Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Team RadioShack - First Training Camp for this Powerhouse Team
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Tour of Spain Stage 12 Winner Ryder Hesjedal on Electronic Shifting
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Three Months in 10 Minutes.... The World's, Weddings, Pro's Training & Team Camps
I know, most bloggers who take a three-month hiatus would tell their readers that they were signing off for a while, but I never expected that I would not have blogged sooner. I mean, there have been so many great things to blog about: like when I officiated Jonas and Justina Carney's wedding (Jonas and I were team mates, and we've remained very close friends). It was a true honor to be asked to officiate for them, and also great to be able to repay the favor to Jonas, who married Christina and I almost five years ago. It was great to hang out with Alex Candelario, Reid Mumford, Mike Creed and their wives, and entertaining to watch Danny Pate crash the party.
Or, I could have told you about Levi Leipheimer's Gran Fondo (http://www.levisgranfondo.com/), held on the same stunning course in Sonoma County, CA we raced on in the Coors Classic back in 1988 (where I took 2nd). 3,500 people from around the country, and even world came to challenge themselves, meet Levi and his wife Odessa, and raise money for two great causes. It was one of those events which was really fun to announce but I've got to say I almost wish I had been riding! Here's a picture of me interviewing Levi moments before the start.
It was also great to see Scott Nydam there (BMC), who's been recovering from a bad accident and head injury earlier this season and Paul Mach (Bissell) my fellow Davis, CA resident. Scott looked like he had regained his old form from earlier this year, and he was the first rider to finish the gran fondo. On top of that, he was getting married two weeks later - congratulations Scott & Jennifer! It seems weddings were in the air.... On the stage after the event, left to right; Levi Leipheimer, his wife Odessa, Scott Nydam, Carlos Perez (event promoter) and me.
Carlos, the promoter, was a great guy who put a huge event together with his crew in just a few short months. This one sold out this year so make sure to register early if you want to do it in 2010.
Likewise, there was the World Championships in Mendrisio, Switzerland. There was no question that big Fabian Cancellara, the reigning Olympic TT champion and 2X World TT champ was the odds-on-favorite for the TT. He easily won, but oh!, what a day for American Tom Zirbel, who ended the day 4th! Here's a short video of us calling his TT on Universal Sports: http://tinyurl.com/Zirbel-Worlds-TT
Tom is a huge motor who also won the season-long National Racing Calendar in the U.S. this year, and he'll be riding for the Garmin-Transitions team in 2010 - so he'll get a big dose of European racing. Most people don't realize how good Tom is; he beat Lance Armstrong in every TT they both did in 2009 - the Tour of CA (Tom 7th, Lance 14th), the Tour of the Gila (Tom 2nd, Lance 3rd). Granted, Armstrong was coming off of 3 1/2 years of retirement, but that's still a pretty big accomplishment for a domestic pro!
With the conclusion of Levi's Gran Fondo, the road season has pretty much been over, and hence my down time. But things have been ramping back up as of late - talking with teams and trying to figure out which team camps I'll visit to interview riders and staff and hopefully get on a team ride with some of the guys. It's an exciting time of year because it's time to think of all of the team changes for 2010, and also to work on my announcing calendar.
There's been some time for vacationing in Maui along the way. And when in Maui, one resident you always want to try to hook up with for a ride is Canadian Ryder Hesjedal. Ryder had a great year, and capped it off by placing 2nd in a stage of the Tour of Spain, and then four days later winning a mountain top finish stage. I've got some video of Ryder which I'll add under a separate blog entry soon, but I leave you with this picture of good friend, and fellow vacationer, Michael Aisner. Michael used to own and run the largest bicycle race in America back in the 1980s. Most people credit him with putting the U.S. on the modern-day racing map. Here, Michael is at 10,000', atop Haleakala volcano. I know many people will say "10,000', what's the big deal? I've been higher in Colorado!" The cool thing here is that the climb starts at sea level, and Michael's about 5,000' above the clouds, contemplating the view from above - a view we don't see often.
Next week, I'm heading off to the first team camp for Lance's new team: RadioShack. For those of you who haven't heard yet, Lance has left Astana and formed a new, U.S. based team. He has also hired about a dozen of his former teammates to come with him including Americans Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner, as well as a bunch of other international and American talent. In total, there are 26 riders from 16 countries, here's the official team roster:
Lance Armstrong (USA)
Fumiyuki Beppu (JAP)
Sam Bewley (NZL)
Jani Brajkovic (SLO)
Matthew Busche (USA)
Ben Hermans (BEL)
Chris Horner (USA)
Daryl Impey (SAF)
Markel Irizar (SPA)
Andreas Klöden (GER)
Levi Leipheimer (USA)
Geoffroy Lequatre (FRA)
Fuyu Li (CHI)
Tiago Machado (POR)
Jason McCartney (USA)
Dmitriy Muravyev (KAZ)
Sérgio Paulinho (POR)
Yaroslav Popovych (UKR)
Gregory Rast (SUI)
Sébastien Rosseler (BEL)
Ivan Rovny (RUS)
José Luis Rubiera (SPA)
Bjorn Selander (USA)
Gert Steegmans (BEL)
Tomas Vaitkus (LIT)
Haimar Zubeldia (SPA)
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Big Days in the Big Mountains at La Vuelta a Espana
By the time Cunego made it to the finish, he still had over 2' advantage over his nearest chaser:
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
After Four Days of Racing, La Vuelta a Espana Makes the Transfer from Belgium to Spain
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Chris Horner to RadioShack? Exclusive Interview Day Two of Vuelta
I got a chance to catch up with American Chris Horner of Team Astana after the first road race of the final Grand Tour of the year - La Vuelta a Espana. Today's race, almost pan flat, was contested over 110 miles (204 km) in The Netherlands, of all places. The constant small roads, combined with numerous changes of direction and some wind made this first mass-start day a tricky one for riders looking for a good overall finish on September 20th - three weeks from today.
Starting the day, there were 198 riders, but by the finish of this flat, aggressive day, there were only 173 riders remaining. And, almost 100 of them lost some time in the final 3 miles as the sprinters teams battled for control at the front of the field. Many of the pre-race favorites lost valuable time, including:
Andy Schleck at 30" (the Luxembourger who took 2nd place in this year's Tour de France),
And a bunch at 18":
*Alexander Vinokourove (the Kazak, the winner of the 2006 Vuelta who is coming back from a two year suspension)
*Samuel Sanchez (the Spanish Olympic champion last year in Beijing)
*Linus Gerdemann (the German hope, a stage winner of the 2007 Tour de France, and as a consequence of that win, he led the overall classification for a day)
*Frank Schleck (brother of Andy, a stage winner at this year's Tour de France)
Here's a link to my interview with Chris Horner, from after the race on Sunday:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/ChrisHornerInterviewVueltaDay2
Looks like Horner is going to make the move to Lance's new team, RadioShack for 2010. Officially, teams and riders are not allowed to say anything before September 1, but there are always plenty of folks who are willing to hint at what might be coming, and some will outright say where they are moving before the September 1 date. The penalty for making announcements before September 1 is nebulous. If a team wanted to make a stink over a rider leaving, they could, and the UCI (international cycling governing body) could impose fines, but most teams don't care to escalate things to that level. At any rate, we should have a ton of transfers to digest and talk about this week.
Tomorrow is another flat day at the 64th edition of La Vuelta, which again starts and finishes in The Netherlands, and briefly crosses the border into Germany. Another day for the sprinters.
As always, you can check out all the action on Universal Sports TV, check local listings here: http://www.universalsports.tv/Universal_Sports_on_TV or, there is plenty to view on the internet here: http://www.universalsports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPID=13044&DB_OEM_ID=23000&ATCLID=204770092
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Vuelta Starts Saturday!
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Best Sprinter, Larry H Miller Tour of UT
Winning Team at the Larry H Miller Tour of UT
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Moving.... and then, The Tour of Utah!
Sorry it's been a while. I've been on the move, last week driving 49 hours in six days from Montreal to Santa Fe, en route to our new home in Davis, California starting on the 26th.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Then and Now- How Team Leadership Is Established in Professional Cycling
This post focuses on the recent spate of public demands being made by successful professional cyclists – broadcast through the media and internet – for next year’s contracts, following their strong performances at this year’s Tour de France. I could not help but immediately notice this approach, which seems a radical departure from the usual procedures in place when I was racing in the 1980s and early 1990s. I believe it is significant in its implications for a number of reasons that range from benefits and drawbacks to the individual cyclist, their teams and the sport as a whole.
Let’s begin with Jurgen Van Den Broeck, a young talented Belgian racer who was hired by Silence Lotto to be a lieutenant for Cadel Evans to help him win the Tour de France. He decided after the race that it was time to go to the press to demand co-team-leadership with Evans for next year. Admittedly, this was after Evans’s failure in the race and Van Den Broeck’s strong showing in the mountains and race overall. Presumably he acted on his own, and not at the direction of the team manager, in his many attacks at the front of the field, since these attacks did nothing to help Evans.
Van Den Broeck was not alone in doing this. For example, Franco Pellizotti, the 31-year-old Italian on Liquigas who just took the King of the Mountains jersey at the Tour de France after finishing third overall at the Giro d’Italia, used a very similar tactic. He went straight to the media and demanded sole leadership for next year’s Giro d’Italia, a position he shared this year with his teammate Ivan Basso, a former winner of the Giro. Even Contador’s agent, his brother, has disclosed Contador’s refusal of Astana’s offer of $16 million euros to extend his contract for another four years at $4m/year, a tidy sum of money. By making this private financial offer into a public refusal, he appears to be using the media to leverage his salary and position with other teams.
Despite these riders’ outstanding performances, I can’t help but wonder why they would go public with their demands. Is cycling becoming like a reality TV show, where the popularity of a voting public determines the outcome? Is it simply that tweeting and the internet are so easy and accessible that riders automatically use them to communicate with their fans? At the same time, these tools function strategically to leverage one’s cause through the media and public support, with outcomes that potentially could transform a rider’s career.
But what are the downsides of this turn of events? Because most sponsors and fans do not know the intricacies and complicated strategies inherent in winning diverse types of races over a long season, if they hear a rider’s demands after a strong performance, they may pressure the team director to comply when in fact that may not be the best decision for the team in the long run. Team leadership is earned through proven successes, which draw the trust and respect of teammates and team management, as well as through maturity in representing the sponsor publicly before the media.
During my years of racing, the process of negotiating contracts and one’s role on the team were matters of private discussion with the team owner, director, and athlete. In part, this is due to the way professional teams are structured, both then and still today. The team owner guides the team like the CEO of a company, either solo or through a director and/or manager who functions as the COO of the team. Their leadership roles include choosing the athletes, negotiating their contracts and intuiting their various roles on the team in relation to the overall team objectives, and then actually running the team throughout the season, financially, logistically, strategically. The team owner approaches sponsors with their product – a professional cycling team, perhaps one with particular goals which can be modified to suit the sponsor’s needs – which in turn offers a marketing service to the sponsor in exchange for financial support.
To give one specific example from my own career, in 1987 when I was racing for Len Pettyjohn on Team Lowenbrau, I had by far my best season ever. I was ranked second in the national standings, won about 20 races including the World's Trials, Cascade Cycling Classic, Mt. Evans, and the Battle at the Brewery - the only race I ever competed in at Superweek. I was selected as the team leader of the US team at the Pan American Games (placing 4th) and also at the World’s, although a crash kept me from starting that race. As the season was winding down, I had several discussions with Pettyjohn one-on-one to discuss my salary and my leadership position on the team. It was clear that his position was fairly firm.
He had hired me under a two year contract as one of several team leaders, along with a couple others including Alexi Grewal (1984 Olympic gold medalist), and I had agreed and this was not going to change. From his perspective, his job was to have a team that represented the sponsor with as many successes as he could bring. He knew that the season was long, spanning from February through October, and that different riders excelled at different periods of the season and at different types of events under different conditions – stages races, criteriums, one-day races, climbing, sprints, altitude, etc. He also was perceptive enough to work with the riders to get them to all have personal opportunities to shine and get results without causing infighting or conflict.
The reason this matters is because cycling is a team sport – as Lance recently told Contador via twitter, “there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’” and to “drop this drivel.” Therefore all riders have to want to support each other throughout the season since the sport is so difficult. It truly is a real world example of the sum being so much greater than the potential of its individual parts. Without incredible team cohesion, respect, and sacrifice amongst each other, plus their willingness to listen to their team director, teams are not successful. Pettyjohn’s strategy was therefore not only good for the team, but was also good for business – both for the sponsor as well as for the athletes and the staff. Out of my ten years of racing, my five years with Pettyjohn were by far the most stable, enjoyable and successful.
Why is it useful to compare then and now? While I feel like the media blast approach has the potential to benefit individual riders in their negotiations (which I support), it may do so at the expense of undermining the foundation of what is at its heart a team sport with incredible self-sacrifice. Imagine how these self-proclaimed (rather than director-proclaimed) demands impact the teammates of these riders, especially in light of the fact that it takes years to mature as a cyclist with the tenacity, mental focus, physical endurance, and consistency of right decision making to earn your team’s respect. Without the self-sacrifice of the many, the few will find their opportunities greatly diminished.
Two examples drive this point home. A few years ago, the team many thought was the best in the world, Team T-Mobile, went to the Tour de France to try to unseat Lance Armstrong. They had Alexandre Vinokourov, Jan Ullrich, and Andreas Kloden – 3 potential tour winners – all on the team. Over and over, they chased each other down in the race. It was a spectacular display of a meltdown of one of the top sporting franchises in the world, in an event that has extremely high visibility worldwide. To be sure, the management was trying to stop the infighting, but it couldn’t be done. The riders took control and ruined the team’s chances to win.
Similarly, let’s look briefly at Contador’s press conferences after winning this year’s Tour de France. For a man who should be very excited about winning his second Tour de France at only age 26, along with recent wins at two other grand tours, instead he went on a spiteful rant about how he did not respect his teammate Lance Armstrong nor the rest of his team. Furthermore, a few days earlier in a post-stage 17 interview, he only meagerly admitted to making a slight mistake when he attacked and dropped his teammate Kloden from the four-rider break, when they were both with the two Schleck brothers on the final climb of the hardest mountain day. Contador’s sole responsibility at that moment was to sit on and make the Schlecks pull, conserve his own energy and help Kloden stay in the break, and hope that Lance could catch on the descent. By attacking and dropping his teammates, all he did was hurt them; see my blogpost below on Astana’s rare double mistake. If instead he had helped Kloden, and Lance had caught on the descent, the three top GC positions after that stage would have been held by Astana. In fact, based upon their results in the remaining decisive stages of the race, it looks as though Contador and Lance would have taken first and second overall, and Kloden and Schleck would have been competing for third with only seconds separating them, making an Astana podium sweep a real potential and a feat not seen since 1914 at the Tour.
This new trend may just reflect a shift in the sport’s popularity and riders’ access to media and the internet – for example, I could never tweet or blog in 1987 to raise my case before the fans. Furthermore, back then cycling publications were all in print, so there was a huge lagtime between events and their publication, and such small stories did not count as news. This new strategy of negotiating in public definitely marks the onset of a new star system in professional cycling that, while potentially offering riders more influence to their benefit in negotiations, may at the same time signal a self-centeredness that threatens team cohesion and the effectiveness of team management. Only time will tell.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Universal Sports to air La Vuelta a España!
More great news from Universal Sports - nine hours of daily coverage of La Vuelta a Espana from August 29 - September 20!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
A Rare Double Tactical Mistake By Team Astana
After an early group was finally allowed to escape on the first climb of the day, things settled down with team Astana riding a controlled pace at the front of the peloton to keep the break in check. By the time everyone had crested the top of the second climb, they had already climbed over 6,000', and they still had three categorized climbs to contend with before the finish.
Here's how the race for the overall looked going into the day:
1 | Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana | 67:33:15 | |
2 | Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana | 0:01:37 | |
3 | Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Garmin - Slipstream | 0:01:46 | |
4 | Andreas Klöden (Ger) Astana | 0:02:17 | |
5 | Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank | 0:02:26 | |
6 | Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas | 0:02:51 | |
7 | Christophe Le Mevel (Fra) Française des Jeux | 0:03:09 | |
8 | Fränk Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank | 0:03:25 | |
9 | Carlos Sastre Candil (Spa) Cervelo Test Team | 0:03:52 | |
10 | Christian Vande Velde (USA) Garmin - Slipstream | 0:03:59 |
With Armstrong playing the perfect teammate to Contador and Kloden who were up the road, all he needed to do was to follow the wheel of Wiggins. Wiggins is the most dangerous adversary for team Astana in the 25 mile individual time trial tomorrow, and this played perfectly into the hands of Astana by distancing two of their men from Wiggins. With Lance saving energy by following in the draft of the chasing Vande Velde and Wiggins, and Contador and Kloden getting the same free ride up ahead since it was up to the Schleck brothers to drive the pace to gain time on the Wiggins group, Astana were literally sitting pretty as the two groups crested the top of the climb.
All looked to be going pretty much according to plan, when on the final climb, suddenly, Contador made the first mistake for the team - he attacked the Schlecks, and in the process dropped his teammate, Kloden. He realized his error, but the damage was done and the brothers Schleck poured on the gas to get rid of the German. Meanwhile, Lance made a smart move by waiting for Vande Velde and Wiggins (the man called Wiggo) to run their gas tanks right up to empty, then he sprang clear toward the top of the climb. With Armstrong closing on Kloden, it was a judgement call to decide if you have Kloden sit up at the top to join forces with Armstrong, or not. Kloden crests the top 1:19 behind the three leaders, and 52 seconds ahead of Armstrong - still a sizable gap so maybe not time to sit up and wait. But, on the descent, Kloden continues to loose time on the leaders, and to Armstrong. Now it's time to wait for Lance, in the hopes that they can do a better job of minimizing their losses together, and further distance themselves from Wiggo who's chasing behind. It does the team no good to have Kloden and Armstrong bombing the descent individually, only to have them come together at the finish! This was where Astana makes their second mistake of the day. Kloden pressed on, alone, and was caught by Armstrong in the final mile - both guys wasting valuable energy and losing valuable time in the process of not being together to share the pacemaking.
It was surprising to see a team of this stature and experience make these mistakes today. What appeared to be the case was that both Contador and Kloden rode selfishly, Contador hoping for a stage win and Kloden wanting to pass Armstrong in the overall battle before tomorrow's critical TT. Armstrong, on the other hand, impressed me with his selfless teamwork by not responding to the move which had two of his team mates in it on the penultimate climb, just as he did yesterday. And that deference is impressive indeed, coming from a man who hasn't entered a Tour de France he hasn't won in his last seven starts.
Here's how the overall battle looks now:
- Alberto Contador (Astana) at 72:27:09
- Andy Schleck (Saxo Bank) at 02:26
- Frank Schleck (Saxo Bank) at 03:25
- Lance Armstrong (Astana) at 03:55
- Andreas Kloden (Astana) at 04:44
- Bradley Wiggins (Garmin - Slipstream) at 04:53
- Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) at 05:09
- Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Slipstream) at 08:08
Looking to tomorrow's TT, Wiggo gains time on all of the contenders, Lance outperforms everyone except Wiggins, followed by Contador and Kloden. This is my prediction of the GC picture following the stage, barring incident:
1. Alberto Contador
2. Lance Armstrong
3. Bradley Wiggins
4. Andreas Kloden
5. Andy Schleck
The real shame of it is that todays oversight just might have cost Andreas Kloden and team Astana the chance to have all three places on the final podium in Paris - something which hasn't happened for one team since 1914.
The rest of this week is going to be one heck of a battle, but Contador should finish in Paris in yellow, and Lance should also be on the podium.