Froome rejects Wiggins' claim to Tour de France leadership at Team Sky

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/froome-rejects-wiggins-claim-to-tour-de-france-leadership-at-team-sky

Bradley Wiggins feeling 'better than last year' and aiming for double. The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/apr/29/bradley-wiggins-giro-tour-de-france

 

Spring Turnout

A great turnout tonight for the TNR. Hopefully all had a good time and will spread the word.

Kelson in Cycling Utah’s March 2013 Issue

Find the full issue here.  (Thanks Tim!)

Sagan apologizes, gives flowers to podium girl after Flanders incident.

Is this the end of the story?  George Hincapie married a podium girl…

http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/04/news/sagan-apologizes-gives-flowers-to-podium-girl-after-flanders-incident_281536

 

Tate's Hell of the North Recap

This last weekend I had the opportunity to race one of my most feared races “Hell of the North” in Salt Lake City, Utah. The course was designed in honor of Paris-Roubaix which by tradition is the Sunday following the race. My race was 50 miles long on a 4-cornered circuit where each lap has a 2-mile long section of pave. The race started with a neutral roll out at 18 mph, and as soon as we crossed the start/finish line the pace jumped to nearly 30 mph. I nor anyone else was expecting the increase in speed and as a result several riders were caught off guard. The turn before we hit the dirt section was insane everyone was jousting for position at the front of the peloton because it was the safest place due to everyone’s nerves and the pace at which we were traveling. After the first lap I sat up and relaxed that I was in a 3-man break away and we had a decent gap on the shattered peloton. Little did I know that my fellow companions in the break were none other than Tommy (a pro from team Bissell) and Chris Mckay (pro from team Competitive Cyclist). These guys were the real deal and made it very clear from the begging that if I wasn’t committed to the survival of this breakaway that I need to get off their wheel and ride with the peloton. I told them that not only was I committed but that I was willing to work and give the break all I had. We hammered the pace so hard that after each pull I had a hard time sitting in the draft. The pave was insane holding a line while bouncing over a dirt/gravel road at 25 mph is a nightmare. The race official on lap 5 of 10 rolled up next to our break and told us that we had opened the gap up to nearly 2.5 minutes. Thinking that this was a good sign I expected Tommy to sit up and tell us to ride hard but at steady state. I was wrong in fact the two pros said the opposite and dropped their heads and increased the pace drastically. I stayed with the breakaway for almost the entire race until lap 7 when I almost got bucked off my bike on the pave sector which caused me to slow down for a split second which way just enough room for a small gap to open up between me and my other two breakaway companions. I ended up soloing from then on until I crossed the white line. I finished 3^rd overall, with a time 1:45:16 we averaged over 25 mph. It was a great race super hard and intense and it made me have a greater appreciation for the cobbled classics.

 

 

Tate Finishes Third at Hell of the North

More details to follow.

The Bottom Line on Sagan's Flanders Podium Pinch. Cyclingnews.com

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/the-bottom-line-on-sagans-flanders-podium-pinch

 

.
 

Wheelmakers at Odds with UCI over Wheel Safety Standards. From Scott Hurst

http://www.bicycleretailer.com/product-tech/2013/03/26/wheel-makers-negotiate-uci-safety-rule#.UVUJAn3nbGi

 

Pierre's Hole MTB Race. A Facebook LInk from Scott Hurst

 

The Pierre’s Hole Endurance 50 and 100 mile Mountain Bike Race is scheduled for Saturday, August 4^th at Grand Targhee Resort.  Here is a link to their homepage:

http://www.grandtarghee.com/the-resort/news-events/1863/PierresHole50100MileEnduranceMountainBikeRace.php

You might also want to look at the Facebook page dedicated to the event.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pierres-Hole-50100-mile-mtn-bike-race/180182908691616

 

Lemhi Valley Century Ride Registration Open

Here's some info about a local favorite:

Saturday, June 22 2013

One hundred miles or one hundred kilometers, pick your poison.  Either way your ride will follow the majestic Lemhi valley along Idaho Highway 28.  Fully supported with rest stops and a barbecue celebration at the end.  Shuttles will get you from Salmon to the start, you just have to get you to the finish!


Entry Forms are now available on the Lemhi Valley Century Ride website.

Sign up soon!

http://lemhivalleycenturyride.weebly.com/

Tate's Race Report from The Tour Del Sol

         

 

        This last weekend I raced the Tour Del Sol stage race in St. George Utah, I knew the race was going to be tough but I was nowhere prepared for the pain that I was going to experience. I drove down Friday with a few of my team members in their RV, after pre-riding the course on Friday we settled in for the evening in preparation for Saturdays TT and crit. The TT course was an out and back style course, I started 30 seconds after Clint which was fun. I had a great time trial except for my encounter with a tumbleweed, at the turn around I was getting back on to the main road when I noticed a tumble weed being blown across the street. I remember telling myself that I needed to time this perfectly to avoid hitting it. I did just that! The tumbleweed hit my rear wheel and I had to reach down and pull it out with my bare hands I felt a lot like Taylor Phinney in last years Tour de France TTT (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRpy1vVdPzg). After a painful 12k I was able to finish with a time of 28:15 which was good enough for 15^th in the GC, I was pretty happy with my result despite my tumbleweed encounter and the gnarly 15mph head/cross wind.

            Later that day at 6pm we had our crit race at the old airport, it was a really fast and fun course that consisted of 4 corners on great asphalt. Unfortunately I went out too hard and ended up getting cooked, it was a crazy fast race we rode nearly 27 mile in 60 minutes and were hitting speeds in excess of 42 mph. I was able to finish in with the group at around 25^th place I believe. Clint did some serious work and chased down nearly every single breakaway because his teammate was sitting in 2^nd place overall. The crit was a lot of fun and made me realize that Criterium racing wouldn’t be so bad if all of the courses were like this one. One thing that’s nice about racing at an elite level is that you can take corners at 40 mph and feel completely safe because you know everyone in the peloton knows how to handle their bike.

            Sunday morning started way too early, at 6am I reluctantly pulled myself out of bed to get ready for the day’s 85 miles road race. The weather was surprisingly cold for this time of year, when our race started it was 29 degrees outside. The race was the hardest race I have ever done in my life. The course was a loop that started in Gunlock state park and went up through the mountain and up a ridiculously steep climb known as “the wall”, on our first lap we rode the wall at a relatively moderate pace. The second time around was crazy; I don’t know if it was because of my fitness or the fact that I had done a TT and a crit the night before but that race made me go through Hell and back. There were several times during that I debated throwing in the towel. I managed thanks to Clint who willingly took a few of my pulls in the pace line (thanks buddy). In the end I rolled in a few minutes behind the leaders at 3:48 the pace was relentless full of attacks and climbs and was definitely a good judge of my preseason training. About 15 racers had to abandon from Sundays stage because of the pace or mechanicals, in the end I finished 25^th for the stage and 19^th overall. I know its hard for me to truly express how hard Sundays race was so I’ll tell you this as soon as I crossed the finish line I got off my bike and walked over behind the officials car and threw up. I was seeing stars for a few hours afterwards and I know everyone else was. All things considered it was great race I would highly recommend it to anyone and its on my calendar for next year. I learned a lot made some new friends, and most importantly had a great time riding with some truly talented racers from all over the West coast.  

12hrs of Disco Mountain Bike Endurance Race, Salmon Idaho May 18th. Link Courtesy of Scott Hurst

This looks like a pretty big deal.  You do not have a lot of time to train.
Please see updated link to the Disco website.  They would really like to have some of the Rexburg guys there.  If you have some MTB friends out there, please forward this information.
12 Hours of Disco Official Website

History of the Rexburg TNR

     Rexburg has had an informally organized weekly club ride since the eighties, maybe longer.  Over the years, a surprising number of successful cyclists have come out of Rexburg. Dave Francis and Brian Williams were promising juniors at the time of those early group rides and Dave went on to race internationally as a member of the United States Cycling Team.  Only a handful of people are still left from those days (Brian, Tony Perkins, Steve and Kent Wasden).  Chad Plocher owned Eagle Bike Shop and Steve Slaughter had a shop for a while as well.

     By the early nineties, interest in cycling had mostly shifted to the relatively new sport of mountain biking.  This is about the time that I got involved.  Eric MacBeth was a mountain bike prodigy and a local cycling celebrity.  It was the golden era of mountain bike riding and racing.  Tony Perkins organized a Tuesday night mountain bike ride.  We crammed as many people and bikes as we could into Tony’s Party Van and headed for the hills.  Every week was an adventure and more than a few of them ended in a trip to the emergency room.  Along with Eric (and later Tarrah MacBeth), Tony, Jenny Willmore, Tim Meikle, and the Stone boys Paul and Robbie were racing most weekends.  Brian opened Sticks and Stones which he eventually sold to Joe and Charles Hill when he went to building Kelson Custom full time.

     As time passed, we began to incorporate more road rides into our schedule and by the late nineties the Tuesday night MTB ride had transitioned over to a weekly road ride.  This is the format that we have followed ever since.  This summer will be our sixteenth season of the revival of the Tuesday road ride.  Over that time we have ridden tens of thousands of miles with only a handful of serious accidents.  In a few days, I will be posting our annual Safety Letter, which emphasizes our commitment to making these rides as safe as they can possibly be.

     Over the years, generations of BYU-Idaho students have come and gone from the Tuesday ride.  I hate to start listing names which leaves out a lot of deserving people, but I will mention a few.  Joel Christopher, Clinton Mortley, and Tate Litchfield will always be honorary Rexburg locals.

     A while ago, maybe seven or eight years, Chris Huskinson started to do some cyclocross races.  He said it was the most fun he had ever had on a bike.  We were skeptical, but Chris was persistent and before long, we found ourselves at the start of a cyclocross race.  Although I am still not a big fan of a really muddy cross race, I have to agree that Chris was 100% correct.  Cyclocross is the most fun you can have on a bicycle.

     Cycling is always looking for the next big thing.  At the moment, that appears to be one-day mixed road and dirt adventure races like the Crusher in the Tushar.  Brian has built a RAD (Road, Asphalt, Dirt) bike specific for that application as well as pioneering a number of RAD rides in the Ashton area.  Tim Meikle is working on putting together a high quality local RAD race.  It is too early to tell if we are going to be able to pull this off for summer 2013, but regardless, we will plan to organize a preview ride of the course.  This is spectacular riding in the Ashton and Fish Creek area.

     As many of you know, the Tuesday Night Ride is a tradition in towns and cities across the country.  In a lot of those places, it has a pretty ugly reputation for big egos, ruthless riding, and lack of acceptance for newer riders.  If you are hoping for those things, this is not your TNR.  We expect all participants to ride responsibly, but the organization is informal and the governance very democratic.  We look forward to seeing you Tuesday evenings at six p.m.

 

 

Start of the Tuesday rides

Cyclists:  I am happy to announce that the Tuesday rides will “officially” begin one week from today, Tuesday March 26^th.  As in previous years, the rides will meet at 6 p.m. at Sticks and Stones on Main Street.  I will be sending out additional information about the rides, but I would like to emphasize that safety is our number one priority, especially since these rides are open to participants with a range of cycling experience.  Every year, I get questions about our cancellation policy due to weather.   Here is the policy:  If conditions are so miserable that you would be happier not riding, consider the ride cancelled for that week.

     If you have not done so yet, I hope that everyone can take a look at our new blog, http://rexburgcycling.blogspot.com/  It features a number of pictures and links from the recent North American Handmade Bicycle Show as well as other content.  If anyone has any cycling related news that you would like to post there, please let me or Jeff know and we would be happy to post it for you.