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!

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! 

Tour de France - Stage 3 Wrap-up

Let the conspiracy theories begin!

When the peloton split with about 30km left in Stage 3, Lance Armstrong made his statement: This team is mine.

With Haimar Zubeldia and Yaroslav Popovych working with Columbia to pull the 27-rider lead group further and further up the road, Lance could probably see the yellow jersey beckoning him following tomorrow’s Team Time Trial in Montpellier.

He finished the stage in 19th place, and ironically now sits 19 seconds ahead of his teammate—the team “leader”, according to DS Johan Bruyneel—Alberto Contador on GC. Yes, the Tour is a 3-week race; and yes, many things can happen from one day to the next. 19 seconds may seem like only a bit of time, but the statement speaks much louder than the standings.

Lance Armstrong will not concede leadership of his team—to anyone.

Tomorrow will certainly be interesting. How will the team react? How cohesive will they ride? Will Contador or someone else actually sprint against Lance to be the first rider over the line? If there’s a flat or mechanical, will the entire team wait?

Other questions remain to be answered, especially: who made the decision to work with Columbia? Lance? Johan? Maybe the post-race comments will make things clearer.

And speaking of Johan, he’s now fully enmeshed in the toughest Tour of his career—and it’s only the 3rd day. He’ll need to be at his best tonight if he hopes to keep this team together.

I’d love to be a fly on the massage table at the Astana hotel tonight.