Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Sunday, November 20, 2016

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2017 Tour de France | 2017 Giro d'Italia

If experience teaches us anything at all, it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. - H. L. Mencken

Latest completed racing:

• October 9 - 16: World Road Cycling Championships
• October 20-23: Abu Dhabi Tour
• October 23: Chrono des Nations
• October 23: Japan Cup
• October 22-30: Tour of Hainan

BMC completes 2017 roster with Miles Scotson

BMC sent me this news:

19 November 2016, Santa Rosa, California (USA): BMC Racing Team today announced 2015 Australian U23 Road and Time Trial champion, Miles Scotson, as the final addition to the 2017 roster.

Scotson, 22, has forged his career on the track and was dual UCI Track World Championship in the Team Pursuit in 2014 and 2016, before racing as a stagiaire with Wanty - Groupe Gobert in the second half of the 2016 season.

"At BMC Racing Team we believe it is important to nurture the next generation of cycling talent and when you look at Miles Scotson's record on the track and road, it's clear that he is an excellent addition to our 2017 roster," General Manager Jim Ochowicz said. "Miles in an excellent time trialist and this year won the individual time trial at the Olympia's Tour, before going on to win the bronze medal in the U23 time trial at the UCI World Road Championships in Doha. With the emphasis we place on our individual and team time trials it's exciting to add a young talent like Miles to our ranks."

Scotson is looking forward to joining BMC Racing Team, particularly with the team's Australian connection.

"My motivation to sign with BMC Racing Team is that it's always been a team I've admired. The team has a strong classics squad and and are two-time world TTT champions and both are areas I'd like to target as a professional so I think the team is a perfect fit for me. I'm hoping to adapt to professional racing in Europe as fast and possible and learn from the experienced riders in the team," Scotson explained.

It will be a family affair for the Scotson family with younger brother Callum, 20, set to race for BMC Development Team in 2017. 

Etixx-Quick Step's Gent 6-Day update:

With two days to go, Iljo Keisse & Elia Viviani remain in contention for winning the general classification.

The fight for victory intensified at the Gent Six Day as the event is preparing to come to a conclusion this week-end. After four hard-fought days, three teams – Iljo Keisse/Elia Viviani, Bradley Wiggins/Mark Cavendish and Kenny De Ketele/Moreno de Pauw – have opened what looks to be an insurmountable gap on the other competitors and will go into Saturday and Sunday's races ready to give everything in order to reach their goal and get on the top place of the podium.

Friday evening, out of the 13 races in the program, the Team LIDL duo took one victory (the supersprint, where Keisse outclassed his rivals) and came on the podium on eight more occasions, showcasing once again the remarkable consistency they have displaced since the start of the Gent Six Day, a competition Iljo is trying to win for the seventh time in his career. In case of a success, he would be on equal terms with Australia's Danny Clark, one of the two riders who managed to come out on top in at least seven occasions.

General classification:

1. Bradley Wiggins/Mark Cavendish – 285 points

2. Kenny De Ketele/Moreno de Pauw – 295 points (+ 1 lap)

3. Iljo Keisse/Elia Viviani – 292 points (+ 1 lap)

SRAM to close its Kunshan factory in China; production to move to Taichung

Bicycle Retailer & Industry News sent me this report:

KUNSHAN, China (BRAIN) — Jeffrey Winterkorn, SRAM’s vice president of global manufacturing, told employees at the company’s Kunshan factory Monday that closing the plant was a “difficult decision.”

Winterkorn applauded the factory’s employees for the work they have done during the plant’s three years of operation. “They have shown great teamwork, strong employee engagement and commitment to quality,” he said. SRAM opened the factory in 2013 to supply China’s expanding domestic market.

As the global market for bicycles has slowed, SRAM’s factory had a utilization rate of only 20 percent, he said. SRAM, starting in June 2017, will transfer products produced in Kunshan to its Taiwan factories for production.

“Without meaningful growth in the mid to high end of the domestic Chinese market there wasn’t the scaling in business necessary to grow a supplier base around Kunshan that we needed to keep the factory growing," Stan Day, SRAM's CEO, told BRAIN in a call from Taiwan. “We folded our Guangzhou factory into Kunshan when it came on line, so now we have no factory in China. We will be servicing all our Asian customers from Taiwan where we are concentrating our resources."

Your can read the entire report here.

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