Tour de Georgia weblog

Team Slipstream takes the TTT

Slipstream celebrates
Originally uploaded by Frank Steele.

Team Slipstream took off fairly early today, edging CSC's leading lap times as they rode. They were amazingly smooth and disciplined, quietly storming around the course.

When Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner's Astana squad took the course, they quickly outpaced Slipstream's time on Laps 1 and 2 of the Road Atlanta race course, and it looked like we might have a new best time of the day, but a slow third lap left Astana 3 seconds short of the Argyle Army.

Last to leave the start house was George Hincapie and race leader Greg Henderson's Team High Road. Again, their early laps set the standard, but they faded late, charging to the line 5.2 seconds slower than Team Slipstream. High Road's Greg Henderson holds the lead by virtue of a few bonus seconds earned on the road, but Slipstream's got a strong quartet sitting at 15 seconds -- Tom Danielson, Trent Lowe, Christian Vande Velde and David Zabriskie.

CSC was 4th on the day at 12.72 seconds, Toyota-United 5th at 23.43. One team that has to be disappointed is Rock Racing, 10th at 52.35. If one of Rock's riders is going to contend, they'll have to climb over a lot of bodies to get there.

More, and many more photos, tonight.

Stage 2 links

TdG2008_Stage2 049
Originally uploaded by eddy58.

Flickr user eddy58 found himself in the perfect position to document yesterday's sprint lead-out. Dominguez, trailing Rollin, showed how hard it is to attack off the front as a marked man, while Haedo and Henderson sit in, ready to slingshot past in the next 500ish meters. Also interesting that Freddie Rodriguez is slightly gapped here.

Photo by Ken Conley

Ken Conley's Stage 2 journal and gallery.

Neal Rogers takes up the case of the biggest Georgia robbery since The General: Why didn't Justin England win the most aggressive rider jersey for Stage 2?

Also:

Daily Peloton | 6th Tour de Georgia - Stage 2

Pre-previewing the 2008 Tour de Georgia

The countdown continues to the 2008 edition of the Tour de Georgia. It's great to see the race surviving, even if it has slipped to the 2nd-biggest US stage race, behind the Tour of California.

This year's edition adds a few interesting twists. First, the race starts all the way down on Tybee Island, near Savannah, taking the riders farther below the gnat line than ever before.

Second, there's no individual time trial, as it's been dropped in favor of a team time trial to be run as Stage 4 on Thursday on the fairly hilly road course at Braselton's Road Atlanta. It's a TTT, but no funny bikes are allowed, apparently to keep costs and complications down for teams traveling from Europe.

Two stages essentially repeat from last year: Stage 6 starts in Blairsville and runs up Brasstown Bald, which has become the craggy face of the race, and Stage 7 is again a circuit race beginning and ending at Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta. I drove through downtown on Sunday, and there are still signs of the tornado that hit the area around the park on March 14th during the SEC basketball tournament.

For your race planning, Medalist Sports has provided a Tour de Georgia Google Maps file that details KoM lines, bonus sprints and starts and finishes.

If you're in the Southeast, it's a fabulous show, well worth the drive. If somehow you can't make it, SportSouth will provide 30-minute daily race updates at 10:30 p.m. most nights (kicked back as late as 1 a.m. on Friday night/Saturday morning).

As for riders, there are no official start lists yet, but Team CSC has posted their TdG roster, including Jason McCartney, Bobby Julich, Iñigo Cuesta, Bradley McGee, and Juan José Haedo (at left).

Haedo has been the most successful sprinter in the TdG's history, and McCartney has absolutely torn up the hilly bits of two previous TdGs.

Cycling Startlists has defending champ Janez Brajkovic and José Luis Rubiera riding for Astana, with others coming from their full 2008 roster.

Slipstream/Chipotle will probably bring last year's race runner-up Christian Vande Velde, and 7 of Blake Caldwell, 2005 winner Tom Danielson (who himself was a close 2nd to Floyd Landis here in 2006), Timmy Duggan, Lucas Euser, Tyler Farrar, Trent Lowe, Danny Pate, and David Zabriskie.

Full startlists should be up in the next day or two.

Let's get to racing

Time to kick off the 2007 Tour de Georgia. Today's stage runs from Medalist Sports headquarters in Peachtree City, down to traditional Stage 1 finishing town, Macon. It's 98.5 miles in all, with 3 circuits of a 2.55-mile loop in downtown Macon expected to happen around 4:30 or 5 p.m.

Stage 1 is traditionally a field sprint after a suicide break. In 2006, Aaron Olson provided the break, and Lars Michaelsen of Team CSC won the field sprint ahead of Freddie Rodriguez and Caleb Manion. Michaelsen, in his final career race, took a special lap of honor yesterday at Paris-Roubaix, where his teammate Stuart O'Grady won the Hell of the North, the toughest of the spring classics.

I'm still a little confused on the team rosters: I found a posted copy dated April 11th, but then in Saturday's pre-race press conference, Levi Leipheimer mentioned Janez Brajkovic as a Discovery Channel rider, and he's not on that roster, so I'll wait to post a final roster link. Update: CyclingNews has a start list that looks reasonable.

Here are the big names: Leipheimer, Hincapie, Danielson for Discovery Channel; Zabriskie, Vande Velde, Haedo for Team CSC; Freddie Rodriguez, Stefano Zanini, and Nick Gates for Predictor-Lotto; 2005 Giro d'Italia winner Gilberto Simoni and David Millar of Prodir-Saunier Duval; Tyler Hamilton, back from his 2-year suspension, for Tinkoff Credit Systems; Nathan O'Neill and Ryder Hesjedal from Health Net/Maxxis; Danny Pate, Tom Peterson, and Patrick McCarty from Team Slipstream; Ivan Dominguez, Chris Baldwin, Chris Wherry, and Henk Vogels from Toyota-United; and Ben Jacques-Maynes of Priority Health.

The strongest sprinters in the field are probably Haedo, Dominguez, and Rodriguez: If you gave me three shots, those are the guys I'd pick to win today. Dominguez has been a monster domestically, and Haedo is coming off a win in the Tour of Cologne: My money's on Haedo for the win today.

The web tracker with video that made its debut for the Tour of California has been updated for the TdG, and is available at www.tourdegeorgiatracker.com. Stage starts at 1 p.m. Eastern. Here's the course map, the course profile, and the course log from the official Tour de Georgia website.

Race Previews:

VeloNews: Fifth Tour de Georgia kicks off on Monday

CyclingNews | Georgia is back, and bigger

Procycling | Who will succeed Landis?

2007 Tour de Georgia teams announced

Rome News - Tribune | Top cycling teams to compete in Tour de Georgia

Tyler Hamilton and his Tinkoff Credit System team and David Millar of Prodir-Saunier Duval are two new additions likely to ride in this year's Tour de Georgia.

The event's 15 teams are confirmed, and it's mostly the usual suspects.

Among ProTour teams:

• Team CSC
• Discovery Channel
• Quick Step-Innergetic
• Predictor-Lotto
• Prodir-Saunier Duval (which races in Europe as Saunier Duval-Prodir)

Three familiar Pro Continental squads are joined by Hamilton's Tinkoff Credit System:

• Health Net presented by Maxxis
• Team Slipstream presented by Chipotle
• Navigators Insurance
• Tinkoff Credit System

Five US Continental squads:

• Jittery Joe's
• Priority Health presented by Bissell
• Toyota-United
• BMC
• Colavita/Sutter Home presented by Cooking Light

And, of course, the USA Cycling National Development Team.

There are no rider confirmations yet, but expect Discovery Channel to bring Leipheimer, 2005 Tour de Georgia champion Tom Danielson, and George Hincapie; CSC to bring Dave Zabriskie, Juan José Haedo, and Bobby Julich; and for Quick Step to again NOT bring Tom Boonen or Paolo Bettini. Instead, let's hope for Freddy Rodgriguez, Chris Horner, and Cadel Evans.

Tyler Hamilton will be competing in the U.S. professionally for the first time in 6 years:

"I'm really looking forward to racing inside the United States again. I'm hoping the good block of early season racing I'll have under my belt by April will serve me well. The last pro cycling race I competed in inside the U.S. was in San Francisco in 2001," Hamilton said about his return to professional cycling. "I hope that we can make a good showing at the Tour of Georgia. The team is really strong and I have a lot of confidence in them. We'll pick the leader based on who is riding best at the time."

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing Team Slipstream in action, and to the battle on Brasstown wth Hamilton, Leipheimer, Cesar Grajales, and Tom Danielson in the mix.

Big Stage 3 photo gallery posted

I've got about 80 pictures from yesterday's time trial up.

Please comment (at Flickr or here) if I've misidentified anyone; I had start order and rosters, and in a few cases, more than one rider from a given team came through close together and could have reversed their start order.

My favorite pictures (click through for other sizes):

The big boys:

Stage 3 quick review

I haven't seen the full standings, but I heard at the finish line that Landis was the fastest on the day, but that Danielson held him within 4 seconds, and Zabriskie was another 20 seconds behind Danielson.

Based on what we saw on the course, I was surprised; Z looked like he wasn't even going hard on our steep uphill section, and I figured Landis would key off Danielson's time splits and go all out to make sure he had some time in hand before the big mountains start tomorrow.

Smells like a repeat of last year; I respect Landis as a climber, but Danielson is a climbing specialist who's becoming an all-rounder, and I see him leading the contenders at the top on Saturday. Should be an interesting couple of days.

Pez offers TdG preview

PezCycling News | Preview: Tour de Georgia 2006

Jared Gruber at PezCycling News offers his look at this year's race. He's penciled in Landis 1st, Danielson 2nd, Zabriskie 3rd.

He notes that the time trial this year is a monster, at almost 40 kilometers with a healthy climb in the middle, and thinks that gives Landis the edge.

Gruber also looks at the tactical implications of the changes race organizers made to Friday and Saturday's mountain stages, cutting down the climbing in each, but spicing up Saturday's queen stage by coming over Hogpen Gap by the shorter, steeper route. On the race profile, it looks almost like that climb curves back on itself!

Also:

Podium Cafe | Tour d'of Georgia Time!

VeloNews offers TdG preview

VeloNews.com | Tour de Georgia: Top Americans looking for victory on home soil

Neal Rogers offers a preview of this week's race, but predicting (hoping for?) the possibility of an all-US podium featuring defending champion Tom Danielson of Discovery Channel, Phonak's Landis, and CSC's David Zabriskie.

Danielson is coming off a new record time in the climb of (the other) Lookout Mountain in Colorado, while Landis has already won the inaugural Tour of California and Paris-Nice this season. Danielson has an eye on next month's Giro d'Italia, while Landis has scrapped the Giro in favor of Tour de France preparation.

Rogers also mentions that organizers are planning to recognize Dalton native Saul Raisin during the ride; Stage 4 starts in his hometown on Friday.

Other TdG previews:

cyclingnews.com | 2006 Tour de Georgia -- Allez Ya'll

AMDProCycling.com | Michael Barry Journal: Tour de Georgia

ThePaceline.com (free reg. req.) | Tour de Georgia preview

Crossposted to TdFblog.

Thursday time trial previews

Daily Peloton | Ford Tour de Georgia: A Look at the Time Trial

The individual time trial is usually one of the decisive stages in the Tour de Georgia, and this year, organizers have routed the TT from Chickamauga, Georgia, up over Lookout Mountain and down into downtown Chattanooga. It's the first time a TdG stage has ended outside the state of Georgia.

Chattanooga has become a popular tourist destination for people around the Southeast, with the Tennessee Aquarium, the Chattanooga Choo-Choo, and a pleasant, walkable/rideable downtown.

As for the stage itself, it's almost 25 miles long, with perhaps 2000 feet of elevation gain packed in.

Recommended vantage points are the start line, where riders will be warming up well before ascending into the start house, Litespeed's SAG stop on Nick A Jack road, and in downtown Chattanooga, where riders will finish up.

The great thing about the time trial is that you can pick out individual riders and get pictures of each rider alone.

Floyd Landis won last year's Tour de Georgia ITT, and this year's would seemingly suit him very well. Dave Zabriskie's mad TT skills put him in yellow at last year's Tour de France, but that was on a much flatter (and shorter) prologue course. He was 2nd at last year's TdG ITT.

Also:

Tour de Georgia website | ITT Race Log