The Shack has a plan for the year, and racing the 5 stage, 30th Vuelta Ciclista A La Region De Murcia is an important milestone in that plan. We were fortunate to spend a couple of days with the team, checking in on riders getting used to new equipment and working with the techs to dial in new builds. Our visit culminated in a rare race car ride, pencilling split times for cycling legend & The Shack’s Director Sportif Viatcheslav Ekimov during Andreas Kloeden’s fine performance in the 22km Time Trial.

Luke muscles past for the win
Road Diaries regular Luke Roberts (Team Milram) has won stage 3 of the Vuelta de Murcia. Roberts won the Queen stage in a sprint ahead of a select group of 30 riders and sits now 2nd overall ahead of tomorrows 22km Time Trial.
Another SRAM Red rider Astana’s Josep Jufre (Spa) leads the Tour after 3 consistant performances so far. Nine riders share the same time as Jufre with a further 11 riders 5 sec behind including 7x Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.
Result …

 
After two months of training camp in South Africa, where Jan raced the lions and chased white sharks he is ready for the 2010 season. Jan stopped by the SRAM Marketing office in Munich to plan out some fun activities with the SRAM team and take some fresh pictures for a new ad campaign. His focus on the swim/bike and run showed in the kicker challenge…he will have to come back for a kicker training camp, after the season.

Jan enjoying a Frodissimo …

“Just wave, folks”

Team United Health Care rider and long time saluter Rory Sutherland, gives us a tip we can all put to use while out pedaling our bikes.

Alberto warming up in the Algarve
Two time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador won the Tour of Algarve on Sunday after a 2nd place finish in the final 17km time trial stage. Alberto’s winner was all the more special considering his Specialized shiv TT bike was banned two days before the final Algarve stage. The Team Astana mechanics, Specialized, SRAM and Zipp all with personnel on site, scrambled to get Alberto on a legal bike in time to defend his lead in the TT. In the end Alberto showed …

Contador finishes 2nd in the final day’s time trial, but 1st overall at Tour of the Algarve (photo: Watson)

Alberto Contador (Astana) has again proven himself a champion that can handle turmoil. Hours before Sunday’s final time trial at Portugal’s Tour of the Algarve, Contador’s RED and Zipp equipped Specialized SHIV time trial bicycle was banned by the UCI. Racing on an unfamiliar TT machine, Contador finished second on the stage behind fellow countryman, and primary challenger, Luis Leon Sanchez (Caisse d’Epargne).

The final day of the SRAM Apex launch was Thursday and here are some photos from the day’s events. The ride started early morning as editors began to depart in the early afternoon. The sixteen editors came from Europe and US and the online coverage followed almost immediately on many of the World’s largest websites posted stories sameday, including cyclingnews.com (bikeradar.com), roadcyclingUK.com, and bicycling.com.

Thanks to all those who attended for a great few days of riding on the roads of Mallorca!

Richard Tyler, Antonio de Pino, and Robert Kuehnen climb in Mallorca with new SRAM Apex

Day two in Mallorca at the Apex launch brought more good weather and even better routes around the island. Editors and SRAM staff enjoyed the big climb on Apex with its WiFli technology, which refers to the Wider gear range over triple chainringed bikes, the Faster shifting of two vs three, and the much Lighter groupset. There are no disadvantages to doing the double.

Apex was born from the moments like a stage in the 2008 …

SRAM’s new Apex group offers wider gear range, faster shifting, and lighter weight, and the first 11-32 cassette for road (the RD can be used with RED, Force and Rival for tackling nearly any climb)

SRAM’s newest road group was introduced this week in Mallorca, Spain. SRAM Apex delivers trickle down technology from RED, Force, and Rival, including Reach Adjust, Exact Actuation™, ZeroLoss™, and, of course, DoubleTap®. And now we proudly introduce WiFLi technology, which is marked by two chainrings up front and the World’s first 11-32 cassette on …

This past weekend we spent some time with the United Healthcare Team just outside of Phoenix, AZ. This was the second installment of a two part camp. Earlier in the week the guys were near Tucson putting in base miles and racing each other up Mt. Lemmon. The squad is a little different for 2010 including a new title sponsor in United Healthcare. A core group of riders are still on the team and they have …

The process to ready any team for an upcoming season of competition is always complicated, challenging, even daunting. Team RadioShack clearly doesn’t believe in taking chances with it’s materials, staff, schedule and certainly not with the training resources to ready it’s athletes. Chose the best for the best, right?

Now many of us know the stories of huge training volumes mixed with poignant coaching behind getting Lance ready for all those TdF’s. Levi Leipheimer is another supremely prepared athlete who comes to mind as a believer in intelligent training. What both of …