On Form

This is lifted straight from Cyclingnews – great news for British rider David Millar winning today’s stage of Spain’s grand tour (the full report is up here):

Time trial specialist David Millar (Cofidis) showed his versatility today winning the 17th stage between Granada and CÃ³rdoba. Alberto MartÃnez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) was second, 36 seconds behind, and Oscar Sevilla (Kelme Costa Blanca) third in the same time. The wearer of the golden leader’s jersey, Isidro Nozal (ONCE-Eroski), had a comfortable day without any problems, as did the rest of the top riders in the general classification. Nozal has led the Vuelta for 14 consecutive days now.

David Millar found the perfect place to attack on the climb of Alto de San JerÃ³nimo with 25 km to go, and got a good gap to the field to win his first stage in this year’s Vuelta. “I’m very, very happy,” the Scot told Spanish TV. “I had plans to win a stage in the last week of the race. I told my team early this morning that I wanted to attack and I didn’t know whether to attack at the top, in the middle or at the bottom of the climb.”

The bike show is on down in London village. I’m not going but one year I intend to get myself organised and make it down there in future.

Chilly has his version of events from this weeks race up at Giant Pygmy. I had forgotten about the gazebo blowing away in the night. You might want to take a look.

Some interesting stuff over at MBA, they’ve got a page and animated diagram explaining how the Fox Talas shocks work. This will be handy for a lot of people, because these shocks are appearing on all sorts of bikes, but not many people know much about them. Click here to take a butchers.

Reverse action rear mechs are something that Shimano have been pushing for a few years. When I test rode my FSR back in ’98 there was an XTR one on the market then and fitted to it. I found the action led to good shifting up the block under pressure when you were looking for a lower gear.

This year both the new XT and XTR are as Shimano call it ‘low normal’, i.e the spring in the mech pushes it into the lowest gear (i.e. the 32T) instead of pulling it into the highest gear (the 11T). Read the pros and cons here.

Now doping in cycling has been big news over the last few years. This year any cases seem to have been rapidly passed over by the media, which isn’t that surprising given the Tour De France’s centennial celebrations, but it seems behind the scenes things have been simmering away and now this article has been posted up on bikebiz:

UCI says world anti-doping org has it in for cycling; suspends links to WADA
In March, the Swiss-based world governing body for cycle sport signed up to the tough anti-doping code proposed by WADA, the Swiss-based World Anti-Doping Agency. At the time, the UCI said it had reservations about the code (it was tough on some sports, lax on others) and, in June, withdrew its signature. Now the UCI has suspended recognition of WADA officials at UCI events thanks to leaks to the French sports newspaper L’Equipe over the Independent Observers report from the Tour de France.

WADA calls the leak an “untimely publication” and a “breach of protocols” and has released the full report (in French only) on its website “even though some parties involved, including the International Cycling Union (UCI), have not yet completed their review of the document.”

The UCI is furious about the leak of the observers report to a French newspaper, calling it “unacceptable”, and claiming the WADA “always take[s] cycling as privileged target.”

Hein Verbruggen, the UCI president who is also a leading light on the International Olympic Committee, resigned from WADA in June.

He believes WADA is anti-cycling. The UCI and WADA are currently disputing the use of corticosteroids by by pro cyclists with a doctor’s prescription.

WADA doesn’t believe cycle sport is yet tough enough on dopers, pointing out that Igor Galdeano, who tested positive for the asthma drug salbutamol, in July’s Tour de France, would fail WADA’s tests even though he passed the UCI’s controls.

WADA’s report criticises the way pro cyclists are warned they are to be tested, up to 20 minutes ahead of sample taking in the case of a road race.