September 15/00 12:01 pm - Hokkaido, Olympic Fork, Survey, Birthday

Posted by Editor on 09/15/00
 

Tour de Hokkaïdo

The first stage of the 2000 Tour de Hokkaïdo is now behind us. Conditions were not to motivating for the riders. We got up this morning and the only thing we could see was rain, rain and yes, rain. Hopefully, things will get better by tomorow.

This year's Canadian squad is composed of Olympians Czeslaw Lukaszewicz and Eric Wohlberg; Andrew Pinfold, Jesse Keefer and Jacob Erker. The staff is composed as myself - Luc Arseneau - (manager), Chris Hines (mechanic), and Craig Deever (soigneur).

Things were not easy as the first major difficulty of the Tour will came within the first 20 km with a King of the Mountain climb. At km 33, we started to climb the second most difficult spot in this year's event, Jomon Pass. Tough way to start a stage race, especially for the smaller University teams who lost a few riders in the first difficulties of this Tour.

This first stage saw former junior World champion, Mark Scanlon of Ireland, win the sprint finish from a 51 riders front group. Three Canadians were part of this group: Lukaszewicz (13), Erker (29) and Wohlberg (35). Pinfold and and Keefer did not survive the majors climbs of the day and both finished 17:47 behind the winner.

We came close to victory with Lukaszewicz and Wohlberg attacking one after the other in the final 10 km. Wohlberg finally got out but was pulled back in the final kilometre by the work of the Irish team.

Things should get better with the days coming on. Most of our riders are still feeling the effect of the time change. Things should also get less mountainious for the next two day which will include the individual time trial and criterium on Sunday. Tomorow, we have a relatively rolling course of 176km waiting for us.

Luc Arseneau


Special Olympic Edition SID

Rock Shox has released a special edition SID for the Olympics - the SIDney. All Olympians who use RS forks will be on this fork. The Canadians on the fork are:

Chrissy Redden
Lesley Tomlinson
Roland Green

The specs on the fork: the SIDney fork is a mix between the 2001 SID SL and SID Race. A max travel of 80 mm with the new Pure Damping and Climb-it-Control will provide the best performance and control for the riders success. To save precious
weight, the fork will come with titanium hardware.

RS will produce a limited run of 500 units at a suggested retail of $699US. However, we have been informed that there are already 900 orders in...

Photo


HP Extends Sponsorship

Hewlett-Packard has announced that it will continue its title sponsorship of the Idaho HP Laserjet Women's Challenge through 2002. The HP is considered one of the toughest women's stage race in the world, taking place during the second and thrid weeks of June.


BTAC - Canadian Cyclist Survey

We have teamed up with the Bicycle Trade Association of Canada to conduct a survey of Canadian cycling enthusiasts. The survey will help members of the cycling industry to understand trends and patterns within the cycling community, so that they can better provide the products and services you, our readers, want. Canadian Cyclist will also use the survey results to better understand the demographics and cycling interests of our readers.

No personal identifying information is collected during this survey, and the data will become part of a report that is available to all members of BTAC - retailers, distributors and manufacturers in Canada.

We hope that you will take a few minutes to complete the survey, so that we can better serve your needs. Just click on the Take Our Survey button at the top of the page. If you have already participated, thank you.


Happy Birthday To...

Mountain biker Georges Visser (yesterday).