Its time for the Most Beautiful SSR in the Low Countries...The Skoda Tour of Luxembourg! The Tour of Lux always has an interesting parcour with a short prologue followed by some lumpy stages along with one stage that usually breaks up pretty well that decides the overall winner. The prologue parcour for today is only 2.6km but has a slight climb near the end that the riders will have to get over so some snap in the legs will be needed for a good time.

Live pictures, if no one is lying to us, will be able to be seen here. The first rider is off at 19:00 on the continent (1 p.m. Eastern U.S.)

Overall Contenders include: Leenos, Fat Schleck, Tom Dumoulin, Galland (6th last year), Van Goolen (7th last year), Bob Jungels, Leukemans, Elmiger and maybe Wallays...I know I'm missing a few in there. Full start list here

For the stage, I am going with Jimmy Engoulvent from Saur. He has won the prologue before and should be one of the favorites to take it this year. I predict Bob Jungels to be very close though...might be a little short for him. Jungels is on fire recently...he won the other Luxembourg stage race Fleche du Sud and just won the Paris-Roubaix U23 this weekend...by 3 minutes! He is one of the best youngsters to come around in a while...watch out.

P.S. There will be lots of photos in this thread...Luxembourg is like a fairytale land. Really cool stuff.

Hello Hello everyone...Vlaanderen's U25 VDS competition finally has an update! It has been quite a while for various reasons of life getting in the way but from here on out, it should be rather smooth sailing and much more frequent updates.

I would first like to say sorry for the huge delay with no updates or nary a word said. Only thing that I can say is that me working full time and going to school full time makes me one stressed out guy. Not to mention that the last couple months, I've been working my senior thesis in history so that has sucked the life out of me. One of those had to give, which was work since they refused to give me less hours, so last night was the first opportunity to really update everything. Nevertheless, nearly everything is updated with only the spreadsheet with the full team breakdown needing updating, which will be done later today.

Here is the spreadsheet (xlsx format) updated through 5/24

Continue reading this post »

So it is San Remo weekend and I thought it was a good time for a nice update on our new little game! After Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adricatico, we have a clear leader with some chaser though there will be a lot more action to come especially with monuments coming up.

Quick Top 3

1. brandon.... Young Bucks 805

2. Javi Polo Lasterketa Burua 580

3. gizzardfanny Baby Gizzards 515

...

68. umwolverine wyverns 0

We only have one doughnut!

Here is the spreadsheet that should be up to date and current! Let me know if there are any problems with it or downloading it!

**P.S. A big thank you to lieutenantmudd for helping with the new spreadsheet config! No extra points were awarded :p

Also, to clarify something...TTT scoring. If two young riders were to be on the winning team as they crossed the line, then they will both get the 20 points bonus for being the first U25.

While Omloop Eve is drawing ever closer, there were some rumblings over on my 5 to watch post over the last week about a possible U-25 VDS league. I jumped all over the idea (originally proposed by Lopex) and created a spreadsheet and a few simple rules. I will task myself with all of the score keeping as a lot of the scoring relies on the FSA DS scores but all of this will be explained in full.

The whole purpose of this game is to give some of these younger guys some attention. All riders 4 points and above are excluded from this game. No Sagan, EBH, Phinney, etc. I want to give a the spotlight to younger guys who aren't priced quite as high but still have a ton of talent...Trust me, it will be fun!

With that, lets go to the flip and get all this explained! =]

Continue reading this post »

I'm sure many of you might be struggling with your FSA DS rosters at the moment, especially with some of those pesky 1-2 point riders. As painful and frustrating as it was for people who had Peter Velits (74 points at a cost of 10) or Glorious Heinrich Haussler (290 points at 12 points) last year, you can mitigate some of that pain by making a sweet 1 or 2 points pick. The focus here is on newbies...guys that are wet behind the ears still in the sink or swim world that is cycling. There will be a breakdown of newbies from the past and then 5 (or so) guys that I'll

Now, let's do this...

Continue reading this post »

Stage 1 today of that first European stage race that can be pretty cold...Break went at 70km but was brought back near the end and eventually the sprinter's teams got the trains moving. Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ-BigMat) struck out and took the victory...but what was bizarre was the official results afterwards...

1 Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ-BigMat)
2 Jempy Drucker (Accent Jobs–Willems Veranda’s)
3 Bobbie Traksel (Landbouwkrediet)
4 Marcel Kittel (Project 1t4i)
5 Kris Boeckmans (Vacansoleil-DCM)
6 Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis)
7 Jure Kocjan (Team Type 1-Sanofi)
8 Yukiya Arashiro (Europcar)
9 Kevyn Ista (Accent Jobs–Willems Veranda’s)
10 Anthony Ravard (AG2R–La Mondiale)

So Kittel was in 4th, eh? Must have been an off day...Or maybe he was in 2nd and the officials screwed up. Especially with the cameras, it shouldn't be that hard to get it right.

Anyways...tomorrow is more of the same

A developing story has come out of Germany, ARD's Sportschau, has come out with allegations that Marcel Kittel is among 28 athletes that received black light blood transfusions from Dr. Andreas Frank at his clinic in Erfurt. A police investigation has been going on for almost a year and has been centered around Frank. Former Olympic Gold medalists Neils Schumann (800 meters) and Claudia Pechstein (speed skating) were also named by the show. Both have had previous doping cases opened up against them with Pechstein serving a two year ban. Sportschau also named Kittel's ex-Thüringer Energie teammate Jakob Steigmiller as an athlete that received treatment from Frank.

Project 1t4i GM Iwan Spekenbrink has stated that he has talked to Kittel, who told him that he did visit Frank's clinic in Erfurt in 2008. Kittel told Spekenbrink that he did have an UV treatment for an apparent sickness but that was the extent of his visits with Frank and there was no money transferred between the two parties. Team management has not taken out any disciplinary action on Kittel.

So the European road season finally kicked off in the south of France at GP La Marseillaise and it was pretty exciting, for late January. A few breakaways got away and were brought back. Near the end, a group of 15 got away...

Romain Bardet et Mikaël Chérel (AG2R) Bert De Waele (Landbouwkrediet) Pieter Serry (Topsport Vlaanderen)
Romain Hardy (Bretagne-Schuller) David Le Lay (Saur-Sojasun) Julien Guay (Roubaix-Lille Métropole)
Jérémie Galland (Saur-Sojasun) Rémy Di Grégorio (Cofidis) Thibaut Pinot (FDJ-BigMat) Romain Hardy (Bretagne-Schuller) Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis) Arthur Vichot (FDJ-BigMat) Davide Malacarne (Europcar) and Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil)

Those 15 got away and stayed away until the finish with Sammy taking the win over Marco Marcato and Arthur Vichot

1  Samuel DUMOULIN     Cofidis le Crédit en Ligne        03:39:29  
2  Marco MARCATO       Vacansoleil - DCM Procycling Team 00:00:00  
3  Arthur VICHOT       FDJ-BigMat                        00:00:00  
4  Jérémie GALLAND     Saur-Sojasun                      00:00:00  
5  Davide MALACARNE    Team Europcar                     00:00:00  
6  Romain HARDY        Bretagne - Schuller               00:00:00  
7  Julien GUAY         Roubaix Lille Metropole           00:00:00  
8  Mikael CHÉREL       AG2R La mondiale                  00:00:00  
9  Pieter SERRY        Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator      00:00:00  
10 Bert DE WAELE       Landbouwkrediet                   00:00:00

There has been some cleaning house of sorts at Katusha cycling with Hans-Michael Holczer (formerly Gerolsteiner), Christian Henn, Erik Zabel, etc. coming in to be Manager, DS and advisor respectively. Nobody can deny that there was a lot of dislike around PdC for the management at Katusha Cycling, which I am not saying was unjustified by some of the moves that Andrei Tchmil and co. made over the last couple of years but I refused to put the team into my permanent dislike column.

Some of you might remember last year when Katusha was making a bid last year to grab Danilo Di Luca off the doping bench and there was a little polemica that they were going to have to shed some riders which was misunderstood because of lack of media attention. The rider that was "forced out" was Timofey Kritskiy but unless you follow his website (which is totally in Russian), you would be unaware that he wasn't forced out at all.

If you look at his results from 2010, you will see only a few end of the year semi-classics with some not so impressive results but that is only half the story. To understand everything, we must go back to the '09 season and that year's edition of the Tour de l'Avenir and the time trial that was to change everything...

Photo via kritskiy.com

**ACHTUNG...It's kind of long so be prepared =]**

Continue reading this post »

Some funny stuff has been going on over at RadioShack-Nissan-Trek (Ya know, the Bruyneel-Becca bastard child). From what I have gathered from 06.live-radsport/wielerflits/etc. is that guys like Gianni Meersman, Jan Bakelandts and Rüdiger Selig who were all previously strongly rumored for the team are now headed elsewhere. The former two are headed from Lotto-Ridley while Selig is venturing to the goolag at Katusha...Hayden Roulston will be taking one of the spots at RSNT

Lotto Ridley seems to be pretty set for next year, all ready count 29 riders...Hoste seems to have come to an agreement with his old team

Continue reading this post »

Only 1 day to go until one of my favorite races of the year (which I probably won't get to watch because of university classes...grumble) and while the course around Copenhagen might seem to be destined for a sprint, it won't exactly play out that way, especially when U23 riders are racing. With there being a maximum of 6 riders allowed for the big teams, usually teams are not big enough to control dangerous breakaways without some cooperation. So even on a course such as this one, don't be surprised to see a break take it to the line.

The history of this race isn't very long, with the UCI only breaking from an amatuer World RR championship to the U23 in 1996, it has provided some a springboard for rider's careers and landed some riders with so much hype that it sinks their careers. Take for example 2003 in Hamilton...a breakaway took it to the line and Sergey Lagutin took the sprint over Johan Van Summeren and Thomas Dekker but when you look at who else composed the breakaway you see names like Jens Renders and Alexander Bazenov (both have been retired for quite a while now). As an extreme, you can have a race like 2005 in Madrid where the top 4 was Dymtro Grabovskyy (came close to killing himself with alcohol and was fired by ISD in '09 then resigned in '10, crashed badly and booted back to the Continental team...hasn't raced this year), William Walker (Aussie who had to stop racing because of heart problems), Evgueni Popov (never made if out of the Continental ranks with Rabo or Katusha) and Carlo Westphal (rode with Gerolsteiner for a bit then retired at 24). The point of my rant being don't put too much stock into a rider as a U23 before he shows it in the pro ranks.

Anyways, 155 riders will be taking the line from 41 nations in what is sure to be a great race...did I tell you how excited I am?!? :^) Anywho, on the flip you will be getting a detailed breakdown of the contenders and my take of how the race will play out!

Continue reading this post »

So today is the day..Worlds has come and while there is a lot of talent in this field for the time trial, there are a select few that will be able to challenge for the win on the 35.2 km course. So its only a few hours before the start now but let me give you a little preview of 4 names that could challenge for the win and some other that could possibly go for a medal :) 

1. Luke Durbridge (Australia) a.k.a. Turbo Durbo

My #1 favorite for the win today...he has been on absolute fire of late, including setting a recent course record in the Chrono Champenois (held by Andriano Malori) by over 20 seconds. Starting with his agonizingly close 2nd place to Taylor Phinney last year in the U23 TT at Worlds by 2 seconds, Durbridge stock has continued to rise. The 2009 Junior World TT champ, he won the national U23 championship in Australia then riding a smashing Tour Down Under with some aggressive riding; continuing on, he rode to some more World Championship stripes in the Team Pursuit in March...then he won the prologue and TT at the Olympia's Tour...then after a summer break, he came back to 3rd place in the recent Memorial Davide Fardelli before utterly smashing the Champenois while in the rain and slight wind

Now lets flip it and you'll get some more riders to watch :)

Continue reading this post »

From HTC:

"Upon notification of a missed test, Alex Nikki Rasmussen's contract with HTC- Highroad has been terminated with immediate effect for breach of the team's code of conduct.

"The UCI, NOC and Sports Confederation of Denmark notified the team today that a missed test occurred and has been verified by a UCI review.

"The team was also notified that Rasmussen had two missed tests in 2010 prior to joining HTC-Highroad that had not been previously reported to the team."

Well in a way this must be a trip down memory lane for Vaughters...first Zirbel in '09 and now Rasmussen missing tests

For a large group of young hopefuls, the race that is occurring this week is perhaps the biggest one of their season...well maybe. The Tour de l'Avenir has been the amateur stage race (though it has been professional in the past) since its inception in 1961 though sometimes it isn't the best predictor of talent, for how vaunted it is by the cycling press. There are definitely harder U23 stage races but with a mix of a world class field of younglings and a race set-up that is geared towards action packed finales and breakaways galore, it is definitely exciting and full of surprises...now only if we could see it live...

On the flip, you shall get a brief history, startlist, a quick who's who and stage breakdowns that will be updated with stage results daily!

Now...GET ON WITH IT!

Continue reading this post »

Nobody threw a thread up so I thought I would take care of it...The stage has all ready started with the first few riders going off around Miller Motorsports Park...The course is rolling with some breezy conditions but times should be blistering today since it is rather short...Sergio Henao will be the last rider going off at 7 P.M. Local Time (9 Eastern, 3 AM in Europe) and he will have an uphill battle holding onto his yellow jersey

P.S. EXCITEMENT! VROOM! GO FAST BIKES! ;) this snarky post script is just for Gav

Vid: TourTracker

Startlist for TT

Breaking story out of Belgium (Sportwereld/Het Nieuwsblad)...Multiple Lanterne Rouge Wim Vansevenant had a package intercepted by Belgian customs filled with 'super' doping products from Australia. (I guess SUPER doping is just a word for ultra modern products) From what I get from the article, he was going to be leading the VIP group for Omega Pharma-Lotto during the TdF. No news about who the products where intended for or if this is the first time

This week, the US Elite National Championships are hitting the city of Augusta, Georgia with cyclists of all ages battling for green jackets the podium. Seeing as the U23 and young riders in general are the future of the sport, they need to get some spotlight time. With the USPRO Championships all ready taking place this year, a lot of eyes are all ready looking towards France but this weekend should provide spectacular racing (which I wish we could see!)

P.S. Its going to be HOT!! Tuesday, it was 100 F and no plans to let up


On the flip, I'll be previewing the U23 Men TT, Criterium and Road Race

*Startlists are incomplete so everyone who might be there might not be included!

Continue reading this post »

Women's race is all ready over...Giorgia Bronzini won for Colavita, Shelly Olds 2nd, Jen Purcell 3rd, Joelle Numainville 4th and Chloe Hosking 5th

The men are around halfway though not many updates at the moment other than the King of Style himself, Ted King, reportedly crashing out with a broken collarbone (as reported by Bonnie D. Ford)

Twitter is following at #phillyrace and live video feed might be popping up too

Currently half way through the women's race with the men's race still to come! First Criterium on the NRC calendar located in Anniston, Alabama

Velonews has a live stream to the race here

Colavita brought the big guns here with Cheatley, Dvorak, etc. $7,500 purse for the women

7:20 Central (8:20 eastern) is the start of the men's race (60 lap race with 15k purse)