USA Cycling Professional Championships

Athletes for the Greenville Hospital System USA Cycling Professional Championships have been announced:

GREENVILLE, S.C. (August 19, 2008) – Race organizers confirmed today that George Hincapie (Team Columbia), Christian Vande Velde (Team Garmin-Chipotle presented by H30), David Zabriskie (Team Garmin-Chipotle presented by H30), and Fred Rodriguez (Rock Racing) are among the professional cyclists who will compete this year at the Greenville Hospital System USA Cycling Professional Championships over Labor Day weekend (Aug 30-31, 2008). Three of these elite athletes (Hincapie, Zabriskie, Vande Velde) recently represented the U.S. at the Olympic Games in Beijing. Over 125 professional cyclists are expected in Greenville to compete for both the Individual Time Trial and Road Race Championships.

Other names mentioned in the article: Hamilton (Rock Racing), Wherry (Toyota-United), Danielson (Garmin-Chipotle), and Lewis (Team Columbia).

Read the article in it's entirety here.

New team for Sastre?

From Tuttobiciweb:

Christian Henn, attuale direttore sportivo della Gerolsteiner, sta lavorando attorno ad una nuova squadra, la Cervelo, noto marchio di biciclette canadese. Radiomercato dice che il capitano della squadra sarà Carlos Sastre, fresco vincitore del Tour de France, e che al suo fianco ci saranno il tedesco Stefan Schumacher e l'austriaco Bernhard Kohl, che proprio ieri ha informato la Quick Step ed il suo team manager Patrick Lefevere di non essere interessato ad un passaggio nel team belga.

So, if my limited Italian skills are correct, essentially the article states that Christian Henn, the DS for Gerolsteiner, is working on forming a new team, Cervelo (a well-known Canadian manufacturer). Radiomercato stated that the captain of the new team will be Carlos Sastre, who just won the Tour de France, and that by his side will be Stefan Schumacher (Germany) & Bernhard Kohl (Austria). Yesterday, Kohl had informed Quick Step's team manager, Patrick Lefevere, that his was not interested in a transfer to the Belgian Team.

Keep in mind that I don't actually speak Italian (yet). I do believe I got the main details of the article, but if I've missed something or made of muddle of it, please let me know.

If this is indeed true (that Sastre is going to be leaving CSC-Saxo Bank), it does solve what could have been problematic in the CSC-Saxo Bank future, namely the team leader dilemma.
C. Sastre? F. Schleck? A. Schleck?
What a problem to be had!

Sneak Peak of Bianchi 2009

Via Bike Hugger.

Steel celeste Domomiti with chrome lugs?
Ohlalalala!

Vans Fixed

Some of you may have already seen this, but Vans is going to be making Era Fixed shoes. As you can see from the pictures below (from sneakerfreaker.com), they are based on the Era model but made with a ballistic nylon body and a leather toe (to prevent premature wear that usually arises from Toshi doubles). The shoelaces have been enhanced with reflective twining.

Last but not least, the shoes come with a matching seat bag. This will surely reduce the number of "shoes, belt, & bag must match" fashion rule violations.

How to use a bus bike rack

An instructional video set to music.

Bike Lane Fail

From failblog.org.

Cyclocross at Interbike's OutDoor Demo

Attention all Interbike OutDoor Demo attendees: There's going to be a special cyclocross course set up in Bootleg Canyon during OutDoor Demo.

Hup! Hup! Hup! Hup!

Portland Bike Boxes

Yet another entry about bicycle commuting & city streets that are safe & usable for cyclists. We like to ride our bikes to work, can you tell?

Recently, we've noticed that bike boxes have been popping up on both coasts. What is a bike box?
The City of Portland Office of Transportation says that:
A bike box is an intersection safety design to prevent bicycle/car collisions, especially those between drivers turning right and bicyclists going straight. It is a green box on the road with a white bicycle symbol inside. It includes green bicycle lanes approaching and leading from the box.

How do you use a bike box?

I know that New York, Portland, San Francisco, & Copenhagen have installed several bike boxes, but are there any other cities that have them as well? (As a side note: Portland is stalling on the installation of several bike boxes that it had previously promised to install. The reasons given for the hold up on the installations vary & you can read the whole story at OregonLive).

But, even though they may be dragging their feet on installing more bike boxes, Portland seems to be on the right track with respect to making the streets & city more accessible & safe for city cyclists.
This diagonal intersection looks lovely!

Fixed Gear Tricks

As it turns out, fixed gear tricks are nothing new.

Did you catch the wicked bar spins in there?