Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Thursday, November 18, 2021
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2021 Tour de France | 2021 Giro d'Italia
Start every day off with a smile and get it over with. - W. C. Fields
Upcoming racing:
- Dec 5: Scheldecross Antwerp
- Dec 11: Ethiascross-Essen
- Dec 19: Namur Cyclocross
- Dec 27: Heusden Zolder Cyclocross
- Dec 29: Diegemcross
- Dec 30: Azencross
- Jan 1, 2022: GP Sven Nys Cross
- Jan 16 - 23, 2022: Le Tour de Langkawi
- Jan 22, 2022: Flandriencross
- Jan 26 - 29, 2022: Challenge Illes Balears
- Feb 12, 2022: Gavere Cyclocross
Latest completed racing:
- Nov 13: GP Leuven
- Nov 7: Elite Men European Cyclocross Championships
- Nov 6: Elite Women European Cyclocross Championships
- Nov 1: Koppenberg Cyclocross
- Oct 31: Vlaamse Druivenveldrit Overijse Cross
- Oct 24: Ronde van Drenthe
- Oct 23: Ruddervoorde Cyclocross
Les Woodland's book Cycling's 50 Triumphs and Tragedies: The Rise and Fall of Bicyce Racing's Champions is available as an audiobook here.
The team sent me this:
Multiple Ethiopian champion Tsgabu Grmay has committed to two more years with Team BikeExchange, after consistent riding and selfless teamwork with the squad over the past three seasons.
Tsgabu Grmay racing in the 2019 Tour of Switzerland.
The 30-year-old has been a valued and important support rider for the Australian outfit over the years and has gone from strength to strength, but with a lot of potential still inside of him.
After completing seven Grand Tours, Grmay’s wealth of experience has helped the team to many great results, with GreenEDGE Cycling please to continue supporting the talented Ethiopian as he signs on for his fourth season.
Brent Copeland, General Manager on Grmay:
“We are happy to be able to keep working with a collaborative rider such as Tsgabu. He is a real team player and with his help and commitment we will continue to bring lots of support to our climbers during the busy WorldTour season.
"He is part of our family and he had some difficult moments during the past months, but we have always supported and put full trust in him, and we are sure he will keep pushing and giving his best to help GreenEDGE Cycling reach many successes.”
Tsgabu Grmay:
“I’m so happy, lucky and proud to be part of this team and after three years I’m sure to say that it’s really a special team for me and why I was looking forward to renewing my contract. It hasn’t been an easy year for me with too many up and downs and I must say that the team continued to support me all the time, through all the good and bad times!
"I really appreciated the support of the team, and this was one more reason to stay in this family. For the coming years, I’m very motivated to do good racing and focusing on my climbing skills. I’m sure that I can improve more and achieve better results as well as helping my GC leaders.”
Tsgabu Grmay
Date of Birth: 25th August 1991 (30)
Nationality: Ethiopian
Joined GreenEDGE Cycling: 2019
New Contract: 2022 & 2023
Top Results:
1st Ethiopian Time Trial Championships (6x)
1st Ethiopian Road Race Championships (3x)
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Here’s the team’s post:
Already for a couple of years now, some of our riders gather together during winter times for track sessions coordinated by sports directors Tom Steels and Rik Van Slycke.
The new season is coming closer again as preparations have started. Sports directors Rik Van Slycke and Tom Steels meet up with the riders twice a week to train on the track in Ghent.
Training on the Ghent track. Photo: Wout Beel
“In the first place you bring together the group of riders again. It gives them structure in the week that they can train together twice a week, it also means those two days they don’t have to train alone on the road. In the winter it’s of course nice to build up again in warm conditions. It doesn’t matter if it’s cold or if it rains, as you’re training inside”, explains Tom Steels.
“Technically we work on the speed of the legs, the intensity to maintain that during winter. The cadence is higher than on the road, but it’s useful to train it. We combine it with power training, so it’s really a full program. Mostly the riders start with some stabilisation exercises on the ground, then two sessions of each half an hour behind the electric scooter and in between we do other exercises. We make sure there’s a lot of variety in it. There’s also some competition, as we end every derny session with five laps, and in the last two the scooter moves aside and they go full gas for it. Sometimes I watch it with my eyes closed, but it all went fine until now”, Tom smiles.
“I think we have already done this for ten years now. When we started almost nobody could ride on the track, but now that really changed. It’s fun, I do it together with Rik and it’s a nicely filled program”, concluded Deceuninck – Quick-Step’s sports director.
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Here’s the team’s announcement:
Committed, since 2020, to leaving behind a planet greener that the one they’re carrying their professional activity out at, the Movistar Team held in Sangüesa (Navarra, northern Spain) an event which they look forward to reaffirming their intentions with. The Telefónica-backed squad will plant 1,000 trees in the area, with a small portion of the seedlings sowed today in the presence of general manager Eusebio Unzué and top riders from the Blue outfit: Alejandro Valverde, Enric Mas, Lourdes Oyarbide and Sara Martín.
At a previously abandoned terrain, next to the road connecting Sangüesa with the nearby town of Sos del Rey Católico and over 1 ha (2.5 acres) of terrain, species of species as diverse as holm oak, walnut, phoenicean juniper or turpentine tree will be planted. Those arboles, agreed upon with regional and local authorities, are intended to increase the ecosystems’ resilience and biodiversity.
It is estimated that the project will sequestrate around 200 tonnes of equivalent carbon dioxide (CO2) over the next 40 years. That would allow the Movistar Team offsetting, and actually turning into a positive impact, the activities carried out during their last pre-pandemic season, 2019, where the first calculation of their carbon footprint was recognised by Spain’s Ministry for Ecological Transition, with 176 tCO2e.
Contributors to the project include, other than Abarca Sports -the society under which the Telefónica-backed squad develops its activities-, three other actors, Those are Forestmatic, a greentech startup connecting brands and businesses with verified, tree-planting projects, through a data-rich platform capable of tracking every single tree; Life Terra, an EU supported foundation with a mission to restore our connection with the Earth and to enable people to take impactful climate action now; and Volvo Cars España, official sponsor and car provider of the Movistar Team, whose sustainable mobility solutions have supported the day’s event. A special mention goes to the Regional Government of Navarra, with their LIFE-IP NAdapta-CC Project, and the City Council of Sangüesa for making this happen.
Other than contributions from the team itself, a portion of the expenses for this initiative have been paid through charity auctions the squad launched during the second half of the 2021 season. The most relevant, which took place during Paris-Roubaix, collected nearly €9,000 with signed jerseys of both the women’s and men’s teams at the famous one-day classic in France.
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