Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

It is not Paolo Bettini at the top step of the podium, but another Italian Alessandro Ballan with teammate Damiano Cunego in second at the World Championships in Varese, Italy.

(AFP/Damien Meyer)
The winning move came from a breakaway of 12 that had a decent enough gap and a selection of enough big names to last. [...]

(AP Photo/Christophe Ena)
Damiano Cunego is probably the first of the second tier favorites for the Tour. Cadel Evans and Alejandro Valverde are probably the top favorites. Judging from Cunego’s new hair color, perhaps he has some pretty elaborate intentions? Riders since the late 90s started wearing matching shorts, gloves, helmets and bikes colored yellow [...]

Damiano Cunego bypassed the Giro to focus his efforts on the Tour de France. With fewer time trials, more climbing and a couple days in Italy it seems like this is a Tour made for Cunego. After some very sharp spring form where he outfoxed rack SAchleck at Amstel Gold Cunego is ready to [...]

Damiano Cunego surprisingly beat Franck Schleck up the final Cauberg climb to win Amstel Gold. The revenge must be sweet after losing to Schleck at L’Alpe D’Huez in 2006. Cunego now looks to be the favorite going into Liege-Bastonge-Liege since it is better suited to his abilities. Lampre has also announced the Tour de France [...]

Damiano Cunego will make a state-side visit in October to work on his aerodynamics. Cunego will be working with aero guru John Cobb in one of the most advanced wind tunnels in the world located in Houston, Texas. The tunnel has tools that will allow testing that is closer to real world scenarios. Harley Davidson [...]

Damiano Cunego looks to be wrapping up his long season soon. This means that he will not vie for one of 9 spots on the the Italian team for the World Championships Road Race in Salzburg, Austria. Cunego’s riding style would be an ideal fit for the hilly course, but a long season with results [...]

(pic from Yahoo!)
Floyd Landis secured the Tour de France win with a very good Time Trial performance that vaulted him over Oscar Periero. Landis looked to smoke the course early onas he beat the first split time set by Serhiy Honchar, but as the TT progressed Landis’ times slowed down a bit to where he [...]

(pic from eurosport.com)
The Giro started this weekend and may have ended this weekend too. Ivan Basso put down a Lance Armstrong/Miguel Indurain type of performance on the first real mountin top finish of the Giro. As Carlos Sastre set a tempo reminiscent of Discovery Channel/Postal leadout of the past seven years, Basso simply clicked [...]

Damiano Cungeo can recall the glory days of 2004 when he won the Giro del Trentino and the GP Larciano on his way to a surprise victory in the Giro D’Italia. He became the sixth youngest winner of the Giro at 22 years, 8 months and 11 days.
This year in fact Cunego feels better than [...]

Gilberto Simoni is a happier man this year. He is on his own team with former team manager Pietro Algeri who guided his Lampre team when he won the Giro in 2001. Life is better than 2004 when Simoni felt up ended by the young upstart Damiano Cunego. Simoni was one of the few Italians [...]