It appears that on a rainy training day Blake Caldwell fell and broke his femur. the femur part of the story is via a tweet from Tom Danielson. I waited to find it somewhere else and discovered on Blake's website he states that he did crash and is heading in for surgery. 

If you recall he broke his pelvis last year at the begining of the season. He did come back to finish 2nd at USPRO in Greenville. I can't imagine this is a downer-go-round he wanted to get on a second time.

Links

http://twitter.com/tomdanielson

http://blakecaldwell.blogspot.com/

link

The link is the statement from CONI. I ran into this over at cycling fans anonymous. Was I under a rock or did this not come up anywhere else. He won a bunch of races in the US over the last few years after totally busting onto the scene from nowhere. I guess now we know where nowhere is and why he came to hide in the US.

If I recall correctly he was awarded the Nature Valley Grand Prix title after Nathan Oneill was busted eating diet pills. I use that to illustrate that perhaps at race's end no one moves up a spot for fear of the unknown. Again, using my powers of recollection, Toyota United also technically won the NRC team comp last year if Healthnet would have lost the points garnered by Oneill. Let positions stand and remove monies from parties found guilty.

Cycling News reports that Svein Tuft has signed a two year deal with Garmin-Chipotle. I think this is a great bit of news for a rider that has paid his dues on smaller teams and done well to boot. He will add great depth to the classics team.

His story reminds me of the great book "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer. He seems to be the archetypal wandering youth looking for himself... that should do it for 75 words then.

Every year about this time the nights grow longer, leaves change colors and seemingly normal people take to hopping off their bikes in crappy weather. Yes, it is time for cross racing once again. If you have never followed the cyclo-cross season then now is as good a time as any to begin. There is a new crop of young talent ascending the ranks in both Europe. This is not to say the old guard have disappeared, but the world champ is 23 and a mighty strong lad. The names Vervecken, Nys, and Wellens will still grace European results pages but they will now be among the names Boom, Stybar, and Albert.

The US calendar will have 40 UCI races this year where all the best talent will appear. The gigantic duo of Ryan Trebon and Bary Wicks will try to step over the competitors in their way, but Jeremy Powers and US champ Tim Johnson should put up a great challenge. Jonathon Page is already winning races this year and looks to challenge on the Euro circuit again after a tumultuous season with Sunweb Projob last year.

I am really pumped about cross racing and I encourage everyone to make an attempt to see a cross race this year. It might be at your local park and the atmosphere is awesome. I doubt you will come away dissapointed. What better way to start your addiction with Cross Vegas on the 24th!