Archive for February, 2008
Results - Stage Five: Solvang Individual Time Trial, 24 km
Partly cloudy skies greeted riders as they got ready to start today’s individual time trial in Solvang. Not the warm sunshine that one expects in California, but a huge improvement over yesterday’s relentless cold, wind and rain.
Today’s course had one hill in the middle but not enough of a climb to give the climbers any real advantage.
Bryce Mead (Jelly Belly Cycling Team) kicked things off today. As race leader, Astana’s Levi Leipheimer would be the last to hit the course. He had 13 seconds on Fabian Cancellara (CSC) in second place.
John Murphy (Health Net) 34’13 was the top time early on in the day. Murhpy’s time was soon beat by Bernard Van Ulden (Jelly Belly) who did the course in 32’54. A
s the day went on the wind picked up but the sun came out. Bradley Wiggins (High Road) flew through the course and beat Van Ulden with a time of 32’16. Tom Zirbel (Bissell) was the next rider to have the best time with 32’11.
Team Astana’s Janez Brajkovic took the new best time with 32’05 as U.S. National Time Trial Champion David Zabriskie (Slipstream), British National Time Trial Champion David Millar (Slipstream), and World Time Trial Champion Fabian Cancellara (CSC) all took to the course. Talk about the best of the best here in Solvang today!
Levi Leipheimer, the last rider to take to the course, looked very comfortable in yellow with a slow, steady cadence and that upper body crouched down and dead solid. The fans were out in droves and the sound of cow bells filled the air.
Christian Vande Velde (Slipstream) did an incredible ride and put up the new best time of 31′31.
The first time check had Cancellara at 16′58 and Leipheimer at 16′20!
Zabriskie came sprinting through the finish, the crowd cheering him on, but he pulled a time of 32’01. Not good enough to beat his teammate Vande Velde.
David Millar took the new best time at 31’15 with Rober Gesink (Rabobank), Cancellara and Leipheimer still out on course.
32’49 for Gesink keeping him safely in the Young Rider’s jersey.
Now it was only the top two out on the course. As Cancellara approached the finish the top times clicked away and as he crossed the line is was 31’52 – not enough.
Then it was Leipheimer who just flew through the finish and shattered the clock with 30’46. The crowd was deafening as he pumped his fist in the air. Levi wins the stage and opens up the gap over Cancellara. What an incredible ride!
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Posted on: February 22nd, 2008 By: sarabest In:
Cycling News
Results: Stage Four: Seaside - San Luis Obispo, 217 km
A miserable start to what would be the longest stage in the race. Cold temperatures and more rain greeted the riders, most of whom donned rain jackets, leg warmers and hats. And, to make matters worse, the stomach bug that took out race leader Tyler Farrar yesterday is making its rounds through the peloton at an astonishing pace. Health Net is reporting that their entire team is sick with the exception of Aussie tough guy Rory Sutherland. Toyota United says that only a few of their riders have escaped it. Fabian Wegmann, Peter Wrolich, Johannes Fröhlinger and Heinrich Haussler, all from the Gerolsteiner team, didn’t make the start today.
There were two intermediate sprints out on the road today and three KOM climbs – two category 4 hills followed by a category 3. Just like yesterday there were several attempts at attacks early on today but the Astana team was keeping a tight rein on things and doing their best to keep the pace high making a breakaway difficult.
About 20 km in a break of 11 riders got away including Bauke Mollema (Rabobank), Bryce Mead (Jelly Belly), Danilo Wyss and Jackson Stewart (BMC Racing Team), Dominique Rollin (Toyota - United), Edward King (Bissell), Iker Camano Ortuzar (Saunier Duval-Scott), Jonathan Hivert (Credit Agricole), Julien Belgy (Bouygues Telecom), Roman Kilun (Health Net p/b Maxxis) and George Hincapie (High Road) who lost seven minutes to Leipheimer yesterday after his attempt to break away before the second big climb.
Once the break had opened up a gap of about 40 seconds, Tom Danielson (Slipstream) attacked off the front of the peloton and tried to bridge the gap up to the leaders. He didn’t make it and instead fell back, right through the pack and abandoned the race. Gerolsteiner’s Mathias Frank also abandoned out on the road.
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Posted on: February 21st, 2008 By: sarabest In:
Cycling News
Stage Three: Modesto - San José, 152.2 km
The sun was shining on a warmer and drier peloton today as they set out from Modesto; likely a welcome change for the riders who spent hours in the cold rain yesterday.
Today was the first day of the race when the GC board was expected to start to take shape and where the real contenders for the overall win would begin to come shining through. The big climb on today’s course was an HC climb called Mt Hamilton. Four smaller Category 4 climbs lead up to Mount Hamilton. The other substantial climb today on today’s course was Sierra Road, a Category 1 climb near the end of the stage. There was only one intermediate sprint today in the town of Patterson just before the hills.
A flurry of attacks marked the first few kilometers as rider after rider from all different teams tried to get away but each was checked by the peloton.
Finally, around the 15 km mark, a break away group including Paul Martens (Rabobank), Scott Nydam (BMC) and Cyril Lemoine (Credit Agricole) made it away and opened up a gap of almost a minute. They went through the intermediate sprint with Martens in first and Lemoine in second.
Steven Cozza (Slipstream) made a move shortly after the sprint and managed to get away from the pack and pull himself up to the break joining the trio of leaders who had built up a gap of just over 5 minutes. Levi Leipheimer was keeping his Astana boys up at the front, pushing the pace, making sure that the gap didn’t grow too much. This was an important day for Levi to make a move.
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Posted on: February 20th, 2008 By: sarabest In:
Cycling News
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Stage Two: Santa Rosa to Sacramento, 186 km
The rain that had been promised for Tuesday arrived on schedule this morning in Santa Rosa and the riders took off to a cold, wet start. Some rolling hills with two KOM climbs lay ahead for the riders in the first half of this long stage with a flat second half that held two intermediate sprints and then a long, flat run into the finish – perfect for the sprinters to shine again.
Right away Scott Nydam (BMC) and once again it was a lone BMC rider who took off down the road and opened up a gap on the pack.
Jonathan Sundt (Kelly Benefit Strategies) came out from the front of the pack to chase Nydam. He didn’t make it up to the leader but didn’t fall all the way back, instead sitting in the middle as the gap continued to grow.
When Nydam went over the first KOM climb he was six minutes ahead. BMC clearly had plans this morning of protecting that KOM jersey that Jackson Stewart grabbed for them yesterday. Despite the pain that Stewart must be in after his enormous effort yesterday he was up in front to take third place through that first KOM climb after Sundt.
Nydam opened the gap up to over 15 minutes at one point but as the race moved closer to the second KOM climb of the day, and the first intermediate sprint, the peloton upped the pace and the gap began to close. Jonathan Sundt was caught right after taking second place over the KOM climb with Jackson Stewart again taking third. Excellent work on the part of the BMC team to protect that KOM jersey for another day – wow!
Coming through the first intermediate sprint, Nydam was still 13 minutes out in front and took the three second time bonus. The peloton heated up for a few minutes as they fought it out for second and third place which ended up going to Gerald Ciolek (High Road) and Tyler Farrar (Slipstream) respectively. With that one second time bonus for third, Farrar was now only one second away from Cancellara on the GC board.
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Posted on: February 19th, 2008 By: sarabest In:
Cycling News
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Posted on: February 19th, 2008 By: Ride-Strong Admin In:
Cycling News
Stage One: Sausalito to Santa Rosa, 156 km
It was cool and overcast in Sausalito this morning as riders lined up for Stage One which was fairly flat; a stage designed for the sprinters. The riders had three intermediate sprints along the course today and the first classified climb of the race at Coleman road before heading into Santa Rosa, hometown of last year’s race winner, Levi Leipheimer.
About 15 km into the stage Jackson Stewart (BMC) broke away and managed to open up a gap. In 2006 Stewart took the title of most aggressive rider on this same stage.
In the town of Point Reyes about 44 kms into the stage, Stewart sailed through the first intermediate sprint picking up a three second time bonus. The rest of the peloton was nine minutes behind but when they reached the sprint it was a textbook set up by Team High Road as Bradley Wiggins and Boassen Hagen launched Mark Cavendish who took second place and snagged the two second time bonus. Marco Cipollini was third.
With 100 km to go race leader Fabian Cancellara suffered a flat tire slowing the pace of the peloton a bit and opening the gap to almost 13 minutes.
In the small town of Tomales, Stewart passed through the second intermediate sprint still 11 minutes ahead of the group. As the rest of the peloton came up to the sprint the pace quickened and the same High Road train of Wiggins and Hagen led Cavendish out yet again to take second through the sprint and pick up another two second time bonus. Tyler Farrar (Slipstream) was third.
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Posted on: February 18th, 2008 By: sarabest In:
Cycling News
Prologue: Palo Alto - Stanford University, 3.4 km
It was a short, flat and wickedly fast route that lay before the riders as they lined up in the starting hut today under sunny skies in Southern California to kick off the third Amgen Tour of California.
Riders began in Palo Altoand flew through a 3.4 km (2.1 mile) flat route ending with a full 360 degree loop around the Stanford Oval on the StanfordUniversitycampus before heading into the finish line.
132 riders were out to race today – 45 of them from the US. American Levi Leipheimer (Astana) won last year’s prologue and he was the heavy favorite to take the win today as well. However, today’s short, fast course was very reminiscent of the kind of course yo’d see at an individual pursuit event on the track and Team High Road just happens to have brought with them the current world pursuit champion, Bradley Wiggins, who is sitting out the Copenhagen track world cup to be here in California.
The first rider to start today was Iker Camao of Saunier Duval-Scott. Health Net’s John Murphy came out of the gate shortly afterwards and set the fastest time with 4’04 but he didn’t hold onto the lead for very long once Dave Zabriskie (Slipstream) hit the road and set the new time to beat of 3′59.58. The saddle on Zabriskie’s bike today was decked out with an American flag – a man happy to be riding at home.
But Zabriskie’s time turned out to not be enough when Swedish rider Gustav Larsson (CSC) shaved a few tenths of second off of his time hitting the line at 3.59.19.
An American favorite, Tom Danielson (Slipstream) has been struggling with some injury and illness, and was supposed to be in Europe racing this month but his team decided this would be a better race for him. He rode a time of 4’11. And his former Discovery teammate, Jason McCartney, now riding with Team CSC, clocked in at 4′10.52.
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