Word came from Spain yesterday that Jose Luis Rubiera had won stage 2 of the Tour of Muricia. It was the queen stage with big climbs and when it started snowing it turned into a mini-epic. You have to be happy for Chechu, Rubiera's nickname. In his final year of a storied career, the affable rider from Gijon in Northern Spain is a true class act and winning in difficult conditions just adds to the legend.

Less than two weeks ago, he was Levi Leipheimer's right-hand man on the big climbs and rainy, windy flats at the Amgen Tour of California. It was the Chechu of old, pacing his team leader to yet another major stage race win.  For me, it was one of the feel-good stories of the race and it was great to see Rubiera riding again at such a high level.

Chechu has amassed an impressive record throughout his professional career. He rode nineteen grand tours and finished top ten in four of those tours. He won several stages of the Tour de France as a member of the US Postal Service/Discovery Channel team time trial squad and also won two individual stages of the Giro d'Italia. Of course, he was by Lance Armstrong's side from 2001-2005 for the Texan's last five Tour victories.

He rode strongly in all, but the 2002 event. I once asked him what happened in 2002 and he replied that he had tried to do Lance's pre-Tour training program and it had burned him out. "Lance is like a motor bike of 1000cc and I am a 250cc or even less. We can't do the same training, we can't," noted the modest Spaniard.

But, Chechu will retire at the end of this year and join his wife, who is a lawyer, in Gijon. He has a degree in industrial engineering which he received while racing as a professional many times cracking his books in his hotel room after an exhausting six hours in the saddle.

I will miss his infectious smile; his positive attitude and his professionalism. The guy is truly one of the gentlemen of the sport and a class act. To be winning mountain stages and paving the way for your team leader to win a big stage race is truly the best way to exit stage left. We will all miss you. Buena suerte, amigo.

Bruce

Mark Cavendish was robbed of his win on stage 6 of the Tour of California, plain and simple. Yes, he received some help from his team car when he crashed in the final 10km's, but anyone who has ridden in the pro peloton knows how hard it is to move up, not only through the peloton, but also through all the team cars in the final few km's of a race, especially when everybody is going 35+mph.

This isn't a case of a rider hanging onto a car door and getting towed right back up to the front of the field. Far from that. Look at the photo. Cavendish is lying on the ground after crashing, lucky that the whole field didn't run him over and put him in a hospital bed.

After the crash, Cavendish was probably 15-30 seconds behind the field and yes, he probably got significant help getting back to the tail end of the race caravan from his team car. But, that sort of practice is totally OK in Europe in pro racing because just regaining the back of the caravan after a crash is viewed as"righting a wrong". A crash is viewed as an unfortunate circumstance and pacing back on is just the way to reverse the circumstance.

Once Cavendish regained the caravan, he had to work his way back to the peloton past 30 or so team cars. When he got to the back of the peloton after risking his life amongst the cars, he just had to work his way past 100+ racers all going wheel to wheel at 35+mph to end up at the front. Simply done, you say. Not!

So, this wasn't a case of Cavendish getting a free ride to the line from his team car.  Far from it. He had to pick himself up, sort himself out, work his way through 30+ cars and 100+ riders going flat out. That's what sprinters do and that's what Cavendish did. Taking the win away from the plucky Brit is like taking Muhamed Ali's heavyweight crown away from him for fighting.  It was a great win under the most difficult of circumstances. The sprinters are the showmen of our sport. Let them demonstrate why it takes a bit of madness, a bit of luck and a bit of savvy to win the bunch kick. We love it!

Bruce

The 3rd annual Amgen Tour of California is in the books.  The people from

Amgen were conspicuously absent from the race, but reports are that they are

happy and looking to continue sponsorship.  Let's hope so.  Here are some

random thoughts about the race.

Things I liked:

All the aggressive riding.  It was full-on from day one first with the BMC Team

sending guys up the road on stages 1 and 2 and then with attacks by the likes

of George Hincapie, Robert Gesink, Dominique Rollin, that Hincapie guy again,

Michael Creed, Tom Zirbel, that Hincapie guy again, etc, etc.

The non-Pro Tour teams showing themselves in front of their bigger brothers.

These lesser weights (in UCI classification only?) didn't just hide out at the

back of the pack waiting for another beating, they raced side-by-side to the

finish.

Podium girls.  Hats off to Michael Ball and Rock Racing for bringing some

much-needed feminine touches to the main stage.

Mount Hamilton.  This bump helped create one of the most selective finishes

in the history of the AToC.  When combined with Sierra Road this made for a

very exciting stage.

Mario Cipollini.  Cipo is in his second career as a bike racer and has admitted

that he is playing with house money.  But, ride he did and he was in there when

he needed to be.  Bravo!

Levi's time trial ride.  Guys like David Millar, Christian Vandevelde, Tom

Zirbel and Ben Jacques-Maynes rode extremely well in Solvang, but Leipheimer

delivered the knock-out punch to anyone else's hopes to win the AToC.  Yeah,

he was expected to do well, but not that well.  It was a drubbing.

Things I didn't like:

The AToC organizers bumping three riders from Rock Racing from starting.  I

have still not seen the supposed letter from the UCI stating that there are

active doping investigations on Santiago, Oscar and Tyler.  Anybody else seen

any news on the alleged open doping investigations?

Mother Nature.  Maybe it was payback for kicking out the three Rock Racing

riders, but why penalize all the other racers and spectators with so much

rain?  I was starting to gather a few animals, two-by-two.

Media parking.  Hey, I am a journalist.  I am doing a job at the AToC.  Please

give me a place to park my car and don't trap me in some parking garage with

one attendant to take cash so I have to spend an hour waiting in line to leave

after the race.

Technical manual.  Is it so hard to put a graphic showing the press room on

the map of the finish area?

Bruce

As reported earlier, Rock Racing started only five riders in today's first stage, the 2.1-mile prologue, in the 2008 Amgen Tour of California(AToC). AToC organizers excluded three of Rock Racing's riders supposedly because they had open doping investigations. Rock Racing has maintained that there are no open investigations, but race organizers held firm. Frankly, it is not clear to me that there are any open doping investigations. I haven't seen any public mention that there are any open investigations and none of the Rock Racing riders have been privately notified that they are under investigation.

What is interesting to me is the parallel between what happened earlier this week to Team Astana. In the Astana affair, Amaury Sports Organization (ASO) issued a statement that Team Astana will not be invited to any ASO events, which includes the Tour de France. ASO cited the past history of doping on the team as their reason for the exclusion. However, Team Astana is a completely different team in 2008. Gone are all the riders implicated in any 2007 doping infractions as well as the whole team management.

So, if all the problem riders and team personnel are gone the team should be clean. The only rider on the team with a potential problem is Alberto Contador who has been linked to the same Operacion Puerto affair that AToC organizers used as a reason to exclude the three Rock Racing riders.

I think the decisions to exclude three riders from the AToC and Team Astana from the Tour are unfair. If you are upset that Levi may not get to ride in France, I think to be consistent, you have to also be upset that Tyler, Oscar and Santiago aren't riding the AToC. Would it be fair to allow Team Astana to ride the Tour de France if they don't bring Alberto Contador? How do you all feel about this? Do you all agree that both decisions are unfair?

-

On to the racing news, which I hope will shortly eclipse all this talk of doping. My pre-race prediction (and I made that prediction on Thursday), Fabian Cancellara, obliterated the competition winning by a substantial four-second margin in the short, 2.1-mile prologue time trial. Levi Leipheimer, who won the first two prologue time trials in 2006 and 2007, finished fourth, six seconds back.

No big surprises in the race for the overall. All the overall contenders finished within 20 seconds of each other. With several big climbing stages and a 15-mile time trial yet to come, the race is still a dead heat. Cancellara could hold the jersey for the next two days which offers only moderate climbing and flat finishes.  However, come stage 3 on Wednesday, when both Mount Hamilton and Sierra Road are on the agenda, look for the 2006 Paris-Roubaix Champion and two-time World Time Trial Champion to hopefully transfer the jersey to one of his teammates such as Jens Voigt, Stuart O'Grady or Bobby Julich.

Bruce

Less than a day before the start of the 3rd annual Amgen Tour of California (AToC) and there is a huge storm on the horizon. At the center of the controversy is Michael Ball and his Rock Racing Team; the issue being whether certain riders on his team roster will be allowed to start the race. Earlier this week, Ball submitted ten riders names as potential members of his team for the AToC. When race organizers published the team rosters, only five of those original ten were listed as potential starters. Somewhere along the way, race organizers left five of Michael's riders off the list.

On Saturday morning, Michael Ball, just back from a training ride with his team, met with the press in downtown Palo Alto, the scene of Sunday's prologue start, to address this issue. The owner of Rock and Republic clothing was adamant that none of the members of his AToC team are involved in any active doping investigation and he provided written documentation to back it up. Also provided to the media was a written letter to race organizers informing them of the same thing, that no rider on his AToC team is involved in an active doping investigation.

The passionate Ball was firm in stating that the riders named to his team, Santiago Botero, Oscar Sevilla, Tyler Hamilton and Kayle Legrande who have been linked to potential doping practices will start the race.  Micheal strongly denied that he would accept a reduced number of riders if the race organizers refuse to let the aforementioned teammates participate.

At the heart of Ball's insistence is his belief that under the current conditions in professional cycling, riders need to be given the benefit of the doubt, especially if there is no open doping investigation. Ultimately, he would like to form a rider's union, something which is commonplace in most high-profile professional sports.

At the time of this blog, AToC organizers had not issued any statements as to their plans with regards to this situation. Personally, I think we have to allow riders an "innocent until proven guilty" attitude.  This is their job and how they put food on the table. Keeping someone from making a living based on rumor, innuendo or unproven charges is simply not fair.

I am hoping that a solution that is fair to the teams as well as the race can be reached. The AToC has so much to offer to the fans, sponsors and teams that it would be sad to see something like this bring any dark clouds to the race. Hey, it is February in California, we have enough other dark clouds to worry about.

Bruce

With only two days to go before the start of the third Amgen Tour of California, the streets around Palo Alto are awash with pro racers getting in those last, critical pre-race miles. So much is going on surrounding the race, you almost need 25 hours in a day. Here are the latest happenings:

At a Trek Bicycle-sponsored meet-and-greet with Levi Leipheimer on Thursday night,the Tour podium finisher in 2007 announced that his Team Astana would be mounting a grass-roots campaign to lobby ASO to give his team a much-deserved slot in the Tour de France. Look for some announcements and a website launch

in the next few days to allow fans to send their thoughts to ASO. This is your chance to be heard, don't pass it up!

The team rosters are being finalized as we speak. Some of the big names are Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner from Astana; Fabian Cancellara, Bobby Julich, Jens Voigt and Stuart O'Grady from Team CSC; Tom Boonen and Paolo Bettini from Quick Step...heck, there are too many big names and great riders to list, so my apologies to everyone I didn't mention.

Which brings me to my next observation. This is undoubtedly the best field of riders for a Tour of California.  And the teams have come here to lay down some serious smack. Jens Voigt told me that they have been riding hills, hills and more hills at their team training camp down in Thousand Oaks. Team High Road Sports have been doing 5- to 6-hour rides everyday; some riders had 34-plus hours on the bike last week! Whoa!  That is some serious saddle time for this early in the season.

I hope you all out there get chance to see at least one, and hopefully two or more, stages of the race. If you can't be here in person, Phil and Paul will be making the race call, daily, on Versus.

OK. One last thing. I am going to go out on a limb and make a prediction for the prologue. This might not seem like much of a guess, given his propensity for winning these type of races, but I think Fabian Cancellara will

win the prologue. I just did a lengthy interview with the two-time World Champion and he is not only very fast, but a nice guy to boot! Go Fabian.

Heck, go everybody! Let's make this a great race.

Bruce

Being a freelance journalist covering mostly cycling-related people and events

has its ups and downs. This past week, I logged 350+ miles on the bike, doing

um, uh, um, research. This coming week I will be logging over 1000+ miles,

unfortunately, they won't be on two-wheeled vehicle.

On Monday, I have an interview with Michael Ball. His people are calling my

people. As soon as that interview is completed, I will be driving six hours

from my winter home in the San Francisco Bay Area down to LA to visit the CSC

Professional Cycling Team camp where I will be doing interviews for two

articles for Pro Cycling Magazine during the day on Tuesday.

Late Tuesday night, I will be making the six hour drive back up north arriving

in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. As soon as I am functional, I will

begin transcribing the interviews for Pro Cycling as my deadline for the

articles is Thursday. Hopefully things go quickly as I have to pick Phil

Liggett up at the SFO airport on Wednesday afternoon as Phil flies in from

London. Phil and I are hosting a charity fundraiser on Wednesday night, it is

not entirely clear which one of us will be suffering from a worse case of jet

lag (well, in my case 'road lag').

Thursday during the day sees me finishing the pieces for Pro Cycling then

heading off to cover a charity fundraiser in Palo Alto with Levi Leipheimer,

Chris Horner and a few other pros in the early evening. Later that evening, I

am off to the Oakland Airport to pick up my production assistant. Oh, yeah, I

forgot to tell you that I will be working with Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen on

the official Amgen Tour of California DVD. Phil and Paul will be doing the

race call and I will be doing the pre-stage and post-stage interview with the

riders and team personnel.

Friday during the day, I will be transcribing and writing the Michael Ball

interview I did on Monday then it is off to Sausalito to help host the official

Amgen Tour of California Team Presentation on Friday night. Phil, Paul (those

guys again!) and Bob Roll will be introducing the teams. I will be on the

microphone for the fashion show and the live fundraising auction. Last year, I

raised almost $3000 for an all expense paid weekend for two to Las Vegas to see

the Celine Dion "It's a Brand New Day" show. Just try selling that to a crowd

full of cyclists!

Saturday during the day will be consumed by picking up my press credentials and

car pass and dealing with a few production items then Saturday evening is the

Davis Phinney Foundation Fundraiser. You know, when the race finally begins on

Sunday, things may actually get a bit less hectic. Not! Look for my blogs on

Active.com during the Amgen Tour of California as I bring you all the most

interesting peoples, places and things from behind-the-scenes. Welcome to my

world.

Bruce

January and early February mean its pro team camp time.  Every year I attend

five to seven of the pro team camps, it's a great time to catch up with the

riders and lay some foundation for the season ahead.  This year, I stopped in

to see a number of teams such as the BMC, Health Net-Maxxis, High Road Sports

with trips to several others like CSC still upcoming.

The Health Net-Maxxis Professional Cycling Team camp is always fun.  These guys

can ride bikes evidenced by their fourth straight NRC team crown in 2007 as

well as the individual NRC crown with Australian rider Rory Sutherland.  The

team is a mix of cagey veterans like recently crowned National Cyclocross

Champion, Tim Johnson, and Kirk Obee, hard-as-nails Australians such as

Sutherland and Karl Menzies (he'll tell you he's actually Tasmanian), up-and-

comers like Frank Pipp and Phil Zaijeck and young guns like Matt Crane and John

Murphy.

The program for the media/sponsor day was to ride with the team from our

hotel in downtown Solvang and preview the 15-mile course for the upcoming

Stage 5 time trial in the Tour of California.  We rolled out at a talking

pace, the idea of the ride was to get to know everybody and not to break too

big of a sweat.  That's fine with me.  Bonding on the bike is always a great

experience.  There are times when it is best to hold back the endorphins and

just enjoy the ride.

When we finished our loop it was clear that the team was up for some more miles

and at a little bit more uptempo pace.  So, I tagged along with the boys for a

rendezvous with Figueroa Mountain.  Along the way we passed Michael Jackson's

Neverland Ranch and as we hit the base of the 3200' climb, I remembered what

Clint Eastwood said at the end of Magnum Force, "a man's got to know his

limitations."  I said farewell to the team and headed back home. Later, I

found that I had chosen wisely as noted climbing specialist Matt Cooke lit the

afterburners on the ascent, turning a fun group ride into an all-out sufferfest.

At this time of the year, my idea of suffering is watching Simon on American

Idol.  But, if the Health Net-Maxxis squad is going to win their fifth

consecutive NRC title, they need to lay down some serious smack this early in

the season.  Judging by their fitness and attitude, this is going to be a good

year.

Bruce