Peloton Blog

Tinkoff and cycling owners

If a team has a non-rider for a face it is usually the team manager. In the past we had mangers like Guimard, Peter Post, and Jan Raas that become face for the team. In recent years Saitz, Riis, and to a slightly lesser extent Bruynel are as well known as many of their riders. That is still the exception as most teams it is the riders that you think of first and last when you think of the team. After the team managers the actual people that right the checks are even more invisible. For the most part they are multi-national corporations that the marketing department decided that paying a bike team is good advertising. There have been very few George Steinbrenner or Al Davis type in the cycling world (thank goodness), but now we do have Oleg Tinkov with his new team Tinkoff Credit Systems. There is a short interview with him over at CyclingNews here. The team made waves with the signing of Tyler Hamilton, Danilo Hondo, and Ricardo Serrano all of whom have a past with drug issues.

The only other high profile team owner I can remember is Bernard Tapie that ran the La Vie Claire team of the 1980’s with Hinault, LeMond, Hampsten, and lots of other top riders. Tapie eventually would up with a short jail term in the ‘90s. Donald Trump did lend his name and some money to the Tour de Trump bike race that was eventually picked up the DuPont company for a few years. I doubt there will be a sudden influx of rich people wanting to use cycling for vanity projects, but it is good to see Tinkov. Cycling has notoriously been lacking great personalities in all aspects of the sport, and Tinkov certainly adds some color.

Giro 2007 route

This past weekend the route for the 2007 Giro was announced. As usual it shows more imagination then the Tour. The ’07 Giro will be far less mountains then the ’06 version, and that is good as when you have a route like they did this year if one rider is physically superior like Basso was it can really get boring. Despite fewer mountains they did include the big climb of the Zoncolon. The Zoncolon is a ridiculously steep climb much like the Angliru in the Vuelta. They will doing the Zoncolon from the Ovaro side and that is supposed to be a harder climb then when done from Sutrio side as it was in 2003. It also includes a mountain TT that is uncommon for the Giro. The mountain TT will be up the Oropa climb last done in ’99 when Pantani won the stage. Still to this day it is probably my favorite climb by Pantani as he gave all the other riders an almost 30 second head start to adjust his bike, and then did a terrifying climb up passing lots of riders to win by 21 seconds.

Also of note in the Giro is it opening with a 24 km TTT. The short distance gives us the spectacle of the discipline without having to do silly rules like the Tour has done to prevent the stage from being too decisive. The first mountain top is on Stage 4 giving the race a significant stage early. Overall a better ballanced Giro that I am sure everyone hopes will bring back the drama of 2005.

Returning this next year is the best young rider jersey for the best 25 year old or younger rider, but costing us the Intergiro jersey that I think only a handful of people understood and fewer even caring about.

Next up will be the Vuelta route announcement, and the ongoing battle between the UCI and race organizers.

ProTour says no to Astana

The news today is that the Astana team of Vino will not be given a spot on the ProTour. (news)  So most likely the spot made available by Phonak leaving will be given to Belgium team sponsored by Unibet. Manolo Saiz still holds the Liberty Seguros team spot and no word about that. I am guessing that there will be one fewer ProTour team. That would be good as for the first time there will be more then 2 or so truly interesting non ProTour teams. With Astana, Team Barloworld, Tinkoff Credit Systems, the new team of Davide Boifava and wherever Ullrich might mind up. So if the current format continues we will be stuck seeing Euskaltel doing the northern spring classics, and some of the French and Italian teams in doing the Spanish stage races while some riders that want to be there are left out. The teams don’t really want to be there, and the race organizers would rather other local teams to be there.

The idea that the UCI had with the ProTour is that we would see the top riders doing more races, but the reality it hasn’t. As Delagado pointed out in the VeloNews interview last week that the top riders are doing far less races then what was done in the 80’s. All it has done is to make the ProTour teams send the “B team” to races they are not interested, rather then have a regional team that wants to be there.  The UCI has to remember they can't mandate good races, but they sure seem to want to hurt established ones (Vuelta) to help newer ones (Tour of Germany).

Isaac Gálvez

Last week at the Gent Six Day track event Spanish rider Isaac Gálvez died after a crash. (news) Gálvez was a world champion on the track and a solid road sprinter regularly finishing in the top 10. A few years he was responsible for a crash in the Giro that took out Mario Cipollini, but he continued to improve.

I think the people that watch cycling for the crashes are a far greater minority then say NASCAR. Since the only protection they have are foam helmets the crashes are far more real. You watch a crash in a car race and you don’t really see the driver, or in American football the players are so well protected the worse injuries don’t appear that bad. The most notable exception is the Theisman broken leg that we were treated to with endless slow motion replays for years. In cycling you see the blood as they remount the bikes or lay at the side of the road.

Just a reminder on how dangerous this activity is, but the better reminders for that are the yearly fatalities that happen everywhere when someone is just riding their bike. Remember the bigger vehicle will win every time, even if they are breaking the law. Everyone ride safe.

In happier news the Giro route will be announced this weekend. If some of the early rumors are true there will be a few things that are interesting about the route.

Basso to

The big news this week is that Ivan Basso will be riding for the Discovery Team next year (Story). Basso going to the team has been rumored a lot the last few months, but the talks go back many years when Lance was riding. It has also raised eyebrows on other ProTour teams as they had agreed last month not to sign riders still under doping suspension.

This is a good fit for both Basso and Discovery. Despite a good consistent presence last year the team did not seem to be able to move into the CSC mold of several good riders all getting great results. Also unlike CSC the Discovery team has not seen great improvement in their rider. Danielson being the only young rider in the Lance years that has seem to show continues improvement, and Hincapie became a stage race rider. Popovitch has stalled in his development after getting 3rd and 5th in the Giro before he joined Discovery. Popo the last 2 years look like he has become a solid top 10 GC rider in the Grand Tours rather then a potential winner. So getting Basso a top rider that is a proven Grand Tour champ fits more into the one team leader style for them, and I think Basso will be able to handle the responsibility of that as well.

In other news two riders that have showed a lot in 2005 Rujano and Ruben Plaza, but who are coming off of lost seasons might be joining the Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears team. Several years ago Plaza turned pro for Banesto before moving to Kelme so he is returning to the team.

Rujano

One little note in CyclingNews the other day said that Jose Rujano one of the stars of the 2005 Giro was leaving the QuickStep team (story). The year started off with him making a deal with the Selle-Italia team that he had ridden with to continue riding with them until after the Giro when he would leave the team for QuickStep. When racing began he seemed to battle the Selle-Italia and did not race, until reaching a last minute agreement and did the Giro. All year long he had talked about the Tour and seemed to treat the Giro as a minor inconvenience. After crashing he pulled out of the Giro midway just when it was looking like he might be showing something. With QuickStep he rode the Tour de France, but had no impact on the race before leaving. No results of note for the entire year.

I fear that he will go down as just a one year wonder much like Julio Alberto Perez Cuapio who looked so good winning 2 stages in the 2002 Giro. Perez is still racing, but has never looked anything like he did in that 2002 Giro.

Tour de France 2007 route

Yesterday the route for the 2007 Tour de France was announced (news). The event was lower key then in recent years with many top riders not attending. Obviously with the Landis situation there is no good way for ASO to handle it, but their showing a cracked mirror was probably not the best. Ignoring Landis altogether would have shown more class,

Despite the poor presentation the route looks pretty good. The Tour rarely shows much imagination in its route choices, and when they do it often backfires on them. No TTT does not bother me as they can’t seem to do one without silly rules, or having it make too big of a factor on the race. I like the mountains coming a little earlier then usual with the mountains starting on stage 7 (in recent years it has been stage 9 or 10). There is the prologue and 2 long TTs, but the first does not come until stage 13 and no mountain TT. All the usual quotes about it being a great, traditional, balanced and hard route are out there. The same quotes from the same team managers, and both current and former riders that we have seen this time for the past few years. There is the usual cliché also about it being the riders that make the race, and that is always true. Let’s hope that next year we see the top riders making it a top route.

In coming weeks we will see the Giro and Vuelta 2007 routes. Those are always far more interesting both good and not so good. At least they usually show a little more imagination and unpredictability.

Operacion Puerto is it much ado?

So far for Operacion Puerto to quote Shakespeare is a tale … full of sound and fury; signifying nothing. Despite the claims of lots of athletes being involved only cyclists have been named and most of them have been cleared. It cost the Comunidad Valenciana team its spot in two Grand Tours and led to the team ending. It cost the Astana team its spot in the Tour and all its sponsors, but Vino was able to rebuild it. Ullirch looks to have his career at risk, Tyler may be prevented from coming back, the fate of Sevilla and Mancebo is a question mark right now. It seems like all the other riders including Basso and the Asatana and CV teams are being cleared. With the loss of sponsors all that does is hurt all riders no matter if  they are clean or not, and make what money is there available to pro cyclists even harder to get thus maybe even encourage more doping.

My guess by the start of next season will be Operacion Puerto to have gotten Ullrich out of the sport (or perhaps on a second division team) and encouraged a few other riders to end their careers early. There has been very little said on the status of any doctors or other non-athletes involved in this outside of Saitz.

End of year and Vino

A week and a half to go in the pro cycling season. There are other races like the Japan Cup that does have a decent list of winners, but I think most people view Tour of Lombardy as the last race of the year. It is the last ProTour event, and this year Valverde will win that race. Valverde and last year’s champ Di Luca are exactly the type of riders that the UCI wanted to win the ProTour with a win or two in a major classic and a top finish in a Grand Tour. For me the pleasant surprise in the ProTour standings is the second place for Sammy Sanchez thanks to his late season charge including his win at Zurich last weekend and his top finish at the Vuelta. We will see if the UCI and race organizers can get together to make a decent season long competition for next year.

In the French Velo magazine a trainer says the improvement of Vino is impossible without drugs (cyclingnews story). Apparently by watching him ride he determined that Vino improved his power at threshold by 35-40 watts. While I would agree with his premise that such a improvement at Vino’s age and fitness would be highly unlikely, but there is no way by watching him race to make such a judgment. There are too many factors to consider from weight to also improving recovery, how long you can ride above threshold, etc. This sort of talk should be reserved for internet chat and ideal speculation, and not for a supposed legitimate news magazine.

UCI vs Race orgnaizers the ongoing saga

It seems we are in the annual battle between the UCI and organizers of the Grand Tours. The UCI wants to have control over TV rights and the race organizers are understandably reluctant to give up that valuable commodity. Also there is the issue about requiring all ProTour teams to race all the races, and leaving only 2 spots for smaller teams. Once again in the Vuelta we were treated to the Francaise de Jeux and Bouygues Telecom teams that clearly had no interest in being there (okay Eisel was in some of the sprints). Also the UCI has had recent grumblings about reducing the GT length to combat drug use. To say length of those tough stage races is a major cause of doping would imply that there is very little drug use in track events or for one-day classics.

Clearly this power struggle will continue into there is a clear winner. Both sides are using the drug problem to say they are the best at dealing with it. The end result may still do more harm then good as both will bring more focus onto drugs and away from actual racing.