Road Bike Racing - Tour of Georgia

Roland green is reported to be starting the Tour of Georgia today for USPS. Also Floyd Landis is returning to racing. Can anyone beat Saturn? The tour looks like a good race! My pick is vaughters to win.

If Floyd is riding Tour of Georgia he could be
a real spoiler.
I'm not sure of the starters but I like Horner
also.
Then again look for Schroeder Iron Works (is that the
team name?) to be right there in the action. Real
hungry team.

Marty

Saturn DOES look pretty dominant so far.

Saturn's been dominant but they haven't come up against the Navigator's top talent (Vogels, Grishkine, Davidenko) who have had some stellar results while racing with the big boys in Europe (Vogel's 2nd place in Gent-Wevelgem, etc.)

I look for some tough competition (finally) with Freddy Rodriguez taking a stage.

I'll be curious to see how Saturn, and the other strong stateside teams, look when the Posties are in the mix.

Saturn is good, but it may be partly big fish/little pond syndrome. Personally, I'd like to see the stateside boys (any of 'em) kick @ss.

USPS will have their "B" team in Georgia. The only ones I think you will see from the European squad will be Landis (rehabilitating) and maybe Damon Kluck for a little seasoning. Look for Saturn to win, they have to many big guns and they all appear to be peaking right now. As for Navigators they hit me as being more of a one day race squad where Saturn has already won two major stage races this year.

Originally posted by georgesnatcher
Saturn has already won two major stage races this year.

I'll assume that refers to major domestic stage races, which, in my view, equates to terribly minor events on the international cycling landscape.

Danielson smoked a very good field with several European division one riders in the Tour of Langekiwi.

I've been unable to get on the forums for a while due to a fubar computer so i just had to take some time here at work to say WOO HOO! I can't wait for the race to get to Atlanta.

OK...sorry...I just had to get in a post on this subject. I've had BikeForum withdrawls real bad.

I hope to see all of y'all out at the race.

Roland green did pretty well in the opening prologue, so did fellow canadian eric Wohlberg (cdn time trial champ).

Tour of Geo.looks like a neat race. It's the ideal state to have a tour like that, if you think of it. Right size, mountainous area in the north, great weather (as long as you don't have it in july). I wonder what other states could do that. New York State would be good- it also has mountains. Connecticut has the Housatonic valley race. States you wouldn't do: Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio!

Originally posted by georgesnatcher
Danielson smoked a very good field with several European division one riders in the Tour of Langekiwi.
Indeed! I said Saturn is a stateside team, but they crossed the great water for the Langkawi.

Overall, I think it's a tough call. Even USPS's "B" team is something many riders aspire to. I wouldn't be surprised if Danielson was a member by next season. I gotta think Saturn's more motivated than USPS. And, face it, this is the big US stage race event. So the homeboys are going to want to make a show. They did today!

Originally posted by wabbit
States you wouldn't do: Texas . . .

Well I don't know about that. Texas is 1.25 times as
large as France (692.5 sq Km vs 551.5 sq. km.) so we
could put on a 3 week race.
Of course we would have to change
some of the classifications of climbs (hors cat would be
like what, 1000ft above sea level?).
There would be the infamous Col de SUV, Col De Cou Rouge,
and Col de Vent Chaud.

We would add lots of interesting stuff into the ride,
like tornados, long horn cattle, and mandatory shiner bock
breaks. Instead of tossing bidons, riders would dodge
Bud Light bottles gracefully arcing through the air towards
them.
The roads would be painted with not favoured riders
names but cute colloqualisms such as "Furiner go home",
or "sissyboys ride bikes".
I nominate the ride as "Tour de Tejas " But I'd be
open to other suggestions.


Marty


Then there would be the aftermath of the tex-mex
musette bags and Iced tea bidons, that would kind
of level the playing field, eh?

LOL... heehee. I think that, and the fact that texas is just too damn big would be deterrents!

However, think of the orange juice stands set up at various spots along the way. I hear there's nothing like texas orange juice! Except maybe Florida or California.

Originally posted by georgesnatcher
Danielson smoked a very good field with several European division one riders in the Tour of Langekiwi.

Yep. I stand partially corrected. :) That was a great ride by Danielson.

I can't quite decide how I rank that event though. Does it have a large payout? Yes, even larger than the Tour of Switzerland. Is it as prestigious a title as the Tour of Switzerland, Dauphine Libere, Paris-Nice, etc. Not even close, in my opinion. Let's face it, the REAL contenders for the season's spoils aren't in shape and going 100% in that event, if they even bother to ride it. It is a nice event for spreading cycling to more remote corners of the earth, but is it a major event? I'm not so sure.

That isn't to take anything away from Danielson. I think that he shows tremendous promise.

Also, Saturn is doing very well for a "domestic" team, and Navigators getting a podium spot in Gent-Wevelgem is wonderful and shocking.

For a tour update

http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/tour/0403/24tour.html

An update of Thursday's stage, Macon to Columbus:

http://www.tourdegeorgia.org/stagetwo.asp

I was happy to see our local team get a long breakaway by Lionel Syne for about 4 hours today. Go Webcor!

Roland seems to be doing all right on the road. He is third in the GC and the highest level Postie. Saturn is very strong. Probably good enough to have gone to Europe if they had the funds from GM. Not likely with Saturn having just shut one of two plants due to slow sales. And is definitely the 'B' team from Postal. Horner seems to have it all sown up, despite the whining by Navigators (even if they are from NJ). Would be interesting to see RGreen go on the road full-time for the Posties next year. He would have been either second or third in Langewai if he hadn't flatted at the bottom of the last climb when the peloton was really steaming. He lost over a minute and could only get back up to fourth, overall. Very impressive. He is really pulling in some good points for the Canadians for the finals in October.

Tomorrow's Liege race should be really good. Lance has stated that he wants to win. Ullrich is also in this and is showing surprisingly good form. Wish I could watch on TV.

Iotek - You need to go back and look at your TX map. The highest point in TX is 8745 feet in the Guadaloupe Mountains just west of Carlsbad Caverns. Lots of long, steep roads to climb out that way. Tour de Texas would work just fine. Need to fly the peloton around a bit, just like in France. But would be OK.