Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Lance Retires

As I'm sure you've heard (or read or mentally intuited or something), Lance Armstrong has announced that he is going to retire after the 2005 Tour de France. Not too surprising really; I expected him to retire after number six but I think the obligation of getting a new sponsor stretched him one more season.

Here in Georgia, it was really neat to see him pass the torch to Tom Danielson on the Queen stage at the Tour de Georgia. It was also prety impressive to see four Americans, all teammates of Lance's at one time, finish in the top five for the stage and the top four overall. A lot of people say that American cycling is in trouble with Lance's retirement and Tyler's suspersion but I'm thinking that things look good for American cycling. With Danielson as the up and comer and Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer and Bobby Julich riding strongly I feel that American cycling is in pretty darn good shape. Also, don't forget George Hincapie with his strong 2nd place showing in the hardest one-day sporting event in the world, Paris-Roubaix.

I see Tom doing really, really well. Tour contender for sure and very likely a winner if he can learn a few more skills. What's really great to see is his humility and respect for the sport and it's champions. Dropping Levi on the Brasstown Bald climb in the TdG was a really big deal as Levi has finished in the top ten in the TdF twice. I won't be too surprised to see a high finish in the Giro de Italia by Danielson in May. He will be riding in support of his team leader, Paolo Salvodelli but if 'Il Falcone' falters, I expect we'll see something special from Danielson.

As for me, I continue to train and race. My ride at Raccoon Mt. this year was good. I climbed well but lacked explosiveness for the final sprint. I finished 25th in a field of 100 and climbed in the top 15 riders. The race was a little more negative than I would have liked but it was a good outing for me. I've been doing some big gear work over the last week or so to continue to improve my power. Now if I can just lose some weight I think I'll be pretty scary at Augusta.

Thanks for reading.

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