Well, I'm at home with a sick youngin' today so I found some time to organize some images from the North Atlantic Handmade Bike Show held recently in Richmond, VA.  What a great weekend.  Saw some awesome bike stuff and held a working lunch with the PdC MAC (Podium Cafe Mid-Atlantic Contigent).  We get reimbursed for that, right?

Anyway, this is a link to a photobucket slideshow of some of the pics that I took.  Click "slideshow" when it opens.  I also recommend selecting the "slow" option at the bottom left of the screen.  A few of the images have my third rate commentary.  Feel free to leave your own and let me know what you think. 

If you're interested in some professional images, here are links to some from the past couple weeks:

cyclingnews

VeloNews

Pez

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Just wanted to pass this along. Team BMC is doing a new feature on their team webby where they post audio files with post-race comments from various riders. Languages vary. Today's editions are Brent Bookwalter in English and Karsten Kroon in Dutch. Anyway, one more fun toy on the internets for bike racing fans. Yay!

Linky to BMC

Amongst the plethora of classic victories and Tour de France green jerseys, one of the most remarkable achievements on the palmarés of Seán Kelly is that he won Paris-Nice seven times in a row between the 1982 and 1988. While commentating on this year's edition of the race yesterday for Eurosport, Kelly admitted that only for the first two years of the seven was he actually treating the week-long stage race as a season goal. For his remaining victories he said his form was simply a by-product of his preparation for his major season goal, the spring classics. He even went as far as admitting that some of his overall wins were down to luck in getting into the right breakaway at the right time. The Irishman as humble as ever is probably doing himself a disservice. To win one edition of the Race to the Sun by sniffing out the right break could be consigned as luck, but seven?

I mentioned in a previous article that Paris-Nice isn't really treated as a particular season goal for riders anymore. There are more important events on the calendar, the Grand Tours, the spring classics, the World Championships. In Kelly's day plenty of riders attempted to stay at a high level right throughout the season, this is not the done thing anymore as riders nowadays tend to have one or two specific goals throughout the season. In my head I have a way of visualising the season form of a rider from twenty years ago versus the season form of a rider in the current peloton. As a computer scientist, this visualisation comes in the form of a graph, and using my immense computer scientist skills I have drawn this graph on a piece of paper and taken a picture of it:

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So, who do you want to be the next person to have a live chat with. If Chris and/or Gavia take this seriously then the winner will be invited to have a live chat with us. Notice there will be no options for people like Fabian Cancellara, and Tom Boonen, Alberto Contador, Andy and/or Frank Schleck, or Cadel Evans, because unfortunately being realistic it's very unlikely that they would have a live chat here.

News that Floyd Landis has signed on with the the Bahati Foundation Pro Cycling Team is certain to send shockwaves through the domestic peloton.

Landis had been rumored to be a part of Rock Racing for 2010, until the team failed to land a UCI license. There was quiet speculation that he might sign on with a lower-level U.S. continental team – and perhaps even the amateur Yahoo! cycling team, but today's news puts all those rumors to rest.

One burning question remains – will Landis' presence on the team be enough to earn the Bahati Foundation team a spot in this year's Amgen Tour of California? Let the speculation begin....

Folks,

Need a little help with the subject above. Let me explain as briefly as I can (on the flip):

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Many may remember Emilia Fahlin (HTC-Columbia) sending our very own crashdan a get well message last year at the Redlands Classic. crashdan was sadly quite ill and was unable to meet Emilia.

This year the word is out that crashdan will be at the Redlands Classic. Many members of the women peloton are quite excited about the pending crashdan event and wanted to share their support.....thus begins the 2010 Fan of Dan Campaign.

The amazing Evelyn Stevens (HTC Columbia) and Emilia's team mate:

2009 NRC leader Alison Powers (Team VBF)

Sprinting superstar Kelly Benjamin (Colavita/Baci).

Oceania Games Time Trial Champion Alexis Rhodes. and Sprinter Erica Allar (Team VBF)

2008 National Criterium and Road Champion Brooke Miller (Team TIBCO).

Many thanks to these awesome women for showing their support for our very own crashdan. The 2010 Fan of Dan campaign has begun....

Photos courtesy Brian Hodes, www.veloimages.com

The Fly V Australia team is doing its best to get noticed early on, putting on a lavish team presentation in Beverly Hills Friday night and already winning nine times – including at the big money criterium in Singapore on Sunday.

Perhaps lost in all the attention about the team that hopes to again be in this year's Amgen Tour of California, was the remarkable coincidence that team owner Chris White was diagnosed with testicular cancer on the same day as Lance Armstrong. White's story was told in a front-of-the-sports-page story in last week's Los Angeles Daily News.

More from the team presentation (including photos) at the jump...

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Please pardon the proud papa post. :)

About a year ago my wife turned to PdC with a post about our daughter's discouraging experience as a newbie on her high school's mountain bike racing team.  Thanks to all of you who took the time to chime in on that post.

She ended up having lots of fun at the 2009 races, and even nabbed the last qualifying spot for US Nationals for her age group thanks to her consistency.

Well, she did loads of riding during the off-season, and yesterday was all about the PODIUM BABY!!!!!! [youtube]

Third place, and a first-class ticket to racing in varsity (top category) next year!!! :D :D :D

We're all just tickled and had to share.  Thanks in advance for this intrusion on the regular PdC bandwidth.

(Next race in two weeks!  Wooo!!)

FYI, you can see the VDS standings in the left sidebar and the Podium Cafe World Rankings in the right. This is sort of a placeholder as the numbers will start getting updated automatically very soon, possibly today. For now, this is a preview along with today's actual numbers.