Captains America

Pretty cool that too of the most well-known American cyclists will be wearing the stars and stripes next year as U.S. champions. A day after Dave Zabriskie won his 4th straight U.S. time trial title yesterday George Hincapie was able to win the road race today. This is the 3rd time Hincapie has won the U.S. road championships. It seemed like good ol' George was due for some good news. 

Earlier this year he continued his tradition of not winning Paris-Roubaix with his usual mechanical problems. Hincapie promised he'd return to the race next year, saying it could not end that way for him. And then there was the controversy at the Tour de France where he rode just a little too slow to take the yellow jersey. The controversy was that other teams worked to limit their loses after Hincapie had finishes earlier with a breakaway group. The Hincapie group felt Garmin helped push the pace just to prevent Big George from getting into the yellow jersey. I'll always contend that Hincapie prevented himself from getting into yellow by not riding just a little faster. Regardless, it was a devastating day for Hincapie who seems to be racking up more than his share of just missed moments.

So hopefully the win today will take some of the sting out of this year's disappointments. I haven't checked, but I'm almost certain he'll be riding the Tour of Missouri just as Dave Zabriskie will (with Garmin's headquarters in Kansas City). So if you happen to be in Missouri during the race, cheer on our new American champions for me. Wish I could be there. 

What the Vuelta?

As I mentioned yesterday, Slate has gotten in the business of doing bike reviews that make you less informed. I was only talking about the video they had posted. Boy was I glad that the bike reviewer from the video had also written up his thoughts as well. By far the most hilarious part is the end of the article when you learn that this tool was supposed to review four bicycles instead of three but left one of the bikes outside overnight with an inept locking job resulting in it's theft. I think what really bothered me was that the reviewer is so obviously clueless about bikes. I do believe that sometimes it can be useful to throw novice into things and see what their "fresh eyes" see. But if that's the case, I expect them to admit they're a novice and hold back from making broad generalizations about the topic they clearly know nothing about. And it doesn't help when the Web site trumpets the review with headlines like "The best city bicycle ever" and "You need to buy one." Yes, in my hilly city where I live in an apartment without an elevator I need to by a 47 pound beast that is as slow as it is overpriced. I'd go on more about it but the bike snob tackles things quite nicely. 


Enough of that. I know that a lot of people are gearing up for football season, I'm in the process of finalizing the teams for my fantasy league right now. But I'm also coming up on the close of my fantasy cycling season (this is much easier than actual cycling, but sadly consumes far more time). I compete at this random site one of my former co-workers found a few years ago. I'm about to go into some really boring fantasy stuff before taking about actual cyclists who might win the Vuelta, so feel free to skip down to the next section starting in bold.


After a strong debut last year, I have not done as well this year, finishing 35th in the Giro and 223rd in the Tour out of roughly 1000 people. So I'd really like to get into the top three spots for the Vuelta a Espana. In the league, everyone gets a budget and tries to build the best team possible from the same pool of riders and then guess which days each rider on your team will perform the best.


Now the key to a good cycling fantasy team is to find the handful of guys who will finish high up, the couple sprinters who will win the most stages or have high finishes, and find one or two guys who carry the leader's jersey unexpectedly or perform above their expected capabilities. An added wrinkle to the Vuelta is that historically Italy announces which riders it has selected to their national team for the world championships during the 3 week tour. As a result, Italian riders picked to the team often drop out of the race before it is done.


So here are some guys I'm thinking of taking on my team and my thoughts on how well they might do in the Vuelta.


Andy Schleck - He has come in 2nd at the Giro and Tour. He could be tired, he could be off form after the Tour. But here's my thinking, if Alberto Contador were in this race, he'd probably win. He's so much better than anyone else, even operating at 85-90 percent he's still better than everyone. And I feel like Schleck is probably somewhere between Contador and every other rider on the planet. So he's going on my team. I'm less sure about taking his brother Frank, but I feel like both brothers could end up in the top five and I could rework my line up to get him in.


Sammy Sanchez - This is a no brainer. Sanchez is gifted, set for a breakthrough and he gave up most of his year to focus on the Vuelta. Just the fact that this race is his top priority puts him well ahead of most everyone else in the race.


Alejandro Valverde - Since this guy is probably going to get banned everywhere at some point (he's already been banned by Italy for DNA linking him to the doping scandal operation puerto) the Vuelta is going to be huge for him. I don't believe Valverde is capable physically, mentally or strategically of winning a grand tour, but he sure knows how to string together a great week to 10 days.


Zeke Mosquera - He's the highest finisher (4th) returning from last year and historically has done well at the Spanish tour, so he gets the nod.


Now comes the hard part, I've got room for one more rider going for the overall win, but I really don't know who to choose. Here is who I'm leaning toward.


Cadel Evans - The man who finished No. 2 twice at the Tour de France only to be nonexistent this year. After battling injuries and the pressure of being the favorite last year, he really fell off this year. I wonder, does this help him or hurt him? He's been one of the most consistent and talented riders the past three years. From a talent level I'd put him ahead of pretty much everyone in the race, but does he have anything left? I may end up picking Frank Schleck instead and getting a more high powered sprinter. At which point I'm sure Evans would win the Vuelta.


For sprinters I'm locked into Tyler Farrar, he's on form and proven to be in the mix at the Giro and Tour. And Andre Greipel should benefit from Cavendish's train and has won 15 races himself this year.  After that I'm a bit more hazy. It will probably be some combination of Gerald Ciolek, Daniele Bennati, and Oscar Freire. I'd say I have questions about Bennati, he's shown he can be dominant in the past, but he's been bothered by injuries all season and I don't really have any clue as to his form. Add in that he could leave the race to prepare for the world championships (being Italian and all) and he's a bit of an unknown. If he were out than I suppose Tom Boonen could be in. But for me, Boonen has almost turned into a Terrell Owens type guy. He's talented but often makes his teammates lose out on opportunities and in the end not really very fun to cheer for.


So that's my thinking right now. I'm sure that once the race starts and my roster is set I'll regret not taking a whole host of guys. Usually it's wise to find that guy from the race's host nation who is on the cusp of breaking out, but I can't bring myself to dig that deep. Or maybe returning cheaters Alexander Vinokourov or Ivan Basso will be the ones to shine. My hunch is they'll need at least this year under their belt to get back to their old level. And of course we know their old level was augmented by doping, so it's unclear what we should truly expect from them. Anyway, I'm hoping for a wide-open, interesting race and I have a feeling Spain will deliver. 

We are all dumber having watched this

What can I say, I suffered through it and I thought my readers should too. Slate reviews three bikes in this video. The depth of knowledge displayed in the video is slightly deeper than that middle bit of frosting in a layer cake. We learn nothing about the bikes beyond what is plainly visible by looking at it. It reminds me of a time when a journalism professor told me after reading my essay that he was starting to wonder whether I'd read the correct chapters before writing. The reviewer uses the phrase "form over function" about the last bike, when that phrase pretty much applies to every dutch commuter bike. Chain guards and fenders are great, but so is a bike frame that isn't the equivalent of gaining 20 extra unneccessary pounds every time you get on it. On top of the total lack of anything interesting to say about the bikes, the reviewer finishes off by calling one of the bikes a fixed gear, even though it's clear from the video that it is a single speed with coaster brakes. Now, that might splitting hairs to some, but people who know bikes know the difference and you'd think you'd get someone with at least basic knowledge of cycling or commuting to do the review.

Putting locks to good use

Check out this Slate story about what some major cities are doing to improve bike parking. It's good to see efforts being made on this front. Nothing is more annoying than struggling to find a place to lock up your bike properly. Well, actually more annoying is coming back to that spot you found and discovering that someone has revealed it wasn't such a good location at all and they've made off with your bike.

While I lived in Charlotte bike parking was pretty lacking, luckily so were cyclists, meaning you pretty much always had the pick of the best spots. (Thomas St. Tavern blew my mind, a bar with a bike rack? Awesome!) Things are changing though, more and more people are getting on their bikes and that's a good problem in my mind. Now that I live in Seattle it seems like bike parking is fairly abundant, but honestly I would not say I've done enough cycling to say so for sure. But the few places I have gone where I needed to lock up I've always found an opening on a bike rack (or "staple" as the Slate article calls them).

The story's mention of the stimulus package reminded about the tax break for employers who give money to help defer bike commuting costs to their bike commuting employees. I'm curious about how this program is working. And maybe at some point I'll even investigate or (google) to see if any companies are actually using this. Of course these days, few companies still have any employees left, so maybe the program will be better measured if we one day again have an economy that employs workers.

A cycling video I can get behind

I know the performance video is all the rage right now. But I found this crazy thing via bike snob much more entertaining.

Ameeeeeeeerica!

When I first got into following cycling it was right around the time that Lance Armstrong was finishing up his string of Tour de France victories. At the time there was not much hope for any other American to be such a dominant force in pro cycling. George Hincapie, Floyd Landis and Levi Leipheimer seemed like the best hopes. Hincapie did get into yellow, Landis got caught cheating, and Levi was eventually overshadowed by his teammate Alberto Contador.

Last year Christian Vande Velde emerged as a possible podium contender, and Levi seems to have improved as well. Both have raced very well but neither really seems up to being a favorite to win in France. Of course Armstrong has returned and added another high powered American to the mix, but it seems unlikely that he'll once again take home the yellow jersey.

So even though Lance is back, the question remains, who will be the future power of American cycling to replace Armstrong?

There is of course track star Taylor Phinney and pro sprinter Tyler Farrar. But cyclingnews.com has the scoop on some more young guns who are in the development pipeline.

In keeping with the American racer theme, the United States national team got some good news for the World Championships. Pretty much because Lance Armstrong came back (and Tyler Farrar had a stronger year) the U.S. will be allowed to take 9 riders to the national championships instead of 5, like it had to take last year. This should bolster the possibility of the U.S. getting the rainbow stripes for the first time since Armstrong did it in 1993. Still, I'm not sure if any top American rider really has the world championship as a goal. But hopefully we can do better than 23rd like last year.

In the bad news for American cycling department, Lance says he's not going to ride in the Tour of Missouri. That's too bad. He brings the crowds, and I'm sure the ToM could use as much positive feedback as it can get after the race was nearly canceled this year. It should prove an interesting race once again though, as I'm sure team Columbia will be even more motivated to take the overall win away from Christian Vande Velde and Garmin Slipstream after the apparent bad blood at the Tour de France this year.

Boston Bike Party

My girlfriend just sent me this story from the New York Times about efforts to improve Boston as a cycling city. A pretty standard tale about a city trying to jump on the cycling bandwagon. Mostly you hear about how efforts are slow but going in the right direction. And that's probably as much as you can hope for in these budget strapped times.

What first came to mind as I read it though was the summer I lived in Boston. This was back in aught four (isn't it fun that we can say stuff like that now?), before I did very much bike commuting and I did absolutely none while I lived there. But I did take a bicycle tour of the city. And I have only fond memories of the experience. I imagine I didn't really cover the ground that your average bike commuter would face. However the reason I tried the bike tour in the first place was because I had repeatedly heard the best way to see Boston was by bike. So things couldn't have been that bad, right?

It was interesting that the story didn't have any quotes from angry drivers, tired of cyclists slowing them down and breaking the law. The closest thing was this graph:

City and state officials are also backing up their efforts to turn Boston into a bike-friendly city with a crackdown on bad behavior against cyclists. The legislature recently passed a law holding drivers liable if they open a car door in the path of an approaching cyclist and injure a cyclist. And the City Council is considering a fine for motorists who park in bike lanes. There are few legal penalties — at least so far — for cyclists who ride recklessly and do not obey traffic signals. But Ms. Freedman said city officials hoped more bike lanes would lead to more riders’ and drivers’ following the rules.

I'll be watching to see how these efforts turn out. I think all too often drivers get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to incidents with cyclists. But my attitudes about bike and car interaction have been changing lately (maybe because I've moved to a new city and do a whole lot less bike commuting). I once believed (while I bike commuted in Charlotte, N.C.) that riding my bike was a bit like putting a target on my back for some drivers. But that's really not true, drivers would have to notice you exist before they see any kind of target on your back. What I think is probably more accurate is that cyclists are simply more vulnerable when they fall victim of road rage and as a result such incidents are more fatal and headline grabbing. Drivers and cyclists who rage around the road don't care whether it's a bike, person or SUV in their way, they hate all things that they perceive as an obstacle to their destination. And yes, cyclists show a lot of road rage as well.

I wonder, though, whether it helps or hurts cyclists to believe they're being targeted or abused because they're cyclists. Certainly any efforts to raise cycling awareness should help reduce wrecks in which someone just failed to see a cyclist because they weren't looking for them or expecting to find them. But does an us versus them mentality lead to overly aggressive behavior from extreme members of both communities? I don't really know. It could be that these people would be slamming into each other regardless. Think about it.