Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Sunday,
January 15, 2017
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2017 Tour de France | 2017 Giro d'Italia
There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves. - Will Rogers
Current Racing:
- January 15 - 22: People's Choice Classic & Tour Down Under
Upcoming Racing:
- January 24 - 29: Vuelta a San Juan
Latest completed racing:
- January 1-3: Mitchelton Wines Bay Cycling Classic
Spratt steals the show on stage one of the Santos Women's Tour
Orica-Scott sent me this race report:
Former Australian champion Amanda Spratt has stolen the show on the opening stage of the Santos Women´s Tour after attacking to claim an impressive solo stage victory into Meadows.
The recent Mitchelton Bay Cycling Classic stage winner has displayed great form in the early part of the season and today´s dominating performance gives her and Orica-Scott a dream start to the four-day home race; the first UCI race of the 2017 season.
“I am really happy I could pull it off for the team today,” explained Spratt. “We had a plan to attack a lot in the final and try to get a move away and that´s exactly what we did. It was a hard day out there, we went and had a look at this stage a few days ago so we knew it would be hard and we knew it would be up to us to dictate the pace after our successful performances recently.
“We probably felt the pressure a little bit but we knew we had to make the race hard and we did that really well. Everybody in the team really pitched in and gave it everything they had.”
Amanda Spratt winning the 2016 Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race
In an attempt to split up the race, Orica-Scott attacked multiple times with around 17kilometres to go and created a smaller leading group. Spratt made a perfectly timed counter attack off teammate Katrin Garfoot and was able to create the race winning move, going clear with two other riders coming into the final 10kilometres of stage one.
“I felt strong coming into the final climb when I was with Rushlee Buchanan (United Health Care) and Janneke Ensing (Ale-Cipollini)." Spratt continued. “Rushlee dropped off and I knew Janneke is a strong sprinter so I really didn’t want to take her to the line. I waited until the final part of the climb and attacked her, then I just gave it absolutely everything all the way until the finish line.”
Along with taking the stage victory today, Spratt now leads the overall standings, the points classification and mountains classification leaving sport director Gene Bates very pleased with the outcome of the day.
“Today went to plan, we knew the final 20kilometres of the race is where we could make the difference.” explained Bates. “The idea was to support Garfoot and Spratt and lead them into the first climb well and the girls did a great job of that they really split the race up there. It was a matter of using our numbers until they could get away in a good group and thats essentially what Spratty did, so it is a really perfect start for us.”
How it happened:
With the best ever field comprising of 17 teams and 102 riders at this year´s Santos Women´s Tour it was set to be a tough opening stage to the four-day tour.
After the feed zone at the 63kilometre mark, defending champion Garfoot launched an attack to test the waters, but the move was immediately shut down. It was with around 20kilometres to go when the main action happened, as Orica-Scott attacked relentlessly to create a smaller manageable from which Spratt attacked again and rode clear with two other riders.
Buchanan dropped off the pace as the lead trio headed towards the challenging 700metre steep Queen of the Mountains sprint just four kilometres from the finishing line leaving Spratt alone with just Ensing. Using her experience Spratt waited and launched another attack near the top of the climb enabling her to ride away and take the stage honours.
Tomorrow the Santos Women´s Tour heads to the centre of Adelaide for a stage two criterium race which preludes the elite men´s People´s Choice Classic.
Santos Women´s Tour stage one results:
1. Amanda Spratt (ORICA-SCOTT) 2:51:01
2. Janneke Ensing (Ale-Cipollini) +0:19
3. Katherine Hall ((United Health Care) +0:59
Pinarello says it needs more information on Velocite patent infringement claims
This came to me from Bicycle Retailer & Industry News:
KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan (BRAIN) — Pinarello has responded to public claims that its newest road frame, introduced this week, infringes on patents owned by Velocite related to a concave downtube, intended to smooth airflow over waterbottles.
Pinarello says its lawyers have responded to Velocite, a Taiwanese manufacturer, and are now waiting for more information on exactly which products are alleged to infringe and why.
“Providing this information is not ancillary but mandatory when an infringement is alleged,” the Italian company said in a response provided to BRAIN on Thursday morning. "Cicli Pinarello SpA, as a leading company in the cycling sector, obviously takes intellectual property issues with the utmost seriousness, Pinarello itself being a patent holder."
But Pinarello objected to the public nature of the charges from Velocite’s owner, Victor Major, who made a blog post about his complaints on Tuesday, the day that Pinarello went public with its new Dogma F10 frame, which has the downtube design.
“Although Pinarello can understand that his behavior may procure Mr. Major a rise in his notoriety, that same behavior is deeply unfair, since Mr. Major himself is perfectly aware that he chose not to discuss the issue with Pinarello,” the company said.
The Dogma F10 downtube.Pinarello said it “was, and is, available to discuss the matter with Mr. Major.” However, the company said it “will not tolerate and will take appropriate actions against any unsupported allegation, explicit or implicit, of being an infringer or a 'thief.' ”
Major said Velocite has design patents in China and Taiwan and an invention patent in Taiwan related to the design. He said he provided Pinarello with copies of the patents last summer and noted that Pinarello responded with images of earlier designs, including the Litespeed Archon frame, that indicated Pinarello was aware of the details of the claim. (Major said the Litespeed does not invalidate his patents because the Litespeed's design is primarily decorative and not aerodynamic.)
You can read the entire story here.
Team UAE Abu Dhabi headed to Vuelta de San Juan
The team sent me this update:
Sunday January the 15th Team UAE will leave Italy flying to Argentina, where they’ll participate in the Vuelta Ciclista a la Provincia de San Juan from 23rd to 29th January.
The members of the team of the sports director Mario Scirea will be six riders of high quality: Darwin Atapuma, Rui Costa, Filippo Ganna, Andrea Guardini, Przemyslaw Niemiec and Oliviero Troia. In the staff there will the physician Dr Angelucci, the masseurs Gallivanone and Lima and the mechanics Coelho and Morari.
Darwin Atapuma (shown after stage 7 of the 2016 Vuelta a España) will be racing in Abu Dhabi
Before the kick-off of the race, the team will exploit some days for training on the Colnago C60 bikes in order to improve the shape after the works performed in the training camp in Terracina.
This is the list of the stages:
- January 23rd, 1st stage: San Juan-San Juan, Etapa de Media Agua (142.5 km – sprinters)
- January 24th, 2nd stage: San Juan-San Juan, Etapa del Oeste (128.8 km – sprinters)
- January 25th, 3rd stage: San Juan-San Juan (11.9 km – individual time trial)
- January 26th, 4th stage: San MartÍn-San MartÍn (160.5 km – sprinters)
- January 27th, 5th stage: Chimbas-Alto Colorado (162.4 km – summit arrival at 2,565 meters)
- January 28th, 6th stage: Pocito-Pocito (185.7 km – sprinters)
- January 29th, 7th stage: San Juan-San Juan (138.2 km – sprinters)
“Guardini will be our captain for the sprints: he’ll have the opportunity to rely on the support of Troia and on Ganna, who’ll be both debut as pro riders – sports director Scirea commented – Our selection will be competitive also for the summit arrival, thanks to the presence of top climbers such as Atapuma, Rui Costa and Niemiec.
Atapuma will race for the first time in our team, during the season he’ll be an important resource for us and we’ll do our best in order to support him. Rui Costa never began the season so early, in Argentina he’ll try to exploit the work he’ll perform in Argentina”.
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