I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy 4th!  I’m going to be at work 11 - 9:30 today so no interesting posts or Cyclopassion TV videos today.  Tomorrow is an 8-5 day as well so I will see about getting something up tomorrow.  But I wanted to shout out and wish you all a great day, enjoy time with family and friends!

Sam

Is it the best bicycle ever? No, not even close.  Is it technologically advanced? Well not in a sporting sense no. But it is an inventive “bicycle” and I use that word loosely, that mixes the Belgian cycling culture, with wheels, pedals, comraderie, and a fair bit of beer. The Pedal Pub!

I mean really, this is a bit strange but is really awesome in my opinion.  I just wish I had a reason to rent it out!

One of the greatest clubs and banners ever, from a group of Australian’s who wish they were Belgian.

This is the first video from my new project Cyclopassion TV.

I couldn’t resist a post when I saw this picture.

Today the Garmin-Chipotle H30 team announced which riders they would be taking to the Tour de France.  Here is the squad and some of my thoughts.

•

-Magnus Backstedt-The Big Swede is decent in the sprints and on a good day can take any sprint out of a small group so look for him to be in the breakaways.

• Julian Dean-The closest thing the team has to a sprinter and should be good to take a couple top 10 placings in the sprint stages.

• Will Frischkorn-Can do well in stage races of up to a week, but untested beyond that look for Will to be an ultimate team player and maybe make it into a couple breaks as well.

• Ryder Hesjedal-Decent at weeklong stage races and ok in the mountains look for Ryder to climb pretty well, time trial pretty well and grow stronger in his 2nd Grand Tour!

• Trent Lowe-one of the teams best climbers look for Trent to be holding his own in the mountains.

• Martijn Maaskant-The young classics revelation, look for him to be a motor in the breakaways on rolling and flat stages.

• David Millar-What can I say, classy time triallist, like Maggy can win the sprint from a small group and noth lose too much time in the mountains.  If he were in a break that gained 20-30 minutes it would take some work to get the jersey from Dave!

• Danny Pate-Danny tends to hide near the back a lot in stage races, work for teammates, hit a couple breakaways and then put in 1 very strong time trial performance.  Look for more of the same.

• Christian Vande Velde-My hometown boy from Lemont, IL (I grew up in Downers Grove), he can time trial decently, climb decently and has experience.  Look for a good consistent race and a couple strong breakaways but not a super high classification from Christian.

I really hope that Garmin-Chipotle put in a strong performance at the Tour and do themselves proud!  They have the ability and the willpower and I look forward to following the race.  Check back for updates throughout the race!

So here is my message today.  In a hypothetical situation lets say you crash in 2003, rip all the skin off one of your hands and go wrist first into the curb.  Don’t race the next weekend, have your skin grow back and assume that your wrist is fine because it no longer hurts.

Don’t start playing tennis, and working a job that can give you carpal tunnel for two years without getting your wrist checked out.  Because it seems that when you do this your wrist rebels to the point where it is useless.  It hurts 24/7 and when you finally see a doctor soon, we’ll I’m guessing surgery may be a option high on the list.

Man my wrist hurts, and no I have not seen a doctor yet.  I need to have money before I can do that.  This post is just food for thought.  Take care of yourself, and catch the early signs before they are a real problem!

So I have always wanted to put together a cycling team someday.  And I have always wanted to develop talent in the sport of cycling.  This combined with my talent and will to compete and lack of training time due to a full time job has driven me to consider trying to pitch the idea of starting a cycling team.  I have some sponsors that I think could be decent fits for the marketing, direction and vision that I have for cycling and building a good clean team.  Now I can only hope that I can put together a business plan that will suit their tastes!  But I’ll leave everyone and any potentional sponsors reading this with this picture.  Look at the specatators and imagine many many more on the television and radio hearing your companies name.

So, my roommatewas trying to tell me I should ride my bike instead of playing the xbox 360.  So here is a series of instant messages that I put into poem form for you all.  Credit due to my roomie Michael Culver.

You should ride your bike.

Bike, bike, bike.

Ride, ride, ride.

Pedal, pedal, pedal.

Ride, ride, ride.

Bike, bike,

Bike.

This year’s Giro d’Italia has shown me some good racing, tired and inspired rides and what I think is a clean sport…and I’m going to say it, maybe one of the cleanest sports in the world.  Yeah I just said I think cycling is one of the cleanest sports in the world!

But look at the racing of the 1980’s and 90’s.  Then we had a group of riders that were far and above everyone else, they fought out all of the top races in the world uncontested by the rest of the field who were just happy to help and finish.  And then there were the racers whom would not do well most of the season and then dominate in one or two races a year.

Now the cycling of today. Look at David Millar and Christian Vande Velde of Team Slipstream.  Millar road to a strong 2nd place overall in February’s Tour of California, before struggling in his next big goal Paris-Nice in March.  Then both he and Chirstian both helped the team take a strong win in the team time trial at the Tour de Georgia in April. Millar was part of the team time trial winning team in the Giro d’Italia and rode strongly in a break later the same week but has struggled through the mountains.

Image by Graham Watson

Meanwhile Christian won the teams first race in a time trial at the Circuit de la Sarthe in early April.  Then he was part of the team time trial winning team in stage 1 of the Grio d’Italia and held the leaders jersey for the next day.  He continued to do well in the next time trial on stage 10 and in the first mountain stage before blowing up and struggling in over 30 minutes behind the next day!

Image by Graham Watson

These ups and downs are making for exciting racing, and are being seen throughout the pelaton this year.  Which to me shows that the sport is turning around and is now one of the cleanest in the world!  And it makes for some captivating televesion viewing as well!