I just got official word that the 2013 USA Pro Challenge bike race in August will start in Aspen.

It’s no real surprise. The official announcement comes at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday from Aspen’s Little Nell hotel. But the big news is Aspen is a spectacular spot to host what has become the biggest stage race in the U.S. Aspen has had fabulous success with two dramatic finishes down Independence Pass and a start to Beaver Creek in the two previous races.

It has the money to back the venture and the amenities to attract the riders, the American cycling community and merely fans of the city. It’s also where a rooming snafu bumped me this year to the Little Nell, merely one of the top hotels in the United States.

The race begins Monday Aug. 19 but Aspen’s festivities will be all weekend.

Brad Torchia

A downhill mountain biker races in one of five enduro stages at the Colorado Freeride Festival at Winter Park’s Trestle Bike Park last July. (Special to The Denver Post by Brad Torchia.)

Winter Park’s Trestle Bike Park will host the only U.S. stop of the first-ever Enduro World Series next summer, buttressing its position as the nation’s top bike park.

With enduro riding exploding, the Enduro Mountain Bike Association in October announced the creation of its own, UCI-free World Series, a seven-stop international tour tying together the largest events in enduro racing – France’s Enduro Series, Italy’s Superenduro races and the Whistler-born Crankworx contests. The group released the series’ race stops and dates last week.

Winter Park’s Colorado Freeride Festival – July 27-28 – will be the fourth stop of the international tour. This year’s festival featured a five-stage contest that drew dozens of enduro racers. They raced long downhill courses traversing Trestle’s biggest features and singletrack in contests that required some uphill. Enduro – while popular in Europe – is surging stateside and especially in Colorado, where the Mountain States Cup launched its inaugural enduro races last summer.

2013 Enduro World Series
May 18-19: Superenduro PRO – Punta Ala, Italy
June 29-30: Enduro Series – Val d’Allos, France
July 6-7: Crankworx Les 2 Alpes – Les 2 Alpes, France
July 27-28: Colorado Freeride Festival – Winter Park, United States
August 10-11: Crankworx Whistler – Whistler, Canada
August 24-25: Enduro Des Nations – Val d’Isere, France
October 19-20: Superenduro PRO – Finale Ligure, Italy

If you really liked the USA Cycling Challenge, you can vote for it as the world’s best stage race for 2012. Cyclingnews.com has a reader’s survey in which you can also vote for such categories as the best male rider, best female rider and best rider overall.

The survey can be found here.

For participating you can be eligible for a giveaway of a $3,500 Specialized bike frame.

A leisurely ride near Longmont last Sunday turned ugly for veteran cyclist Dirk Friel when a driver of a Ford Explorer – Colorado license plate 893 EKG – sat behind Friel and his buddy, laying on the horn. The irate driver, a male, is clearly visible in the video as he blasts his horn for several minutes while other cars pass him as he cruises behind the cyclists.

Colorado State Patrol has been notified and is apparently on the case. Friel posted to his Twitter feed yesterday that other cyclists have reported similar encounters with the exceptionally horn-y, buzz killing Sunday driver.

Updates to follow.

Update #1: Colorado State Trooper Nate Reid said a Boulder-based state trooper is meeting with the cyclists today and will make contact with the driver, who has never been reported to the state patrol before. The trooper will also contact the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office and, Reid said, “hopefully get charges filed.”

I remember visiting Tyler Hamilton in his Boulder home where he and his then-wife, Haven, tried convincing me that his two positive drug tests due to someone else’s blood in 2004 were the result of a “vanishing twin.” According to Hamilton, he started out in the womb as a twin and received blood from him before he died in the uterus.

That twin’s blood, he claimed, was in his system.

I didn’t believe it. Neither did the doctors or USADA when I contacted them. But I printed it just to get Hamilton’s side of the story. I asked him about it Thursday and he said he didn’t believe it, either.

“That wasn’t my idea,” Hamilton said. “That was something that came up from the scientists, the doctors. It was one way to have a second blood type in your blood. And the press just went off on that. It was just one possibility. I didn’t know. I never blood doped with anyone else. That’s the other thing. I blood doped a lot but I didn’t take anyone else’s blood. Whether it was a bad test or whether or not it was messed up, I don’t know.

“It kind of made it a little easier to fight because I was saying I robbed the bank of Denver, the bank of Boulder and the bank of Fort Collins, but I didn’t. I actually robbed the bank of Longmont. Or maybe I did rob all of those banks but didn’t rob the bank of Longmont. But they were accusing me of robbing the bank of Longmont.”

I had an interesting talk with Tyler Hamilton Thursday. The Boulder cyclist openly lied to me over a two-year period about his “bogus” two-year doping ban. But he was man enough to apologize and I believe that his testimony to the Grand Jury, the interview he gave “60 Minutes” last year and his new revealing book, “The Secret Race,” will help clean up the sport.

Despite his rep as a doper, I believed every word he said. Hey, if a prostitute claims she was raped that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Just because Hamilton doped, doesn’t mean what he saw Lance Armstrong do didn’t happen.

While Hamilton is cynical about his sport, he thinks it’s much cleaner and one of the reasons, he said, is Jonathan Vaughters. The Cherry Creek High grad, whose mandatory weekly drug tests put his Team Garmin-Sharp in the forefront of cycling’s new approach, gets Hamilton’s stamp of approval.

“I think he’s doing a great job,” Hamilton said. “I don’t know anything about the weekly testing but he’s talking the talk and walking the walk. But to be honest, Jonathan Vaughters, it’s not like he has a dormitory with all his riders in it and he has control of all these guys’ lives. He can preach the preach but it’s still up to the rider but I think he’s doing a great job and I totally support him.”

AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post

Defending champion Levi Leipheimer finishes the Stage 7 of the USA Pro Challenge in downtown Denver on Sunday, Aug. 26, 2012.

Levi Leipheimer did well to wear the yellow jersey going into Sunday’s final day of the USA Pro Challenge. He didn’t get a lot of help. His Belgium-based Omega Pharma-QuickStep team brought only six riders and one didn’t make it to Denver.

Leipheimer rode conservatively the entire week, riding the wheels of BMC Racing Team and Team Garmin-Sharp. That was until Saturday’s final climb up Boulder’s Flagstaff Mountain when he left the other leaders in the dust.

He couldn’t hold the lead in Sunday’s time trial and you wonder how much of a lead he would’ve had to protect if he had more of a team around him in the mountains. To his credit and class, Leipheimer didn’t throw his young teammates under the bus.

Read more…

Commentators and riders are now calling the USA Pro Challenge “America’s Race.” No wonder. Only Americans are excelling in it. Christian Vande Velde won the second annual race and represented one of seven Americans of the top 10, including the same top three on the podium. Last year Americans swept the top five.

Boulder resident Taylor Phinney, who has a training base in Tuscany, has a reasonable explanation for it.

“If you’re an Italian rider, you can race in Italy all year long,” said Phinney who won Sunday’s closing time trial. “And you can race really high-profile Italian races and you’re basically a couple hours away from home all year. With the American races, the reason you see Americans on the top steps of the podium is we come here so motivated to do well that you really see the best side of each and every one of these guys who were up on the podium (Sunday).

“I don’t necessarily think it’s Europeans coming here and not performing. It’s about Americans stepping up their game. I know myself, I just dug deep into myself to join the front group (Saturday) over Lee Hill when Garmin attacked. We spend so much time away from home, it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing to come back here to big, open American roads and Chipotles on every corner.”

“It comes down to the mentality,” said third-place Levi Leipheimer, last year’s winner who trains out of Girona, Spain, next to Vande Velde. “We put everything out there we have of ouselves. That just shows the guys who come over from Europe aren’t quite as motivated.”

Leipheimer thinks it could change. Australian Michael Rogers won the 2010 Tour of California and Swiss Johann Tschopp won this month’s Tour of Utah, the first time foreigners won those two races. At the Pro Challenge, German Andreas Kloden finished fourth and countryman Jens Voigt won the King of the Mountain jersey.

“When other guys have success, like Jens did this year, it’ll pique the interest of the Europeans,” Leipheimer said.

Somewhat forgetten in the epic ride of Rory Sutherland in winning Stage 6 up Flagstaff Mountain and Levi Leipheimer getting the yellow jersey was 2011 Tour de France champion Cadel Evans abandoning at the feed zone just before reaching Ward halfway through the race.

His troublesome right knee from wear and tear this season forced him out.

“I’ve had the pain since the first or second day,” he said. “(Saturday), being hilly and so, I couldn’t be of any use to the team, especially the responsibility the team had today. I didn’t want to injure myself further without contributing anything to the team.”

Caught up with BMC Racing Team Sunday morning and got some quotes from Tejay van Garderen about losing his yellow jersey to Levi Leipheimer Saturday. He wasn’t terribly complimentary about his teammates. Van Garderen had only one teammate leading him up Baseline Road heading toward Flagstaff Mountain before Boulder resident Taylor Phinney joined in.

Guess it wasn’t enough.

“I tried getting on (Leipheimer’s) wheel,” van Garderen said. “I tried pulling him back immediately. I didn’t want to let him go. The guys who were with me were pretty much leaving it up to me to chase. Then a couple people started attacking, so I just started sitting on. I wasn’t getting a lot of help out there. In the last kilometer, it was just survival.”

Said BMC Racing Team assistant director Michael Sayers: “I think we did everything right. The team worked perfectly. We had a break we were satisfied with. The team did a perfect job not just today, but every day. We just came up a little bit short.”

Van Garderen is 21 seconds behind Leipheimer going into Sunday’s 9.5-mile time trial through Denver.

“It’s possible,” he said. “It’s going to take an incredible ride, but I think I can still win this race.”

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

Fans cheer on the peloton as it moves through The Narrows in Boulder Canyon up Highway 119 toward Flagstaff Mountain.

BOULDER — Observations at the USA Pro Challenge after Stage 6 from Golden to Boulder:

* It doesn’t match the views coming up the French Alps or Pyrenees in the Tour de France, but the view going up Flagstaff Mountain must be the best in American cycling. To your left as you climb up you see a vast valley running along the Rocky Mountain foothills. From on top at the amphetheater where they held the press conference, you saw all of Boulder County. The University of Colorado’s campus never looked prettier.

Sure beats anything in the Tour of California.

Read more…

BOULDER — Rory Sutherland’s epic Stage 6 win from Golden to Boulder Saturday capped his best year as a professional. It marked the Boulder resident’s third win of the year after winning the Tour de Beauce and Tour of the Gila.

These are his first wins since 2004 when, while with Rabobank, he won the Fleche Hesbignonne-Cras Avernas in Belgium, Stage 9 of the Olympia’s Tour in the Netherlands and Stage 3 of the Giro d’Abruzzo in Italy.

The Canberra, Australia, native changed his training base to San Diego but after a visit to Boulder he moved his base and family here in 2008.

“I came here originally in 2007 kind of on a whim when I signed with a U.S.-based team, Health Net at the time, and some of my friends were like, you can live anywhere,” Sutherland said. “You’ve always heard about Boulder. In the world, it’s kind of in the heartland of cycling. When we counted how many riders in the peloton who lived in Boulder (18) you came up with about 15 or 20 percent of them.

“Does it help me? I love living here. My family thrives here. We have so many friends here. Look at the terrain and the beauty we have right here. It’s pretty spectacular.”

COLORADO SPRINGS — Most American cyclists use Girona, Spain, or Tuscany in Italy for their European training base. Sprinter Tyler Farrar of Boulder-based Team Garmin-Sharp chose to live in Ghent, Belgium. Northwest of Brussels, Ghent is in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium. The 28-year-old Wenatchee, Wash., native is fluent in Flemish and French.

“I grew up through the U.S. National Development Program,” Farrar said. “I went over there the first time when I was 17 years old. They have a house in Belgium. So I spent four years in that program as a junior. I just got to know the place and made some friends outside of cycling in Belgium. I liked it so I stuck around.

“The classics are kind of my passion and living in the heart of that helps a lot. For one, I get to train on those roads all the time. Two, if you’re a classics rider and don’t live in Belgium, you basically have to live out of a hotel for a month every spring. I get to sleep at home most nights during that tmonth. It’s a small thing but it makes a big difference.”

COLORADO SPRINGS — Team Garmin-Sharp’s Tyler Farrar appears back in form from 2011 when he won a stage in the Tour de France to make him only the second American to win stages in all three Grand Tours. He easily won Friday’s bunch sprint into downtown Colorado Springs.

It was his second win of the USA Pro Challenge after winning the opening stage into Telluride.

“I think I’m riding well,” Farrar said. “Like I said about the first stage, it was a stage even if it came to a sprint I wasn’t confident I’d even make it there with the front of the race. The fact that I did shows me that I am on decent form. If you’re healthy after the Tour, you pretty much always have a good form. Obviously, the Giro and the Tour were disasters for me this year. I think I crashed more in the last six or 12 months than I have the last three or four years combined.

“It’s been really frustrating but I finally had a little time to get healthy, heal up. I think now everything’s back on track.”

COLORADO SPRINGS — Random observations after Friday’s Stage 5 from Breckenridge to Colorado Springs:

* I’m not surprised that everyone has shut up about Lance Armstrong’s decision to not fight USADA and, essentially, fall on his sword. The cycling community falls into three camps: One, the young guns were too young to really remember Armstrong in his glory of seven straight Tour de France wins; two, the older guys are sick of the controversy and want to move on; three, cyclists and directors who’ve testified against him have been sworn to secrecy.

Cycling will recover. It is cleaner. The number of drug busts during Grand Tours is a fraction of what it was seven or eight years ago, and the times up mountains are much slower. But when they write this sport’s epitath it will have to include that its greatest champion will have been stripped of seven Tour de France wins.

Yes, the sport will recover but it will be forever tarnished.

* Watching Garmin-Sharp’s Tyler Farrar sprint in this week-long stage race is like watching NBA players go one on one against high school kids. The Pro Challenge is in Colorado and brutally mountainous with high elevation. Few teams bring sprinters. This is Farrar’s first American race in three years.

He’s one of the world’s two or three best sprinters and it’s no contest, as it was here Friday, when he’s in a group with 300 meters left.

* Multiple laps of a city’s downtown, as they did around Colorado Springs, is a great way to end a race. Fans get to watch them multiple times. They don’t just see the peloton fly by, then pack up their chair and go home. You also see how teams set up their star sprinter for the final attack. Cycling is a surprisingly strategic sport and a keen eye can see who’s going to win a sprint from 500 meters away.

* I’m not looking forward to trying to get down from Flagstaff Mountain Saturday. From what I gather, the Escape from Saigon took less time than Saturday will. But I look forward to the throng on Panorama Point and the attacks up that 3.5-mile climb with the 1,200-foot elevation gain. If you have a bike, climb it in the morning — EARLY! — and time yourself. Then time the pros when they leave Chatauqua Park.

COLORADO SPRINGS — Looking ahead to Sunday’s closing time trial through Denver, race leader Tejay van Garderen doesn’t look back to last year’s time trial up Vail Pass. That’s when he lost the yellow jersey for good to eventual winner, Levi Leipheimer.

“Last year was different because it was an uphill time trial,” van Garderen said after keeping the yellow jersey in Friday’s Stage 5 from Breckenridge to Colorado Springs. “I went out too hard at that elevation. This time trial is flat and it’s lower elevation. I’ve done so many time trials this year and throughout my career, now I have a system dialed where you do the same thing every time. So far I haven’t had a bad time trial yet and I don’t think I’ll have one on Sunday.”

Jason Blevins | The Denver Post

Each Pro Challenge host was required to create some form of commemorative bike art. (Denver has a bike installation at DIA) Breckenridge jumped into the project with an emphasis on recycling. The town’s 30-foot, scale replica of the Eiffel Tower is latticed with parts from 150 scrap bikes gathered at Denver’s Western Metals recycling center. Designed by local artist-welder Tim Mitchell and built by a team from the Summit County Resource Allocation Park and Summit County Recycling, the sculpture reflects Summit County’s love for riding as well as its commitment to sustainability, said Pro Challenge organizer Lucy Kay.
The sculpture will soon be weatherized and Kay hopes the town can install the Bikeffel Tower on a new roundabout in town.

BEAVER CREEK — Here’s an interested tidbit about the first four stages of the USA Pro Challenge: All four stage wins have represented the first wins of the
year for each rider.

Stage 1-winner Tyler Farrar hadn’t won since Stage
3 of last year’s Tour de France, Stage 2-winner Tejay van Garderen
hadn’t won since last year’s Tour of Utah time trial, Stage 3-winner Tom
Danielson hadn’t won since the time trial at the 2009 Vuelta a Burgos
and Stage 4-winner Jens Voigt hadn’t won since Stage 4 of the 2010
Volta a Catulunya.

BEAVER CREEK — Friday’s 117.9-mile Stage 5 from Breckenridge to Colorado Springs will be a special race for sprinters who get rare opportunities to have a field sprint finish in the mountainous USA Pro Challenge. But it’ll also be special for Michael Creed, a Colorado Springs native who has never raced professionally in his hometown.

The 1999 Cheyenne Mountain High graduate is having a terrific week with the U.S.-based Continental team, Team Optum. He stands 24th overall, 1:04 behind leader Tejay van Garderen. Creed hopes to make his mark before family and friends Friday but sitting around Interstate 70, he had difficulties imagining a race through his own downtown.

“You’re in this bike racing bubble,” he said. “You kind of detach at a certain level because it is a race. But I think when we get into Divide and Woodland Park, come down through the Garden of the Gods, it’ll start hitting me a little bit that these are the roads I ride all the time.”

He’s based out of Colorado Springs and has been so-so with his week.

“I’m not climbing horribly but I’m climbing pretty decent,” he said. “It’s always hard to tell. If you look at the group (Wednesday) it was me and one other domestic guy. The rest were all Pro Tour riders. So it’s great to be up there but at the end of the day I was still 24th.”

Creed did something bigger than hold his own with the big boys. He held a fundraiser for the Pikes Peak Red Cross to raise funds for victims of the fire that ravaged the Colorado Springs area this summer. He went all over the cycling community and had people donate everything from jerseys to bikes.

“The goal was $20,000 and we raised $35,000,” Creed said. “It was really cool. I did it completely off of Twitter. I didn’t get a website.”

Jason Blevins | The Denver Post

The Sandovals, one of the founding families of Red Cliff, gather at the famed Red Cliff Bridge to watch the Pro Challenge

As kids growing up in the mining village of Red Cliff, brothers Sam and Leonard Sandoval would climb the girders beneath the iconic arched bridge and dangle their legs over their town. They’d scale the sharp, steep cliffs adjacent to the bridge and “screw around with water balloons,” said Sam.
“Wasn’t a lot to do growing up in Red Cliff,” Leonard said.

On Thursday, the Sandovals joined another brother and sister as well as their mom, who still lives in the tiny mountain hamlet, to watch Pro Challenge racers traverse the steel arched bridge that backdropped nearly every memory of their youth.

Sporting the “Team Sandoval” jerseys and socks they wear for every Ride The Rockies – they’ve ridden RTR 18 consecutive years, the Sandoval clan was jubilant not just for their reunion but the chance to show the world their homestead.

“When I heard the race was coming through, it was a vision of mine to watch the peloton come across this bridge,” said Sam, who calls the bridge the “Silver Bridge,” after the color of the girders before the bridge was restored and painted green in 2004.
The family arrived shortly after dawn to stake out an unfettered view of the bridge. By noon, several dozen more spectators had followed their lead and erected canopies along Highway 24 at the Red Cliff Bridge.
“We just knew this was going to be our spot,” Leonard said.