Pro Tour/ Euro/Whatever road thread

right Cancellara won Milano Sanremo. Guy is a true fucking animal.

Also lol @ Hunt$r.

Is Cancellara going to do any of the Olympic events, do we know?

yeah his win was pretty fucking inspiring. those guys could not gain an inch on him!

I know this isn't Road but can we have a quick WOOOOOOO!!!! For Team GB at the track worlds: 9 Golds and counting.

Yeah that's awesome. The pursuit record. Australia disappointing :/

lolers at breach of contract allegation that greg lemond is sustaining himself by illegal bro-deals of his bikes. this guy = train wreck.

also at trek's site is lemonds complaint, which is equally fun trainspotting

wow. cutty, let this be a lesson. hes lucky he just vaulted instead of hitting something.

(not that youd ever do that, cutty)

i almost took a 4 person break directly into a dumpster once, but the guy behind me screamed just in time. i think my eyeballs were actually rolling back in my head from the effort or something.

yeah i saw that whilst watching the race. fucking ouch ouch.

loling at the lemond fiasco. employee pricing! hahaha

http://beta.velonews.com/files/images/LeMondArmstrong.JPG

one of my favorite pics ever

Gah.

that race is a blast to do, but it does have some sick tight descents in it. i think kent bostick broke his leg coming down from pinos altos several years ago during Gila.

yeah i read that article last night. scary, i had a 2 mile, 50mph descent last saturday and another huge one coming up this sunday :/

there is a v. popular descent used in the Carter Lake rd race that is low-mid 50s and VERY wind exposed, one of the masters women died a few years ago going off the cliff in crosswind.

cutty you should check out doing gila when make 3s. its a good 5 day race. (the 4s only do 3 days).

you've done it? nice. i plan on upgrading to 3 by end of summer, hopefully. i already have 2 points.

there's the green mountain stage race here in the northeast which i am seriously considering doing. mad points up in there.

http://www.gmsr.info/

Hey Hunter and Cutty, I don't imagine there'll be a lot of peloton riding in my ride to Paris in a couple of months, but are there lots of rules and safety considerations to learn?

(it's not a race, there won't be sprints etc., but we may well at least partly travel in a big group, for safety as much as anything, and I'd hate to ride badly or wrongly)

ride a straight line
dont dont overlap wheels

^these two things are what you rly need

stay off the brakes
dont speed up when you hit the front of the line, just hold yr speed
try to take yr pulls, make it shorter if you have to
if you can SAFELY point out a hazard well before you get there, do so
if youre in a really big scrum and flat, its nice to put yr hand up, call it, and safely drift over/back to get out of the way
if you have to spit, snotrocket or sneeze, get the hell out of line plz (in races, this is not really feasible, and in result racing can be really gross)

knowing the general rotations and which way to run the lines might help (you pull off on the windward side) (most ppl who get all bent out of shape on this matter in touring rides are total dorks ime)

if yr in line on a hill, and it looks like people are starting to stand on the pedals, give yourself a little extra space. if that guy in front of you stands, he basically moves his bike 1 foot back towards yr front wheel.

if someone doesn't look like they know what theyre doing, get far away from them. squirrelly riders usually dont improve in the course of one ride.

yelling at people, even if theyre insufferable and u r awesomes, is a speedy way to become unpopular, just like in life.

Thanks Hunter as ever.

those are all the good points. standing when the guy in front of you stands is also great. cause if he stands and cause a wheel overlap you are bound to touch his wheel

craigslist. for when yr girlfriends have got smart and dumped yr scrawny asses after realizing you love yr fantasies of cycling greatness more'n them

Belgian super star sprinter, Tom Boonen has allegedly been caught in an out of competition test for cocaine, according to Belgian newspaper HLN.be. The out of competition test allegedly occurred three days before start of the Tour of Belgium, where Boonen won the final stage.

The Belgian paper also reported that the homes of Boonen's parents and girlfriend in Postel and Lore respectively were searched last night. The non-negative test has also not yet been confirmed by the UCI. Boonen's Quick Step team was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.

This is not the first time that Boonen has been linked to the drug. Last December, his good friend and cyclo-cross star, Tom Vanoppen was caught by the Flemish doping controllers with cocaine. During questioning Vanoppen allegedly named Boonen as his dealer, a claim Boonen later denied. Following the claim, Boonen's parent's house was searched.

lolz

Apparently unlikely he'll get suspended. So now McEwen won't win any stages in the tour.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZoxWl5f3I_w

apparently i have a crueller sense of lolz than you

haa

that's because you don't race anymore!

i kill on the bike path tho

maybe ill try to shoulder some granny into cherry creek then

Always wondered where they got those small cans of coke on HC mountain passes from.

Oh wait, that was Coca Cola.

The FIX isssss in...

and now the "counter" knows the score.

The reporter asked who is the biggest wheel-sucker, Leipheimer or Cadel Evans?

“Uff, mmm, the truth is, I wouldn’t know what to say …,” Contador said, leaving it with a smile.

kinda of douchey way to say thanks for the memories

Did anybody else watch the Tour of Britain? There's a young rider for the Columbia team called Edvald Boasson Hagen who looks very useful. He won three stages, the most dramatic being his first win which was oddly misreported on the site that Hunter linked to above. They said "...As the remaining nine escapes were about to be caught with around 3km to go, Boasson Hagen jumped, taking Ermeti away with him onto the uphill section leading to Potteries Way, with the peloton in hot pursuit. The two swept down the brief section of by-pass before turning on to the final few hundred meters of uphill to the finish line. As Ermeti led them to the line, Boasson Hagen came the long way round him, pipping him at the line to take his first Tour of Britain stage victory."

It was actually much more exciting than that. It was Ermeti who had leapt clear of the break of 9 with a few miles to go and Lloyd who came with him. These two opened up what looked like a winning gap over the rest of the break. Meanwhile the bunch were bearing down on the break, but were still so far behind the leading two that this wasn't being shown on TV. Ermeti got rid of Lloyd with a kilometre to go and looked absolutely certain to win alone - he had a good 100m lead over Lloyd and the rest were nowhere in sight. Right in the final few seconds Boasson Hagen (who had jumped out of the break just before the break got caught by the bunch) appeared from nowhere, went straight past Lloyd, then caught and passed Ermeti on the final bend about 10m from the line, with the bunch suddenly steaming in and leaving Lloyd in 9th.

lol it's pretty sweet that Armstrong is going to ride the Tour Down Under next year. Even though it's in fucking South Australia..

"I've been off the bike for three years and next summer it will be almost four years. With that is also the fact that I'll be almost 38 years-old at the start of the 2009 Tour, so I don't know," he said about his chances. "I will try and be as prepared as possible. I don't know if that equals victory."

sif he won't be shattered if he doesnt win

Anyone watching the worlds?

I've reading about it. They've been talking up the Australian lad who came third in the u23 tt for a while, good on him.

Emma Pooley could only manage 8th in the TT after and olympic silver and decided not to race cavendish saying he was too tired after the tour of missouri, so British hopes are not great.

Spaniards will prob own everyone again :D

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Sport/Pix/pictures/2008/09/27/NicoleCooke460
Great win for Cooke on Saturday

the only bit of it I saw was the last 10k or so of the women's race and it was awesome. I really good tactical battle with an excellent result at the end of it.

She's a total freak

she is a pro cyclist so of course she is a freak, it is in the job description.

Armstrong looks fit

http://i35.tinypic.com/dwe7fc.jpg

Schumacher pops. Like, one of the least surprising positives of the year.

Piepoli was pretty much a given as well.

Is Frank Schleck going to be next?

i already had piepoli as positive

lol

the funniest thing is the Leipheimer holds a Gran Fondo to help Santa Rosa raise $175k to secure Santa Rosa as a stage in the tour.

registration alone for the event totals $680k which is massive.

so i was quite surprised to see the tour skip Santa Rosa this year, where is that money going exactly?

no sf stage, closest thing is livermore to san jose (no thanks).

are you in the 805 sous les paves?

I have put thursday through sunday in my calendar and currently flights into Santa Barbara and out of Burbank look reasonable. Might book this on payday.

Question: Is it possible to do this European style and camp out beside the road, at least on the mountain stages?

Of the three SoCal stages, the only mountain stage is the Claremont to Mt. Baldy stage, which appears to be a HC TT as that is only about 12 miles long. That is a pretty remote area so they will more than likely allow camping but I can't guarantee that. Solvang is will be the site of the ITT, leaving the Santa Clarita - Thousand Oaks finale the only proper road stage. There are a couple hills on that route (I assume they'll head out toward the coast along the 126 and then cut through either Moorpark, Fillmore or Santa Rosa Valley to get to TO) but nothing too dramatic.

I'm figuring on a nice long weekend of good food, good wine with occasional bursts of cycling. Proper TdF style.

Ha, well, this area is a bit of step down culinarily from France but there is decent wine to be had.

step up from Pittsburgh, step up.

Quite frankly I crave the novelty of Trader Joe's two buck chuck and a salad without french fries in.

I bought an amazing bottle of wine in Solvang about 5 years ago. Sorry, that's not much help, is it.

Levi has gotta be half happy / sad with the route. On one hand Santa Rosa gets punked, on the other, the course looks very much like it was designed to get Levi the jersey again. Looks like the strategy will be: 1) Win Solvang TT, 2) cover attacks on Baldy the next day, 3) win.

xxp shasta: I'm in North San Diego County so it'll be a long drive, but doable nonetheless.

Nice. I spent 3 years in North SD County close to 20 years ago.

when i was growing up, my stepdad would go to solvang to ride in these centuries
http://www.bikescor.com/solvang/
ha, this looks kinda like shasta
http://www.bikescor.com/solvang/images/century-rider5.jpg

went up to santa ynez last year to wine taste and ate at this restaurant. it was pretty amazing.
http://www.ballardinn.com/

Loved the Commonwealth Games road race (men's) - anyone else see it? No spoilerz just in case.

Was at the in-laws' this weekend, so I saw about ten minutes of the road race on a TV in a giant Tesco's. I saw Millar in a small leading group and Cavendish leading some others up to them, but frustratingly there was no information on how much further they had to race so I had to call it a day there (otherwise my wife might have become frustrated if I stayed in the supermarket for three hours).

i missed it - was entertaining the parents at that point of the evening instead!

local paper has gone with 'alby beats hot dogs to take gold' as the headline. he was looking pretty out of shape earlier in the year, but jeez!

lol @ that headline

Interesting interview with Wiggins, basically admitting they fucked up this year:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/feature-wiggins-year-of-wisening-up

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140459433294&hlp=false&rvr_id=152033070195&crlp=1_263602_304652&UA=M*S%3F&GUID=13ede00e12a0a06c1b520492ff7e8280&itemid=140459433294&ff4=263602_304652

http://www.isleofman.com/img/news/normal/29760/1.jpg?v=468992

Loving the sportive club level kit Cav gets to wear for Team Isle of Man

he hung round to help the rest of the team after the road race, too.

saw the last hour or so of lombardy last night - gilbert just destroyed everyone in filthy conditions.

2011 Tour route published, TTT, Galbier Twice

http://road.cc/sites/default/files/images/Tour%20de%20France%202011%20stage%2018.preview_500.jpg

http://road.cc/sites/default/files/images/Tour%20de%20France%202011%20stage%2019.jpg

Stage finish on the Galibier?

Read something about how the Vuelta's influence is leading to a decline in the ITT as a component of le Tour. TTT is always nice though.

No prologue either, with a sprinter unfriendly bump on the run in to the finish of the first stage.

wanna see them copy the giro's weirdo itt from a couple of years ago in cinque terre - a looooooong (1.5 hrs), hilly, dodgy road course for road bikes. cancellara dropped out to avoid- rather than disrupt his preparations BAWK BAWK.

http://velonews.competitor.com/2009/05/news/menchov-wins-stage-12-time-trial-at-cinque-terre-and-takes-lead_92271

Points system for sprints and KoM are radically different this year.

Sprints

45 points for a stage win up from 40
Intermediate sprints now carry 20 points with points down to 15th place and only one intermediate per stage

KoM

Only mountaintop finishes will carry double points not last climb of the day
Only top six get points for HC, 1, 2 and 3 category climbs
Only first rider gets points for 4th cat climbs

Sprints is most interesting its going to shake up the breakaway dynamic on flat stages, either people wont' get away or big names will have to go if they want to wear green.

http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/10/news/jens-voigt-to-join-schleck-brothers-luxembourg-squad_147248?news

JENS

giro '11 route. mt etna!

That is pretty savage. Colle delle Finestre on the penultimate day before a last day time trial is pretty savage. route should make for an interesting race and should dissuade anyone from thinking the Giro is good preparation for the tour.

al capone charged with tax evasion.

I <3 Ivan Basso

http://road.cc/content/news/27304-remember-your-first-bike-ivan-basso-does-and-he-wants-his-back

Mario Cipollini thinks the current peleton is full of girly men.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/cipollini-decries-modern-cyclings-lack-of-machismo