Blogs by Professional Cyclists - Professional Cycling Unplugged™

VIDEO!!!

Stage 4 of the 2009 Tour of Utah is its “queen” stage, including three major mountain climbs, with the stage finishing at the top of the final climb at Snowbird ski resort.

In the video below, Glen talks about his strings of success in the Tour of Utah over the years, the tough climbs of Stage 4, and supporting his Rock Racing teammate “Paco” Mancebo. Paco retained his overall lead and the yellow jersey by finishing 3rd on the stage; Glen finished 5th on the stage.

Glen and Darren Lill in the final 300 meters of the Stage 4 final climb — fighting for 4th & 5th

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Stage 1 : Paredes De Nava – Baltanás,

Return and Fall of the King

So we lined up for our first assault on Euro soil for 2009 & what was a rather windy day. Also making his first tour debut out of retirement was Lance, he’d also just racked up San-Remo a few days earlier. A small break went from the gun with Paco in it, just like the first stage of Cali Paco was away. The break of four snuck out to 8minutes before Garmin & Astana decided not to give him too much of a long leash this time. The peleton was rather nervous all day with a few crashes but the big one came in the final 20km after a small climb the road stayed narrow across the top & that’s where there was a touch of wheels & a big spill, I was just on the left of it, had the foot out & rode a bit of dirt taking evasive actions but snuck through pretty cleanly. Caught up in the ruble was Lance who after going down just stood up, walked to the side of the road & sat in the ditch clutching his collar bone. He knew what had broken & didn’t bother trying to make any attempts to get going again. In all his years of cycling it was his first busted collar bone! Welcome to the club mate! Back to the race though the break was reeled in with about 8km to go & the remaining field rocketed towards the finish on the downwards slopes. David Vitoria narrowly missed the win getting piped on the line.

Stage 2 : Palencia – Palencia,  

Rollin it Old School

 Well no guesses how this TT was going to pan out! Levi & Alberto knocked off the  top two spots with ease. It would have been good to see Lance roll this one to  gauge his form against his two team mates. With the Astana lads I guess it’s a  matter of win the TT, get the yellow then ya team mate has to ride for you? Luckily  for me my TT bike never arrived! It was shipped to me in Valencia a week or more  before the tour so I could get some good rides on it. Well customs decided to keep  it till after the time trial for shits & giggles So I rocked up for the 28km TT on my  roady with clip ons. Needless to say Rudy gave me the day off…

Stage 3 : Sahagún – Estación Inv. De San Isiro,

The first Uphill tester

So the plan for the day was be aggressive early & get up the road, unfortunately the fact that in the first 2hours we covered 103km meant that at most points you needed to have an ACME Rocket strapped to your rig in order to get away. After the feed zone though a group of 5 or so were allowed by Astana to roll out there till 5km to go up to a ski station somewhere in Spain? I think Astanas plan was not let anything escape till later on in the stage making it easier to control later. When a larger move went off the front the “Astananator” himself (Tomas Vaitus) just flicked on the diesel switch & reeled anything back in! The final ascent up to the ski station wasn’t so bad & a fairly decent sized field sprinted for the line, Valverde taking his first win of an already troublesome season……

Stage 4 : Santa María Del Páramo – Galende-Laguna De Los Peces,

Stairway to Heaven

The “Queen” stage was upon us with two Cat1 climbs ahead of us. The first coming at about 90km & the final Cat1 we finished at the top of. A group went clear about 20km before the first Cat1 but blew to bits once they started the 16% gradient. The night before we were asked if we wanted a 25 on our rear cassettes, the Spaniards said no so I said no probs I’ll roll with that. Plus Rudy reckons 25’s are for riding to heaven But unfortunately that’s where the climb sent us, up into the heavens. It was only about 12km  long but bloody steep! I started mid field & just had to try to  keep the power down staying on top of that 23 to the top. I  found myself collecting tickets from all the guys popping off  the back of the group one by one. With 500m to go I was  still hanging on by a thread to the front group of 12. Until  they knocked it back a gear & sprinted for the KOM points  at the top. There was no point chasing down the descent  with Oscar just behind me I decided to take it steady down  one of the bumpiest downhill rides I’d had in a while. One  corner caught me off guard as it turned back on itself & I  had the right foot out for a bit trying to steady the ship. By  the bottom we’d caught back up to the leaders & Oscar went on the offensive heading up the road. Astana kept them in check though & by half way up the final climb (which wasn’t as steep as the first one, just windy and fast) Dave Z launched a counter that seriously stirred up the hive as riders started scattering everywhere like the keepers had come to harvest! By the top the lead group was about 15 strong but no changes to the overall with Levi leading still over Alberto then Dave Z.

Stage 5 : Benavente – Valladolid,

Days of Thunder

 The final day was upon us & not much was going to happen to the overall, so guys  down on GC tried in vain to escape for the first hour before 2 guys got away. The  peleton kept them at 2-3 minutes for most of the stage. I was feeling like I’d blown  a cylinder from the hard days before so I just hid & got to the finish line. About  40km to go though the bunch was cruising along at about 40kph, when a couple of  guys just in front of me & slightly to the right collided. I watched the whole ordeal  go down praying they didn’t bank left in front of me as I had nowhere to go but  into the barriers. Now remembering back to a movie where Robert Duval tells Tom Cruise “ya just gotta stay high and put the power down and ride through that smoke without hesitating!” (Hence my title) Ok so there was no smoke, but there was a crash barrier & dudes going down in front of me so a close enough comparison As the guys hit the deck they started sliding or rolling in my directing, I had no time to break so I was riding this one out no matter how it turned out! The bike & his owner heading my way brushed my right leg and my rear wheel rolled over his front wheel which was lying over by now! A bloody lucky escape to say the least and I think the old heart skipped a few beats along the ways! I didn’t look behind as it sounded even nastier when other guys weren’t as lucky as me came to grief…. With that said n done I survived to the finish ok & glad to have that race over and done with! Valverde notched another win & the King of one week tours took the overall…..

Next up is a one dayer in the north of Spain , Llodio and the forecast – Cold and Wet…..

Then onto Portugal for a 5’er (Volta ao Alentejo)

(5 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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 So after Mexico I headed to Valencia  Spain to kick back for a couple  weeks before my first race back in  Europe in a year and a half.. I’d  never been to Spain before and was  keen to check it out! I didn’t really  know anyone or any where to stay  but It worked out pretty sweet as  Guti had a spare apartment that wasn’t being used about  15min from the center of Valencia in a town on the beach  (Alboraya) No complaints there that’s for sure! Also as it  turned out I had a buddy from NZ who races with the Oracle BMW sailing team (Americas Cup) also in Valencia. It was pretty weird as I’d seen him a couple weeks before at the final stage of the ToC. So I figured he was still kicking around the States, then as I drove into Valencia along the water and saw all the Sailing teams HQs, I mailed him to say I was in Valencia and just saw his teams building. He replied that he was back in Valencia with his family.. Perfect…… Apart from sailing Carls other passion for sport is cycling so we signed him up for some sessions on the Guti School of pain!

It just so happened that I was staying there while there was a massive festival on, La Fallas. “The Festival of Fires” where basically you can blow shit up for 2 weeks solid and not get in trouble! Some of the fire crackers you could buy were pretty much sticks of dynamite! Of course I went into one of the cracker shops  and said give me the biggest ones you’ve got and my god they go “Bang” The  different regions of the City and surrounding towns build these massive displays  out of balsa wood, Styrofoam and paint. They stand there for a week usually in a  main intersection of the area for everyone to admire. Then on the final night they  blow the shit out of it and set it on fire!

 Another fascinating outing for me was the Toras. The bull  fights, Guti took to a big one that was going on in town  coinciding with the festival. It was amazing, it sucks when the bull dies but shit the way I ended up seeing it as it’s an honorable death for em I guess? They could just go to a meat works and die in a pen but now they have a chance to go down in a blaze of glory and by gods they do! Generally you have 3 Matadors who fight 2 bulls each. Each fight lasts about 15minutes. It’s amazing how close the Matadors get to the charging animals! Sometimes they miscalculate and get smashed (which was the case twice) but that comes with the game I guess?

The 2 weeks went pretty week, I was kept pretty busy with the training, taking in the sights of a pretty sweet city, checking out all the festivities and hanging with friends. Oh yeah and eating plenty of Oranges ,I guess down here they don’t call em Valencia Oranges? Rather just Oranges? Gutis’ father in law has an orchard so there were no shortages..

 Next up Castilla y Leon, 5 day tour with Lance, Levi, Alberto,  Carlos, Dennis etc    should be fun…..

(5 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Stage 5, Visalia – Paso Robles

So the longest day was upon us, 220km and some long flat unforgiving roads… Rudy had told us that we could have a recovery day , I said no worries but I try for the break today. He said sure if you want then no probs. We started off in sunshine yet again,. After a few Ks I started looking for the right opportunity to get away, I started moving up to the front when I realized I had a front tire loosing pressure. Left arm up (Left for front, Right arm for rear) So after the change I was rolling back through the convoy at a nice pace when I thought this the perfect opportunity wind it up at catch the field napping! As I launched past the group at warp factor 7 two guys were currently involved in attacking off the front of the field. My move gave a few guys a laugh as I had a bit too much pace to just be attacking from the rear of the bunch. ( I was doing 60+) I slotted onto the back of the guys attacking like it was all orchestrated and after some serious pedaling six of us escaped the peleton. That was about the highlight of that day really? We rode out to over 8minutes before the peleton thought they better keep us in check. Towards the end and after 200km and 5 teams chasing us we were caught with 4km to go. Apparently that’s what generally happens to an “Epic Break that Chadys in” (Thanks Ed) Haha

Stage 6, Solvang

Time Trial in Solvang, It was a rest day for me today. Rudys theory is whats the point of riding ya ass off to get 20^th. Unless your riding in the top 15 I guess he’s basically right? Or your pretty good at rolling TTs and could sneak yaself a good result amongst the GC guys. It was better for some of us to rest up and get up the road again tomorrow. Although even though you take it as a recovery day you still need to ride it solid enough not to get eliminated. Luckily Fabian pulled out first stage so no records were gonna be broken on this day….

Stage 7, Santa Clarita – Pasadena

Another solid climbing day on the cards and this time Chris “scooter” Baldwin was our guy up the road today. The elastic finally snapped after about 60km of riding over some nasty rolling terrain. Once the break of 10 escaped the field settled down and content to recoup for the Queen and final stage tomorrow. After the final climb of the day we had a nice long cruisey decent which turned out to be more to have a little more drama than we would have liked. First of all a funny incident was we came around a corner to see a bike in the middle of the road no front wheel and no rider?? It wasn’t until we got closer we realized it had fallen off the top of a team car! I think it was a Cervelo but can’t remember? Then further down a TT1 guy had dropped his chain some how and Paco Mancebo being the nice guy he is was pushing the guy along while he got the chain back on. But when your riding with one hand on the bars, add a rock into the equation and your front wheel hitting that rock. Well there wasn’t much the little fella could do to save it. He pretty much dove head first into a bunch of boulders. Paco was out of it and taken to hospital. We were all a bit worried about him but once he finally turned up at the hotel later that night he was smiling and happy (maybe the meds?) but to see him in one piece ( apart from a broken thumb of sorts) was good enough for us to rally up for the final stage of California…

Stage 8, Rancho Bernardo – Escondido

So the final stage was finally upon us after what was an epic of an adventure to say the least! But one last hurdle or mountain to go! The infamous Palomar of Southern California! They day started with a KOM right at the beginning, a break went early as usual but Liquigas missed the move and decided that today they were up and chased hard to reel that back in before ascending Palomar. Once we had hit the big climb there was a small move up the road at 1minute but no teams were worried about them as it was a long ways to the top if they wanted to stay away. Astana rode a pretty solid tempo all the way up looking after Levi. The attacks started to flurry about half way up with Oscar attempting a few times to get away but to no success. By the top a small group of GC contenders had rolled off the front but they were all basically covering each others asses and were destined to come back top the remnants of the peleton down the other side. I managed to get over in the front and decided to try my luck by sneaking off the front down the other side when it pinched upwards for 500m or so. I escaped and eventually a Rabobank rider also bridged across and we set sail for the two lone riders out in front who weren’t working too well together due to conflicts of interest on the GC. The four of us rode well together and snuck out to nearly 2minutes before the Saxo and Liquigas riders started their dispute again. By this point we were being reeled back in by the 25strong front group with Astana at the helm. I eventually just rolled away from the break and spent 20 or so Ks out on my own. It was good to get a bit of alone and quiet time by myself Eventually the 3 riders came back up to me before we hit the final climb of the tour, it was meant to be a Cat4 but I think it should have been a 2 at least! Our break split up the climb with yours truly being popped by the Nibalis’ tempo up the climb. Nearing the last 1k of the climb I looked around and saw the Astana train coming and being led by Lance, I wasn’t gonna let em catch me on the climb so rode a bit harder to the top and let em catch me down the other side. Ha Saxo and Liqui held off the small front group by about 1minute. I snuck home for 15^th or something? Completely fried to say the least after a final hard day but I got out there off the front and had a go once again. No point sitting on the wheels all day hey?

Well 4^th edition of the ToC over and what a wet and wild ride indeed!

Call of the tour was when Lance called me “Homeboy” when I had a wrapper caught on my seat post. He was letting me know it was there. I rode back to him and said joking“ are ya calling me homeboy cause of the ROCK kit I’m wearing” then due to my accent he figured I didn’t know what homeboy ment and went on to explain that its an expression that is used.. Thanks mate for clearing that up for me

But its good to have him back in the bunch, it definitely draws in the crowds !

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Sorry troops the long anticipated report has finally arrived, I’ve been busy, lazy and busy some more

Prologue, Sacramento

Well not much to report on this lil excursion? The crowd was massive ( I guess seeing as how the big man was back that might equate into it) I was actually the first rider off to start the 09 Edition so I guess that was a good thing to be? At least I held the fastest time till the next guy come in Ha! It was also good to finally be lining up in the Rock kit and the Anarchy version we raced for ToC didn’t disappoint the fans.

Stage 1, Davis – Santa Rosa

Well as expected it was a tad wet today, a lot of riders just wanting to get this stage over and done with. About 6km into the stage Paco rode past me and said he was cold and attacked up the road to get warm. No one reacted so of he went on his merry little way. As he attack Carlos Sastre called him a junior for attacking so early! But as it turned out Carlos had to eat those words as Paco at one point lead the stage by well over 8minutes and then hung onto that lead by 1minute at the finish. We actually thought it was more? There were a couple of nasty lil climbs on route that split the field up into a few groups towards the finish, Oscar finished with a 20 or so man group behind Paco. An awesome day for us at Rock, first race of the season, new riders, new directors, a stage win in Americas biggest race and a Yellow, Sprint, KOM and Courage’s Jersey to top it all off!

Stage 2, Sausalito – Santa Cruz

Forecast for the day, Rain, Rain and if we didn’t know some more Rain! The heavens opened pretty much as soon as the flagged dropped. But first we had 10km neutral (in the rain) while we rode over the Gateway in San Fran. No view to be had though just mist and low clouds! The plan was to let something roll off the front with minimal threats to Paco and then roll the front to protect his lead. Well it was flat out from the gun everyone wanted to be up the road, but the early rolling terrain made it very hard to get a nice little group away so we could settle it down. Eventually a group rolled off, about 7 or 9 guys which was a little bit bigger than what we wanted but had to settle for that. We kept them at a safe distance for most of the day. As we rolled along the coast it was so damn cold and windy! I think we were doing about 30kph for a bit and that was going pretty solid? Eventually we turned inland for the final ascent of the day, job done for most of us and we waved adios to the pointy end of the peleton. Levi was on a mission and ended up holding off the rest of the field at the finish and taking the overall lead. Bit of a bugger but also a slight sigh of relief

Stage 3, San José – Modesto

Yes rain again and to make things more enjoyable a little detour up the infamous Sierra Road (normal raced up at the end of stages in previous tours) not sure why we needed to go up it 10km into the stage as no GC guys were gonna attack and try and ride out there all day. All it did was crash a few guys out down the other side due to icy cold wet conditions. My good buddy from TT1 (Ian “Mad Dog” MacGregor) decided to shoot off course and take on a pick up truck that was parked in some ones driveway. I think the truck actually came off second best?? After that detour we basically sat in the field the whole day trying to stay warm and make light hearted jokes to pass the time. Levi dumped himself at one point after clipping Lances rear wheel and now as I write this I here he did actually crack something apart from his pride. It stopped raining after we got out of the hills and warmed up a fraction. I kinda felt like I was back in Belgium with all the lefts and rights we were taking on our way to the finish in …….. I’m sure there was a more direct route but nothing like a scenic one hey. It didn’t rain any more but we must have had a good storm in front of us all day as the roads were covered in giant puddles and the finishing circuit was drenched making for some slippery conditions

Stage 4, Merced – Clovis

First good climbing day was upon us and low and behold, not a cloud in the sky. Still a little cool but there no complaints from anyone for that. Paco and Tyler managed to get into the main move of the day over the first few climbs. Paco eventually sat up once he had gathered enough KOM points and let Tyler and the two other escapees roll off. Astana was never gonna let Paco stay away for too long so he came back to the bunch no probs and rested up for the next few days in the safety of the field Astana rolled a pretty good tempo all day and kept the break close enough to entice the sprinters teams to give chase towards the end of the day. There were some nasty spills witnessed by my eyes today. I was riding just off to the left of Kirchen when he got his vest caught in his front wheel, he was also riding no hands on the bars and that my friends is a long ways down! Next spill I witnessed whilst at the team car grabbing bottles, BMC had Scott Nydam in front of me grabbing some bottles to but he must of hit a bump right next to the team car and crashed along side them nearly running him over. His bike blew into pieces and making its way under his team car to a nice grinding sound. So here I was with a back full of bottles, one in my left hand (so only one hand on the bars) and a rider, a BMC exploded all over the road and a team car coming to a grinding holt! Moses would have been proud of me as I don’t think even he could of parted all that like I did! Back into the safety of the field and the lads all re-hydrated it was time to take a moment..

Tyler and Co were caught at about 2km to go and it was a huge bunch kick, definitely a strange finish with Lances yellow chalk all over the road in various writings for the last 500m, it made for a nasty yellow dust cloud that was great for breathing in and visibility.. Tyler and Paco made the podium that day for the KOM and Courage’s Jerseys

(4 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

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