Actually, I'm a wee bit disappointed. Although it looks nice (except for ridiculous graphics, it just bring in technology that lots of other bikes have (such as tucked away rear brake, custom fork, front wheel cutout, etc). It does have an integrated hydration station which is novel, but am not sure how useful it will be.
For those of you who like real pro athletes - you might want to skip this first section...
I'm not sure what to make of all the commotion on the net last weekend surrounding J. Lo doing her first triathlon...ok, let me recap for those of you who don't read People magazine. About three months ago, it was announced that Jennifer Lopez was training for a triathlon. I didn't pay much attention since I was a bit torn about what it would do for the great sport of triathlon. Anyhow, this Sunday she was the star attraction of the Malibu Triathlon, as she completed the half-mile swim, 18-mile bike, and 4-mile run in about 2 hours and 23 minutes. She finished 5th (which was last by the way) in the celebrity female event but considering that she was a triathlon rookie, was competing about 7 months after giving birth to twins, and raised about $125 thousand dollars for the LA Children's Hospital, I think she represented herself rather well. Except for her race outfit...
Now, i wasn't sure how big of a deal this was, until i started poking around online. Check this out: a Google search for "jennifer lopez triathlon" retrieves 410,000 hits. A Google search for "peter reid triathlon" retrieves 48 000 hits and "simon whitfield triathlon" gets about 57 000 hits. Her celebrity could potentially bring much more exposure to the sport of triathlon than almost anyone outside of...say, Lance Armstrong?
Here's a video of J. Lo in action. Other celebrities that participated in this race (either solo or as part of a team) include Anna Kournikova, Felicity Huffman, Matthew McConaughey, and Saved By The Bell costars Mark Paul Gosselaar and Tiffani Thiessen.
Ok, onto real sports news. Lost in the shuffle of Lance's announcements from last week, his one-time teammate Floyd Landis is also planning a comeback in 2009. Landis, currently serving a 2 year suspension for failing a drug test during the 2006 Tour de France (which he ended up winning but had the title stripped), appears to be joining the US Health Net-Maxxis team for 2009. Floyd is only 32 years old (5 years younger than Lance), and might be using next year as a preparation for rejoining a ProTour team in 2010.
Speaking of the ProTour, I feel I have been neglecting this year's Vuelta a Espana, which is wrapping up this weekend. As expected, Team Astana is dominating the race, with Alberto Contador winning back-to-back mountain stages to take charge of the Gold Jersey this week. First he dropped fellow contenders Valverde, Leipheimer, and Sastre with 3.5km to go in Stage 13, then he and teammates Leipheimer put further time into the rest of the peloton with a coordinated attack in Stage 14. Going into today's final mountain stage and tomorrow's time trial, Contador leads Leipheimer by 77 seconds, and is ahead of Sastre by over 3 minutes. With a solid weekend of riding, Contador will add to his win at the Giro D'Italia and solidify his reputation as the best rider in the peloton. Only 25, it will be interesting to see what he does when Lance might be a teammate of his next year...
Couple of quick triathlon updates. My predictions for the inaugural Muskoka 70.3 race did not come true, with Lisa Bentley struggling to a 5th place finish. Joanna Zeiger was the fastest women's swimmer, and held on throughout the bike and run to win the race. Craig Alexander did win the men's race with ease, with Simon Lessing falling back into 4th place. The race was also the first 70.3 race for Canadian Olympian (2004) Brent McMahon, who finished in 6th place. Maybe he can convince Mr Whitfield to race a half someday...
Moving on, I discovered a pretty cool innovation last weekend. The Grand Columbian triathlon used a "buoy line" that floated about 6 feet below the surface between the buoys. Crooked swimmers rejoice! Linearly-challenged swimmers could just keep their head down and follow the rope...how cool is that?
Last two things...your kids could potentially use triathlon to go to university! Yep, UCLA has become the first university to award a triathlon scholarship! These lucky kids get pro level coaching, a ton of gear (including BMC bikes, Powertap powermeters, and Xterra Wetsuits) plus a "generous race budget". That's amazing...if only i was 18 again. And fast.
One last thing that I'm sure will be lost next week when BikeyFriday will be overrun by all things Interbike (i can't wait!!)...next weekend (the 28th) , the Toronto Waterfront marathon will be run. This is exciting since Canada's Dylan Wykes, who is only 25, will aim to improve on this 2:15:13 marathon debut. He is unquestionably part of the bright future of Canada's marathon team, along with Reid Coolsaet, Eric Gillis, and Simon Bairu (who are all 10,000m runners currently but will move up to the marathon soon). Athletics Canada is solidly behind trying to build a stable of top marathon distance runners, so Canada will hopefully be well-represented at future world championships and Olympics. This is great news, and the first successes will hopefully be seen this weekend!
So Lance is officially back. It is still up in the air which team he will race for. Team Astana - with his old buddy Johan Bruyneel, is by far the favorite (since Lance implied that in his press release). However, Astana is currently denying those reports, and Bruyneel himself claims they are only "rumours". So we'll see what happens. Two other American teams - Garmin-Chipotle and Team Columbia, both have riders that have relationships with Lance, so they can't be completed eliminated yet. Team Astana would thus have Lance, Levi, Alberto Contador, and Andreas Kloden. That team would be a powerhouse in France next July!!
This news has really shaken up the cycling world. Even Lance rivals Joseba Beloki and Michael Boogerd are apparently rethinking their current retirement plans. Unfortunately, despite one blogger's best efforts, http://bringbackjan.blogspot.com/, it appears that Mr Ullrich is happy to stay home in Germany and avoid further drug tests.
Others too have weighed in positively. The UCI president is thrilled (probably mostly since his sport will get more media attention. He adds that Lance's comeback in this brave new world of drug testing (EPO tests, biological passport, etc) will "give him the opportunity to prove he can do it clean".
On the other hand, Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France noted that Armstrong was "welcome in principle" at next year's race. "If his yet unknown team as well as himself comply with today's much more severe anti-doping rules, then we will accept his participation," Prudhomme told AFP, even though "Armstrong's victories have been tarnished by suspicions since 1999." He sounds like a bitter Frenchman who doesn't like American riders winning Le Tour! And I sure liked his hints that today's tests are much harder to beat...i wonder what he's implying?
For those of you who want the whole story, check out the Vanity Fair article here. And here is a pic of Lance from the article that might appeal to female readers...
This weekend brings the Ironman brand back to Canada. Ironman 70.3 Muskoka will be held for the first time this weekend, with over 1700 athletes to compete. The Pro Men's Race will be Craig Alexander's to lose, as he fine-tunes for Kona. Alexander has raced in Muskoka many times, and it's good to see him back. Triathlon legends (ie. past their prime) Simon Lessing and Luc van Lierde are also both competing. The women's race is highlighted by Lisa Bentley and Joanna Zeiger, although Lisa should be considered the favorite. The race also made national news this week when it was announced that hundreds of tacks had been found on the bike course last weekend. Crazy. I don't understand how people are that perturbed at cyclists traveling on the roads.
Persistence pays off for a couple of Ironman elites last week at Ironman Wisconsin. Just 1 week after finishing second at Ironman Louisville, Chris McDonald from Australia won the race comfortably for his second career IM victory (and a course record!). Who needs recovery? Certainly not the women's winner either! Hilary Biscay, who also raced in Louisville 7 days earlier (she finished 4th) FINALLY won her first IM race. I say finally because she races a ton. She finished 8 IM-distance races in 2007 and already has 8 finishes this year! Crazy. Biscay has always trained and raced hard, with a legendary pre-race 42km treadmill run as part of a 60+km running day! I'm not sure if she does that now, but that speaks to her motivation (and mental status?). Good for her...she will race Kona for her 9th Ironman race this year too!
Running out of time for today, so I'll be back on Monday for another update...see you then...
A couple of updates later, but wanted to lead off with some bikes! And of course, being a faithful rider of Ti, here's the newest version (ok, prototype) of the Litespeed Blade. It was sneaked by slowtwitch.com, and is only described as "very, very expensive". Sweet!
What actually got me most excited this week was when Felt launched their 2009 website. They have finally figured it out. 116 different bikes for sale in 2009, and they look great. The biggest news is their new aero road bike, the AR. It will be going head-to-head with Cervelo's new Soloist Carbon (or S3 or whatever they'll call it). I like it, especially in the Garmin-Chipotle team colours!
They also have added some colours to their triathlon line, with a bunch of different models now available.
And for those who want to look cool when riding to a coffee shop, i present the Curbside!
I also found a cool new bike called a Canyon Speedmax CF. Canyon bikes are apparently very popular in Europe as they were all over the Ironman Germany course. They are apparently moving to North America with this beast. Take a look.
For those of you who already have a dream bike, then do i have a crank for you! This is the new Zipp VumaChrono crankset. And if you have to ask how much, it's probably not for you...
More bikes to come next week, but i did want to touch on the Lance and Tyler Hamilton updates. First off, Lance did race the 100-mile Leadville mountain bike race in August, and he did well. But not well enough - he finished second to legend Dave Wiens despite breaking the course record. Surprisingly, Lance said he couldn't climb as well as he used to! Too bad old man! Actually, I love seeing Lance compete, as he will forever be known as one of the greatest competitors ever.
Finally, guess who else is back? Tyler Hamilton won the US Road Race Championships this week by less than a cm! 115 miles, and it comes down to a photo finish. Check out the picture below. But it looks as though Tyler will continue racing for Rock Racing for at least 2 more years. Anyhow, that's it for this week...see you next week!
