October 5/08 10:43 am - Cycling Headlines

Posted by Editoress on 10/5/08
 

Cycling headlines from around the world....

Catching up to the world
The North Shore is poised to become a focal point of elite cycling in British Columbia and Canada with a new coach and a crop of talented young riders leading the charge.

The man at the centre of it all is Richard Wooles, B.C. Cycling's head coach and high performance director. A former world class rider for Great Britain, Wooles went on to coach the British women's cycling team before moving to Switzerland as a coach at the International Cycling Union's World Cycling Centre. Two years ago he moved to B.C. and six months ago he settled in Lynn Valley with high expectations for the cycling programs in B.C.
Read more at North Shore News


Tour de Rock riders can finally rest
Barbara Haynes's son Richard died of a brain tumour when he was only seven, and since that day almost 20 years ago she's been looking for a way to honour his memory.

"I've always wanted one of the police officers to take his picture and do the [Tour de Rock] in memory of him," said Haynes, who works at the front counter of the Victoria Police Department.
Read more at Times Colonist


Tour organizer: Armstrong has embarrassed race
Lance Armstrong says the Tour de France organizer's new president is being pretentious by claiming that the seven-time champion has "embarrassed" cycling's premier race.

Jean-Etienne Amaury told French sports newspaper L'Equipe on Saturday, "We can't say that he has not embarrassed the Tour de France, as he has had a quite a complicated history with it."

The comment astounded Armstrong.
Read more at Associated Press


Armstrong defends his Tour record
Lance Armstrong has hit back at Tour de France organisers who claimed the seven-time Tour champion's return to cycling was "embarrassing".

The American, who has always denied allegations of drug use, said: "I won the Tour seven straight years and was never found to be guilty of doping.

"Not to mention that my team of 25 riders over those seven years was also never found to be positive.

"We won clean and fair. Where's the embarrassment in that?"
Read more at BBC NEws


Friends and foes emerge as Armstrong comeback gathers pace
A comeback by one of sport's biggest legends is usually the stuff dreams are made of. But less than two weeks after announcing his return to professional cycling after a three-year hiatus, Tour de France icon Lance Armstrong continues to attract a mix of plaudits and criticism.

Armstrong, who battled cancer from 1996-1998 before claiming the first of seven consecutive yellow jerseys in 1999, claims his return is geared towards spreading global awareness of the threat cancer poses.

But a certain degree of mystery still surrounds the real driving force behind the man who built his legendary status, and made millions, dominating the world's biggest bike race.

Some simply can't wait to see whether the formidable Armstrong of old can cut it in 2009.
Read more at AFP


Former rival Jan Ullrich believes Lance Armstrong can win Tour de France
Jan Ullrich, once Lance Armstrong's biggest rival, believes the American can win the Tour de France for the eighth time in his comeback.

However, Ullrich said he was surprised by Armstrong's recent decision to come back next season.

"But I find it good. Lance is drawing the attention of the world to cycling," Ullrich said during a charity event late Thursday in southern Germany.
Read more at The Canadian Press


The cycle of suspicion
God knows, I've tried hard to believe in Lance Armstrong, despite a nagging suspicion he's about as clean as a blacksmith's jockstrap. Most tested professional athlete, he always used to boast; yet never returned a positive result. Or was that Marion Jones? Hmmm. And now he's come up with a dubious excuse to avoid resolving the one great question hanging over his career: his allegedly EPO-laced urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France.
Read more at STUFF


Petacchi's team pay the price for anti-doping stance
Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi and his LPR team have been forced off next weekend's Paris-Tours race for failing to sign up to the UCI's new blood passport programme.

Organisers of the French one-day classic, ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation), said Saturday that two other teams, Mitsubishi and Collstrop, will also be denied a start for the same reason.

"The UCI (International Cycling Union) officially informed us on Friday that these teams have not registered for the blood passport programme," said a spokesman for ASO, the parent company of the Tour de France.

"We decided to immediately pull them out of the race."
Read more at Eurosport


Disgraced cyclist Vino looks to link up with Armstrong
Disgraced Tour de France star Alexandre Vinokourov has announced plans to return to professional cycling, with the Astana team of Lance Armstrong, according to reports here Saturday.

The 35-year-old from Kazakhstan was handed a one-year ban after testing positive for blood doping at the 2007 Tour de France, from which his former team Astana, then under different management, was thrown out.

According to Belgian television channel Sporza, Vinokourov is aiming to return in 2009. But he said the Giro d'Italia, held beween May and June, would be his first priority before an eventual return to the Tour de France in 2010.
Read more at Eurosport


Ullrich won't follow Armstrong out of retirement
When Lance Armstrong was winning his seven consecutive Tour de France titles, seemingly every year the easygoing Jan Ullrich was a co-favorite. Until somehow, in some stage, Armstrong would blow by the German cyclist on some massive mountain climb. Or Ullrich would fall in the rain in a time trial. Or something.
Read more at LA Times


Missouri bicycle race gets top international designation
After just two years, the Tour of Missouri has been promoted to international cycling's big leagues.

The Union Cycliste Internationale has announced that next year's weeklong, 600-mile race across the Show Me State will be rated 2HC, "the highest ranking it can get in the U.S.," said Andy Lee, a spokesman for the union's American affiliate, USA Cycling.
Read more at KansasCity.com


Caltrain board to consider new bike provisions
All Scott Wildy said he was trying to do was get to work, but in the process he became a symbol of the growing frustration and anger among bicyclists who commute on Caltrain.
Biking to and from Caltrain has become so popular that cyclists are regularly kept from boarding when space on the trains for their two-wheelers runs out.

When Wildy boarded a train last week with his bike, he said a conductor told him to get off, that there was no more room. But the 39-year-old Stanford information technology employee found a place to park his bike on a rack and he refused to leave. He ended up in handcuffs and under arrest.

"I just couldn't believe it. I was just trying to catch a train to get to work," Wildy said.
Read more at The San Francisco Chronicle


City is putting more emphasis on safe cycling
Through cooperation with GetAbout Columbia, the Columbia Police Department is dedicating this month to improving relations between motorists and bicyclists on the road.

"Operation Share the Road" is running throughout October in an attempt to improve education on bicycle laws both for cyclists and motorists, Columbia police Capt. Stephen Monticelli said.

The bottom line is bicycles should be considered the same as motor vehicles. For cyclists, that means moving in the same direction as traffic and having a working light on the front and a red reflector on the back of a bicycle after dark. For motorists, it means expecting bicyclists in the road and allowing them as much space as vehicles.

"It's really focused on both," Monticelli said. "The whole thing is about safety."
Read more at Columbia Tribune


Blessed are the bike riders

On any given Sunday, it is not unusual to hear the solemn ringing of historic church bells. But yesterday, a chorus of different bells rang out across Fitzroy for a different religious service.

In what was claimed to be the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere, about 100 cyclists gathered at Fitzroy's Edinburgh Gardens for an ecumenical service where they and their bikes were blessed by an Anglican bishop, a Buddhist venerable and a Muslim imam.
Read more at The AGE


'Raisin' riders pedal to raise hope, money
Dalton native Saul Raisin has gone from "Raisin hell" on the professional cycling circuit to "Raisin hope" for people with traumatic brain injuries.

The second annual Raisin Hope Foundation charity weekend kicked off Saturday at Heritage Point Park with a group cycling up Fort Mountain in Murray County. Events for the foundation, which raises money to support brain injury research, continue today with a 5K run/walk and cycling events.

About 225 cyclists - including eight-time Australian Pro Time Trial champion Nathan O'Neill - participated in the 15-, 35-, 50- and 62-mile rides on Saturday. Jim Raisin, Saul Raisin's father, said participation was down from last year's inaugural event, but attributed the drop to higher gas prices and the economy. Through Saturday afternoon, he said the foundation had raised about $30,000 and added that money was coming in.
Read more at The Daily Citizen


Pedalling the look
Looking good in the saddle is just as important as the bike itself
To ride or not to ride? That, as it happens, is no longer the question. Cycling may be booming in the UK - some 500,000 bike journeys are made every day in London alone, and Team GB's success in Beijing put the icing on the cake for a spectacular national effort - yet, as cyclo-culture proliferates, it's increasingly a case not of whether you ride, but how you look when you're doing it.

You may have admired Chris Hoy's iron thighs and Victoria Pendleton's zippy style, but it's a safe bet that you were less taken by the Lycra ensembles the gold medallists were wearing. However, there is an aesthetic arm to the cycling fraternity, as seen in the country's emerging cyclo-tribes, who are busy carving out thrillingly distinct and individual identities. From tweedy neo-retro classicists to Day-Glo fixed-wheel chicks, they are united as much by a look as an attitude.
Read more at Times Online