Tour of Qatar Stage 3.......LIVE
by Jens on Feb 9, 2010 5:00 AM EST
2 comments
Another day, another crosswind. With the successful breakaway yesterday that left Wouter Mol and Geert Steurs about two minutes ahead on GC we might see a more concerted effort of the big teams to get their big men to line with a chance to win. Expect a bigger bunch sprint today.
Live video from 13:00 CET (07:00 AM US eastern, 23:00 AEST)
Videolinks from Steephill or cyclingfans
Official site here
2 comments | 0 recs
2010 Amgen Tour of California Route Details
by Jimbo... on Feb 9, 2010 1:54 AM EST
3 comments
Class.... class..... class.... SHUT UP!... Thank you. Now then... Stage details for the 2010 Amgen Tour California will be sprinkled onto the interwebs like virtual crumbs being tossed to a hungry flock of new media cycling-fanatic pigeons, or something. The lede is that AEG has announced that they will post videos showing route details and the host cites (a.k.a the start and finish towns) at the rate of two stages per day, for four days starting Tuesday, Feb 9. Check here for details. More below...
3 comments | 0 recs
Ted King Chat Tomorrow!
by gavia on Feb 8, 2010 7:23 PM EST
in Interviews
3 comments
Reminder!
Tomorrow at 9am PST (5pm GMT), Ted King will be on the site for a live chat. Come on by and ask your questions about bike racing, food, travel, style, or whatever happens to be on your mind. Ted will do his best to answer as many question as he can while he's here. Need some inspirado? Have a look-see at his bloggy, I am Ted King.
We will post a live thread shortly before Ted comes online. Please try to keep side convo's to a minimum during the live chat. Also, we will have a strictly enforced no heckling rule. No heckling the guest! We have not ruled any topics off limits for the discussion, but please be respectful if Ted declines to answer a particular question. Even real live press conferences sometimes run into the no comment wall.
Look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow!
3 comments | 0 recs |
Amy Dombroski: I like to go fast
by gavia on Feb 8, 2010 11:46 AM EST
in Interviews
27 comments
"Wicked Icy." This is how American Amy Dombroski described the World Championship cyclocross race in Tabor. The race turned out to be a frustrating experience, thanks to "treacherous" conditions. "I wasn’t happy with it," she told me in an interview last week. The Tabor slip-and-slide session came after two months of adventuring in Europe for Dombroski. She sampled Marmite, rode the track at Roubaix, and locked her bike in a shed for four days after a snow-induced break-down in England.
Want to see the future of U.S. women’s cyclocross? All signs suggest that Amy Dombroski will figure prominently. Already, the 22 year old is a three-time U23 national champion in cyclocross. Dombroski also holds U23 national titles on the road and mountain bike. This coming season, she will ride her first season on the mountain bike with the powerhouse women’s Luna team.
Dombroski grew up on a Christmas tree farm in Northern Vermont and competed in downhill skiing through the end of high school. She moved to Colorado to continue racing until a knee injury interrupted her career. The injury sent her to Boulder to recover, and she fell in love with the mountain town. "They have a sun!" exclaimed the New Englander, accustomed to dark winters. The turn to bike racing happened by accident. "After a long time out of competition, I was going crazy," she said, and her brother, who raced bikes, suggested she try it out. It only took one race, "I was hooked." For the past three seasons, she has focused her energies on bike racing, and specifically cyclocross. In December 2009, she reached the podium in the elite national championship in Bend, her highest finish yet at elite nationals.
27 comments | 0 recs |
Upcoming Attractions! Live Chat with Ted King on Tuesday
by gavia on Feb 8, 2010 11:46 AM EST
in Interviews
91 comments
New Feature!
Mark your calenders! Ted King, previously immortalized in crayon, has agreed to come to the Cafe (that's here!) for a live chat on Tuesday, 9 February. He will visit the site for an hour from 9.00 am to 10.00 am. 
That's Pacific Time. For other time zones, well, you can all do math way better than I can.
Ted will answer your questions about bike racing, training, food, travel, and whatever else you may have on your mind. Chris and I will be lurking about and we'll do our best to keep the conversation flowing, and if necessary, play a little red-light, green-light with the questions. We are hoping that Ted will be the first of many vict-- er, riders, to visit the site.
Want to start planning your questions? Roll by I am Ted King on the Missing Saddle and have a look around.
No need to R.S.V.P. Come as you are. See you there.. er... here!
91 comments | 1 recs |
Tour of Qatar Stage 2....LIVE
by Jens on Feb 8, 2010 4:00 AM EST
in Live Races
218 comments
After Sky have grabbed the racelead with an impressive ride in the Stage 1 TTT, todays stage will no doubt be a tougher one for the brits. Yellow jersey Edvald Boasson Hagen faces as good a sprinters field as you are likely to find anywhere this year. Look out for a revenge-hungry Cervelo-squad eager to avenge yesterdays relegation.
Live video from 13:00 CEST (07:00 AM US eastern, 23:00 AEST)
Videolinks from Steephill or cyclingfans
Official site here
218 comments | 0 recs
Unzue's Man: Val...er...Lulu?
by ursula on Feb 7, 2010 8:50 PM EST
in Virtual Directeur Sportif!
43 comments
I find Eusebio Unzue, Caisse d'Epargne's Director Sportif an unusual man. At least as a DS that is. I have no idea what he's like as a man. But as a DS he's unusual. He takes one of the basic truisms of the sport, disregards it and still guides his team into a solid top-five team in the world. Just to put some numbers to that (the only math that is required in this post!) if you take the Cycling Quotient team rankings from the last five years and average them out, you get:
- CSC/Saxo Bank-1.2 (average ranking over the last five years)
- Quickstep-3.4
- Bruyneel's Disco/Astana teams-5.2
- Rabobank-5.4
- Caisse d'Epargne-5.6
- T-Mob/Columbia/HTC-5.8
- *Lotto-7
- Liquigas-8
- Lampre-9.4
Note: I only compared teams that existed over the last five years (Bruyneel basically took his team with him) so no Gerolsteiner, Fassa Bortolo, Phonak, etc.
Saxo was the #1 team every year until last year when Columbia took over the ranking. Saxo skidded all the way to 2nd. Within the five years Caisse d'Epargne, Columbia, and Liquigas have been on an upward trajectory, while Lampre has gone down after a couple relevant years. And there's no question which belgian team is the better every year.
Okay, back to Unzue. What's he done that's unusual? Ah, you'll have to jump for that.
43 comments | 0 recs |
RIP Franco Ballerini
by Jens on Feb 7, 2010 5:44 AM EST
in News
28 comments
28 comments | 0 recs
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