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Elite Circuit Comes to Colne

This year’s hotly contested British Cycling Elite Circuit Series, which approaching it’s penultimate stage still remains wide open, comes to Colne, Lancashire next Wednesday (July 13). More than 200 riders are expected to descend on the historic market town for the evening of free to view cycling excitement with Olympic Champion Ed Clancy of Rapha Condor Sharp, last year’s series winner Ian Wilkinson (Endura Racing) and Dean Downing (Rapha Condor) all still in the frame for the overall win.

 

Starting at 6.55pm with a Le Mans style “Chopper Bike Dash”, which will see bike enthusiasts race to their retro bikes before completing two high speed laps in aid of charity, the action then switches focus to the support race at 7.15pm with the juniors and women. The Elites take to the course at 8pm.

 

Race organiser, Ivor Armstrong, says: “Road cycling is fast and furious and, as riders hurtle around the town centre, an exhilarating spectator sport. The Colne Cycle Races are a fantastic opportunity for people from across Lancashire to see some of the stars of the sport in action ahead of London 2012, as well as cheering on local talent. Last year we had huge crowds of spectators and it is shaping up to be a great night again this year.”

 

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Tour de Force for “Cav”

Mark CavendishIt was the most gripping climax to a stage thus far in the Tour de France yesterday (Wednesday, July 6) when, with a steep final kilometre left to go, HTC-Highroad’s Mark Cavendish looked out of contention only to explode with a final flourish to take his 16th stage win since 2008. With close to a dozen crashes marring stage 5 – the 164.5km fast and furious Carhaix to Cap Fréhel route – “Cav” was still languishing in 10th place with less than 100m left to fly when he made his break to bag the win in 3h38’32”. The victory saw less than a bike’s length between him and second place Philippe Gilbert of Omega Pharma-Lotto.

 

Speaking after the stage Cavendish admitted the reserve he had found in the dying minutes had surprised even him, “Normally I try to win by a small margin to save my strength, but there I had to give it everything I had. It took a lot out of me.”

 

With this 16th stage win Cavendish is already marked as the second most successful sprinter in the Tours 100+ year history; only Frenchman André Darrigade currently beats him with a record 22 stages although that feat took him 11years to achieve compared with the three that it has so far taken the “Manx Missile”.

 

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TdF Fantasy Team

MilltagMilltag – designers of arguably the coolest UK cycling jerseys – are set to have more than a little fun whilst the cyclists do all the hard work on the Tour de France. Their “Peleton Price is Right” promotion assigns 10 different Milltag jerseys to their pick of this year’s favourite Tour riders (made up of 4 GC contenders, 4 all-rounders and time trial specialists, 2 sprinters and 2 “super domestiques”) to form a fantasy Milltag team. The price of those jerseys will then depend on a day to day basis on how well those riders perform, with promotions based on various criteria such as £5 off the jersey any for a stage winner, £5 off for wearer of the yellow jersey on any single day, £2.50 off for a GC podium position on any single day…

 

Milltag’s team consists of:

 

Wiggins Wiggo II (GC)

Cavendish Manx Missile (Sprinter)

Contador Tommy (GC)

Hushovd McHoy (Sprinter)

Andy Schleck McFaul (GC)

Gilbert Leinz (GC)

Voeckler Rich Mich (AR / TT)

Cancellara Will Manville ( AR / TT)

Voigt Rob Trigg  (Super Dom)

Martin MWM ( AR / TT)

Thomas Waste (Super Dom)

Boasson Hagen Piascik ( AR / TT)

 

For terms and conditions and further information on Milltag visit: milltagcc.com


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Fourth of July Fireworks

Tour de FranceStage 3 of the Tour de France (Monday July 4) has seen an historic win for Garmin-Cervelo’s Tyler Farrar as he begame the first American ever to bag a win on Independence Day. Crossing the finish line in a time of 4h40’21” Farrar made a poignant “W” hand signal in remembrance of his close friend Wouter Weylandt of Leopard-Trek who was killed two months ago in a crash on Stage 3 of the Giro d’Italia.

 

Mark Cavendish of HTC-Highroad, who was widely tipped as a potential winner of the 198km Olonne-sur-Mer to Redon, finished in fifth place after being delayed by a crash involving French rider Samuel Dumoulin (Team Cofidis) on the final bend of the day. Cavendish’s efforts though still see him sitting high in the overall rankings at 17th with a time of 9h46’51”, with fellow Brits Bradley Wiggins of Sky at 10th (9h46’50”), Geraint Thomas 4th (also Sky 9h46’50”) and David Millar (Garmin-Cervelo, 9h46’46”) sitting just one place below Tour leader and team-mate Thor Hushovd. All of which means that the only British rider currently sitting outside of the top-20 is Ben Swift of Team Sky, although he too is enjoying a more than respectable 23rd position.

 

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Grand Depart

Tour de FranceA few minutes earlier then scheduled – and catching the ITV coverage off-guard – the 2001 Tour de France got underway today (Saturday, July 2) with the grand depart Stage 1 covering 206km from Passage du Gois to Mont des Alouettes. There had been early rumours that defending champion Alberto Contador would be going all-out in serious contention but this proved nothing more than day-one rabble-rousing hype and the troubled Spaniard (who was booed by the French crowds in pre-race presentation) merely sat comfortably back in peloton – at least until he was caught up in the spectacular crash that decimated the field with just 8km to go. In fact Stage 1 proved to be something of an all-round crash-riddled affair, with a series of upsets beginning barely an hour into the race when a number of Movistar and Europcar riders tumbled.

 

Ultimately though, today was about Philippe Gilbert of Omega Pharma-Lotto who took the Stage 1 win; widely-tipped for victory and very much on form the Belgian, whose season thus far has been outstanding, finished today in a time of 4h 41′ 31″ with BMC Racing’s Cadel Evans in second on +03 and Thor Hushovd of Garmin-Cervelo in third on +06. Best of British was Geraint Thomas (Sky) in sixth place, also on +06.

 

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Windsor takes Stafford GP

Following his success with overall victory on the Tour Series, Dean Windsor has taken a win at the Stafford Grand Prix too. The event, which is now in its second year, would seem ideally suited a the pure criterium specialists and on a course described as “one of the countries most technically challenging circuits” that certainly proved to be the case for Windsor with the Rapha Condor Sharp team attacking hard virtually from the off and clearly dominating the event from there on in. Dean Downing, also of Rapha Condor Sharp took second with Corley Cycles’ Simon Gaywood in third.

 

Following the victory Windsor commented: “It was a great race for the team, we really had to give 100% to make the break stick- it wasn’t easy with lots of organised chases behind, but the circuit suited the smaller move more than the organised chase. It felt like it took forever but we eventually broke them and got the lap… After getting podium places all over the globe since the start of the year I’m really happy to get my first win of the year here”.

 

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Dirty Weekend

One of Cyclo’s favourite events organisers, Votwo, now have entries open for what promises to be a very mucky day out. The Muc-Off 8hour MTB Enduro is set to take place on Sunday November 6 at Pippingford Park – a private estate in the middle of the Ashdown Forest, East Sussex – with teams ranging in number from solo effort to groups of four tackling repeat loops of the purpose designed 5mile loop for an arse-numbing 8hours. The course, a mixture of fast flowing single track and wide open tracks designed by Steve Jones from the Southern XC Series, will be open from 2pm on Saturday 5 for inspection and test rides. Requirements on the day are simple: complete as many laps as possible during the 8hour stint.

 

With what’s likely to be an abundance of grime, riders will be pleased to know that Muc-Off will be in attendance to help “keep it clean” and to support the catering village which will fuel competitors throughout the event. Entry is £40 for Solo riders, £35 each for teams of 2, £30 each for teams of 3 or just £25 per person for teams of 4. Camping on-site is available at a bargain £5.00 and hot showers will be available to make sure all the mud stays put in Sussex.

 

Details and online entry at: www.votwo.co.uk

 

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100% Russian

Team KatushaTeam Katusha have made something of a surprise announcement with the news that they will be racing a 100% Russian field at this year’s Tour de France which starts on Saturday July 2. This marks the first time in the race’s history that this has happened and means that neither Spain’s Joaquim Rodriguez (eighth in the 2010 Tour) nor Italy’s Filipppo Pozzato will be taking to the saddle for their team.

 
Team Manager Andrei Tchmil (himself a five-times Tour participant) explains, “Being at the Tour de France is always something to be proud of. But being there with an 100% Russian team represents, in the sporting point of view, an historical event.” Although Tchmil readily agrees that the decision will put the squad “under the spotlight”, his approach remains predictably aggressive: “The main goal, as always, is to be protagonist. Our performance, when we´ll cut the finishing line in Champs Elysees, won´t be judged by wins, but instead by the courage and the commitment we put in every single stage”.

 

The Team Katusha´s Tour de France 2011 squad is: Pavel Brutt, Denis Galimzyanov, Vladimir Gusev, Mikhail Ignatyev, Vladimir Isaychev, Vladimir Karpets, Alexander Kolobnev, Egor Silin, Yuriy Trofimov. Sport Directors: Dmitriy Konychev, Gennady Mikhailov, Bart Leysen.