Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Wednesday,
August 3, 2016
Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Wednesday,
August 3, 2016
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What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also. - Julius Caesar
Recently completed racing:
- July 30: Clasica San Sebastian
- July 31: Circuito de Getxo
- July 31: La Poly Normande
- July 31: RideLondon Classic
- July 27 - 31: Post Danmark Rundt (Tour of Denmark)
Current Racing :
- July 27 - August 7: Volta a Portugal
- August 1 - August 7: Tour of Utah
- August 2 - August 6: Vuelta a Burgos
Upcoming Racing:
- August 20 - Sept 11: Vuelta a España (all stage profiles posted)
UCI expands World Tour calendar
Here's the UCI's Press release:
The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) is pleased to unveil the 2017 UCI WorldTour calendar.
In a significant change for the top series of men’s professional road cycling, the 2017 UCI WorldTour will take the peloton to 15 countries and four continents.
The expanded series will consist of 37 events, including 10 new additions. Alongside the three Grand Tours, there will be 14 stage races and 20 one-day events. As in previous years, the season will begin in January with the Santos Tour Down Under, and finish with Il Lombardia at the end of September.
After the Santos Tour Down Under, the series will remain in Australia for the first one-day race of the UCI WorldTour season, the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race. Cycling’s increasing global presence will be seen with the 2017 editions of the Tour of Qatar and the Abu Dhabi Tour joining the UCI WorldTour in February, before the series starts its European journey with the historic one-day Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in Belgium and the Strade Bianche (Italy).
The Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey in April further reflects the globalisation of the sport, while the USA will also welcome the UCI WorldTour for the first time with the Amgen Tour of California in May. Within Europe there is growth too, with the one-day Eschborn-Frankfurt “Rund um den Finanzplatz” bringing more UCI WorldTour racing to Germany and Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic being the first British event to join the series. The addition of the Dwars Door Vlaanderen brings further depth to Belgium, one of the heartlands of classics racing.
The application process for events to join the UCI WorldTour from 2017 was met with significant interest from race organisers, with successful applicants being awarded three-year registrations (2017-2019). They join the existing UCI WorldTour events, all of which have also been awarded registrations for the same period.
The addition of new high quality races across the globe adds a new dimension to the UCI WorldTour season, which now travels to Asia, Oceania, Europe, the Middle East and North America. With both one-day Classics and stage races running from the beginning of the year through until September, the UCI WorldTour will engage all types of rider across the entire season.
Together with the successful launch of the UCI Women’s WorldTour in 2016 and the continued development of the UCI Continental calendars, the expansion of the UCI WorldTour calendar is further confirmation of the momentum gained by road cycling.
UCI President Brian Cookson said: “The publication of this new calendar is an important step in the development of men’s professional road cycling. Alongside the prestigious events which have already proven their worth, the UCI WorldTour is enriched by the addition of some truly fantastic races across the globe. I’m delighted to see this development.”
2017 UCI WorldTour calendar:
| New events |
| 29 January: Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race (Australia) |
| 6-10 February: Tour of Qatar (Qatar) |
| 23-26 February: Abu Dhabi Tour (United Arab Emirates) |
| 25 February: Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (Belgium) |
| 4 March: Strade Bianche (Italy) |
| 22 March: Dwars Door Vlaanderen / A travers la Flandre (Belgium) |
| 18-23 April: Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey (Turkey) |
| 1 May: Eschborn-Frankfurt « Rund um den Finanzplatz » (Germany) |
| 14-21 May: Amgen Tour of California (United States) |
| 30 July: Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic (Great Britain) |
| Current UCI WorldTour events |
| 17-22 January: Santos Tour Down Under (Australia) |
| 5-12 March: Paris-Nice (France) |
| 8-14 March: Tirreno-Adriatico (Italy) |
| 18 March: Milano-Sanremo (Italy) |
| 20-26 March: Volta Ciclista a Catalunya (Spain) |
| 24 March: Record Bank E3 Harelbeke (Belgium) |
| 26 March: Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields (Belgium) |
| 2 April: Ronde van Vlaanderen / Tour des Flandres (Belgium) |
| 3-8 April: Vuelta al País Vasco (Spain) |
| 9 April: Paris-Roubaix (France) |
| 16 April: Amstel Gold Race (Netherlands) |
| 19 April: La Flèche Wallonne (Belgium) |
| 23 April: Liège-Bastogne-Liège (Belgium) |
| 25-30 April: Tour de Romandie (Switzerland) |
| 6-28 May: Giro d’Italia (Italy) |
| 4-11 June: Critérium du Dauphiné (France) |
| 10-18 June: Tour de Suisse (Switzerland) |
| 1-23 July: Tour de France (France) |
| 29 July: Clásica Ciclista San Sebastian (Spain) |
| 29 July-4 August: Tour de Pologne (Poland) |
| 7-13 August: Eneco Tour (Benelux) |
| 19 August-10 September: Vuelta a España (Spain) |
| 20 August: Cyclassics Hamburg (Germany) |
| 27 August: Bretagne Classic – Ouest-France (France) |
| 8 September: Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec (Canada) |
| 10 September: Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal (Canada) |
| 30 September: Il Lombardia (Italy) |
More Rider transfer news
This came from Lotto-NL-Jumbo:
Boom is back with Team LottoNL-Jumbo
Lars Boom will return to Team LottoNL-Jumbo for the next two years, through 2018. The 30-year-old Dutchman rode with the Dutch WorldTour team when it raced as Rabobank, Blanco and Belkin. He will join on January 1, 2017, and lead in the spring classics.
“Lars Boom returns very motivated to his old nest,” Technical Director Nico Verhoeven said. “He proved in the past that he’s able to deliver strong performances in the spring classics and together, we want to take the final step to win a big classic race.
“He’s a multifunctional rider. He can play a role in the sprint train and in grand tours. Besides that, we want to bring his time trial back to a level that allows him to fight for victories again.”
Lars Boom attacks in stage 5 of the Tour of Switzerland
Boom wants to fill in the gap in his palmarès with Team LottoNL-Jumbo. “I feel great about returning to Team LottoNL-Jumbo,” he added. “The team took some big steps in its development over the last two years while I was away. Look at the sprint train with Dylan Groenewegen and the performances in the grand tours with Robert Gesink and Steven Kruijswijk.
“After two years with Astana, I expect to feel comfortable in the classics. The support and confidence the team gives me plays a big role in that feeling. There’s something missing on my palmarès, and that’s a victory in the big classics. Besides that, I want to get back to working on my time trial together with the team. It’s great to see how much the team invests in the development of the time trial bikes and specific training.”
And Cannondale-Drapac sent me this news about signing Hugh Carthy:
Rising talent Hugh Carthy will join the Cannondale-Drapac Professional Cycling Team next season. The move marks his debut with a WorldTour team.
Carthy, 22, is from Great Britain and came up through the Rapha-Condor program. He’s spent the past two season riding for Caja Rural-Seguros RGA and living in northern Spain. His talent has been known for some time, but this season his results caught the attention of the bigger teams; he finished ninth overall at Volta Catalunya and won the youth classification. He finished ninth on the general classification at the 2015 USA Pro Cycling Challenge in Colorado.
Cannondale-Drapac sport director Charly Wegelius tracked Carthy’s progress for years and was instrumental in Carthy’s decision to join the team. “I think in the end – I spoke to Charly a lot over the past year or so. It’s quite relaxed it seems. The team roster at the moment has quite a lot of young riders, also experienced riders. I think that mix is something that’s important. It’s something I’ve had here, with my current team, for the past two years,” Carthy said. “You have the guidance as well but at the same time you have some freedom. That balance was what I was looking for on a team, and Cannondale-Drapac seemed the best fit for that criteria."
For Wegelius, the early interest of Carthy came from a similar history. “We’ve got a shared past, which isn’t the reason I went after him but the reason he came to my attention quite early,” Wegelius said. “He’s trained by the guy who trained me when I was a young rider, Ken Matheson, and then he raced with John Herety at Rapha. I’ve always tracked him, kept an eye on him.”
“Beyond his results, which anyone can see, the thing that really impresses me about Hugh is the way he’s gone about achieving what he’s achieved,” Wegelius added. “He’s done it the hard way. In a world where riders from Great Britain are wrapped up in the bubble of British Cycling, he went out and made a go of it in Pamplona and raced with a small team. He really did it the tough way.”
Carthy joins a Cannondale-Drapac squad that has a stable of young stage racers and veterans alike. He’ll be given stage-racing opportunities and freedom.
“He’s shown he’s a world-class stage racer at the age of 21, Cannondale-Drapac CEO Jonathan Vaughters said. “In my opinion probably the best young stage-racing talent out of the UK, if not period. I think he’s got a big future in three-week races, and we want to help him develop into the best rider he can be.”
Carthy had the option to ride for other teams next season, but ultimately chose Cannondale-Drapac for his jump up to the WorldTour. “You gotta go with your gut instinct. Mine told me to go with Cannondale-Drapac,” Carthy said. “It seemed like the right step. There were teams that were interested. There were teams that might have more money, this, that, whatever, but for this moment in my career, Cannondale definitely seemed like the best option for me. I’m happy with my decision.”
“I’d say my ambition for the future is to feature in grand tours,” he added. “That’s my long-term objective. And to be a good domestique for someone to go for the general classification. But I see my career in grand tours. Stage races. Hard, long stage races."
Wegelius says those stage races are something he’s already somewhat prepared for, given his development track. “It’s something that’s going to keep him in a good position when things get tough at this level,” Wegelius said. “We already know ahead of time that Hugh can manage with very little and perform with very little. He can handle the hard yards. He’s going to know how to deal with that. And to me, that’s really promising.”
Belt manufacturer Gates targets urban bike market
This was posted in bike-eu.com:
DENVER, USA – The carbon belt manufacturer Gates is targeting the high-volume European urban bike market with a new crankset assembly designed to work with Thun bottom brackets and the most popular geared hubs.
Gates will show the S150 crankset, plus other new products including longer belts and components designed for Pinion and Rohloff, at Eurobike 2016. Consisting of an alloy crank integrated with Gates’ lightweight CDN composite sprocket, the S150 assembly offers Gates’ premium performance at a lower price.
“The S150 is a plug-in solution for high-volume bike manufacturers. It shows our commitment to providing complete Carbon Drive systems that simplify drivetrain installation and maximize OEM factory efficiency,” says Gates Carbon Drive Director Todd Sellden.
The S150 cranks are available in black or silver and ship installed with a 46-, 50- or 55-tooth CDN sprocket. Gates partnered with Thun on the design of the S150, which is compatible with Thun’s Zumba bottom bracket line. Zumba BBs are pre-engineered to enable optimized belt lines for all the leading internally geared hubs: Shimano Alfine and Nexus, NuVinci, Rohloff,
You can read the entire article here.
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