Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

Finish line video as Petacchi romps to the win. Unfortunately for AleJet he was not on French soil battling in Paris-Tours.

Interviews with the contenders.

tuttobiciweb.com reports that Tyler Hamilton has signed with the Tinkoff Credit Systems Team for 2007. The long rumored move is said to be complete as Hamilton joins a 17 man continental Italian squad.

Oliver Piscina says that “With Tyler on the team we will have an immediate increase in the quality of our team”
Tinkoff is made up of riders from the now disbanded LPR team. We understand his past, but every athlete deserves a second chance”

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Tuttobiciweb reports that Ivan Basso is seeking to rejoin the peloton very soon but not with the Discovery Channel team. The small continental squad LPR is the latest team to show interest. The Swiss based team’s DS is Davide Boifava of the legendary Carerra team of the 90s featuring Claudio Chiapucci and of course Marco Pantani.

Davide Boifava is using Basso’s name to help convince Romano Cenni, owner of Mercatone Uno, to return to cycling. Mercatone Uno was the big sponsor behind Marco Pantani in the late 90s and early 2000s. The Mercatone Uno squad were basically built around Pantani and his Tour quests. If Boifava can convince Cenni to back a new team featuring Basso then that would be a huge coup. But Basso should probably think things through before committing to such an endeavour.

Boifava will then need to sign riders who can actually support Basso in the Giro and Tour. If they can cobble together a team this late in the season there would be many other hurdles to climb. The biggest hurdle of all would be admittance into the ProTour which may not be such a big hurdle since the Grand Tour organizers are looking to reduce the number of ProTour automatic invited to 16. This would allow more flexibility to choose wildcard teams such as LPR. Basso however is on shaky ground with the A.S.O.. Relying on the generosity and compassion of Christian Prudhomme and other A.S.O. officials to allow him to race in their big event may be risky. The A.S.O. does not seem keen on letting anyone with any sort of blotch on their record even near the Tour. So if Basso is on a smaller non-ProTour team that is relying on a wildcard entry, then don’t place your bets on Ivan next year.

Dario Pieri was about to get his big return to Paris-Roubaix this year but he abruptly retired only one week before his main season goal. His retirement comes at age 30 after nine years of racing in the Professional ranks. He spoke with the newspaper La Nazione explaining his very abrupt retirement.

It was not worth it to keep getting up every morning to ride my bike when I just did not want to ride any longer. I am nauseated with the bike and cycling in general. It was a tough decision and I am sad to make it, but it is a mutual decision with the Team LPR management. I felt inside me that I could no longer honor my contract which is why I have to leave.

The past few seasons Pieri has suffered through weight problems and a team switch halfway through 2005.

It is true that in my career I have met many different people some that like me and have shown themselves to be my firends. But there are other folks that I am tired of dealing with that are not very nice. These people have also caused me great pain internally, therefore I had to say enough. I don’t want to get into details, but for this life, I am sick. I saw that cycling no longer gave me any satisfaction and I pressed with this decision to quit. I am tranquil because I reflected on this decision for a long time. I could still misss cycling, but I can say with certainty that this is the right move. I am sad because I still believed that I could succeed, but I could not do anything differently. I could no longer support living this life.

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