, Manuel Quinziato

Milram
Mirko Celestino, Fabio Sacchi, Marco Velo

http://www.tuttobiciweb.com/home.htm

(photo courtesy of Photoradius)

Last Saturday I raced in the Rochester Twilight Criterium. The race circles around downtown Rochester with several corners, and uphill and downhill section that are not very difficult, but get worse as you are going around at full speed. My race was the Cat5 over 30 competition which had a field of around 50 guys. The Cat 5 field was split between over 30 and under 30 probably to keep the fields smaller especially for Cat 5 fields which tend to be sketchy. The race started out with a bang as I was near the front of the group at the start of the race.

Through the first set of S turns a crash unfolded right in front of me as two guys touched wheels. The result was a mass pileup as riders were riding into the crash. I was able to avoid the crash and was lucky enough to not be right behind it. Unfortunately, the crash caused enoug of a gap that I had to chase back on in the downhill section, but the CCY team was controlling the front and keeping the pace resonable for a few laps as a three man break formed with a CCY guy in the mix.

This even pace allowed me to be in the front group for a bit. I was surprised after the first two laps to be in the front group which was down to around 25 or 30 guys. The crash and initial pace cut down the field to a resonable size. On each lap I was in the group, but could not stay near the front. Being in the back was tough as the accordian affect makes you use up more energy than necessary because you are either speeding up or slowing right down.

In the back section there is a figure 8 where I would be able to gain position which is just before the hill. Each lap, the hill would wear on me a bit and I would be dangling off the back of the group. Finally after I don’t know how many laps the rubbar band snapped. I just felt that I lost power at that point. Maybe I needed a breather, but I was just not fit enough to go the distance with the front group. I kept chasing, and was within sight of the front group for a few laps, but could not manage to get enough speed to get back on.

The race was eventually won by Brad Crosby a potential new Colavita teammate. His win allowed him to move up to Cat 4, a move that could have come much sooner since Brad has been tearing up the Cat 5 ranks this year placing no less than 3rd or 4th in most races.

As for my season, I feel like I am getting fitter, but am not anywhere near my best cycling form. This is the first season of full racing as the most races I’ve ever done in one season was two. This year I’ve done four races with mixed results. The form is coming along, the weight is going down, so it is only a matter of time before the ftiness comes together for a good result.

Next up may be the Glenns Falls Criterium on June 9th. Before then I may ride a century this weekend with my club to get a few miles in between the short Crits.

The Abs Diet Update
The Abs Diet is going well as I am into the second week. The weight is coming down, but it is hard to gauge since I use different scales which give me various results. The scale at the gym shows I lost about 5 pounds. I got a body fat scale which is all over the board. Overall, my pants fit looser and I did get some compliments on looking thinner. My belly seems to be a bit trimmer too. Watch for more info on this soon.

I raced the Rochester Twilight Criterium this past weekend. The course is lots of fun, the competition is fast, and the crowds are gigantic. 40,000 people lined the streets of downtown Rochester to see pros ride over 30mph. Many of the spectators were new to cycling and the speeds were impressive.

Rochester Twilight Criterium on Vimeo

El Pais is churning out stories from Operation Puerto on a daily basis and Tuttobici web has some translations to Italian. Velochimp kindly translates it for you while providing some insight.

Seems like information is starting to come out and names are being tagged with the documents. In all due respect, it is not fair to the cyclist in question to have their names drawn out in public especially if they have not been officially caught doping. There are rumors that Jan Ullrich’s name can be extrapolated from some of the documents. But without a positive test and simple speculation, it is not wise to throw accusations at Der Kaiser until all of the facts are conclusive.

One rider that did test positive and shows up in the documents related to Fuestes and Merino Batres is Tyler Hamilton. Among the documents are a 2003 season schedule for Tyler Hamilton and a fax number for Haven Parchinski who is Tyler’s wife which included a bill for services rendered. The bill included 35,000 Euro for medical services and 8,500 Euros for products. The 2003 season calendar shows that Tyler was to start administering two units of EPO daily starting on December 21st until December 24th. Then he would take doses every other day until January 9th. On January 14th before the winter training camp Hamilton started with the first extraction of blood and on the 24th he would begin the anabolic steroid treatments. In March Hamilton would take HMG as he would reduce the use of anabolic steroids. HMG is a hormone that promotes the creation of insulin.

The schedule shows that Tyler won Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour de Romandie six days after taking a reinfusion of blood in April. In the month of May, Hamilton resumed the use of anabolic steroids and EPO. In June Hamilton drew blood, took growth hormone and IGF-1 and reinfused blood a few days before the start of the Tour. So the broken clavical that Tyler suffered during the 2003 Tour probably did not mean much since he was already juiced up beyond belief.

Be aware that these are documents seized by Spanish authorities and leaked to the press. The validitiy may be in question until there are either charges files or something official is done. But, with all of this current evidence and the positive test results it is very difficult to still Believe Tyler.

TuttoBici Web

Believe Tyler