Fin

And the people's champion is Svein Tuft. Congrats.

Stage 20 Update

Svein Tuft is still in the lead going in to the last day.A great stage today. Look for Quintana to win a lot more in the years to come. Tomorrow, The Champs la nuit.

Stage 19 Update-Redonkathon

Svein Tuft has resumed the lead after Tom Veelers abandoned the Tour today. Tuft (Orica Green Edge) leads Assan Bazayev of Astana by 1:57. Get your picks in tonight to be eligible for the contest.

Stage 18 Update: Le Alpe

Tom Veelers is back in the virtual Maglia Nera after today's stage. Get your picks in before Saturday's stage to be eligible for the contest. Helluva ride by Tejay today, its too bad he couldn't hold off the frog. Cest La Vie.

Stage 17 ITT Update

Dmitri Muravyev has taken back the lead but the top 3 are only seperated by 27 secs. Should be an interesting couple of days. Don't forget to enter the contest before Friday to be eligible for the prizes.

Sweet 16

Svein Tuft continues to lead by 50 secs. Should see a shakeup tomorrow because Tuft is a decent time trialist. 

Stage 15 Update

We have a new leader after the Giant of Provence. It is Svein Tuft Orica-Green Edge by 50 secs over Muravyev.

Stage 14 update

Muravyev still leads but his deficit has been cut to 1:07.

Stage 13 Update

We have a new leader in the virtual Maglia Nera. It is Dmitri Muravyev Astana.Tom Veelers has lost the lead by more than 10 minutes and Muravyev leads by 4 mins and 10 sec over Svein Tuft Orica Green Edge.

Stage 9 Update

Virtual Maglia Nera remains Tom Veelers Argos Shimano. This guy is a strong candidate to take the overall (underall?).

Stage 8 Update

Virtual Maglia Nera for today is ,wait for it, Tom Veelers Argos Shimano by 37 seconds. 

Stage 7 Update

Still Tom Veelers Argos Shimano, by 37 seconds. This is getting exciting. Tomorrow will be interesting.

Stage 6 Update

Still Tom Veelers Argos Shimano. He may be a good candidate for the overall.

Stage 5 update

Virtual Maglia Nera after Stage 5 is Tom Veelers Argos Shimano. Tough luck for Bouhanni and Van Den Brouke, no start today. Lots of guys banged up after the crashes in Stage 5. 

Tour Update The TTT

Maglia Nera for today is either Tom Veelers Argos Shimano or Ted King Cannondale depending on ASO.
#freeTedKing

Stage 3 Wrap

Virtual Maglia Nera for today is Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) FDJ.fr . 


And the podium girl was taller than Gerrans and he was standing on the podium riser.

Tour Update Stage 2

Virtual Maglia Nera for today is Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Astana Pro Team. 

Tour de France Day 1

Maglia Nera for day one is : Amael Moinard(Fra) BMC Racing Team.

Next update will include a report on the Night of Carbon at East West Bikes in Fullerton, CA on Friday night. The speakers were carbon royalty and consisted of: Bob Parlee of Parlee bikes, Jason Schiers of Enve and Don Guichard head of Cervelo Project California.

Pick the Maglia Nera of the Tour de France

I am going to run a contest for the Tour that involves picking the Maglia Nera a.k.a. Lantern Rouge. Picks must be posted in the comment section and need to be posted before the start of stage 19 (the stage after Alpe D'Huez) Ties will go to the first poster in chronological order. In the event that no one picks the winner(?) I will do a count back of the leader(?)for the individual stages starting with stage 20 and winners will be determined that way. Post questions in the comments section. Prizes will be as follows 1st: Tube of DZ Nuts and a pair of socks. 2nd: 1 lb of Skratch Labs secret drink mix (you pick the flavor) 3rd: a single Park Tool 4 mm Allen wrench. So get your picks in early (or late) and make sure to tell your friends. I will be giving daily updates on the Maglia Nera through my twitter account @ilcappellinoca. So give me a follow and gain the upper hand.  Now get out and work on your Tour form. 

Pre Tour lull

Many things to get to today since it has been a long time since I last wrote, but hey, I've been riding. I have been reading a spectacular group of essays by Marco Pinotti (Team BMC) on cycling and how to be a professional bike racer and all around intelligent guy, called "The Cycling Professor". It's available on Amazon or Kindle for cheap, check it out. Would love to interview him but don't know what I would ask since most things were covered in the book. He is a pro's pro who is against all forms of doping and in my opinion is doing cycling the right way, at least from what I read. Needless to say i will be pulling for him in the TT's in the Tour, provided he is riding. He is also a good follow on Twitter although you may have to translate from Italian.

Next is the Tour de Suisse. First of all, the stage to Crans Montana was epic. Ryder Hesjedal was very impressive, riding most of the climb in the big ring. 0|0. Its too bad he crashed the next day and was taken to hospital. He may still ride the Tour, so be on the lookout for some crazy climbing form from him. Rui Costa was impressive in the final uphill time trial to take the win. I felt bad for Mathias Frank, as he rode his ass off to maintain his lead all week only to lose it on the last stage. However, he is young and should be one to watch over the next few years. Tejay Van Garderen also looked strong until the last day when it looked like he went a little hard on the flat part of the uphill TT and cracked big time on the climb. Or maybe he does not want to show his cards before the Tour. Who knows. All in all though a very entertaining race and absolute beautiful coverage by BeInSport USA. Their HD coverage can be pretty spectacular. 

So here I sit, biding my time until June 29th, spewing all sorts of propaganda. I "accidentally" purchased a Castelli Gabba jacket on ebay last week and let me tell you, if you live in a wet, cold part of the world, get one, no matter the cost. It was perfect for the June gloom weather in the early morning in California last weekend. It was a little misty rain and about 60 degrees and I was warm and dry and focused on riding instead of the weather. Even set a few Strava PR's, which I usually only do in sunny weather. The long sleeves zip off to reveal an elbow length short sleeve that is perfect with arm warmers, if the sleeves get too hot. The cut is long in the back to keep the drops from chilling your spine and tight and aero in the front. End of shameless plug. 

Well, its time to go get the form right for the Tour. Everybody put in some hard miles so you can peak for the final stage on the Champs. 

Respect

One legged mountain biker. Rispetto. 

W Il Giro

My thoughts on the Giro. First of all, Danilo DiLuca is a twatwaffle (thanks Velominati.com for that one). He is either the most arrogant or most insecure rider on the planet. He attacked every day and was brought back with relative ease (and I noted this on my Twitter account @ilcappellinoca). So hows that EPO working for you Danilo? Not very well it seems. Now enjoy your lifetime ban and wish you were as loved as Pantani. On to more positive topics, Vincenzo Nibali has some stunning form and it will be interesting to see if he can hold it through the Tour. His mountain TT was an absolute beat down to everyone. If he can hold that he will at least be on the podium at the Tour with its heavy dose of climbing this year, can you say twice up Alpe D'Huez! Uran would have been more of a challenge had he not had to wait for Wiggo a few times. He is an interesting rider and could be much better if he were not handcuffed by the Sky glut of leaders and no helpers. And what can you say about Cadel? I'm not sure what's going to happen with him at the Tour. Tejay looked awful strong in California. As far as the sprinters go, nobody can even hold Cav's jockstrap. The Tour should be a good matchup between Sagan and Cav to see who the supreme sprinter in Green will be.

The Tour of Belgium was interesting, too. Tony Martin sealed the deal with an impressive TT and stayed with the attacks today to take the overall. If he could translate that TT power into some climbing form he would be unstoppable. He doesn't look like a real big guy so he could probably transform himself into a tolerable climber like Wiggins. 

Hope everyone is enjoying the Memorial Day holiday in the states. Don't forget to thank your favorite vet for his service and making it possible for you to ride your bike when you want to. My personal goal to honor the holiday is to complete 100 miles Sat thru Mon. Looks like it should be attainable without a herculean effort. So get out there and ride your bike.

 

Shut Up Legs!

Golden Guns of Jens Voigt

http://bcove.me/nfxpxyon

On being a weenie

I must admit, I am a weenie. A weight weenie, that is. There is nothing more satisfying than losing weight ( on your bike ). At one time my Cervelo S3 weighed a scant 13.9 lbs, about a pound and a half below the UCI limit. As it sits now, with extremely heavy wheels and beefy bars it's still right at the UCI limit of 15.5 lbs. The  thing about being a weenie is that if you are good and vigilant you can do it without spending a ton of money ,but (ahhhh the proverbial BUT) you will get to the point where your price per gram of weight saved will be astronomical and you may not get your bike to the lowest possible denominator without a large bank account or annuity. If you want to be a weenie and don't know where to start, try weightweenies.starbike.com. There are bikes , components, you name it but plan to spend a few hours there if you've never been and you love bikes. Some of the bikes here are absolutely stunning, not to mention light.

New topic. Group riding. Went on the normal Saturday ride with my riding buddies (henceforth referred to as the Brain, the Anvil, and the Hammer) and we were caught by a large group and latched on. The pace was relatively easy and everybody but the Anvil (for obvious reasons) caught on to the group. So we mixed in for a few miles at a good steady pace before waiting for the Anvil to catch up. We rolled up to a stoplight and after all the unclicking and plastic scraping sounds there arose a cacophony of voices that, if you closed your eyes, sounded like a cocktail party. What ran through my mind was this, how many of these people were riding for the cocktail party and how many we're here to hammer their friends into submission? Next time I'll take a survey but I bet more were there for the cocktail party. Ahh the attitude of the road cyclist. That's why I love this sport. That's all for now. Go ride your bike.

What! Wait, what! No racing on TV today.

No Giro, no Tour of Cali. Wearing my Castelli cap, waiting for 630 am tomorrow so I can return to my Giro fix. That being said, here are a few things I like, with appropriate links. Before I post these I must say that I am in no way reimbursed by these companies, but in 22 years of riding bikes have found these products and services to be above board and high in quality. Chamois cream, one of the most important peices of cycling gear....www.dz-nuts.com. If your bored, like I am today, try Paved magazine (pavedmag.com) $8 gets you a quarterly subscription on your iPad. As previously mentioned, castelli-cycling.com , makes the best cycling apparel by far and they also have the coolest logo. Love me some scorpions. And if you're into cycling you know anything Italian is cool.( As evidenced by the title of this blog.) Lastly, for your nutrition needs skratchlabs.com, nutrition done right. So, enough shameless plugs, shave your legs and

If your bike costs more than your car, you are living right.

go out and ride your bike!

Introduction

This is a cycling blog, more about lifestyle and vibe and racing your friends in the Saturday group ride. I'm a self professed weight weenie but stuck in a rouleur's body. More on these topics in later posts. Stay tuned for more.