sexta-feira, 30 de novembro de 2012

Lotto - Belisol

A video about Lotto-Belisol training camp, preparing next season. The point of this is to build the relationships within the team, make the riders closer to each other. From the video I'm guessing it was a lot of fun.


quinta-feira, 29 de novembro de 2012

quarta-feira, 28 de novembro de 2012

Future - Fabio Aru


Italy is known for it's long cycling tradition. They have the second most important race in the world and cycling history is full of great italian champions. So it's no surprise when you see so many good italian  riders in the peloton, and almost every year young italian riders with great potential show up in the cycling scene. One of those riders is Fabio Aru.

Aru was born in San Gavino Monreale on July 3rd of 1990. He started taking cycling seriously on MTB with 15 years old. And, with 19, in 2009 he turned to road racing. In that same year he started racing in the U-23 cycling scene, with team Palazzago and achieved a good result, finishing third place in Bassano-Monte Grappa. Already he showed his ability to climb.

In 2010 the good results increased. He was 5th in Giro del Belvedere, 4th in Bassano-Monte Grappa, 2nd in Trofeo G. Bianchin and 4th in Giro della Vale d'Aosta, the hardest race of Italy's U-23 season. A climbing talent emerged and people started noticing him. 

The next year a lot was expectead of Fabio Aru and he certainly delivered, achieving 7 victories and bunch of top-ten places. Of this victories one of them was the prestigious Giro della Vale Aosta. In a interview in that same year he gave a interview, where he said that his favourite rider was Alberto Contador and that he wants to win stage races in the future.

In his final year as a U-23 and with the confirmation that he would be signing with Astana late in 2012, Aru maintained his good results. First in Toscana Coppa delle Nazioni, first in Giro della Vale Aosta and second in Baby Giro. Then came August and he moved to Astana as a stagiare. His first race there was the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, and there he showed his immense talent by finishing second on stage 6 of that race.

Aru certainly has talent, now he haves to develop it and commit to the sport. I will be very attentive to his results nex year and I hope that he becomes a champion in the future.

terça-feira, 27 de novembro de 2012

Euskaltel for Down Under

Even though the Tour Down Under is one month and a half away, some teams are already thinking about the first WorldTour race in the calendar and what roster to present. One of those teams is Euskaltel Euskadi. The basque team has already it's line up ready. Juanjo Lobato, Jon Aberasturi, Ion Izagirre, Gorka Izagirre, Juanjo Oroz and Garikoitz Bravo will be the riders fighting the Australian roads. Lobato and Aberasturi have both a nice sprint, so they will have something to say in the fast finishes.

Source: http://www.biciciclismo.com/cas/site/noticias-ficha.asp?id=57501

segunda-feira, 26 de novembro de 2012

Interesting


Saxo training...


Argos or Saxo?

According to the latest news, these two teams are fighting for the last WorlTour spot. The first 15 teams on the WorldTour ranking plus FDJ and Lotto-Bellisol seem to have their licenses secured. So the UCI has to decide if Argos Shimano gets the license or if the Saxo-Tinkoff, as is now name, gets it.

If we look at ranking, Argos-Shimano should be in the WorldTour next year, because they're 16th and Saxo is only 20th. So there is no discussion in that matter.

But should we look only to the ranking? I think not. I think that the quality of each team's riders and the ability of each team to go to every race on the WorldTour calendar with a possibilty of winning should be the decisive criteria in which team gets the license. And, to me, Saxo is a far better team than Argos.

Saxo-Tinkoff has the best rider in the world, Alberto Contador who is able to fight for any general classification of any race in the world. Look at this year's Eneco Tour, which didn't suit Contador, and he still  placed 4th. So with spaniard you have a rider who will target four or five WorldTour races and fight for the win in all of them.  But, Saxo isn't only Contador. They also have Kreuziguer, Nicolas Roche, very good GC riders, and Matti Breschel, who will fight for the classics. Other good riders are Daniele Bennati, Oliver Zaugg and Rafal Majka, who did a fantastic job for Contador on the Vuelta and seems that he will be the leader in next year's Giro.

In the other hand, Argos-Shimano has John Degenkolb and Marcel Kittel. Two very good sprinters, with Degenkolb being also a quality rider for the Classics. Marcel Kittel seems only to be a sprinter. None of the other riders have the quality, I think, to have a impact on the hard races of calendar. They have young riders with a lot of potential, but those normally take some time to develop and don't have much to say in their first years, unless they're superstars like Peter Sagan. Argos will concentrate mainly on the sprints and classics of Flanders. In a race like Vuelta a Pais Vasco what will they add to the race?

So, to me there's no question that Saxo should get a WorldTour license, and Argos should lose out. But with the quality of the roster of Argos, they don't have to worry. They'll get invites to the races where they can animate the race. What are your thoughts?

domingo, 25 de novembro de 2012

Overcoming

Overcoming, the documentary made about team CSC in 2005, is available for viewing on youtube. Watch it!


sábado, 24 de novembro de 2012

Winter Training

Nice video made by the Omega Pharma - QuickStep about winter training, essential for a successful season. Follow their channel on youtube, they always upload interesting videos.


Photos - Gino Bartali






Astana and Fuglsang

Today, Cyclingnews reported that Jakob Fuglsang will be Astana's GC leader for for 2013 Tour de France. This to me is a stupid decision by Astana team manager, Giuseppe Martinelli. It's not that Fuglsang doesn't have quality. He has, and that's seen by his results this year when he won Tour of Austria and Tour of Luxembourg, even though he had problems with his team and Johann Bruyneel.

However, never in his career, Fuglsang has showed the ability to climb with the best. He showed promise in his first year but he never delivered. He's decent but, I think he isn't able to follow the likes of Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck, Cadel Evans or Chris Froome when the "real climbs" come. And you need to do that if you want to place at least in the top ten, especially in next year's Tour, that will favour the climbers. He's a good time trialist and he won't lose much time to the best and will even gain to some climbers who can't time-trial, like Andy Schleck. But that time will be lost in the mountains.


Such a strong team like Astana shouldn't gamble all in a cyclist who, to me, doesn't have the capability to make a impression in the Tour. Vincezo Nibali wants to fight for the Giro, so he's out of the question for the Tour. Maybe Astana could give a joint leadership to Fuglsang and Brajkovic, who was ninth last year. But the last will be helping Nibali in the Giro...

quinta-feira, 22 de novembro de 2012

Photos - Fausto Coppi

One of the things that I will be doing in this blog is to post interesting photos of great champions of the past. Today the honour will go to Fausto Coppi.










Greetings

Hello to my new cycling blog. I love cycling and I live it with great passion along the entire season. So what's best than to create a blog about what I love and share it with all the people who also love it. My first language isn't English, so I apologise for any mistake you may encounter. 

Enjoy!