Bet on Cycling

Posts Tagged ‘Thor Hushovd’

HTC-Columbia sprinter Mark Cavendish has long maintained that he doesn’t look for his rivals when he’s sprinting — he looks for the finish line.

Cavendish may be brash, but he's got the record to back it up. | Graham Watson photo

Nonetheless, he’s aware of who’s there at the business end of the bike race, and what their respective teams did or didn’t do to set them up. This week at HTC’s team camp at Specialized’s California headquarters, Cavendish called Alessandro Petacchi his “most clever” rival, and gave his thoughts on what he expected from Tyler Farrar, Thor Hushovd and Andre Greipel in 2011.

At the Tour de France this year, Cavendish racked up five more stage wins and placed second in the green jersey competition to Petacchi.

“[Petacchi] is absolutely still a rival. He’s the cleverest of my rivals,” said Cavendish.

While Petacchi may not necessarily be stronger, Cavendish said, “he’s got the brain to outsmart me.”

Petacchi’s doping case recently expanded to include the entire family of a teammate.

Whatever the outcome of that case, Cavendish will face off against other sprinters at the Tour Down Under, the kick-off to the 2011 season. Among his expected rivals there are former teammate Greipel, who is now with Omega Pharma-Lotto, and Farrar.

After trading barbs with Greipel in the press earlier this season, Cavendish was reserved in his speculative comments about sprinting against the German, who has twice won the Tour Down Under.

“I am looking forward to racing against him,” Cavendish said, and left it at that.

Cavendish expanded a bit more on speculation about what Farrar and Hushovd racing together on the new merger Garmin-Cervélo team could mean for field sprints in 2011.

“Hopefully Garmin will start to ride now,” Cavendish said, referring to the team doing work to reel in breaks on race days that end in sprints. “[Garmin] started to ride at the end of the year. It was probably a good thing that Tyler beat me a couple of times; Garmin actually started to ride for a change. Hopefully that will continue with both of them there.”

Cavendish regards Petacchi as his 'most clever' rival

As to whether Farrar and Hushovd would be complementary or divisive as teammates, Cavendish said that wasn’t his concern.

“I don’t know, it’s up to them,” he said. “I’m not looking at other people, I’m looking at the finish line. That’s the mistake that all them other guys make. They look at someone else, not the finish line. We just look to take the race on, that’s why we succeed.”

After the Tour Down Under in January, Cavendish will head to the pancake-flat Tour of Qatar, the “white” gravel roads of Monte Paschi Eroica, Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo, which he won in 2009. Cavendish hasn’t said whether he’ll race the Giro d’Italia or the Amgen Tour of California, but the Tour de France is of course on the docket.

Cavendish is also interested to return to the spring classics, races that he said have captured his imagination ever since he’s been a cyclist. After taking aim at the Tour of Flanders in January, Cavendish participated but did not finish the April race that falls the week before Paris-Roubaix.

Besides the legacy of these events, Cavendish is interested in racing the spring classics to ride for his teammates, he said.

“They are the only races were I can actually help guys,” he said. “I want to race, you know? I miss that. I’ve been so well protected. My team does all my work for me — they’re incredible guys — and I don’t really have to do anything anymore. I kind of miss that. I want to be able to get involved in the racing, help someone else and get some experience in those races I’ve been wanting to do since I turned pro but I wasn’t allowed.”

But at the races with sprint finishes, Cavendish will be back in his familiar role — sitting behind the HTC train, waiting to turn on the gas in the final meters. The confidence is not lacking.

“When I’m at 100 percent and the team does everything right,” Cavendish said, “no one is going to beat me.”

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (VN)_ Five of the world’s top 18 squads will take to the roads of Colorado for the inaugural Quiznos Pro Challenge in 2011. Race organizers announced Wednesday that Team RadioShack, Liquigas-Cannondale, HTC-HighRoad, Garmin-Cervelo and BMC Racing will start the week-long, UCI 2.1 stage race on August 22.

“Our goal is to connect new audiences in America with the sport of professional cycling; having several of the premier international teams already signed up is a huge step in that direction,” said general manager Ellen Kramer.

Each of the five ProTeam licensed squads holds domestic interests, four of them registered in the U.S. Italian-registered Liquigas-Cannondale has signed Americans Tim Duggan and Ted King. The Garmin-Cervelo squad, based in Boulder, Colorado, was the third-ranked team in the UCI’s recently published sporting hierarchy and includes world champion Thor Hushovd.

RadioShack’s Levi Leipheimer rang off three Amgen Tour of California wins between 2007 and 2009 and HTC-HighRoad’s Michael Rogers stood atop the final ATOC podium in 2010. Leipheimer recently told VeloNews that he is interested in taking the start in Colorado Springs, while Rogers left HTC in the off-season for Team Sky. Another rider looking to the QPC startline is BMC’s George Hincapie, who has expressed his desire to ride in the first-year event in what may be the multiple-time U.S. road champion’s final season.

Race organizers at Medalist Sports continue to review Pro Continental and Continental teams ahead of an expanded invitation announcement. “We have had so many ProTour and Pro Continental teams lining up to compete in Colorado next year,” said Jim Birrell, Managing Partner of Medalist Sports. “Signing teams of this caliber is a key indication that the Quiznos Pro Challenge will be one of the preeminent professional cycling events in the world.”

The inaugural Quiznos Pro Challenge will take place August 22-28, 2011 in Colorado.

Editor’s Note: Brian Holcombe is a reporter with VeloNews. He covers all things racing in the U.S. and has been accused of attacking too much on the VN lunch ride.

Tyler Farrar will ride a new brand of bike next season: a Cervelo. Nick Legan takes a look at the details, which include a variety of supplier changes for next year, and a few mysteries. Nick also took at look at Thor Hushovd’s new bike.

Farrar's Cervelo S3 in training trim: Rotor SRM, Arundel stainless cages and Mavic Ksyrium wheels. Photo: Neal Rogers

World champ Thor Hushovd is on a new team, but a mostly familiar bike for 2011. Tech editor Nick Legan takes a look. Nick also took a look at Tyler Farrar’s 2011 bike.

Thor Hushovd's 2011 Garmin-Cervelo team bike

After a week of outdoor island adventure, the 2011 Garmin-Cervélo team bonding camp wrapped up Saturday on Grand Cayman Island.

Garmin-Cervélo Camp 2010: After the merger, riders from both squads get a chance to ride as one team.

Held at posh beachside resort The Reef, the weeklong gathering included scuba diving, golf, stingrays, volleyball, helicopter rides, a scavenger hunt and a trip on a submarine — shared experiences intended to smooth the merger between Garmin-Transitions and the Cervélo TestTeam, which folded earlier this year when it could not land a title sponsor.

Seven riders came across from Cervélo to Jonathan Vaughters’ Slipstream Sports organization, including world road champion Thor Hushovd; also coming across were Cervélo’s bikes, clothing sponsor Castelli and component sponsors SRAM and Rotor.

Riders from the Garmin-Cervélo women’s team, which Slipstream acquired in the merger, were not on Grand Cayman; neither were riders from Slipstream’s long-running U.S.-based under-23 development team.

Also absent from the camp were Aussies Jack Bobridge and Cameron Meyer, who were competing on the velodrome at the December 2-4 Melbourne World Cup, as well as Irishman Dan Martin, who recently underwent sinus surgery to alleviate persistent allergy problems. Brazilian Murilo Fischer was also absent.

The goal of the camp was to forge friendships and a sense of allegiance between former rivals, particularly among sprinters and classics riders.

“We are here having a good time, but there is a purpose,” Farrar said. “Doing stuff like this brings guys together in ways that would be hard to do if we were to just get together in January for a training camp. You have two large, closely knit groups coming together. You can’t snap your fingers and have guys become friends the way we have, or they have, over two or three years. But this gets the process started in a fun setting. We’re all doing things most of us have never done, and no one is comfortable with, so that helps break the ice a little bit.”

Of the Cervélo riders coming over to Garmin, Hushovd, Heinrich Haussler, Roger Hammond and Andreas Klier are podium finishers at either the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix or Gent-Wevelgem. Aussie workhorse Brett Lancaster brings additional power for sprint lead-outs.

Add to those names returning Garmin strongmen such as Farrar, Fisher, Julian Dean, Martijn Maaskant, David Millar and Johan Van Summeren, and the Garmin-Cervélo squad appears, on paper, to be the strongest classics team in the world, with arguably the strongest lead-out train as well.

“The biggest thing in the classics is numbers,” Farrar said. “The advantage to being on the strongest team is having as many guys in the final selection as possible. It’s better to have four or five guys in the final who are pretty good, rather than one guy there who is really good but with no one to help him.”

Vaughters was also beaming about signing 20-year-old Belgian Sep Vanmarcke, who finished second at the 2010 Gent-Wevelgem riding for Topsport-Vlaanderen as a neo-pro. “I would say he’s the most talented young classic rider in the world, by a long shot,” Vaughters said.

For the general classification, the team will look to Vande Velde and Hesjedal at the Tour de France, with Martin pegged for the Giro d’Italia.

“I still have a lot of faith in Christian Vande Velde,” Vaughters said. “I think he will be back at the next level, and Ryder Hesjedal is our wild card.”

Tom Danielson, Dave Zabriskie, Tom Peterson and former FDJ rider Christophe Le Mevel all expected to target the classification at specific stage races.

Danielson said he hopes 2011 is the year he finally earns a spot on a Tour team, while Vaughters said Danielson and Peter Stetina, both high-altitude specialists from Colorado, would likely be the team’s GC leaders at the Quiznos Challenge in August.

New recruit Andrew Talansky, a 20-year-old neo-pro who began 2010 with California Giant Berry Farms-Specialized and ended the season second overall at the Tour de l’Avenir, will be given opportunities to test himself on the general classification as well.

Vaughters said an ideal 2011 season would include at least one win at cycling’s five monuments, as well victory in the Tour de France’s team time trial, time spent in the maillot jaune, and the green points jersey in Paris.

It’s perhaps for that reason that both Haussler and Klier said they have no intention of racing next year’s Tour — between sprinters, GC leaders and TT specialists, Tour team selection, like with the classics squad, will be difficult.

“It will be hard to make the Tour team, and there are so many good riders on this team, I don’t want to deal with the stress,” said Haussler, who won a Tour stage in 2009 but missed the first half of the 2010 season due to a knee injury, and was forced to skip the Tour after a crash with Mark Cavendish at the Tour de Suisse. “I only had 25 race days in 2010 and I need to get back into the form I had in 2009. Instead of the Tour, I’ll focus on the classics, and I’ll race the Vuelta to prepare for the world championships.”

Garmin-Cervélo Camp 2010: Thor Hushovd checks out the scene from the air.

As for the green jersey, Hushovd said he would have no problem riding to help Farrar.

“I’ve tried for the green jersey many times in my career, and I’ve managed to win it twice,” Hushovd said. “But to be honest, in 2011 I prefer to wear my rainbow jersey at the Tour. Besides, you have to look back two or three years for the last time I beat Mark Cavendish in a flat field sprint. I don’t want to sprint for second, third or fourth. I prefer to choose a few stages that are better suited for me, and on days that are for Tyler, I am happy to help him.”

It wasn’t all fun and games on Grand Cayman. Riders were also given 3D bike fits, were sized for custom clothing, and met individually with team director Matt White to discuss their 2011 race schedules.

“This team is full of talent in certain areas, that’s for sure,” White said. “It’s a mixed blessing. It’s not always going to be smooth sailing. There may be a few tricky situations, but you can always work out a solution.”

The remaining 18 riders from the 2010 Garmin-Transitions team also spent the week getting accustomed to equipment changes, with Cervélo replacing Felt frame geometry, and SRAM shifting replacing Shimano.

“When you have ridden the same set up for three years, it takes a little while to get used to,” Farrar said. “But that’s why we get the bikes in November. It gives us the whole winter to train and get used to it before jumping into a race. It may take a week or two to get used to some of the nuances, and you have to re-train your brain a little, but it doesn’t take long to make the switch.”

For Vande Velde and Dave Zabriskie, the merger sees them reunited with Cervélo; they both rode the Canadian manufacturers’ frames while riding at Team CSC.

There were other reunions on the new team: Hesjedal and Hammond rode as teammates at Discovery Channel in 2005, and Hushovd and Vaughters were teammates at Crédit Agricole for three years, from 2000 to 2002.

“I did Thor’s first race with him as a pro, and his first team camp,” Vaughters said. “I always really liked Thor a lot. He’s one of those guys I was always in awe of his talent, and his good nature, and he’s been that way since day one.”

Other relationships were sprung from the camp. Danielson said conversations with Klier reminded him of exposure to Chris Horner during the early days of his career on the domestic Saturn squad.

“I never knew Andreas Klier, but he speaks the language of cycling as if it’s slang,” Danielson said. “He can communicate difficult things so simply, the guy can see every race situation. He reminds me of Chris Horner, how he’s able to communicate with sprinters, climbers and classics guys. I want to be a sponge around him and absorb as much as I can.”

And Danielson said he expects the union of the Garmin and Cervélo teams to create a whole that is greater than its sum parts.

“This team will be more successful than people think,” he said. “It’s not just that we signed some great classics guys. I see those guys as filling roles we were missing, rather than knocking heads with guys in roles we already had.”

Racing giant ASO — owner of the Tour de France and Paris-Roubaix — has stepped up to save the U23 Paris-Roubaix from the chopping block.

Last week, VC Roubaix, the French cycling club that organized the annual espoirs version of the cobblestoned classic, said it did not have enough money to underwrite the increased police costs to safeguard the route during the race.

On Tuesday, the club announced that the Amaury Sports Organisation promised to help fund the additional costs — estimated to be 20,000 Euros — to assure that one of the most important under-23 events continues next year and beyond.

That’s good news for the popular event that dates back to 1967 and ranks among one of the most important one-day events for amateurs. Former winners include Marc Madiot, Stephen Roche, Thierry Marie, Frédéric Moncassin, reigning world champion Thor Hushovd and Yaroslav Popovych. American Taylor Phinney has won the event two years in a row.

Held in May, the course was shorter than what the pros race on — about 180km to the pros’ 240km to 260km range — but tackled many of the same cobblestones featured in the “Hell of the North.” Like the pro race, the event finishes inside the Roubaix velodrome.

Editor’s Note: Andrew Hood cut his journalistic teeth at Colorado dailies before the web boom opened the door to European cycling in the mid-1990s. Hood’s covered every Tour since 1996 and has been VeloNews’ European correspondent since 2002. He lives in Leon, Spain, when he’s not chasing bike races.

The under-23 version of Paris-Roubaix, won by Taylor Phinney the past two editions, will not be held next year due to a money crunch for race organizers.

Phinney won his second consecutive U23 Paris-Rouabix in May

According to a report in the French daily La Voix du Nord, event organizer VC Roubaix says rising costs will spell the end of the popular espoirs race won by several riders who’ve gone on to have successful professional careers.

“The event is well-known, but there’s not enough compensation,” VC Roubaix president Jean-Charles Canonne told La Voix du Nord. “Plus, the fee paid out to the authorities to control the race will rise from 2.40 euros per hour to 12 euros per hour. It’s unthinkable. We have 20,000 euros.”

The first edition was held in 1967 and former winners include Marc Madiot, Stephen Roche, Thierry Marie, Frédéric Moncassin, reigning world champion Thor Hushovd and Yaroslav Popovych.

Phinney is the only two-time winner of the race.

Held in late May, the 180km course was shorter than what the 240 to 260km the pros race but tackled many of the same cobblestones featured in the “Hell of the North.” Like the pro race, the U23 event finished inside the Roubaix velodrome.

The decision was reached over the weekend by the venerable cycling club, which also runs an amateur cycling team.

Club officials said they will use their budget to continue promoting its racing team as well as to try to build a covered velodrome in northern France that they hope to complete by 2012.

Past Winners

• 1967. Georges Pintens, (Belgium)
• 1968. Alain Vasseur, (France)
• 1969. Roger Desmaret, (France)
• 1970. Enzo Mattioda, (France)
• 1971. Louis Verreydt, (Belgium)
• 1972. Yvan Benaets, (Belgium)
• 1973. Patrick Béon, (France)
• 1974. Marc Steels, (Belgium)
• 1975. Pol Verschuere, (Belgium)
• 1976. Gérard Simonnot, (France)
• 1977. Michel Lloret, (France)
• 1978. Alfons De Wolf, (Belgium)
• 1979. Marc Madiot, (France)
• 1980. Stephen Roche, (Ireland)
• 1981. Kenny De Maerteleire, (Belgium)
• 1982. Rudy Rogiers, (Belgium)
• 1983. Frank Verleyen, (Belgium)
• 1984. Thierry Marie, (France)
• 1985. Christian Chaubet, (France)
• 1986. Vincent Thorey, (France)
• 1987. Franck Boucanville, (France)
• 1988. Laurent Bezault, (France)
• 1989. Frédéric Moncassin, (France)
• 1990. Thierry Gouvenou, (France)
• 1991. Eric Larue, (France)
• 1992. Stéphane Chanteur, (France)
• 1993. Marek Lesniewski, (Poland)
• 1994. Kurt Dhont, (Belgium)
• 1995. Damien Nazon, (France)
• 1996. Dany Baeyens, (Belgium)
• 1997. Marc Chanoine, (Belgium)
• 1998. Thor Hushovd, (Norway)
• 1999. Sébastien Joly, (France)
• 2000. Eric Baumann, (Germany)
• 2001. Yaroslav Popovych, (Ukraine)
• 2002. Michail Timoschin, (Russia)
• 2003. Sergey Lagutin, (Uzbekistan)
• 2004. Koen de Kort, (Netherlands)
• 2005. Dmitry Kozontchuk, (Russia)
• 2006. Tom Veelers, (Netherlands)
• 2007. Damien Gaudin, (France)
• 2008. Coen Vermeltfoort, (Netherlands)
• 2009. Taylor Phinney, (United States)
• 2010. Taylor Phinney, (United States)