Skip to main content

Tour de France - Rest Day News

By
Doping stories dominate the news coverage during the second rest day of the Tour de France:

  • The T-Mobile racing team has taken strong steps this year to be on the forefront of the anti-doping movement, but recent events have made their sponsors question whether they want to continue their support of the team. First, there was Jan Ullrich's entanglement with the OperaciÃn Puerto doping investigation. Then, former Deutsche Telekom (precursor to T-Mobile) racer, and current CSC team manager Bjarne Riis admitted to doping during the 1996 Tour. Finally, team rider Patrick Sinkewitz was found to have abnormal levels of testerterone in a test taken on June 8th. Co-sponsor Adidas could withdraw support as well. See the full story here at VeloNews.
  • Michael Rasmussen will meet with the press today to address concerns about his missing four mandatory drug tests over the past two years. Some are calling for him to withdraw from the Tour, but he is saying that it was administrative error. Meanwhile, a former friend from his mountain bike racing days alleges that Rasmussen tried to get him to transfer a blood substitute product to Europe several years ago.
Some new toys:
  • The Euskatel-Euskadi team is riding a new Orbea Orca
  • Michelin has released the Pro3 Race clincher
  • SRAM's new Red component group continues to make limited appearances
  • Shimano has rolled out a new Dura-Ace rear hub
  • See them, and more, here at CyclingNews.com

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Specialized Rolls Out 2008 Products In Advance Of Interbike

By
Specialized has already rolled out much of their new products for 2008 in advance of Interbike.  Saddles: Specialized found that, because of its comfort and light weight, many of their mountain bike riders were using the Toupe road saddle off road. They saw that they could use the same technology to make an MTB saddle that is as light and comfortable, but more durable and off road specific. The result is the new Phenom saddle. They also are rolling out a new time trial/tri saddle called the Tri-Tip. This is very similar to the Toupe, but with a longer and wider, slighty more padded nose. Tires: Specialized grew their tire team this year and worked with long time advisor Ned Overend on a new line of mountain bike tires. This year sees the introduction of the Control line, with S-Works, Captain, Armadillo and S-Carve models. The S-Works tire was designed to be lighter while increasing cut resistance.  The Captain is an all around tire, while the Armadillo is focused on overall d...
Read more

Racing News - Friday September 21st

By
Stage 18 : Luis Perez Rodriguez goes out with a bang, closing out his 13 year career with a stage win in his home country.  4 riders dropped out before the start of Thursday's, the most notable of which was World Chamion Paolo Bettini. 24 riders tried to make an early escape today, but were captured by the peloton at 40km. Soon after, another group of 19 riders broke away. Even that group splintered, and we ended up with a group of 12, consisting of chasers and breakers at the 56km mark. Some of the notable names in the break were Menchov, Sastre, Evans, Sanchez and Mosquera. Chasing closely behind (38 seconds back at 76km) was a 10 man group containing Efimkin and others.  At 93km, the second group was caught be the peloton, while the leaders extended their advantage to 2 minutes and 45 seconds. The leaders cooperated well over the final climb and kept their lead. With 13km to go, Rodriguez put the hammer down and quickly pulled out to a 26 second lead. He managed to keep ahead al...
Read more