Category: Cycling Page 24 of 34

The final stage of the 2008 Tour de Georgia kicks off at 1pm EDT.  The 10 laps around a 6.2 mile circuit in downtown Atlanta will be the battleground on which the winner of the 2008 Tour de Georgia is decided.

Team High Road’s Kanstantsin Siutsou enters the stage first in the overall, thanks to his surprise stage win on Brasstown Bald.  Trent Lowe, of Slipstream, is only 4″ back from Siutsou.  Astanta’s Levi Leipheimer is 14″ back.  Everyone else?  More than a minute back.  While the circuit isn’t exactly flat, it’s pretty hard to see how anyone outside of the top three will be able to get into the mix tomorrow.

Hit the jump for the weather, terrain profile, and course map.

Read More

Team High Road’s Kanstantin Sivtsov surprised everyone to win the Brasstown Bald stage of the 2008 Tour de Georgia. He’s four seconds up in the overall general classification of the race, and if he can keep those four seconds in tomorrow circuit stage in Atlanta, the Tour de Georgia is his. We’ll see.

Updated to correct spelling of name.  That’s what you get for relying on the official media guide . . .

I suppose it’s partly a function of being here, among the energy, but I can hardly think of a more exciting day in American pro racing than this stage. Added in 2004 (after some griping by Lance Armstrong about the lack of a mountaintop finish), the climb up Brasstown Bald is not only the most difficult in American pro road racing, but also enjoys an international reputation as ridiculously difficult. It’s in stages like this – where most riders are just focused on surviving – where the best of pro riders can capture the race for themselves. And we’re not short of riders who think that they just might be able to do that.

Things get rolling in Blairsville at 11am, starting on an 88.4 mile (142.3km) course to Brasstown Bald.  Check out the profile:

The routing of the course, gives the peloton time to warm up on some (relatively) flat valley roads. Sprinters get a points opportunity around mile 39. There’s a feed zone at mile 52, but we get our first KOM opportunity immediately after that, at mile 57 in Hogpen Gap. Riders descend from there, with just a little bit of time to recover before the second KOM line at mile 74 (Unicoi Gap).

While Sunday’s circuits through Atlanta yield some theoretical possibility of a continuing GC contest, it’s rather unlikely. If any of these contenders are going win the 2008 Tour de Georgia, it’s going to be at Brasstown Bald. So, let’s look at the GC possiblities.

Slipstream’s Trent Lowe is the man in yellow, but (as noted here on PC) you can’t help but wonder if team owner Jonathan Vaughters didn’t intentionally make him a hopeless caretaker in order to keep his GC options wide open. Tom Danielson is definitely out of the running, having lost 17″ on yesterday’s stage. However, both Christian Vande Velde and Dave Zabriske share the same time as Lowe (Lowe picked up the yellow on a very technical tiebreaker related to his position crossing the line in the TTT). I’d certainly love to listen on in that conversation at the Slipstream hotel tonight. My money say that Vande Velde, the second podium step in last year’s TdG, is tapped. Levi Leipheimer – along with Chris Horner – is only 4″ back right now. Now, as much as one might think of Vande Velde or Zabriske’s talents, it’s not hard to imagine Leipheimer putting more than 4″ into these guys (esp with the help of teammates Horner and Colom – both of whom are at the same time as Levi) . Oh, and who’s only 6″ back, perhaps capable of opportunistically taking advantage of these guys watching each other too closely? That would be George Hincapie. I thought – and he said – that he was pretty clearly out of the running on this year’s race. Maybe not so much. After these folks, chances fall dramatically, with Bobby Julich leading a trio who are 13″ seconds back, and it going down from there. So, to review:

The top ten for the  overall, at the moment:

1. Trent Lowe, Slipstream-Chipotle
2. Dave Zabriske, Slipstream-Chipotle
3. Christian Vande Velde, Slipstream-Chipotle
4. Levi Leipheimer, Astana, +4″
5. Chris Horner, Astana
6. Antonio Colom, Astana
7. George Hincapie, Team High Road, +6″
8. Kanstantsin Siutsou, Team High Road
9. Bobby Julich, CSC, +13″
10. Inigo Cuesta, CSC

While the GC is the race everyone’s paying attention to, the KOM competition is finalized today, with a decent haul of points available over the three KOM points on the stage. The first over the Hogpen Gap climb gets 10 points (going 7 deep), first over Unicoi gets 8 points (going 5 deep), and first up Brasstown gets 12 points (going 10 deep). So lots of possibilities for the non-GC mountain goats today. The current standings are:

The top five for the KOM, at the moment:

1. Ted King, Bissell – 13 pts
2. Valery Kobzarenko, Team Type 1 – 10 pts
3. Cameron Evans – Symmetrics – 10 pts
4. Moises Adalpe, Team Type 1 – 6 pts
5. Tim Johnson, Health Net – 6 pts

The KOM competition is wide open. There aren’t enough sprint points to affect the sprint jersey (held by High Road’s Henderson), and Slipstream’s Trent Lowe has 50″ over his nearest competitor (Symmetrics’ Christian Meier) in the young rider competition. So we’ll worry about those in Atlanta, instead.

And what of the area that makes this stage possible? Blairsville is a quiet little Appalachian town (and remember, it’s not “appel-a-shun”, it’s “apple-atchan”). Brasstown Bald isn’t a town at all, but rather the top of the tallest mountain in Georgia. All in all, it’s some beautiful Eastern mountain country, and if you ever get the chance (and have the legs), you should ride it.

Now, I know you’re waiting for it. The easy shot. But no, I’m not going to do that (despite the fact that Deliverance was, indeed, filmed just a few miles away from here). And anyway, folks around here have a sense of humor. Instead, I’m going to change it up a bit, reaching outside of Georgia for the music and use it to frame the story of this stage.

There’s a story, you ask? Well, I was looking through previous years’ results earlier today, and I noticed something – almost all of the podium finishers on this stage have been once-close leaders/lieutenants who end up in competition with each other. Now, I know that this describes much of cycling, but there’s really a closely connected set of stories here. Consider the drama of 2005, when Lance (former Postal) sat on Floyd (former Postal), killing Floyd’s GC lead (with apparent malice) over Lance teammate Danielson, who would take both the stage (a certain Levi was 2nd) and the overall as a result. Next, in 2006, Danielson (Disco) wins the stage, but couldn’t shake Floyd (Phonak) despite his and Popo’s (Disco nee Postal) best efforts. Then there’s 2007, where Levi dropped Disco teammate Danielson in pursuit of a Gilberto Simoni attack, resulting in Levi’s winning the stage (by 38 seconds) over Danielson, despite an earlier understanding that Danielson would be taking the stage. So, in light of all of that and the poetry that is a well-timed attack on Brasstown Bald, here is today’s music – The Ark’s This Piece of Poetry is Meant to Do Harm:

You’ve been watching over me
Saying you’re keeping me company
I should be grateful, I suppose
and compare you to a summer’s rose

You’ve been talking sweet to me
about peace and loving harmony
But I know what you say about me
So now I tell you cause I gotta break free

That I can’t give you no false affection
I can do without your phony charm
This train ain’t moving in your direction
This piece of poetry is meant to do harm

Enjoy Brasstown Bald, folks.

How to watch the race Live video from WCSN will start at 12:00pm EDT. Those of you outside of the US, can get it free from Cycling.tv here, time uncertain. The Tour Tracker should start its coverage when the things get moving at 11am EDT.

– originally posted to PodiumCafe.com

Unlike today’s stage, this preview will be short and sweet. While I’m sure that the riders hardly felt like yesterday’s 20 minutes on the track at Road Atlanta felt like a day off, at least hope they got a little more rest than usual yesterday. They’ll need it for Stage Five, which is not only the longest stage in the Tour de Georgia, but also brings the first mountains.

Riders will be starting in Suwanee at 10am, and will spend the next 133.4 miles (214.7km) taking the long way to Dahlonega. Check out the profile after the jump.

Read More

Here are a few shot of the day out on the track, where Slipstream claimed the stage.

(Will expand and move the gallery here later today, I hope.)

Well, we’re heading into the third stage of the 2008 Tour de Georgia in pretty much the same condition we started the first stage. No one is yet building a claim to the overall GC. In fact, we’re still in the dark as to who some teams are turning to for their GC hopes. And the only clear favorite is waiting with quiet confidence at the back of the peloton. Against this background, the Tour de Georgia has thus far been a sprinter’s race, and don’t expect that to change for Stage Three.

Stage Three starts in the small town of Washington and heads north to Gainesville. This 109.7 mile (176.5 km) stage will mark start of the transition to the mountains of North Georgia, with this stage featuring a steady rise in elevation. Most of the ride will feature rural country highways until the peloton arrives in Gainesville for another circuit finish.

The stage is scheduled to start at 11:00am and finish sometime between 3:00pm and 4:00pm. You can get the official terrain profile and map (as PDFs) or you can check out a composite from MapMyRide.com (provided in partnership with WCSN).

The stage will start with the the leader jerseys on the following riders:

• AT&T Georgia Leader Jersey: Ivan Dominguez (CUB), Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team
• Georgia Power Sprint Leader’s Jersey*: Greg Henderson (NZL), Team High Road
• United Community Bank King of the Mountain: Frank Pipp (USA), HealthNet presented by Maxxis
• GE Energy Best Young Rider Leader’s Jersey: Nicholas Saunderson (AUS), Jelly Belly Cycling Team
• Georgia Lottery Most Aggressive Jersey: Rhys Pollock (AUS), GE Marco Polo presented by Trek

* Worn by Henderson due to Dominguez holding Leader jersey.

Stage Three will see the first appearance of the King of the Mountain Jersey, earned by Frank Pipp’s solo attack near the end of Stage Two. He’ll be getting a pretty good return on that investment, too. The next KOM points don’t appear until Friday, so he’ll be pulling that KOM jersey on for the next three days.

Rhys Pollock also brings some glory to the GE Marco Polo team, having snagged the Most Aggressive Rider Jersey for his efforts in bridging from the peloton up to Toyota-United’s Justin England. It’s a bit surprising, however, that this jersey didn’t go to England, who created the reason for Pollock’s efforts in the first place. (And it looks like I’m not the only one surprised by that.)
The sprinters will have three opportunities to earn sprint points at sprints lines in Comer (48 miles in), Ila (60 miles in), and Homer (80 miles in). The overall sprinter’s jersey is far from decided, so look for some animation at these points. Current sprint standings:

1. Ivan Dominguez, Toyota-United, 25 Pts.
2. Greg Henderson, Team High Road, 23 Pts.
3. Tyler Farrar, Slipstream-Chipotle, 20 Pts.
4. Jose Juan Jose, CSC, 15 Pts.
5. Nicholas Sanderson (Aus), Jelly Belly, 15 Pts./Robert Forster (G), Gerolsteiner, 15 Pts.

Who to watch? Well, no riders have really shown their cards (aside from JJ Haedo, who has pretty well illustrated that he’s got his wrist under control). With it looking like another bunch sprint finish, one can only imagine that Dominguez would be quite happy to put his team in yellow for the next day’s team time trial. However, with the mountains approaching – where the big GC teams will almost certainly take control – tomorrow represents one of the last chances for some of the other domestic teams to make a statement. The top ten for the overall, at the moment:

1. Ivan Dominguez, Toyota-United, 7:02:39
2. Greg Henderson, Team High Road, +3″
3. Juan Jose Haedo, CSC, +4″
4. Nicholas Sanderson, Jelly Belly, +6″
5. Tyler Farrar, Slipstream-Chipotle
6. Robert Forster, Gerolsteiner, +10″
7. Ivan Stevic, Toyota-United,
8. Christian Meier, Symmetrics, +11″
9. Scott Nydam, BMC, +13″
10. Rhys Pollock, GE-Marco Polo

No musical talent to be showcased by this stage, but we do get a little bit of history. If there were actually video available showing the start in Washington, you’d see a town that has made quite an industry out of showing off its antebellum homes. Washington also hosted the last meeting of Jefferson Davis’ cabinet, at which the Confederacy was dissolved (a fact that surprised your correspondent, as I’ve been to this little monument to the Antebellum South before, and don’t recall seeing the dissolution of the Confederacy mentioned anywhere). Gainesville is probably best known as the biggest town on Lake Lanier, an enormous reservoir lake created in the mid 1950s. It’s long been a popular recreational area, but Lanier’s shores (and economy) have suffered from last year’s record drought, and the lake (and associated tourism) is still recovering.

Want to watch it live? Live video from WCSN will start at 12:00pm. Viewers outside of the US (and perhaps Canada – we’re not really sure what WCSN and Cycling.tv have agreed on regarding Canada’s being a part of the United States, it seems) should turn to Cycling.tv, where the coverage usually starts a little while after WCSN’s. The Tour Tracker should start its coverage when the race gets rolling at 11am.

– originally posted to PodiumCafe.com

While I am pleased that Google thinks I’m worth a second page listing for 2008 TdG coverage (behind VeloNews, but ahead of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution!), there are obviously a lot of other (and undeniably better) sources of excellent reporting out there. In addition to the usual and reliable VeloNews, CyclingNews, and PezCyclingNews stops, I expect I’ll be regularly checking out a number of other sites in the next week:

• KWC.org – Ken Conley is on location and shooting away. He’s also asking the hard questions – So, DZ, how *do* you choose between the Tour de France and Comic-con? Ken also seems keen to have a chance to justify his recent $200 rain gear purchase. Yeah, can you get that out of the way before me and my plastic bags get there? Thanks.
• GamJams is hosting a series of reports by 2008 TdG racer and Health Net rider Matt Cooke.
• Steephill.tv remains a model of what the dedicated fan can do. More like this, please.
• MissingSaddle.com is always a good source of inside-the-peloton perspective. Its roster of actively blogging pro-riders is pretty impressive. And it looks like BMC’s Mike Sayers (current TdG racer) has just signed on.
• The Slipstream site. One could not ask for a better team site. You think I’m kidding? Check this new David Millar diary out. Honestly like that is rare anywhere, nevermind on a team’s own site.

And there is, of course, the place where you should be already – PodiumCafe.  In addition to my articles, you’ll get lots of community insight and analysis from long time fans a lot smarter than me.  I still get the feeling that I’m forgetting a few. Help me out?

The second stage of the 2008 Tour de Georgia will start in Statesboro and end up in Augusta 116.9 miles later, having wound its way through flat-to-rolling terrain along the eastern edge of Georgia. If you look closely at the course map, you’ll see that – in a rare display of cooperation between these Southern states – Georgia’s actually letting South Carolina in on the action with a quick trip across the Savannah River for the peloton. The riders return for a circuit finish in downtown Augusta. It’s unknown whether anyone’s heading out for a round of golf afterwards.

The stage is scheduled to start at 11a and finish between 3:30 and 4p. You can get the terrain profile and map (as PDFs) or you can check out a composite from MapMyRide.com (provided in partnership with WCSN).

The stage starts with the following leader jerseys:

• AT&T Georgia Leader Jersey: Ivan Dominguez (CUB), Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team
• Georgia Power Sprint Leader’s Jersey*: Greg Henderson (NZL), Team High Road
• GE Energy Best Young Rider Leader’s Jersey: Nicholas Saunderson (AUS), Jelly Belly Cycling Team
• Georgia Lottery Most Aggressive Jersey: Scott Nydam (USA), BMC Racing Team

* Worn by Henderson due to Dominguez holding Leader jersey.

There are two sprint points opportunities, and with a KOM “climb” thrown in for good measure on the run in to Augusta (nevermind that there’s actually a slightly bigger climb earlier in the stage). Weather looks to be much the same as Monday’s stage.

Who to watch? Well, Toyota-United will presumably be interested in defending the leader’s jersey, so one would expect them to cover any attempted breaks. However, Dominguez isn’t a GC threat, and they won’t burn too many matches to preserve that position. As with stage one, most any team could take stage two, though the smart money may limit it to the teams with real sprinters given the high likelihood of a bunch finish in Augusta. Look for Slipstream’s Tyler Farrar to be interested in making up for having flatted just before Monday’s sprint, and maybe CSC’s Haedo or Rock Racing’s Freddy Rodriguez reminding us that they’re among – if not the, along with Dominguez – sprint talents in the race.

Finally, music fans should appreciate the broad range of musical history you can find along this stage. Macon may not have made the Tour de Georgia schedule this year, but Macon’s own Allman Brothers can still make an appearance with the Statesboro Blues. And who can think of Augusta without thinking of The Hardest Working Man In Show Business? And if it’s the Augusta National Golf Club that comes to mind, well, JB’s got you covered there, too.

– this first appeared at PodiumCafe.com

It was a textbook first stage. A late start (by 30 or so minutes) from Tybee Island got the peloton moving into what might best be described as something of a warm-up ride. No wind-induced splits, or rail crossing excitement. We did get some beautiful Georgia coastal marshes, though. What few breakaway attempts there were got reeled back in within minutes. No one dominated the collection of sprint points, and only near the very end of the stage did we get much in the way of organization in the peloton. Rock moved too soon to set up a leadout, and ended up ceding control of the pace to High Road. What happened after that? Well, I’d simply be repeating what you’ve probably already read elsewhere, because the video was dropped in the last 500-600 meters or so where Toyota-United set its best sprinter up for the win. D’oh. Still, the lesson is that Ivan Dominguez remains a threat in any sprint situation.

As far as the fan experience goes, many of us discovered this morning that the TdG had split the live video coverage away from the vaunted Adobe TourTracker, and handed it off to WCSN. Well, to WCSN for US domestic viewers. And then only to some of them. The live chat over at the TourTracker page indicated that fair number of viewers had a hard time getting a reliable feed. I had relatively few problems (until the maddening end), but I’d logged on a good hour before coverage even started.

Speaking of things that remind you of Cycling.tv, Cycling.tv is responsible for getting the live video to the rest of the world (both on the Free2View channel and at higher bitrates in premium). This coverage started a fair bit later than the WCSN coverage. Not sure if that was by accident or design.

In any event, while I appreciate TdG’s need to monetize the internet broadcast of the feed, it’s a real shame that they had to hobble the Adobe TourTracker in order to do it. That remains, by far, the most impressive sports fan interface I’ve ever come across. Word is that they’re working with WCSN to reintegrate it in some way that retains the WCSN branding/benefits, but I don’t have any confirmation of that.

So, if you’re planning on watching the TdG live this week, remember to get there early (much easier than with P-R!) and with at least two windows – one for WCSN, and one for the TourTracker. Wait, make that three – you’ll need one for PodiumCafe.com, too. But you won’t have to worry about any login troubles there.

Photos courtesy Ken Conley. Follow that link and check him out.

Modified from a story crossposted to PodiumCafe.com