Skip to main content

Cycling News Digest - August 20, 2007

By
I've been away on vacation and haven't been able to post, so some of this may be old news.
  • The Discovery Channel racing team has disbanded, leaving Tour de France winner Alberto Contador (as well as third place finisher Levi Leipheimer) looking for a new home for the 2008 season. Levi Leipheimer is reportedly being pursued by the Predictor-Lotto squad, and George Hincapie is rumored to have already signed with the T-Mobile squad. Yaroslav Popovych may be closing on a contract with Tom Booonen's QuickStep-Innergetic team.
  • Discovery's departure leaves a Pro Tour license available for the 2008 season. The Slipstream Sports-Chipotle team could take that license, but they have repeatedly said that they were pursuing a wildcard entry to the Tour de France for 2008, and would go after a Pro Tour license in 2009.
  • The Astana team has taken a self imposed month off from competition after team members Alexandre Vinokourov and Andrej Kashechkin both failed doping tests in the past six weeks. They plan to return to competion at the Grand Prix de Plouay on September 2nd. At this point, it is unknown where they will be getting their kits and bikes as both clothing sponsor Craft and equipment sponsor BMC have terminated their contracts with the team
  • Floyd Landis finished a close second behind Dave Wiens in the Leadville 100 mountain bike race. Wiens set a new course record of 6:58:47. Landis was 1 minute and 44 seconds back.
  • The National Criterium Championships took place in suburban Chicago over the weekend. Martin Gilbert of Canada won the Pro category, with Americans Kirk O'Bee and Shawn Milne taking second and third places respectively. Tina Pic won the Elite Women's comp and Daniel Holloway won the Elite Men's race.
  • Jens Voigt won his second overall title at the Tour of Germany. He was also the winner last year. He stated that he entered this year's Tour de France as a "training ride."

Now, go ride! I hope to get out this week without any flats (3 flats in my last 25 mile ride).

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Vuelta Stage 11 plus other news

By
Vuelta de Espana - Stage 11: The day started with a two man breakaway at the 8km mark that saw it's biggest gap at the 40km point. The peloton was taking it easy, working only hard enough to let the break not get any bigger.  At 120km, the peloton started to reel in the break and they had made up the 3 minute advantage by km 150.   The Milram and Lampre-Fondital teams, along with Rabobank, did the majority of the work to make up the break. By the final 10 km, the speeds racked up considerably, with T-Mobile & Milram leading a long, single file peloton.  Milram took over the lead in the final 2 kilometers. Zabel did the work to set up Pettachi to take the final sprint at the last corner. Pettachi racks up his 18th career win today at the Vuelta.  coming by teammate Erik Zabel in the final meters of today's stage. Paolo Bettini took second, Zabel third.  The G.C. stays much the same with Menchov, Efimkin, Evans, Sastre and Miquez in the Top 5 spots.  Other News: Ivan Dominque...
Read more

Landis at the Shenandoah Mountain 100

By
Some of you probably took advantage of the long Labor Day weekend to take a long bike ride (not me, I had a nasty cold).  Floyd Landis took a long ride, too, participating in the Shenandoah Moutain 100 .  Reports are that he got to the race early, hung out with the locals , chewed the fat , had some beer and signed some autographs. He hung around after the race as well. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, he got third place in a very tough race.  I have to agree with Harlan Price (who took 2nd place at the SM100) that Floyd must love the sport if he keeps showing up at events like Leadville and Shenanhoah Mountain. Maybe he picks up a little bit of press coverage, but these are fringe events that the mainstream media largely ignore. Some may say that he is schmoozing fans, but that's not going to help his trial end in his favor.  Sounds to me like he's just an ordinary guy who loves to ride hard and party hard afterwards. He hasn't gone into hiding, he's up front,...
Read more

Even More From Eurobike, courtesy of Velonews

By
I just received a number of Eurobike Exhibition updates from Velonews.com These are dated throughout the exhibition.  August 31 : Giant rolls out refinements to their Maestro line of suspension bikes Ridley introduces an entry-level carbon fiber cyclocross bike Only cosmetic changes for Scott's road bikes, but new mountain and cyclocross bikes A new mountain/cyclocross pedal from Look New pedals, headsets, cranks and wheels from Crank Brothers A redesign of RockShox's SID fork for it's 10th anniversary September 1 : New clinchers from Lightweight A new line of cycling shorts and bibs from Assos Super light Nano Gram Zero pedals from Speedplay A new range of suspension forks from Maverick A little more about Selle Italia's new saddles with Troy Lee as well as a new Team Edition Flite model New white bars, stems and seatposts from FSA. Also, new compact shapes in the Plasma bar/stem combo and the K-Wing carbon bar, a new crankset, a K-Force tubular wheelset and an integra...
Read more