Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

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 [...]

Igor Astarloa is one man who can attest to the legendary curse of the Rainbow Jersey. The Spanish Classics expert who would rather ride on Italian teams (sounds like Oscar Friere) has been in the doldrums since his 2003 World Championship victory in Hamilton Ontario. After winning with Saeco Astarloa switched over to French [...]

38 year old Fabio Baldato is not going to ride his last few years on a continental squad. Baldato is moving back to the ProTour signing a one year deal with Lampre. The old man is riding for Tenax Salmilano where he won a stage in the Tour of Austria. Tenax Salmilano teammate Paolo [...]

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 [...]

Danilo Napolitano the Sicilian sprinter for Lampre Fondital won the first semi-stage at the Settimana Coppi and Bartali. Napolitano improved on his fifth place showing in Milano San Remo. Although most of the top sprinters that beat him were not present today.
In the second half stage- a team time trial, CSC got a rare [...]

Alessandro Petacchi took his first win of 2006 with the sprint victory in the GP delle Costa Etruschi. AleJet responded in the “Battle of Sprint Kings” with a convincing win on home turf.

(photo from Grande Ciclismo)
The win was not easy as the race was hard from the start with several attacks. Team Milram and Lampre [...]

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 [...]

This came off of the news at TuttoBici this morning saying that reports saying that Igor Astarloa has signed for Liquigas are not true. Last heard around Velochimp offices was that Astarloa was mulling over a contract offer from Lampre, but that wasn’t sweet enough. Todociclismo has the story about Astarloa and buddy Peio Arreitunandia [...]

Igor Astarloa has more or less returned to a top level team by rejoining Lampre-Fondital for 2006. He is anxious to get back to winning big races after being with the smaller Barloworld Team last year. The best way to get back into racing Igor feels is to get a big win right away, [...]