The June trip (ster der Vlaamse Ardennen)

The June AC Racing trip is underway. Jim Anderson and six riders (Alex Darville, David Goodman, Andrew Hodges,  Chandler Knop and Rhys Rathbun) left today for Belgium. They will arrive tomorrow morning and be picked up by Cyclingsupport.be. They will stay at the Chainstay in Oudenaarde. This weekend they will ride two kermesse races (most likely Otegem and Roosdaal). These will be their first races in Belgium and I am curious to see how it will go.

I will join them next Wednesday and the following weekend we will compete in the Ster der Vlaamse Ardennen.
Grabbed these from FaceBook:

Andrew and David leaving Atlanta for Philly and BRU

Chris Wyman leaving LA for BRU

Our next trip will be at the end of June-early July to compete in the Sint-Martinusprijs in Kontich. The race is a UCI 2.1 four day event. As of today I have two riders for that team and two more who are "very interested." Two open slots remain.

Smoking volcanoes

Added at 2PM: Stage 1 of the ATOC was canceled due to adverse weather conditions.


Alberto Contador showed everyone who's the king of the mountains today. He left all but one rider behind to win the stage up the Etna and conquer the maglia rosa. Only Jose Rujano could stay with the Spaniard in the last five kilometers but even he ended up 3 seconds behind.

Denis Menchov lost 2'16, while Carlos Sastre lost 2'21. Stefano Garzelli was the first Italan at 50''; Jan Bakelants the first Belgian at 2'16.  Tomorrow is a rest day and on Tuesday there is a flat stage.

Romain Felliu meanwhile won Picardie. He was third in the last stage. Gert Steegmans was forced to leave the race due to a crash.

Lake Tahoe weather

The Tour of California starts today at Lake Tahoe. In line with what we have come to expect from that race, the weather turned ugly last night. The situation in the Sierra is dismal with snow, wind and freezing rain. It was below freezing at 9 AM this morning.

The start of Stage one has been delayed due to harsh and unsafe weather.

I am waiting to fill the last slot for the Ster. I have three good candidates who showed interest and so now it is a matter of seeing who will come through first.

Stay tuned!

Blogger was down all day yesterday so I could not post. Today I am pretty busy but I will post something later. In the meantime here is some more info on the Ster.

Stage 1 loop, map, elevation and fly-over.
Stage 2 morning TTT, map, elevation and fly-over.
Stage 3 afternoon race, map, elevation and fly-over.
Stage 4 small and large loop, map, elevation and fly-over.



Neo-pro Bart De Clercq won the first mountain stage in the Giro today. He finished ahead of the favorites despite struggling earlier on. Contador finished in 9th position. Menchov was 17th.

Yes it is active!

Also, for more fire works (quite literally that is), the Giro will climb Etna, an active volcano, this Sunday. As if we haven't had enough excitement there (crashes, unpaved roads, etc.).  So much so that Petacchi's legs froze a few centimeters from the finish line yesterday and Ventoso passed him for the win.

Jurgen Van den Broeck meanwhile is now on the UCI doping core list. Stay tuned for another high profile case.

Controversy and rapture

Alessandro Petacchi won the sprint in the second stage of the Giro today. Man-missile Cavendish was upset and filed a complaint, but the overhead clearly shows that nothing fishy happened and Cav just made the wrong decision.

In Duinkerken, Kittel won another stage making it four, while French rider Thomas Voeckler grabbed the overall classification. Zdenek Stybar brought luster to his road debut by showing himself repeatedly and taking third overall.

Meanwhile, our next stage race, the Ster der Vlaamse Ardennen is filling up and I hope to finalize the team by the weekend. Everyone should get their deposit in by May 21 at 6 PM, because I heard the world will be ending then and we will experience rapture and big earthquake here in California. This will be followed by other earthquakes around the country. But perhaps more importantly, the organizer needs a filled out registration sheet by May 22, and rapture notwithstanding, I do not want to miss that date.

Please get your deposits in before the world ends

I am also looking into opportunities for 16-18 yr olds to go race in Belgium over the summer. No stage races or interclubs, but kermesse races galore.

I will be absent from the blog for the next two days, but hope to see you all again on Wednesday.

Deejay Tom Boonen

In this waiting period on the pro cycling calendar, headlines consist of new doping discoveries such as Pasquale Muto's positive CERA test; notable returns from doping suspension, such as Davide Rebellin who will fill in for Pasquale at Miche; lawsuits being dropped, such as Lance's suit against Landis (but not UCI's suit); investigations being abandoned, such as the ongoing inquest against Vino, Iban Mayo and Christian Moreni by French authorities -supposedly dropped because UCI won't cooperate and hand over samples; imminent break-ups such as Lotto and Omega Pharma, leaving Gilbert in the middle; cyclocrossers attempting road racing, such as Stybar's first exploits in the vierdaagse van Duinkerken, and classics riders turning into DJ's for the night, such as Boonen and StuBru.

How is that for a run-on sentence?

We also learned that Lars Boom will stay with Rabobank for another three years and that Contador will attempt to win three grand tours in one year -unless UCI stops him that is. UCI meanwhile is also outlawing needles starting on Saturday in what is known as the "No Needle Policy." Needles are already illegal in the US but their use in the European pro-pack is widespread.

Here is a picture of Alistair modeling the new Rocktape jerseys that were kindly provided to us for the Ster van Zuid-Limburg (thanks Greg), but that unfortunately did not reach us in time to be used for the race.

Rocktape jersey

There are three more slots left for the Ster der Vlaamse Ardennen.

More info on the Ster der Vlaamse Ardennen

The Ster der Vlaamse Ardennen is a stage race, Interclub for Juniores, cat 2.14.IC Nat. It takes place June 11-13, 2011 in the communities of Michelbeke, Erwetegem and Opbrakel. All three are on the course of the Ronde van Vlaanderen and relatively close to the city of Oudenaarde.

There are three road races and a team time trial.

The first stage takes place in Michelbeke on June 11. It is a 105 km road race, consisting of 10 loops of 10.5 km each. There is a team presentation at 1:30 PM and the stage starts at 2:30 PM. There is one short but steep climb where KOM points are awarded. The profile looks like this:

The second stage consists of a morning team time trial and an afternoon road race. The TTT goes off at 10 AM in Erwetegem, and it is followed by a road race at 3PM that starts at the same location. The TTT is 10K and the road race is 93.6K (8 loops of 11.7 Km). The road race has KOM points.

Team time trial

Afternoon road race

The last stage is in Opbrakel on June 13 at 2:30PM. It consists of 4 short loops of 10Km (kleine rondes), and five longer loops (grote rondes) of 15Km, for a total of 115Km.

Short loop

Long loop

The ster has five classifications and jerseys: individual (yellow), points (green), KOM (polka dot), youth (white) and team. The time limit is 15% and the 3 Km rule is in effect.