My Adventures from the Women’s World Cup with the US National Team
Durango-Durango Emakumeen Sari June 12th
That’s just a warm up race for the 5 day Bira June 13th – 17th
There’s tons of climbing as you can see here:
After the Bira we will travel back to Lucca in-between the Giro Ciclistico de Trentino Femminile
You can read all about it here, Ciao
-Frank
The last race of my 6 week trip was the 3 day stage race in San Marino. San Marino is a tiny country state Northeast of Lucca on the Adriatic side of the boot.
This is an image of literally the rock which the country of San Marino centers around. I didn’t check but the diameter of the country is probably 2 or 3 miles. In this image, the red line indicates the 4K prologue course on the left of the ROCK and the finish of stage 1 on the right.
In short, 2 time Tour l’Aude winner, Amber Neben rode brilliantly and finished 3rd overall. You can read the full report here. For that matter, whole team rode extremely well and essentially made my directorial job very easy. All I had to do was drive the B-mer fast. And that I did!
You can check out all 3 of the amazing course here:
You may wonder why I put so much emphasis on the courses and the answer is simple: it is the directeur’s job to know each climb, every turn, hard sections, easy sections, optimal feedzone locations, and ultimately to communicate that information to the athletes.
Each morning, I got up at the crack of dawn to drive the course. Often times I/we have no idea where to go. Sometimes, the race organization provides and turn by turn description sometimes 6 pages long like the Tour of Flanders.
At San Marino I had this image:
Fortunately, I had a secret weapon, former pro racer: Lise Horslund Christensen. Even better she placed 16th at San Marino last year and spoke Italian. She knew the courss and saved us tons of time.
During the race I prompted course details to the riders with Alinco Brand radios and Lise interpreted the Italian race radio. Thanks Lise!!!
That’s it for this trip. Everybody flew back to the States to their respective families and US trade teams. The next US National team races are the Emakumeen Birra in Northern Spain June 13th thru 17th & the Giro Ciclistico de Trentino June 22nd & 23rd.
Thanks for reading, ciao,
-Frank
Hi everybody –
The Fleche Wallone was the team’s best result so far with Kristin Armstrong finishing a strong 5th place. As usually you can see the entire course here
However, all the girls raced their heart out. Team USA was the only team that tried anything before the Huy by sending Alison and Katheryn up the road in the final 30K. Alas, no other team were interested and that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
CyclingNews did a nice report of the race here. Vos is untouchable right now.
Immediately after Fleche on our way out we stopped at the bottom of the Huy and watched the men come by. In 800 meters from the bottom to the top they went from a BIG group to Rebellin winning comfortably all by himself.
I drove from Belgium thru Luxembourg into Germany on to Switzerland and then finally down into Italy that night. Whew. Let’s put it this way: the truck stops have espresso bars.
On Sunday the team rode in a Gran Fondo that started by the sea in Viareggio.
Remember that guy Raimondas Rumsas from the Tour in ‘03? Yeah, he’s still racing!
Kristin “won” and beat a bunch of guys as well as the rest of the girls. In all total about 3,000 cyclists participated. The bike culture over here is on a whole other level than the strongest cycling communities in the US.
Now we are back in Lucca, relaxing and getting ready fro San Marino on Friday. Today, May 1st is the Italian Labor Day so everybody is on holiday and it is very quiet.
Next week I’ll be back in the States and I can’t wait.
Ciao,
Frank
This past weeekend the team travelled to Apeldorn in Holland for the Rhonde van Gederland. In the manager’s meeting I drew car # 1 in the race caravan so it was the team’s lucky day. Being able to see the race from behind is extremely advantageous for directing. Any further back than car # 5 and it becomes very difficult to see and we have to rely more and more on the race radio.
The team raced very well placing Kristen Armstrong in the all star break of the day. Current world champ Marianne Vos was in there from the DSB Bank team as well as all the other teams’ heavy hitters. For sure the winner was going to emerge form the break. but when Marianne Vos was directed off course her team lost their representation in the break. They chased frantically and a catch ensued in the final 25K’s.
Coming into the final 10 kilometer circuit the peloton was all together and teams began setting up for a sprint finish. It was exciting to hear over the race radio “Team USA riders, # 151, 152, 154, 155, & Brooke Miller on the front” Yes, team USA was setting up their leadout train!
In the end, T Mobile set up their train to as well the Vos’s DSB team. Vos took the sprint “w” and Brooke finished 6th — her best UCI finish so far.
You can read more abotu the team’s result on the USA Cycling site.
Today we are getting ready for the Fleche Wallone. We reconned the course Sunday and then the team rode it Monday. Today is an easy training day with a manager’s meeting and the team presentation. The Mur de Huy is everything a “wall” is and then some.
Wish us luck and we’ll be back in Italy after the race,
-Frank
For the past 2 days the team has gone out on training rides with former World Champion Mario Cipolini. He lives next door to the European Residence aka SRM Italia.
Yesterday they went climbing and you can check out the route they did here.
Today they went down by the coast here.
There are group rides each day everywhere here at all sorts of times and meeting places.
Tomorrow we leave for a 5 day trip back to Holland for the Rhonde van Gederland and the Fleche Wallone. Wish us luck!! We’ll fly back to Lucca after Fleche for a 5 day training block before I take the team across the “boot” of Italy for the GP San Marino. I’ll be making my sports directeur debut so keep your fingers crossed.
Ciao,
-Frank
I would go on about Holland but now that I’m in Italy there really is no point. Holland is Holland and Lucca, Italy is waaaay better.
Let me get right to the highlight of my day:
The other highlight of the day was seeing Cipolini not once but twice. He came by the SRM Italian villa to make an adjustment to his SRM. He was sporting the full on world championship kit but with a big Fed Ex logo. ‘Cept it was a joke and really said “Fed Up”.
And then while I was having my afternoon cappucino I saw him roll by as he took the town sprint on the local group ride.
It’s going to hard to top that tomorrow but we’ll see. Here’s my digs at SRM Italia:
I have been in the Drenthe region of Holland for the past week and we are flying to Italy today. The Van der Valk hotel in Spier was excellent except for having internet.
The racing in Holland was tough. Its dead flat but the roads are super narrow and there is plenty of wind. Finding position at the front of the peloton is a constant shuffle. And there are cobbles! Not like the cobbles in Belgium which are cut from stone in square shapes and leveled. These cobble “roads” are made from round field stones and dropped in the dirt.
The women completed 3 road races each about 130 – 140 kilometers. Saturday was a World Cup with three cobble sections and 3 trips up the “Vamberg” which was about a 1 minute power climb literally on a hill made from trash over the years.
I drove in advance to the end of the first cobble section to have wheels in case of a flat. After that section I hade 12 minutes to make it to the end of the next cobble section — prolly about 2k’s away by car on back roads. Then I had about 15 minutes to make it to the end of the third cobbled section which was about 4 k away by car. It was hectic and stressful to figure out these roads and make it there on time! And then I had to haul ass to make it to the feedzone on the Vamberg. Whew.
Brooke Miller has been sprinting very well up against the worlds best and she won the sprint jersey Sunday. Way to go!!!
That’s all I have time for now, more later,
-Frank
Wow, is probably the best way to sum up yesterday. I am still processing it all but here goes. First off, I used my Garmin to map out the course and uploaded it to MotionBased.com I highly recommend exporting that file to Earth Google for a closer look. Keep in mind that the race caravan was diverted around the Molenberg and the Muir b/c they were too steep to send cars up.
I do not have many race pics b/c it was pretty much 3 hrs of high pressure white knuckle driving with lots of drama sprinkled in. At any one time I was doing about 4 or 5 different things in the passenger seat. Thankfully I wasn’t driving! But before and after here’s the scoop:
The foggy drive on the way to the race
Here’s the alley the team cars staged before the start in downtown Oudenaarde:
Here are the maps and start lists I used during the race:
The race radio was in Flemish and French but no English. Suffice it to say that 5 years of French in high school and college came back mighty quick!
The team did well albeit not the “w” but it was a great start to our 6 week trip. There was a mondo crash right before the first cobble section b/c all the riders were battling for position — imagine 50 cyclist all over the road w/ 25 cars behind scrambling to get up to their riders to fix bikes and change wheels so they could get back onto the ripping fast peloton. Two of our girls crashed and although they were not hurt badly the pace on the front of the field was just too fast.
After 7 climbs the race really took off as Nicol Cooke’s team (Raleigh) sent Karin Thurig off the front with about 40K to go. No other teams chased and her gap moved up to 55 seconds (as I interpreted in French on the race radio).
No riders attempted (that we could tell) on the third to last climb: the Eikenberg. So it was gonna come down to the biggest and baddest climb of the race: the Muir. Sure enough Nicol Cooke attacked and bridged up to her teammate and they worked together until the Bosberg where Nicol continued on 9K alone for the “w”. She has incredibly great form.
Behind these two were some other heavy hitters: former world champ Marianne Vos, Trixi Worrack & Susanne Ljungskog. No T-Mobile riders were in there so they chased.
In the T-Mobile led chase group behind we had 3 girls come off the Muir in a group of about 30 riders. These were essentially all the other heavy hitters. For Kristen Armstrong (current World Time Trial Champion) she’s a heavy hitter and this wasn’t new territory. However, for Brooke Miller and Allison Powers this was their first Flanders and first season racing over in Europe. So to be in that group was a small victory and a great first race of such difficulty. Way to go girls!!
Probably the biggest behind the scenes story I have is the battle between directeur sportifs in the race caravan. At the pre-race meeting the night before each team car is assigned a number for their order in the caravan. We drew the 7th car and that’s pretty close to the peloton. Other teams like the belgian based Biglia team drew a low number.
During the race, the directeur sportif of the Biglia team, Felice Puttini, would constantly break the rules and cut up in line. One of the other Belgium directeurs did not like this and took up the responsibility to block Biglia from moving up. Puttini did not like that so he rammed the other Belgian (I did not get his name). Well that pissed off this guy so much that he rammed the Biglia car not from the bumper but from the driver’s side door!! That ended the fued and the Biglia car returned back to his orded in the race caravan with a huge dent in their team car.
Things are really starting to heat up here before our first World Cup the Ronde van Vlaanderen . The women’s race does the last 120k of the same course the men will do. The Muir is the steepest most selective climb and it comes 15K from the finish with the Bosberg still to go up. Both are cobbled and the Muir is STEEP.
I reconned the whole course Thursday and whoa, there are a lot of turns! As a team we did the last 60 K yesterday from Oudenaard to Ninove and today we are going back to do the first 60K. Also today is a “CycloSportif” where 30,000 cyclists will ride the whole race route. Fortunately they start at 6AM. But even on Thursday the beer tents were already erected and the earlier birds had parked their RV’s for the primo viewing spots. There are bars all over the course — mostly at the top of the various climbs. I’ve heard approximately 400,000 are expected to attend.
Here is a pic from the right hand turn into the Molenberg . It is like making a right hand turn onto a golf cart path. On my first pass I drove straigh past it!
My cameras battery died and with the Euro convertors it is a challenge to recharge. Not too worry I have pics of the Mollenburg and the Muir. Today is a big day of work and tomorrow will be super busy.
Happy Easter everyone! Tot ziens,
-Frank
Yesterday we drove from Julich,GE to Izegem, Belgium and right away the weather turned super cold. We spent the afternoon at the Espoirs National Team House building out the Women’s team truck.
We have a running joke to ask all the locals who we interact with to ask them who’s gonna win Flanders. So far all of them (as I was told) have all said “BOO-nen” without any hesitatation and authority.
I also drove to the Brussels airport. Normally this would be pretty difficult in a foregin land sight unseen but it was a piece of cake. Our TomTom made the driving directions possible. You punch in your destination and it talks you thru every km with audio prompts telling you where and when to turn. Nice!
We are also dropping at truck back at AVIS in Dusseldorf where our trip originated; 6.5 hrs of me and the TomTom.
I made another pit stop at the SRM service center. Here’s what they use to calibrate every SRM they sell out the door:
