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Bonnie D. Ford profiles two of Garmin/Chipotle’s American riders who will make their Tour de France debuts: 29-year-old Danny Pate and 27-year-old Will Frischkorn.
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Now it is time to get serious! After a stressful few days of the Tour de France, Tuesday was the day we got to see who are the pretenders and contenders.
Author Archive for Brent
This weekend I had been invited to head up to Vermont with my friends Scott, Dave, and Pete to ride on Saturday and Sunday including a 100 miler that climbed over Appalachian Gap and took in a few dirt roads as well.
Unfortunately the weather forecast called for rain and thunder storms, so we canceled the trip, but hopefully we can do it again another weekend later in the year.
If you are interested in finding out more about riding the gaps (mountain passes) through the Green Mountains of Vermont, NortheastCycling.com has a great page on the Six Gaps of Vermont with route maps, and elevation profiles of all the climbs.
In New London, Connecticut, people from different sides of the political and social spectrum are uniting for a more bike friendly city. Often times people stereotype bicyclists as tree huggers, or political liberals, but bicycle enthusiasts are just people who come from all walks of life and bike for many different reasons be it trasportation, fitness, or recreation. In the article from the New London Times people doubted whether making a town more bike friendly would have any positive impact on the economy …
Improving New London’s bike-ablity is not going to be a cold glass of water for the city’s hiccupping economy, and neither Spellman nor Sprecace would argue that point.
… but it has been my experience that improving the bike and pedestrian facilities in a town can help the economy. The town I live in has built a rail-trail and there are constantly people using the trail and visiting the local cafes after they ride. Getting more people out of cars, and making a city or town more liveable can’t be a bad thing. The local bike shop would certainly benefit if bicycling in the town is encouraged.
The Hartford Courant recently ran an article about cyclists trying to gain access to commuter trains in order to be able to cycle the remaining distance to home or work on either end of their train ride. Many cities accommodate bicycles on trains including San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon. Currently the Metro-North train bans bicycles during peak commuter hours.
In the UK, where they allow folding bicycles on commuter trains there has been some backlash against cyclists from other train users.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Andy Hampsten’s win in the Giro d’Italia. His win was the first by an American in the Giro and remains the only win by an American to this day. There are points in your life when you say “I remember where I was when” a certain historical event takes place.
I was 20-year-old cat 4 racer just starting a summer job at a bike shop. Every day at lunch I would walk across the street to the 7-Eleven and pick up a USA Today newspaper where they printed the stage results from the Giro to see if Hampsten was still in the pink jersey. How times have changed! Now you can watch live online video of the Giro and have access to instant stage results on CyclingNews.
There is no doubt that Andy Hampsten is one of my cycling heroes, and those great memories are partly why I am the cycling addict I am today. I was able to meet Hamsten a couple of times at the Seattle Bike Expo where he talked about some of the highlights in his career, and he signed an old issue of Winning Magazine where he was on the cover in his 7-Eleven kit.
Be sure to read the series from VeloNews on the anniversary of Hampsten’s historic win, and when it is available again, you can also buy the greatest cycling poster of all time.
The photo above is one I took of Andy Hampsten racing the Redmond, Washington in 1987.
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