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.