Culture

June has been a little hectic. We started out the month in the Alps previewing the Tour de France climbs. Our training camp finished just in time for the challenging one day Classique des Alps race, which I decided to sit out, since I had done so much riding in the days proceeding. But it was a successful race for our team, with four Phonak guys in the top 10. My teammate Oscar Pereiro won, which was a big victory for the entire organization. So we headed to the Dauphine Libere on a high note, which started a day later. My personal goal was to try and test myself as well as some new

The Olympic trials this past weekend in Redlands, California, offered two automatic Olympic team nominations to the winner of the road race and the time trial. Having raced for 16 years, I have competed in a few Olympic trials. In past years, I felt a lot of pressure while trying to make the team; this year, as the first American in the UCI international points standings, I was fortunate enough to be automatically qualified before the trials began. This is not to say I was completely pressure-free, however. My T-Mobile team wanted all three slots on the women’s road squad, which meant we had

The last week I have been racing in the Volta Catalunya, a six-day race that starts on the Costa Brava, climbs through the Pyrénées and finishes back along the coast in downtown Barcelona. For me, and several of the other North Americans in the peloton, it is a race that is close to home, as several of us live in the Catalan town of Girona. This year, Martin Perdiguero dominated the first half of the week’s racing. He won stage 2’s uphill sprint finish, went on to take the mountaintop finish in Andorra with an explosive acceleration in the last meters, and then won the next day’s mountain

The Wachovia Classic in Philadelphia, now in its 20th year, has become a regular summertime event. Like the T-Mobile Grand Prix in San Francisco, it is one of the most prestigious one-day races in America and hosts some of the best racers in the world. What makes it most special for the racers is the fans. Hundreds of thousands of fans line the course, cheering and partying. There are a couple of grandiose block parties on the Manayunk Wall and at the start/finish line. The energy is incredible – it pushes us up the hill. The women’s race had its biggest field ever, with 190 starters,

Each season I look forward to going back to Philadelphia for the Wachovia races. I like the city, the races are the best in North America, and the crowds are incredible. This year the trip to Philly was my first to America since the start of the year. I have been watching the results in America from overseas but have yet to race against all the new stars of the U.S. peloton. Lining up for the start in Lancaster was a bit strange as there were all sorts of new jerseys and new faces on the line. The race in Philly almost always unfolds in the same manner. A breakaway, sometimes quite a large

The Tour of Montréal is a three-day, four-stage race. It starts out with a 3km prologue in Lachine, the hometown of Geneviève Jeanson, the Machine from Lachine. We jet out and around a tiny peninsula on bike paths, making a few sharp turns along the wa, and winner and losers are separated by fractions of a second. This course is quick and suits a rider who corners well. Tina Mayolo-Pic, one of the best criterium sprinters in America, took top honors. She blazed the course and finished a half second ahead of me. A few hours later, we headed to Little Italy, where we had an evening criterium.

The highlight of the American racing calendar is the Wachovia week in Philadelphia. It is a week of racing that draws the most interest from spectators and media and is also the week of racing that hosts the strongest pelotons to race on North American soil. Of the three races Lancaster is perhaps the hardest course with its undulating and sinuous course. The peloton is full of motivated racers and the attacks are usually incessant for the entire 145 km event. Often times rain storms or thundershowers grease up the streets and add extra difficulty to the already technical course. This

Last night, I returned to North America for the first time since mid-February. Today the Montréal World Cup was my first race on the continent this season. This race is the premier women’s race in North America, and it is perhaps the only race that fields a quality international women’s peloton. A cool Canadian breeze greeted us at the start, but the fans kept us warm. Geneviéve Jeanson and Lyne Bessette are household names in Canada now, and they bring many admirers to this race each year, as Mont Royale is always lined with people. Geneviéve’s name has been in the headlines of the

A ghostly antiquity shatters the air between houses, hotels and dim, squatting light poles. The vintage town of Torrington swallows another day and crests into the shady mass of energy that is the night. Short dark streets end abruptly at churches and arcades. The school of Saint Francis is holding an amateur boxing match tonight. As on most first nights of a stage race, I need a period of adjustment. Our room is three floors up from Main Street in the Village Peddler, a rickety old hotel rasping through its wind swept windows: old cloth, old mattresses, basements filled with empty

I was pleasantly surprised today. For a day in the mountains, it was actually a pretty mellow day. The first 70, 80 kilometers of the stage today were almost downhill – a fast false flat, really – and the speed was very high. There were a number of attacks, but no one really got anything going. At one point today, there was a pretty bad crash. We didn’t really see who went down, but it slowed things down for a bit as teams were trying to make an assessment of who went down and what was going on. By the time we reached the one big climb, though, the speed had picked up and then the climbers

I am going to try to make it to Milan. After talking with the team and knowing the importance of this race to us and to our sponsors, I am going to do my best to make it through the mountains these next few days and ride to Milan. Pulling out would not be too good for the team, so I need to do my best… I just need to save my legs as much as possible. That last stage into Milan is very important to the team and, at the same time, making it to Philadelphia for the USPRO is very important to me, so I need to balance that. As part of the discussion that we had on the subject this morning, I did

Well, enough is enough. I finally decided to call it a day and I’m going back home tomorrow. I started this morning, even though I was feeling worse than I was yesterday. After about 50 kilometers, I realized that there was no getting past this chest cold and I decided to ride to the feedzone and pull out then. It’s been more difficult mentally than physically in some ways. I really don’t like racing when I can’t put 100 percent into it. It’s just not my style. I sure didn’t like just trying to hang on and barely making it to the finish line. The last couple of days, I’ve come to the

I have always liked Tour de L’Aude as it takes place in some beautiful countryside in the south of France. The race takes place mostly in the foothills of the Pyrenees. There are many small roads that run through the centers of ancient quaint towns or through vineyards or farmland. It is one of my favorite spots to ride a bike. The traffic is minimal, the people friendly, and the climate agreeable. I left Girona for the Tour without much idea of how my fitness would be. I had trained with Michael and his teammates and was feeling healthy, but I hadn’t raced since the classics in Belgium.

One of those days. It seems like every time there is a straightaway like today, it doesn’t seem to work out. It was long stage today, but maybe a touch too easy for my liking. Being totally flat, we were pretty much guaranteed that Fassa Bortolo was going to be in control at the front. I would sometimes prefer it if there were a few hills to break things up. But we started the day well. Everyone on the team was motivated and I felt good. I have good legs right now and the team has confidence in my ability as a sprinter. We took something of an all-or-nothing gamble today when the whole

It was a good sprint. For the last few days I’ve been really frustrated by not being able to get into position to do my own sprint. Today, it was different. The team really rallied out there to get me up to the right spot going into the last few hundred meters and they did a great job. Our main focus was to stay together today, so that we could set up for the sprint as a team and we did it. And for a while there, we had good little train going toward the finish. We were lacking a little power toward the end, maybe, and we allowed Fassa Bortolo to take over the front of the peloton again,

Well, I made it another day. I’m still not feeling so great when it comes to my respiratory system. My legs feel fine, but sometimes, it’s like a car when it red-lines. I’m afraid the engine just cuts out at a certain point. I have good legs, but once I start pushing it hard, the lungs just can’t support the leg work that I am doing and I feel like I am going to blow. I did what I could for Angelo today. I sat back behind him a couple of spots and then as we were coming in toward the finish, I waited to see what I could do to move him up, maybe take him on my wheel and launch an attack. I

After Wednesday’s time trial, I found itself in the leader’s jersey in the Tour de L’Aude, with my teammates Kimberly Bruckner and Kristin Armstrong in second and fourth overall, just a few seconds behind. For T-Mobile it was a great place to be, as it gave us many options tactically. Defending the jersey is a challenge that requires a lot of work, and for us, it has been a bigger challenge than normal because we are down to five riders here. Fortunately, our team has been extremely motivated and is getting stronger each day. On Thursday, we did a circuit race. We let a breakaway full of

Seventh. Not too bad, not too bad at all. Even so, I may be close to the point of heading home. I’m still feeling pretty rough today. I had a pretty good ride, but I sure didn’t feel good. I had an early start, so I was pretty lucky with the weather this time out. It started raining towards the end, so some of the big GC boys had to do the whole thing in the rain and I had relatively dry roads the whole time. Then again, I had more wind than they did, so maybe it all comes out even. The course itself was bloody hard. The first 18 or 19 kilometers were all uphill, and a pretty hard uphill

Man, do I feel like crap today. I started the day out feeling like I was coming down with something. I've had a sore throat for a few days and now it's beginning to take a toll. Despite the easy terrain, I made it through the stage just sitting there in the field, feeling really, really average on the bike the whole day. The only thing I managed to do was to bring my teammate, Angelo Furlan, up to the front with about 3km to go. I wanted to do as much as I possibly could, so I just went up and took a big turn with the hope that Angelo was on a good wheel. I figured since I was losing steam

This was not a very good day for me. The frustrating thing was that I had great legs. I felt great. I thought I’d put myself into just the right spot coming into the finish and help up there and then it just didn’t happen. The finish today was just chaotic. I almost killed myself coming in. The day was pretty much under the control of Fassa Bortolo all the way from the start. They allowed a small break to get away, mostly just to keep things under control in the field, and then they just held a very moderate pace. Actually, it really slowed down toward the last 30km today. It was more like

We had a good day today. It was a long day, quite hot at times, but our guy, Cristian Moreni, finished second to that young kid none of us knew anything about. Cristian has been looking good here at the Giro and a day like today really suited his abilities to a tee. He’s really good on the short, steep climbs that marked the last half of the route today. As you know, those aren’t exactly my cup of tea, but Cristian just loves that stuff. After about 50 kilometers this morning – which was only an hour or so into the race! – he said he was feeling pretty good and so we tried to get him in

It was a long day in the saddle. A long day, a hot day and a day with a lot of climbing. It was a lot harder than I expected. We built our strategy for the day on the assumption that the race would be won in a breakaway today. Most of our guys were working hard to get into anything that went and we were always represented when something did go. Before the start my teammate, Rinaldo Nocentini, came up and said “I’ve already made the deal. There are four or five of us going to go right at the start!” Of course, our strategy was the pretty much the same as everyone else’s and the speed was

You never really know how you’ll feel until you give it a go at the line. Yesterday for the rest day, I gave up plans to go out on a short ride and actually stayed in my bed from morning until the evening. I had a bit of a sore throat, a sore knee and I wanted to let the ankle heal up, so I spent the day in bed sleeping and watching a couple of DVDs. I didn’t do a single meter on the bike yesterday, which is normally not a good thing to do on a rest day, but I really needed to give the ankle a rest. The ankle problem also caused some small knee problems for me – that usually happens when

It’s been a long time since I competed in a 10-day tour. The approach is a little different from the shorter tours – in a race this long, it’s important to conserve one’s energy for the critical moments. So at the start of the Tour de L’Aude, I took a good look at the race bible, which contains all of the stage distances and course profiles. With my team, we determined what we thought would be the most significant stages based on the difficulty of the mountain passes and the time trials. We have broken the race up into segments. The first stage did not look too difficult, so we agreed that

Well now, this is a nice note to start these Giro diaries on. Even though I won in the last couple hundred meters of today’s stage, this really began yesterday. For the last 24 hours, I’ve been very upset. Because of that, I’ve been totally focused on winning today. Yesterday was a very disappointing day for me. Coming into the finale yesterday I felt really good – better even than I felt today – and as we hit the last corner, McEwen hooked me really hard and I had to shut down my sprint. Last night, after that, we had a big discussion on the team, trying to decide how we were going to

Tour de L’Aude is a 10-day stage race in the South of France. The Aude region contains a portion the Midi canal, which stretches from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and is situated in the Pyrenees and along the Mediterranean coast. This region is famous for it’s Mistral winds along the Mediterranean that make the wind surfing spectacular and also make the cycling quite challenging at times. The Mistrals greeted us on day one, as we started in the coastal town of Gruissan. Our bikes were tilted all day in the direction that the wind was blowing. My T-Mobile teammates traveled here from

We had Alessandro (Bertolini) up in the break today. Actually, we were hoping it was going to hold and, for a while there, it looked like it might. They were up there hovering at around five minutes and then, even when two or three teams threw their guys to the front of the peloton, they managed to hold the gap for a long time. There were points when we were doing 55 to 60kph and we were still not putting any time on them for the first 35, 40 kilometers, but no one can hold that for too long in a breakaway and the peloton eventually pulled them back in. It makes sense, too, since Petacchi

A bit of a crazy day, wasn’t it? With all the rain those last 20km were just absolutely unbelievable. It was amazing how much water was on the road heading into the finish, and that made things incredibly dangerous; but even if it had been dry, that course was right on the limit of what might be considered safe. Wet roads just made it crazy, and that’s where I figure I should start my thoughts here today. It really wasn’t the finishing straight itself, it was the route we covered coming into town. The last 3km were fine. I mean the rain made that dicey, but the closing stretch was just

It’s been a bit of an eventful day. First off, I really twisted my ankle last night. The thing is, I was just walking down the stairs to dinner. So I had to have that taped up and it’s a bit swollen and a bit sore to walk around on. I spent the early part of the day trying to test that out a bit. In fact, it was my ankle that really made me try a shot at that break today. I really wanted to do the sprint today, but early on I tried a couple of times to do a couple of good accelerations. It hurt my foot a little too much when I really accelerated, so I figured I should try something else… if

I’m relieved… I think my heart has finally started to beat again. As you might recall, the other day I said that I was not feeling up to contesting the sprint, figuring that it was not my day and I wanted to stay out of it, mostly out of respect for the guys who were in a position to contest it. Well, today I was feeling up for it, got myself into the mix and had a very, very, very close call when Cipo’ went down. I even had his bike clipping my foot as he went down, so I just missed it. I stopped breathing there and my heart is just now starting up again. Some times it is just so, so close

Well, a guy can’t be too disappointed with that. Today worked out nicely for the team. It was actually a bit better than we might have expected for the first mountain-top finish. Despite all of that heavy Saeco firepower driving at the front of the field, our little Alessio team got two of our guys - Franco Pellizotti and Andrea Noe' – into the top ten. Franco crossed in third, 16 seconds behind Simoni and Andrea took tenth at 34 seconds. Not bad. I’m sure that if you’ve seen any of this on television, you can tell that it’s really hard going up against Saeco right now. As far as I am

Okay, so it didn’t go so great today. I mean I sort of knew that this was going to be a tough one, but I figured I might last a bit longer than I did. I knew this day was going to come… it’s just a little hard to take. I’ve been feeling pretty good up until now, but, to be honest, I was in grovel mode pretty much after the first climb started. It was pretty hard today and I wasn’t too happy with how things went, but that’s normally the case for me on the first day into the mountains… it’s just at this tour, the climbing kicked in a bit earlier than usual. We’d been talking about getting

It was a chaotic day… pretty much like every first stage in a big tour. You’ve probably already read about the way today’s stage went and, as you know, the day started out at a very easy pace and just got faster and faster and faster as we got closer to Alba. At least for me, it wasn’t exactly the best course on which to start a three-week tour. I mean I do feel good – actually really good – on the road right now. It’s just that on a three-week tour it always takes me at least a day or two to get into the rhythm of it. In the big tours, the final 10 or 15km are just so much faster than

Well, here we go. This is the first big race I’ve done after Paris-Roubaix, and despite the fact that I’ve done the Giro d’Italia before, this time it’s all new to me. It’s just been a pretty strange time, these last few weeks, leading up to the Giro. Winning something like Paris-Roubaix really does a job on your life (see "Backstedt a big surprise at Paris-Roubaix"). For one thing, people are actually paying attention to me when I’m just doing little things like warming up for the prologue. That never really happened before. Today, media were constantly coming by to ask questions, others

Over the last week I have been in Belgium, at a hotel just outside of Liège. This was our base for the Ardennes classics of the spring: Amstel, Fleche and Liège. The hotel here is a bit of a bike zoo at the moment with several teams of riders cooped up in rooms, bikes and trucks filling the parking lot and fans flowing in and out of the lobby looking for a photo with their hero or a free hat or water-bottle. This week marks the transition in the season from the flatter cobbled races to the hillier races. Some of the riders from Roubaix will push through until Amstel but few will go all the

My T-Mobile teammates traveled home to America 10 days ago after a month of racing in Europe. They passed up on racing Flèche Wallonne in favor of a little rest, relaxation and build-up for the next set of races on the schedule. I was eager to race at Flèche, though I’d be without teammates – I had never competed in this classic race before and knew it would be a course that I would like. I got the opportunity to race with a mixed team, Basis–T-Mobile, a truly international squad with riders from Canada, the United States, Israel and France. They live in the Aude region of France between

Last Friday we finished up racing in the Tour of the Basque country. Nice terrain, green hills, and cold wet weather. The race is a five-day Hors Categorie UCI race which many teams have as an objective for the early season or use as a trampoline to gain fitness before the Ardennes classics. The race offers up undulating and mountainous terrain, with several climbs each day - 25 over the five days - with much of the distance of the race being covered on narrow farm roads. Our team went to Pays Basque with loose objectives. Floyd knew he would be able to race for the overall but the rest of

As a team, we made the most of our time between the Castilla and Flanders World Cups by scheduling a sponsor visit to our sponsor to SRM in Germany, getting in some solid training rides and organizing a pre-ride of the course in Flanders. The SRM headquarters is close to the borders of Belgium and the Netherlands. Ulrich Schoberer, the inventor of the SRM, welcomed us to the company. The company is named after him, though for English speakers, Schoberer Rad Messtechnik is a little bit more difficult to say than “SRM.” Schoberer is a great host, he took us for nice dinners, did some testing

Usually when the time changes in the spring of each year, it is accompanied by an improvement in the weather, but here in Salamanca, we experienced a serious digression in the conditions over night as Europe moved into to daylight savings time. We awoke to dark skies and snow flurries. It was hard to believe we were in Spain or that it was the end of March. In keeping with the mood, Cathy Marsal wished me a “Merry Christmas” as we were warming up. It seems like the spring weather has been especially harsh this year in Europe. Michael sent me a text message from France, where he was racing

Over the past week, I have been in Northern Europe getting reacquainted with the cold weather. I have had a good schedule in the last months as I have only raced in the south of Spain and Portugal and have not had to suffer and endure the frigid temps in the rest of Europe. In Dwaars door Vlandaaren, a one-day race in Flanders; I was initiated to the cobbles, bergs, wind and cold. All in all, it was a pretty good experience and one I would go back and fight through again. This year we have a great team for the classics, as Max, Devolder, George and Eki’ are all riding well enough to win any

The Vuelta Castilla y Léon is a three-day tour that started in Valladolid and traveled to Salamanca. The field was incredibly strong here, 160 riders, including several world and Olympic champions. The terrain is rather desolate in this region of Spain, as there are not too many trees, mountains or small towns in the countryside, so the high winds that nature provides have had a profound effect on the racing. T-Mobile started this race with five girls – Dotsie Cowden, Amber Neben, Kimberly Bruckner, Stacey Peters and me. After day one, we began calling ourselves the “Bad News Bears,” as

The Primavera World Cup runs over the last 120 kilometers of the classic men’s Milan-San Remo World Cup course. It starts in the town of Varazze, just West of Genoa. I traveled to the start of the race two days early to meet up with my teammates and pre-ride the course. My teammates, Amber Neben, Kimberly Bruckner, Stacey Peters and Dotsie Cowden, had just arrived from the United States. We had only five riders to start in Primavera, as there are some very important races going on the U.S. that our sponsors want to make a solid presence in, like Redlands and Sea Otter. ReconnaissanceWe

Murcia ended up being quite successful for the team: we accomplished morethan we had set out to with two stage wins and a solid team effort. U.S.Postal currently has the most victories of any team in the professionalpeloton which isn’t bad considering we were the last to start racing. Friday’s stage at Murcia was a little harder than the profile had suggestedand some serpentine undulating roads took most of the peloton by surprise,split things up and zapped a good amount of energy out of everybody’s legsand spirits. It ended up being good for us as the challenge of the course made therace

The race is off to a good start for the team with another victory for Max and USPS/Berry Floor. Our directors have a bit of a competition running, as there are currently two Postal race programs, one for the classics and one for the smaller tours and Ardennes classics. I think Johan is now up on victories, 4 to 2 against Dirk. The past few weeks in Europe have been frigid with snow in Majorca, Barcelona and throughout much of the rest of Europe. Races have been cancelled and training sessions have been indoors. It was a relief when we arrived in Almeria in the south of Spain on the

This past week in Australia we have felt as though we were stuck in a broken record. We have had one field sprint after another, starting in the Geelong Tour and ending in the Geelong World Cup today. Our team did not have a sprinter here with legs at the finish to contest the podium, and we knew this after day one in the tour. We tried our hardest to force a different outcome in each of the races, but we never had any luck forging a breakaway that would stick to the finish. Last year at the Geelong World Cup, a breakaway went almost at the beginning of the race. The wind was blowing, and

The four-stage Geelong Tour began Sunday night with an eight-kilometer prologue time trial. T-Mobile is the only all-American team here, but there are a handful of Americans dispersed on different teams. Jessica Phillips is riding with the German Nuremberger team this season. She will be based in Liepzig, Germany and racing in Europe most of the year, but their team has started the season in Australia with the tour and a short training camp. Meredith Miller, who is based in Copenhagen, Denmark is riding with the Scandinavian SATS team. SATS is a chain of gyms that is prominent throughout

The team has started the season better than it ever has with five wins to date. Last year we didn’t have five before the Tour and only 12 in the entire year. The teams in both Ruta del Sol and Algarve were strong and successful. The nice thing is that we hadn’t really planned on being in flying form for these races; they were simply build-up for the main objectives, so it is definitely a confidence boost and a nice bonus to have the victories under the belt. Going into Algarve we knew the last two days were to be key. The time trial was a long one, 24 km, with many false flat sections and

Being in Australia this week has been a stark contrast to the past few weeks I spent training at home in Boulder. One week ago, I was Nordic skiing or riding my bike in sub-zero weather, trying to avoid ice patches in the shady sections of the canyons West of town. On Friday, I was riding along the Great Ocean road southwest of Melbourne watching the surfers along the coast. It was 40 degrees Celsius, the sun was beating down on us, sweat was beading on our faces, I had sunscreen spread all over my body, but was struggling cover the one spot I missed on the back of my neck with the collar of

The first race of the year always feels a little odd. The change from a training bike and long ride in a group or alone to a race bike and an attacking peloton is quite extreme and the body senses it almost immediately. But by the second day, my mind was back into it, the legs had come around and it seems like just a week ago I was in the Vuelta a España. The Volta Algarve is a nice race to start the season, as the weather is fairly mild in the south of Portugal, the racing is quite tame, and the countryside is nice for racing with undulating terrain. The vegetation and environment seem

Training camp has finished. I am back in Colorado and will soon be heading overseas for the beginning of the season. In the last week the training load increased and that old competitive spirit reappeared in the team. We rode between 4.5 and 6 hours each day with one easy day and one travel day when we left Solvang, California for Scottsdale, Arizona and our "sponsor camp" - which consisted of a weekend of fine meals at a nice hotel, where we could both ride and meet up with our sponsors and friends of the team before heading overseas for the races. The new team jerseys were also unveiled

Another race season is quickly approaching and I have spent this past week preparing for it with my T-Mobile teammates in Buellton, California. It is always interesting showing up for training camp, as there are some strong indicators of who has been working hard through the winter months and who might have put back a few too many Christmas cookies. Training camp is often the only time in a season that puts all of the team’s riders and staff in one place at one time. This gathering forced me to reflect on my first races as a member of T-Mobile and on how much the team has progressed since

After three months away from the team, we are all back together again – with a few new additions – to prepare for another season. We are in southern California, just outside of Santa Barbara. We have enjoyed solid sunshine throughout the week (at least until Saturday) and have been taking advantage of the quiet winding roads and surrounding hills to improve our fitness before heading back over to Europe for the start of the season. For the past three months Dede and I have enjoyed several months at home in Boulder. It has been nice being settled in one spot, together. The last few years we

We had our first T-Mobile gathering for the 2004 season at the OlympicTraining Center in Colorado Springs last week. We met for four days, theobjectives were to spend time dialing in our positions on our new bikes,meet with the physiologists and nutritionists who are part of our PerformanceEnhancement Team, undergo some testing, outline our team goals, get toknow one another a little better and have a little fun partaking in some"team bonding" exercises. Actually, I came to camp thinking that Starbucks was a new sponsor of the team, as I had recently received a box of coffee, a coffee card

I only get nervous for a few races each season and the world championship road races had my heart racing all weekend - although, I am not sure if I was more nervous for Michael’s race or for mine. The races in Hamilton provided a few surprises this past weekend. After previewing the course on Thursday and chatting with many of the men and women about the difficulty of the hills, the expectation was that the races would be much more selective than they were. We encountered two climbs per 12-kilometer lap. The first was 1.5 kilometers and the second was 2 kilometers in length. This did not

This is the one and only time during my cycling career that I have had the opportunity to race the world championships on home soil (or almost home). The host city, Hamilton, Ontario, is just 30 minutes from the center of Toronto, where my husband, Michael Barry, grew up and just a stone’s throw from my own hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For Michael and me, it is a dream to race a world championship with our friends and family on site to push us up the hills. Michael grew up riding along the Niagara escarpment that we will race up and down in Hamilton. He has shared these roads with me

Saturday’s stage started at the gravesite of Michela Fanini, an Italian rider who I raced against a few times in the early 1990s before she died instantly in an automobile accident. Cathy Marsal and I were reminiscing about the last race we both competed in with Michela. It was the 1994 World Championships in Sicily. Cathy was in a breakaway with her and they both crashed just a few kilometers from the finish. Michela was a super talented bike racer and from what it seems like; she came from a cycling family. Since her death, her father has been promoting the Tour of Tuscany in her memory

Stage 2 has historically been the most decisive in the Giro Toscana — often, the race has been won or lost on this day. It was hot at the start of the stage, which took us up two short category-3 climbs followed by two 10km ascents to the picturesque town of Volterra. We had a laugh at the start of the stage, as Svetlana Boubnekova and Zita Urbanaite had a bit of a cat fight on the bike and were yelling and hitting each other. I am not really sure what they were arguing about, but everyone gave them a little space in the bunch and they finally seemed to work it out and quiet down. Mountain

I feel as if I haven’t stopped moving for the past week. Seven days ago, I was sitting tranquilly in our little apartment in Spain and since then, I have traveled to San Francisco, attended several sponsor events, visited with friends, raced in San Rafael and in the T-Mobile International, traveled to Italy, and started racing in the week-long Giro Toscana. Welcome to the world of a professional cyclist. Amazingly, I still feel energetic and am eager to get on the bike each day. While arriving at the prologue yesterday in Pistoia, we were notified of an unfortunate accident that had

Being in San Francisco this past weekend felt like a bit of homecoming, as it was my first visit to the United States since the Philadelphia Liberty Classic in June. I have been in Europe most of the summer, training and racing. It was neat to see everyone in American cycling gathered for this event. I have nice memories of the race in San Francisco. The last time I was here was to watch my husband, Michael, race through the streets and up the hills. I wasn’t racing much at the time and was attending school so I walked around the course, wandering through the hundreds of thousands of

After a week of training with Michael and a couple of his teammates in the Pyrénées, I was feeling super motivated to race. The boys whipped me into flying form, as I followed them up col after col, panting away. They were doing long, steady rides in the mountains in preparation for the upcoming Vuelta a España, but for me, it was like two to five hours of motor pacing each day. I boarded a plane Saturday night for Nuremberg, after a slight glitch in my travel arrangements. I was happy to arrive at the hotel at a reasonable enough hour to have a good dinner and sleep. None of my T-Mobile

After racing in the afternoon the first four days of Thuringen Rundfahrt, we had an early start in the rain on Saturday morning. I have to admit, I was feeling a little groggy when I woke up, and wasn't too excited when I saw the rain, but three cups of coffee and two cups of green tea got me motivated. I give my teammates a hard time about all the Diet Coke they consume, as I don’t really think it is particularly healthy, so they were paying me back with a little grief over my coffee consumption. I guess we all have our vices. The morning stage was short, only 73km, and passed by quickly,

I am excited to be competing again, as I have not raced since early June. I was having some tendonitis problems that began in late June and as a result did not start the Giro d’Italia with my team. I rested my leg and took my time in allowing it to heal. It is hard to take time off the bike mid-season, as everyone is racing and it is easy to start worrying about falling behind with your fitness. I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason, though, and perhaps the rest was needed. In any case, I am happy to be racing my bike again and feeling fresh. Thuringen Rundfahrt is a race I

Ooo-la-la, I am feeling lactic acid in my legs at the moment. Racing in Thuringen involves traveling up and down short, steep climbs all day. They are the type that make one feel maxed out over the top, but since they are not too long, one has time to recover on the descent before the next ascent. I like the terrain here, but it certainly produces painful sensations in the legs. The hills are worse than the famous Manayunk “Wall” in Philadelphia and seem to come more frequently. The past two stages have been fast and challenging. Yesterday, right from the starter’s pistol there was a

I get nervous every year at the start of the Philadelphia Liberty Classic. This race had always been one of my favorites on the U.S. racing calendar. The energy surrounding the event is motivating. I get a rush climbing the Manayunk “Wall”, as the cheering crowd erases any painful sensations that are usually associated with steep climbs. This race gathers most of the cycling industry in the center of Philadelphia as well local and foreign bike fans. The hospitality is incredible, as tents are set up around the course stocked with food and televisions for race viewing. In nineteen years, it

The Tour de Montréal, a three-day, four-stage event, started in Lachine, the hometown of Geneviève Jeanson, with a short, windy prologue. As we all finished, we all received cheers, but the crowd was by far the loudest when she came through with the winning time. She smoked us all, but we were not too worried, as the time gaps were small. After the prologue, the race moved to “Little Italy” in the evening, where we pedaled past the Madonna Della Defesa (Our Lady of Protection) cathedral. This church was built and named to commemorate a miracle said to have occurred in 1898 in Casacalenda,

Before traveling on Friday, I looked up the forecast for Montreal on weather.com. It said rain for the next seven days. I was pleasantly surprised by the sunshine that greeted me as I stepped off the plane and even more excited to wake up to sunshine for the race on Saturday. Each time I have competed in the MontrealWorld Cup, the crowd has grown. The Canadian fans are passionate and were lining the course today, cheering everyone – first to last- and yelling out the names of the home favorites – Genevieve Jeanson, Lyne Bessette and Manon Jutras. The energy on the course was

Craziness That’s what I was thinking on the final lap of the world championship road race when it started to rain and riders where falling down all around me. Rain is common in Belgium in October and we had been fortunate our first few days here, as the sun was shining. I arrived Zolder Thursday morning and rode the course with my American teammates. This is the flattest course I have ever raced on at a world championship and this would make the race wide open, as nearly anyone would have a chance depending on how the tactics would play out and what kind of challenges the weather may

Plouay hosted the Worlds in 2000 and I loved the course, the ambienceat the race and the support of the crowd.This year is the first year they have hosted a women’s World Cup eventhere. It seems a natural place for one since Brittany is the center ofcycling in France and I think Plouay is the center of cycling in Brittany.Each year the men’s race draws massive crowds and is one of the highlightson the French cycling calendar.The area brings back a lot of fond memories for me as Michael and Ispent a few good days here with our mothers in 2000. Earlier this year,when I started racing as a

I am sitting in the warmth and sunshine of Gerona, Spain now - far away from Les Alpes, where I was competing in the La Grande Boucle Feminin just yesterday. Yesterday’s stage was perhaps one of the most epic days on the bike I have ever experienced. It was our third day in the rainy, cold Alps. It was the most difficult stage on the race profile, heading up three major climbs: le col de Madelaine, le col de Glandon, and Vaujuny. It was cold and pouring rain at the start, and the organizers decided to allow us to skip the first fifteen kilometers of the stage, which traveled down a steep

The Alps – Stage 7 - We are in the Alps and it has been pouringrain, but the scenery is incredible despite the water dumping down. Wehave been pedaling through the clouds, up and down the cols and along thelush green valley floors. We’ve covered some amazing terrain.The organization at this race gets better and better each year, althoughthere are always long transfers, sometimes before and after the stage.We had what was supposed to be a thirty-five kilometer transfer to thestart of today’s stage, but turned out to be at least sixty, on mountainroads, which turned into one hour in the cars.At

Editor's note: T-Mobile's Dede Demet-Barry is sending regular reports back from the Grande Boucle Feminin -- once called the Women's Tour de France. This is the first of her reports I am three days and four stages into La Grande Boucle Feminin.It’s been neat to be back at this race, as it presents the utmost challengesin women's cycling. We will race for fifteen days – starting in S’Hertogendenbosch, The Netherlands traveling through Belgium and into France, hitting the Alps and the Massifs Centrales before finishing in Paris. All the best women in the world are here.I am

Dede Demet-Barry has come up with a new training strategy for winning races:1. Retire for 20 months and go to school full-time.2. Race a total of two races in the lead-up to the big event.3. Get a new bike, with the wheels arriving on the morning of the race.4. Get dropped at the start of the final lap. Demet-Barry did all of these things, but still managed to win what some consider the hardest race on the women’s World Cup circuit. The Montreal race is the sixth round of the season-long World Cupseries. The riders cover 99 kilometers in 12 laps, and must climb the slopes of Mont Royal

Oh, impatient ones. Here's where you'll drop by when the clock starts ticking on July 7. We've got two great shooters for the site this year: Graham Watson and Casey B. Gibson. Plus, Bryan Jew and Lennard Zinn will have digital cameras with them as they interview riders, team mechanics and directeurs sportif.

She came to Redlands in top form, ready to act as team leader for the Saturn-Timex women's team in North America's road season opener. But on the second stage of the six-day event, Bessette gave a strong lead out to teammate Ina Teutenberg who then crashed at the line in front of her. Teutenberg suffered some serious cuts to her face, requiring 32 stitches. Bessette, meanwhile, broke her collarbone, putting a temporary halt to what could still be a very productive season. We had a chance to chat with Bessette at the side of the road during the Sunset Road Race, the final stage at

One face you didn't expect to see at Redlands this year was that of Jeroen Blijlevens. But there he was, taking part in the 17th edition of the Redlands Bicycle Classic. The Dutch sprinter was in California, because of a "slight delay" to the start of his 2001 season. Though he has an impressive résumé that includes five stage wins at the Vuelta España, two stage wins at the Giro d'Italia and four at the Tour de France, Blijlevens has most recently gained attention for a fight on the last day of the 2000 Tour. After finishing the final stage in Paris, Blijlevens charged at American Bobby

For Alain Gallopin, Mercury-Viatel’s new French assistant directeur sportif, the team’s 10-day training camp in Southern California was a chance to get acquainted with many of his new riders. In particular, Gallopin got the chance to meet the American riders who weren’t too familiar to the European-based Gallopin. But with at least one American, Gallopin already had a bond that was rock solid. “Horner, he is my friend for life,” Gallopin said of Chris Horner, who was with Gallopin for three years in the Française des Jeux program. “I am his spiritual father.” Horner had an up-and-down time

The newest entry in the Guiness Book of World Records belongs to a bicycle rider. On Wednesday, in the high desert of Southern California, the firstever bicycle speed-wheelie record was set by Kona Clump, freak rider Bobby Root, according to a press release issued by Kona. Riding his 2001 Kona Roast, equipped with a 54-tooth chainring, slick tires, disc brakes, high tech speed and angle meters, and miniature cameras, Root pedaled his bike — yes, pedaled, no tow — in a van-draft up to 86.1 mph. He then popped the front end up and rode a wheelie for over 35 yards. Then, with cops, cameras

Mercury's Chris Horner moved to Bend, Oregon, this winter and started on a new look, arriving at training camp with a fledgling "mountain-man" beard. "I admit, it looks terrible right now, but I'm going to keep on growing it," he says. Should he keep going, or nip this problem in the bud? Click "more" to check Horner out, then make the call in the Velo Poll.

While the U.S. Postal Service team's mini-camp began in Tucson, Arizona, earlier this week, the other Division I U.S. team, Mercury-Viatel, is gearing up for its camp in Southern California, with riders starting to arrive this weekend and the camp officially starting on Monday, January 15. Last month, VeloNews sat down with Mercury director John Wordin to discuss the off-season and the team's goals for the upcoming year. While this interview took place before the addition of Viatel as a co-title sponsor and the addition of riders Peter Van Petegem, Geert Van Bondt, Wim Vansevenant,