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Doug Report Daily Cycling News Archive

News shorts: Greg LeMond for Tour Down Under.

WorldTour teams for Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, Australian track titles decided.

Abu Dhabi to host new big-budget stage race in October 2015.

The 2015 men's professional season will end with a new big-budget stage race in Abu Dhabi, with the four-day race expected to attract some of the biggest riders and teams in the peloton.

The race will be held between Thursday October 8 and Sunday October 11, starting four days after Il Lombardia in Italy. It will be organised by the Abu Dhabi Sports Council and Giro d'Italia organiser RCS Sport. In many ways the Abu Dhabi Tour will replace the now defunct Tour of Beijing but it will not initially be part of the UCI WorldTour calendar. For the 2015 season, the race has a 2.1 status.

Nys to return to cyclo-cross racing at Superprestige in Diegem.

Sven Nys will return to racing at the Superprestige race in Diegem on Sunday, December 28, it was announced on Monday. The Belgian national champion, who has been performing unexpectedly poorly this season, skipped Sunday’s World Cup race in Namur. He decided to take a break after finishing nearly three minutes down at the Bpost Bank Trofee in Essen on Saturday.

His Crelan-AA Drink Team announced the new racing schedule after consultations between Nys, his manager Paul van den Bosch and team manager Jan Verstraeten. He may skip Friday’s World Cup race in Heusden-Zolder.

2014-15 Races & Results.

Santos Tour Down Under 2015 - Jan 18-25 (Stages),

Dubai Tour 2015 - Feb 4-7 (Stages),

Giro d'Italia 2015 - May 9-31 (Stages),

Tour de France 2015 - July 4-26 (Stages),

UCI Road World Championship 2014 - Sept 20-27 (Results),

Vuelta a España 2014 - Aug 23-Sept 14 (Results),

Tour de France 2014  - July 5-27 (Results),

Giro d'Italia 2014 - May 9 - June 1 (Results),

More ...

 (cyclingnews.com)

Kittel keeping Tour targets under wraps.

Following 10 days of training with Giant-Alpecin in Cambril, Spain, Marcel Kittel told Cyclingnews that he and his team are still working out whether he will target the green points jersey in next year's Tour de France, but a shot at another yellow jersey in the first week is definitely on the radar.

The 26-year-old German sprinter, who has eight Tour stage wins to his credit over the past two years, wore the first maillot jaunes of the 2013 and 2014 Tours after consecutive opening-day wins. Next year's stage 1 time trial in Utrecht, the Netherlands, makes a repeat performance unlikely, but he wouldn't rule out the possibility of wearing yellow during the first week.

USA Pro Challenge announces stage 6 start, finish towns for 2015 race.

Stage 6 of the 2015 USA Pro Challenge will start in Loveland and end in Fort Collins, Colorado, locations that were determined by a fan vote. All of the host cities for the August 17-23 race have now been announced.

Earlier in December, the race unveiled the host cities for stages 1-5 and 7. A circuit race in Steamboat Springs will kick things off, while the race will conclude with a stage from Golden to Denver.

Fans provided more than 20 start and finish options for the sixth stage before Loveland and Fort Collins were chosen, race organizers said.

Cannondale Teramo bike helmet fails Consumer Reports’ safety test.

The buckle on the chinstrap of the Cannondale Teramo helmet ($120) snapped off or broke into pieces with four out of the five samples we evaluated during one of our routine bike helmet tests. The Cannondale Teramo was the only one helmet that failed out of the 14 helmets that we put through the same test. We’ve rated the Cannondale Teramo a Don’t Buy: Safety Risk.

News shorts: Sebastian Henao will target Giro's young rider jersey in 2015.

New US Continental team announces 2015 roster.

12 Days of Dig: Day 9.

"It’s Day 9 of Dig and we bring you two pairings – one for the high-end, style-hound commuter and one for anyone looking for a little bit of two-wheel fun with the significant other."

Compton satisfied with podium finish after asthma issues at Namur.

Pauwels wins World Cup in Namur.

Nash claims convincing win at Namur World Cup.

Gerrans breaks collarbone, will miss Tour Down Under.

It’s hardly the Christmas present 2014 Liège–Bastogne–Liège champion Simon Gerrans for.

Gerrans snapped his collarbone while mountain biking over the weekend, and will miss the chance to defend his titles at the Australian national championship and at the Santos Tour Down Under next month.

Gerrans, 34, was scheduled to undergo surgery on his left shoulder Monday, and admitted he will not be at a top level to race in January.

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how well the recovery goes from here, I don’t think I am going to be in any condition to be racing at a high level in January,” Gerrans said in a team release. “With that in mind I think it is better to take my time, make sure the recovery goes well and get all the rehab done so I don’t have any ongoing issues.

Former winner Rogers treating Santos Tour Down Under as important goal, will lead Tinkoff Saxo team in race.

Following on from a season where he gathered two stage wins in the Giro d’Italia, one in the Tour de France and also third overall in the Route du Sud, Michael Rogers has set his sights on hitting the ground running in 2015 and notching up a high overall finish in the Santos Tour Down Under.

Rogers was confirmed Monday as leading the team in the WorldTour event, which will take place in his home country of Australia.

Monday Shorts.

Forget Tinkoff-Saxo’s temporary training kit, here’s the real deal on camouflage cycle clothing: the French army cycling team. They’ve been an amateur squad but now turn pro for 2015.

The Armée de Terre team has been one of the strongest outfits on the French amateur circuit and well-supported too with the trappings of a pro team like a fleet of vehicles. Now the whole squad is moving up a level and they will ride at UCI Continental level in 2015. But it’s not been easy because to have a pro team you need riders on pro contracts. Only the Armée de Terre team have soldiers and all the riders have signed the standard three year military engagement contract meaning they’re soldiers, not cyclists. Now they’ll ride their bikes all the time but in the eyes of the law they’re military first.

Kerstperiode Battles Begin in Earnest.

"Two days ago on the muddy tracks through the woods of Essen, Belgium, the Kerstperiode began. From now until January 1, cross races pepper the calendar with unheard of frequency, a gift from the cycling gods to those of us at home for the holidays or dealing with the throes of last-minute Christmas shoppers.

Today's stop on the advent calendar of crossmas was the World Cup event held at Namur, whose steep climbs and even steeper drop-offs are often coated in deep, rutted mud. Next up is the World Cup at Heusdon-Zolder on Thursday. Following that, we return to Diegem (Superprestige) on the 28th, Azencross Loenhout (BPost Bank) on the 30th, and finally slow down a touch late on New Year's Day after the GP Sven Nys (BPost Bank) finishes. If you're counting, that's six races in 13 days."

2014 Comeback of the Year: Lea Davison.

In January, she was unconscious, lying on a table in Vermont, a labrum tear to her right hip being surgically repaired. In September she was overjoyed, standing on a podium in Hafjell, Norway, a bronze medalist at the world cross-country championship.

For Lea Davison, the 2014 season didn’t just deliver the best result of her career — it was a glimpse into the realm of what is possible, a test of the mental as much as the physical.

Following surgery, Davison had to first learn how to walk correctly again, before thinking about pedaling a bike. Exercise amounted to crutching around her house, or range-of-motion exercises in a local pool. Her first ride back was in Santa Barbara, at a USA Cycling women’s mountain-bike skills camp in early March, where she pedaled the granny gear for 30 minutes. Increased pain in April forced her to take a week completely off the bike, missing the Sea Otter Classic. She didn’t truly begin training until late May.

Garate has regrets as he announces retirement.

As 2014 draws to a close, Spain’s Juan Manuel Garate is probably one of the very last riders this year to confirm his retirement from the peloton - an announcement he made official in a press conference on Monday in San Sebastian. The Spaniard touched on some of the highlights of his career; stage wins in all three Grand Tours, including the toughest mountain stages of both the 2009 Tour de France and 2006 Giro d’Italia, however, he also noted some of the regrets that he has as his career comes to an end.

“Winning on the Ventoux in the 2009 Tour de France will remain my most special victory,” Garate, 38, told Cyclingnews. “My team at the time hadn’t had a good Tour, even though we had had a great line-up but it had all gone awry from day one. So that stage was the last chance we had to do something before the race got to Paris the next day, and that made it even more special.”

Tour de Yorkshire will debut in 2015.

Tour de France organizer Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) announced the inaugural Tour de Yorkshire, to be held in Northern England, May 1-3, 2015.

On Monday, ASO named Bridlington, Leeds, Scarborough, Selby, Wakefield, and York as host cities for the UCI 2.1-category race.

The full route details will be revealed on January 21, 100 days prior to the race.

Best mini pumps for road cyclists.

Every cyclist’s home workshop should include a track pump – but there’s no way you’re going to be carrying one of these huge and heavy metal constructions whenever you’re out on a bike ride.

Not too long ago, roadies carried frame pumps strapped to their frames, usually right underneath the top tube. But the change in frame shapes and the rise of CO2 inflators have seen those largely vanish. Enter their miniature cousins come into play: the mini pump.

PEZ: Daily Distractions.

(pezcyclingnews.com)

PEZ: Pre-Xmas EuroTrash Monday!

Unzúe: Quintana is the best climber I've worked with.

Eusebio Unzúe has confirmed Nairo Quintana’s early 2015 race program and called the Colombian the best climbing talent he has ever worked with.

Quintana, who finished second at the 2013 Tour de France and won this year’s Giro d’Italia, will target the Tour in 2015 and with a climber-friendly parcours, will start as one of the leading favorites.

The Colombian’s entire race plan leading up to the start in Utrecht has not been finalized, with some questions over his final preparation race but Movistar team boss Unzúe told Cyclingnews that a number of short stage races would form part of the rider’s preparation.

What factors determine pro cyclist salaries?

Three-week Grand Tours, week-long stage races, gruelling Classics and perhaps over 10,000 kilometres of racing per year. Professional cycling is undoubtedly one of the toughest sports around, if not the most difficult, but how much do riders earn for all that hardship?

CyclingTips spoke to two rider agents about this topic, Paul de Geyter and Ken Sommer. De Geyter manages a wide range of riders including Tom Boonen, Tejay Van Garderen, Jan Bakelants, Greg Van Avermaet, Maxime Bouet, Matt Goss and Luke Durbridge.

Sommer works alongside former Cervélo Test Team pro Joao Correia at the Corso agency and represents competitors such as Gerald Ciolek, Laurens ten Dam, Linus Gerdemann, Ted King and Evelyn Stevens.

Top 14 stories of 2014: Riding with Eddy.

"After three days in Belgium, the Visit Flanders tourism board laid out the following day’s agenda. Our group of American journalists would be going for a bike ride through the hallowed lands of the spring classics. While on much tamer roads than the previous day’s ride, which took us over various parts of the Ronde van Vlaanderen course, today we would be riding with a local cyclist, and a dozen or so of his friends.

The local was Eddy Merckx, and many of his friends were also his former teammates.

I found myself struggling to speak for much of the ride; the cumulative palmares of the group would rival that of a Tour de France peloton and, yes, I was a bit gun shy. The other five journalists and I stayed at the back of the two lines of friends. We stood out like sore thumbs."

World champ Kwiatkowski aims for 2015 Sanremo and Ardennes.

Michal Kwiatkowski can aim high since he has already reached big goals, including becoming World Champion at 24 years old. For 2015, his target is a classic: Milano-Sanremo or one of the three Ardennes races.

“That’s the plan,” Omega Pharma-Quick Step sports director, Davide Bramati told VeloNews.

“We are waiting to finalize his schedule, but he will race Milano-Sanremo and return for the Ardennes classics, where he was already on the podium in two of them this spring.”

The Polish cyclist begins his season in Argentina at the Tour of San Luis, January 19. He will use the Tirreno-Adriatico or Paris-Nice stage race as a build-up to Milano-Sanremo on March 23 and of course, return to the three Ardennes races, April 20 to 27.

Proctor leads USA Cycling Cyclo-cross Development Program to success in Europe.

After 11 seasons of running EuroCrossCamp, Geoff Proctor’s long-term goal of working directly with USA Cycling on a national cyclo-cross development program came to fruition when the sport governing body offered him a position as head coach of the junior and under-23 cyclo-cross team this year. The members of the USA Cycling Cyclo-cross Development Program are part way through their third block of racing overseas and so far it has been a big success.

“Inevitably, the transition included the absorbing of EuroCrossCamp by the new program, USAC Cx Devo,” Proctor told Cyclingnews. “To me, this was a natural evolution and achieves the aims of both programs.”

Cycling Weekly reader poll results: Favorite riders of 2014.

"The 2014 Cycling Weekly Reader Poll is our biggest yet, with the highest number of votes of any we’ve run so far. We’ve painstakingly sifted through the results, analyzed the data and can report that there are several major surprises and a few upsets.

Here’s how you voted for your favorite riders, team and performance of 2014. We will be publishing more poll results tomorrow."

PEZ Holiday Gift Guide #6.

"Our last Gift Guide of 2014 is packed full of great last minute gift ideas for you or the cyclist in your life including an ultimate cycling holiday from DuVine, a Cancer Charity ride in Canada along with products from Saris, Castelli, Giro, BMC, Salsa, Clément, De Marchi, Campagnolo, Endura and more."

2014 Holiday Gift Guide: Wheels for every type of cyclist.

Op-Ed: Cycling’s review commission is a step forward, but it isn’t enough.

Strong line-up for Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.

Jonathan Vaughters reveals how close Garmin-Sharp came to folding.

Rides to Remember.