Monday Musette - Valverde, Oman, Algarve, and 2 Great Videos

1. This weekend I learned a valuable lesson: never bet against Alejandro Valverde (unless it's July). 

"It’s February," I thought. 

"He’s saving his best for later in the year," I assumed. 

"The competition is more motivated than he is," I predicted. 

I was wrong on all counts—with the lone exception being yesterday's super-motivated stage winner, Francesco Masciarelli. My pre-race favorite, Johnny Hoogerland, finished the race in a respectable 4th-place overall—9 seconds behind the winner. The other favorites finished about where we expected: Vino, Gesink, and Danielson all finished inside the top-15. But in the end, it was Valverde who punched his victory card a bit earlier than we might be used to, thus cementing his status as the World’s most dangerous man in every race that's not cobbled or the Tour.

2. Two stages of the Tour of Oman have come and gone, and things are running as we expected: sprinters have won the first two stages and Edvald Boassen Hagen has taken the overall lead. It was nice to see Jimmy Casper continuing Saur-Sojasun’s optimistic start to the season with a Stage 1 victory. Kudos as well to Daniele Bennati—he and Chichi seem to be one of the sport’s most-formidable sprint duos at this point the season. Here’s hoping they can keep it up once they return to Europe.

3. The early season stage races continue this week in Portugal with the Vuelta Algarve, a race with quite an interesting start list. Algarve marks the first appearance of many of the favorites for this year’s Grand Tours including Astana’s Alberto Contador, Radio Shack’s Levi Leipheimer, and Garmin’s Christian Vande Velde. Several of the sport’s best one-day men will also be using Algarve to continue their slow builds to April including Stijn Devolder, Sylvain Chavanel, Geert Steegmans, Samuel Sanchez, Sergei Ivanov, Nick Nuyens, Thor Hushovd, and Heinrich Haussler. And don’t forget the sprinters—they’re here too led by Robbie McEwan, Andre Greipel, and Julien Dean. There are also several wild cards, talented men hoping Algarve will present them with chances to take their first win of the season while the stars collect their kilometers. Of these, Geoffroy Laquatre, Ryder Hesjedal, David Zabriskie, Joaquin Rodriguez, Lars Boom, Luis Leon Sanchez, Sandy Casar, Manuel Cardoso, and Bjorn Leukemans come quickly to mind.

In the end, look for a rider talented enough to finish well in the sprints and do well in the final stage’s ITT to take the overall win. I’ll go out on a limb and pick Thor for the overall victory—he’s sure to finish well on the flatter stages and the relatively short ITT suits his strengths.  

4. There were some great cyclocross races this weekend as well—but you’ll have to come back for Erik’s Cross Report and Power Rankings to hear more about those.

Away from the racing scene we have several other goodies—including some great videos.

5. My friend Fxdwhl at lockring.not.included posted a series of excerpts from the great Merckx-era documentary, Stars and Watercarriers. Of all the scenes Fxdwl includes, this one is my favorite. It’s got it all: a funky “recovery device”, an overly demonstrative Italian soigneur, scenes from mealtime—with separate tables for riders and staff, and of course, mechanics taping bars and gluing tires. In a word, it’s perfect. (Sessa, Geert, and Kepa: I miss you, guys.)

6. Let's jump from 1973 to 2001, and scenes from the USPS team car at Paris-Roubaix (I believe this comes via the Road to Paris documentary.  I enjoy this one for many reasons, but here are 3 of the best: it’s Paris-Roubaix in rough weather; it’s the one and only year that Mercury got an invite; and it forever answers the question as to who really ran the USPS team (if there were ever any doubts).

7. And while we’re on the subject of the 2001 Paris-Roubaix, check-out this terrific picture of Wilfred Peeters and his short-lived bid for Roubaix glory. Notice the front wheel--does it look familiar? Well, let’s just say it wasn’t standard-issue for Domo back then—heck, it wasn’t even "standard-issue" for Mercury. But that’s a long story for another day…

Enjoy your week!

Sunday Preview - Faron, Oman, and Vorselaar

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! We’re still at a point in the season where the schedule bounces around a bit from one week to another. This weekend’s action occurs mainly on Sunday with one stage race ending, another beginning, and a Belgian cyclocross finale to the Superprestige. Let’s take a look:

Fotoreporter Sirotti

We begin in France where today’s Stage 4 of the Tour de Med was neutralized due to bad weather after 114km of racing with Cofidis’ Julien El Fares being declared the “winner”. Tomorrow’s showdown on the slopes of Mont Faron is threatened as well—here’s hoping the weather improves as the stage looked certain to produce some of the most exciting racing we’ve seen thus far this young season. Should the race occur unaltered, look for fireworks from the 3 strongest men still capable of taking the overall: Alejandro Valverde, Johnny Hoogerland, and Alexandre Vinokourov. Valverde and Hoogerland lie a mere 10 seconds behind FDJ’s Jussi Veikkanen, with Vino a further 7 seconds back. In the finalé, FDJ will be hard-pressed to hold down the bastille, as all 3 men possess the explosivity necessary for success on the 1st Category climb to the finish. While Valverde and Vino will be tough to beat, I’ll stick to my original prediction: Hoogerland will take it by a narrow margin. If he’s smart he’ll offer Vino the stage win in exchange for some solidarity against Valverde—his 7-second cushion offers him the wiggle room he needs to do so. Hopefully the weather will let us see what happens.

Heading farther South, weather won’t be a problem at the Tour of Oman, Eddy Merckx’s new venture. The majority of teams and riders from the Tour of Qatar have stuck around, undoubtedly drawn to the abundant sunshine and high temperatures. They better live it up though; there’s nowhere to hide after Friday when everything heads back north. As for this week, while the terrain in Oman is a bit more “diverse” than Qatar, the race is still essentially a sprinter’s paradise, aside from an 18km time trial on the final day. Look for the traditional fast men to rule the first 5 stages, with perhaps one long breakaway finding success should the sprinters’ teams feel generous. Boonen and Chicchi got the better of the rest in Qatar; Farrar, Cooke, and Napolitano will be looking for some form of revenge. In the end, Edvald Boasson Hagen should take overall the win. He showed an ability to sprint with best in Qatar and the ITT on the final day will certainly put him heads and shoulders above the rest of the competition—it’s an ideal situation for Team Sky’s first GC victory of 2010.

Finally, we head back north to Belgium and the final round of the Superprestige in Vorselaar. Sven Nys needs a miracle to take the overall title—he’ll have to win with both Niels Albert and Zdenek Stybar finishing well behind him. Stybar and Albert will certainly be eying one another closely—they’re tied for the overall lead with the spoils going to whoever crosses the line first. In the end, their game of cat and mouse could play right into Nys’ hands, perhaps giving him the leeway he’ll need to ride with a victory on the day. And the overall title? Well, stranger things have happened.

Fotoreporter Sirotti

As always, enjoy the racing—hopefully the weather wherever you reside is allowing you a ride or two as well. Please share your comments and predictions with the rest of as comments below.

Monday Musette - Weekend Wrap-up, Tour du Med, Radios, and Murcia

Today’s Musette comes a bit late in the day, so let’s jump right in:

Fotoreporter Sirotti

1. This weekend’s racing went pretty much as planned with Alessandro Petacchi taking the win in Italy, Robbie McEwan and Oscar Freire (today) taking wins in Mallorca, and Team Sky winning the TTT in Qatar’s first stage. The Etoile des Besseges ended with a bit of drama following Samuel Dumoulin’s relegation in the penultimate stage. When it was all said and done, the Cofidis rider took the overall title though, but only after a stomach virus ravaged the overnight leader’s hotel—leading to several riders not even taking the start Sunday.

2. Qatar and Mallorca continue this week, while the Tour du Mediterranéen begins Wednesday with 5 days of racing across southern France. For the most part, the race profile is relatively flat, but on the last day, the traditional ascent of the 1st-category Mont Faron ends the race with a bang (not to mention the rest of the categorized climbs that speckle the day’s route). If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on the Dutch with Vacansoleil’s Johnny Hoogerland getting the nod over Rabobank’s Robert Gesink. Gesink and his team have little to prove at this point in the season, but Vacansoleil needs every win it can get to earn one of the coveted Wild Card invitations to the 2010 Tour de France. Hoogerland’s performance in Marseille two weekends ago is enough to convince me that he’s the man to beat at the Med.

Others to watch? Alejandro Valverde could easily take the win, while his teammate Christophe Moreau and  AG2R's Cyril Dessel are France’s best hopes for a native winner. Garmin’s bringing Tom Danielson; we might soon know if the first half of his 2009 Vuelta was a fluke. And let’s not forget the guy we all love to hate, Alexander Vinokourov.

Regardless, my money’s with Hoogerland--you heard it here first.

3. And speaking of hearing, riders racing in the USA won’t be hearing directors in their ears anymore as it was announced last week that USA Cycling is banning race radios in all but its most prestigious events. While I won’t take sides (not yet, at least), I will take a moment to highlight what I consider to be an entertaining exchange on the subject between VeloNews’ John Wilcockson and Johan Bruyneel—on Twitter.  Here it is:

"Glad to see USA Cycling has endorsed UCI ban on radios/earpieces for all domestic races. Only ToC, ToM, Philly are exempt. Back to basics!"

"@johnwilcockson - BAD idea, John! Believe me..."

"@johanbruyneel So let's have a real debate on the issue, Johan. We can publish it in the next VN. What do you say?"

“@johnwilcockson - no need 4 a debate on this John. Do people want 2 discuss use of navigation system & cell phones nowadays? Don't think so!”

After you get over the fact that this exchange took place on Twitter, there are some interesting things to note. First of all, Johan Bruyneel really likes race radios—enough to use capital letters. Second, one can't help but feel the assault on radio usage must really be gaining steam—not because of the USAC ban, but because someone like Bruyneel is taking it SO seriously. After all, the ban won’t affect Bruyneel’s riders in any of the races Radio Shack plans enter, so why does he care so much? Might he be feeling that this is just the tip of the iceberg? Could he be afraid that other promoters—and maybe even the UCI—will be monitoring the situation closely in order to determine its viability in their own events?

It’s too bad we can’t see a Tour of California run in complete radio silence; it would be nice to see what kind of effect the radios (or lack thereof) would have in such a prominent event.

4.While we're on the subject of bans, The Tour of Murcia has banned all Italian teams in an apparent response to Italy’s ban on Alejandro Valverde. Talk about cutting-off your nose to spite your face!

5. In a related news item, Alejandro Valverde’s Caisse d’Epargne team is one of several Spanish teams not riding the Tour of Murcia due to safety and organizational concerns.

6. And last but not least:

Grazie, Franco.  We'll miss you.

Fotoreporter Sirotti

That's it for today!  Share your comments below: race picks, radios, and memories of Franco Ballerini.

Thanks for reading!