Americans love winners. It’s a cliché, but true. Taylor Phinney’s win in stage 1 of the Giro d’ Italia won’t project him onto the front page of newspaper’s here in the States as that’s reserved for the one bike race Americans know – the Tour de France. However, I’m hoping Phinney’s victory in Henning helps save cycling in the U.S.

Even the most casual follower of professional cycling knows that the sport has taken a beating like a red headed step-child. In the beginning we all cheered for Lance Armstrong, but as the accusations built his popularity took a hit. Sure, if he posts the most innocuous piece of information on Facebook gets hundreds of “likes.” But any chance of an Armstrong movie regarding his life story is gone.

America has also produced some great riders, but let’s face it – they didn’t have that certain je ne sais quoi to capture our hearts. And the Versus network didn’t do other American riders many favors by having their commentators frequently compare them to Armstrong, building up the mythology of the seven time Tour winner.

I’ve been told that certain American riders that I’ve interviewed are, when surrounding by friends, quite entertaining. However, with the press they clam up, for whatever reason.

The first time I interviewed Taylor Phinney he was still part of the U-23 Livestrong-Trek team. I spoke to him in the lobby of his hotel and the topics varied from dreams of winning Paris-Roubaix to being a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars.” He was open, not guarded, and also entertaining – giving me something that I knew the readers would enjoy rather than the usual, “I hope to have a good season and the team is great” bullshit.

With his time trial win the question was raised if he was the next “Lance Armstrong” which shows how one-dimensional some journalists can be, or perhaps that’s all they know.

Phinney responded that he’s a different type of rider than Armstrong, but then he said something else interesting.

“Hopefully I can push the image of the sport for the fan-base, but if you look at the riders that are around my age, whether it’s Tejay Van Garderen, Andrew Talanksy, Peter Stetina, there’s a vast number of US riders coming up who are doing really well.”

Pushing that fan base is what this sport needs here in the U.S. I hope his team allows him to take a couple of chances with that and let his personality shine through.

So I’m hoping that Phinney is able to have a little play on his leash before being jerked back by management. Otherwise we’re going to be left with dull interviews and riders that do little to inspire. This sport can’t afford for that to happen.

BMC Lambo

Ferrari has been a muse to Colnago for several years. According to the Colnago site the first Ferrari badged Colnago was the CF-1 with a limited production run of 500. And if you need to ask how much a CF-1 retailed for, you can’t afford one. However if you gotta have one, I discovered that the Bike Exchange in Australia is selling a 60cm Ferrari for 26,000 Australian dollars ($26,915 American).

Last year we saw Mark Cavendish on a Specialized Venge, which was designed in collaboration with McLaren Technology Center – famously known for their Formula 1 cars. Specialized claims that the result is weight savings and improved stiffness over a standard Venge.

Specialized offers the McLaren in flat black kitted with Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 with some assorted Zipp goodies for a retail of $18,000.

Today BMC announced an impec Lamborghini model. It looks to be the same BMC impac but detailed in a black and red color scheme. Naturally anything with Lamborghini stamped on it has to have a limited run and in this case it’s only 30 bikes.

Like the McLaren Venge, it also has Shimano’s Di2 with “exclusive high profile carbon rims.”

I mentioned on Twitter several days ago that I hadn’t seen the BMC squad racing the impec. I had heard from someone associated with the team that the robotically made frames had some issues. BMC’s media person replied to my question on Twitter saying, “the impecs were R&D tested for nearly two years. Now they’re in phase 2 and available to the public.” I’m not sure what phase 2 means, but I’m guessing/hoping that whatever problems BMC might have had with the impec were sorted out.

In VeloNews’ (now Velo) 2011 Buyer’s Guide BMC owner Andy Rihs said that the automobile industry’s mechanization of building cars is a success. He pointed out Toyota as an example of a company that made top quality cars with mechanization.

Can top quality bikes be made by this method too? There will be some bugs to work out – frames will fail due to real life circumstances – but I do see the automobile industry continuing to influence bike design (like McLAren) as well as construction. Ten years from now we could see robots, like the ones in the BMC factory, making frames day and night. Rihs expects to see a return on his investment in the “next three to five years.” Who said Cylons didn’t exist…

Boonen's victory proves I have a tiny bit of psychic ability

With the obligatory Amgen Tour of California question answered I wanted to know about the Tour de France. With teammate Tom Boonen in great form I jokingly made a Paris-Roubaix scenario to illustrate how strong the Belgian truly was.

“Boonen breaks away with 15 kilometers to go and wins solo. Now you don’t need to wake up early and watch it on t.v.,” I told Levi.

“I got a question,” said Leipheimer quickly, “How many times has he won before?”

Shit, I didn’t know I’d have to answer questions during this interview.

“Twice…three times.”

“Has he ever won it solo?” he replied rhetorically.

So here I was, just trying to make small talk and now I’m getting grilled on my knowledge of Boonen’s race strategies. I say something to the effect that Boonen is so strong that he can ride away solo.

“Why would he do that when he can beat them in a sprint?” he replied.

My idle small talk strategy is circling the drain as Leipheimer has called my bluff and is making me explain the reasoning behind the solo break away.

I decide to revise my Boonen scenario to something more “realistic.”

“Ok, he breaks away with a random French dude and Sagan.” Of course this was when we still thought the Liquigas rider was still lining up for The Hell of the North.

“There’s no French dude that can hang with him!” Leipheimer replies.

Leipheimer still won’t give me any slack.

“Ok, maybe he’s on a good day and it rides by his hometown and he’s inspired,” I explain.

Leipheimer has moved on and asks about Sagan.

“Can Sagan be there at the end?”

I admit that’s a bit of a stretch but it would be interesting to write about.

“I think it’s the same three guys from Flanders,” predicts Leipheimer.

As we saw it was almost the same three Flanders guys except my Random French Dude, Sebastien Turgot, squeaked in for second place by a tire nub.

Not the most exciting Paris-Roubaix, but an edition that showed Tom Boonen is the man for the Classics. And it also showed that I might have a tiny bit of psychic abilities too.

They taste like victory with a dash of crushed dreams

Remember the Dirk Hofman Motorhome banners we’d see in the final 100 meters of all the classics. So far this year I haven’t seen them. However, this guy seems to have taken his spot. With about 17 kilometers remaining in the Tour of Flanders and then again at the finish this guy was waving his huge “Tornado Tom Frites” banner.

You might remember that Boonen also has a training book, which I suspect doesn’t mention frities as part of any training plan.

For those who may not know – frites are primary known as a Belgian snack similar to our French fries but with mayonnaise and are great for soaking up excess beer in your stomach.

Check out the spectator that gets spun around by Sebastian Langeveld. He steps away from the crash like he wasn’t involved. He starts to approach Langeveld, but then turns around and returns to his group. That’s a dick move in my book not to even check how serious Sebastian hurt!

According to Cyclingnews Langeveld was going between 70 to 80 kilometers an hour when they collided. The result was a broken collarbone for the GreenEdge rider and I’m guessing a sore calf for the lucky spectator to go along with a lifetime of story telling at the local pub.

I don’t completely blame the spectator for the crash, but really? Not even try and help out?

Also check out the balls on the guy in the white sweater standing between the trees on the extended sidewalk before the crash. As the peloton screams towards him, swarming on both sides, he doesn’t move a muscle – almost daring them to hit him!

Belgian spectators – they’re a different breed.

UPDATE

TourDeJose twittered the link to an interview with the spectator that ran into Langeveld. Dutch sport site, SportWereld, said that for spectator Didier Vanovertveldt Kluisbergen it was his first and last time watching a bike race.

While Langeveld broke his collarbone, Kluisbergen suffered an injury to his leg and heel.

“Everyone cared about the rider, no one looked at me. I had three kilometers on foot to stumble home,” said Kluisbergen. As a result Didier is laid-up for a week.

Langeveld said on his personal website that he doesn’t blame Didier and said it was just a reflexive reaction to the peloton charging toward him.

As I’m not able to speak, read or even know how to use a Dutch oven, I’m releying on a Google translation of the article, but it quotes – I’m guessing – someone from the Dutch (Belgian?) cycling federation as saying Langeveld shouldn’t have ridden on the bike path which ran adjacent to the road.

“The rules are clear: riders must ride on the road and not on the separated bike path. In this leading edge to the Old Kwaremont cycle is clearly separated. Langeveld was in error. ”

Some holidays we share worldwide – just perhaps not on the same day. Other holidays are exclusive to certain regions. This is why I don’t expect you to know that this is national cleavage day.

For others this is the day before arguably the best one-day race of the season – the Tour of Flanders, AKA De Ronde. I won’t go into the controversy of the how the Muur and the Bosberg were eliminated from the course as I’m going to hold judgment until after the race. But wow, it stirred up as much controversy as a magazine sex investigation. However, I will say that everything changes eventually.

My favorite for the race continues to be Fabian Cancellara of the RadioShack-Nissan conglomeration. For my dark horse pick I’m going with Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale). It’s hard to believe that Sagan is only 22 years old. I’m hoping that he has someone watching out for his overall best interests and doesn’t run him into the ground like an outlawed lawn dart.

Of course we can’t forget Tom Boonen. He’s been on a tear and he’s fired up this season with seven victories. You can expect this tally to rise as the season progresses. While he’s been deflecting the favorite status like a zombie bite, he’s still many people’s pick for Sunday.

Even though Andy Rhis made it rain in the off-season with the excitement of an NFL player in an Atlanta strip bar, the BMC boys have only racked one V in the win column this season. I have faith that Cadel Evans will be the contender for the 2012 Tour de France, but I’m having doubts about their Classics season. Teeth problems (Gilbert), stomach problems (Hushovd) and continuing doping investigation (Ballan) have scuttled their early-season chances.

If I had his season I'd be all smiles too

If you’re looking for the nitty-gritty of Flanders, The Inrng has you covered from weather conditions to the course and the contenders.

But while all this prognosticating was going in the early morning, Jens Voigt had minivan problems and broke down on the side of the road. Thankfully he tweeted the whole experience in addition to letting us know he thought Metallica was the best band. Ever.

Photo: Team Sky

Pate passed me on his bike talking to a fellow racer as he rolled over to the press conference. I don’t remember verbatim what he said but I swear Pate said he wanted to throw his third place medal into the nearby Reedy River.

That comment stuck with me because I would have been thrilled to have finished third in a national championship – but stating the obvious – I don’t race bikes for a living. For the most part a professional racer cares about one thing – winning. Also, the US Pro road race at that time didn’t have prize money. First or DFL you received the same amount of prize money – zero. The only thing worth sprinting for was the honor of wearing the Stars and Stripes jersey.

Last week I interviewed Danny Pate for Cyclingnews.com. He had moved on from Garmin, transferred to HTC-Highroad in 2011 and for 2012 signed a two-year deal with Team Sky. The purpose of my interview was to catch up with him, talk about Paris-Nice and adjusting to another new team. I asked the questions I needed for the interview and then I remembered him being upset after the US Pro road race, so I asked him.

“I was upset at several thing there at that race,” Pate told me. “I was upset at how that race worked out. The radios weren’t working. I was mad, because of course, I didn’t win and our team didn’t even win.”

“I was mad at a couple of people, but that’s what happens.”

I asked who he was mad at and he jokingly replied that he was mad at me.

“There’s a lot of people mad at me. You need to get in line,” I replied.

As the date for the US Pro championships gets nearer I have a feeling that this will be the last time Greenville will host the race. The race has been in the Southeast for seven years and prior to that in Philadelphia ever since they handed out professional road race national championship jerseys.

Is 2012 last time Paris Mtn will see US Pro?

“The Request For Proposal (RFP) has been out from USA Cycling for over nine months now and I know they have had on-going discussions with several cities and partner sponsors that want to be part of the event,” said Aronhalt.

“Greenville has been considered, but obviously with the para-cycling world championships [awarded to Greenville for 2014] I’m sure there’s a question should they continue with both or stay focused on para-cycling.”

“As of now Greenville has not said no, we’re not going to bid on this, but they haven’t submitted a bid.”

It was suggested to me by someone with some inside knowledge that this is Greenville’s final year as a host.

Micah Rice, Managing Director of National Events, emailed me stating that an official announcement of where the US Pro will be contested might come in “early May we think.”

For selfish reasons I’d love for it to continue in my hometown of Greenville, but I also recognize that for the growth of the sport the championships need to be contested in another city. Perhaps the West coast? Maybe a course in Colorado? I guess we’ll find out in a couple of months.

Frankie in action Photo: James Startt

I spoke to Frankie during the camp and as expected he was keeping busy getting the squad organized with the new equipment and the general organization that needs to happen when you get 20 cyclists together. After discussing the team’s goals and his hope that they get an invite to the Amgen Tour of California, Andreu told me about his plans for July.

“I’m going to go back (to the Tour de France) for Bicycling Magazine,” said Frankie. “It will be James (Startt) and I again. I had a lot of fun doing it because it was a lot more relaxed and I had a lot more freedom to talk and discuss about whatever topics we wanted.”

This is great news as I thought the commentating duo of Andreu and Startt were excellent – they were both obviously having fun and know the sport inside and out.

“He knows a lot about cycling and the history,” said Andreu of Startt. “He’s been behind the camera for so long that he has a pretty good relationship with a lot of the riders – that helps.”

So good luck to the Kenda/5 Hour Energy team in their bid for an invitation to California and stay tuned for Frankie and James in July.

Honestly I can’t say I’m totally surprised that the federal investigation into Lance Armstrong has been dropped. The reason for my lack of surprise? The investigation seemed to be dragging on and on. The burden of proof is much higher in these types of cases and while it was rumored that some of Armstrong’s teammates gave it up apparently there was no concrete evidence. The Boulder Report’s Joe Lindsey reported that Armstrong’s ex-teammate Yaroslav Popyvych just replied “nyet” during his two-hour grand juror testimony.

Another more “conspiracy theory” thought is that the fix was in and someone higher up with pull closed this investigation down. Armstrong knows people in high places.

Armstrong, the brand and person, has built up a considerable amount of goodwill. We all know about the LiveStrong Foundation, but not many realized there was a for profit arm of LiveStrong. In fact, few realized that LiveStrong.org has stopped donating money to research at all – and a significant amount goes to marketing. And to be clear, there’s nothing illegal about it – just self serving.

During the Armstrong investigation Barry Bonds and the infamous BALCO case came and went. The final result was Bonds was placed under house arrest for 30 days. Not an encouraging sign for Food and Drug investigator Jeff Novitzky as he was also the central investigator into what could have been the biggest cycling scandal in modern times. All that time and effort and it amounted to an adult “time out” for the baseball player.

If the case had continued and Armstrong was found guilty of fraud, seven Tour de France titles were on the line of being stripped, forcing a complete rewrite of cycling history. And looking at who was on the lower steps of the podium during the Armstrong era, how far down the general classification would the ASO have to go to find a clean winner?

Tyler Hamilton stepped forward and confessed on 60 Minutes to organized doping within the Postal Service team. Yet, nothing happened. Armstrong had by now employed Mark Fabiani, a former White House special council and now professional spin doctor for high-end clients in a fix or companies that need a crisis clean-up. Fabiani railed against Hamilton, Floyd Landis and everyone who dared to throw stones at the Armstrong myth.

Then suddenly the Feds pulled the plug on the criminal investigation. Charles Pelkey said that Novitzky wasn’t made aware of that decision until 30 minutes before the press release. However, Travis Tygert, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, issued a statement.

“Unlike the U.S. Attorney, USADA’s job is to protect clean sport rather than enforce specific criminal laws. Our investigation into doping in the sport of cycling is continuing and we look forward to obtaining the information developed during the federal investigation.”

A phone call and text message to Mr. Tygert asking about what USADA’s next move might be weren’t answered.

So what does this mean? The Feds were conducting a criminal investigation of Armstrong under the RICO act. USADA investigates for doping in sports. Two different things. While the Feds have a dossier of information it cannot be used by USADA and is sealed forever. If anything does get leaked the person who leaked it can go to jail.

However, as I was about to post this article John Fahey, the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), issued a statement.

“A large amount of the evidence gathered is likely to be highly pertinent to doping and WADA expects that this evidence will be shared with relevant anti-doping authorities for them to determine whether any breaches of the anti-doping rules have occurred.”

My gut feeling is that this is posturing to save face. Sure WADA can ask for the evidence, but again, I’ve been told by a lawyer that the evidence is sealed.

So while Tygert says that his organization is continuing to investigate they are facing an uphill battle. USADA has limited funds and they don’t have the legal pull to compel anyone to say anything.

For Landis a couple of things can occur. Allegedly Landis has his own legal suit against Armstrong asking for damages. Think O.J. Simpson. The football player was found not guilty but taken to civil court by the Goldman family where the burden of proof is lower. Armstrong could possibly try to settle with Landis rather than go to court and see his ex-teammates subpenaed and forced to publicly testify. There’s no sealed grand jury to protect them. Or Landis could throw his hands up and walk away from this whole thing.

My personal take on the situation is that the Feds could no longer fight this battle due to political pressure. Releasing the statement late Friday, days before the Super Bowl, promised to push it to the back of the sport pages and by Super Bowl Sunday it’s a distant memory for 99.9% of the population. Also, Fabiani and his partner Chris Lehane worked in the White House and as @RaceRadio stated on Twitter, “worked daily with with Clinton’s lawyer Lanny Breur who is now head of the Fed’s criminal division.” That’s an interesting six-degrees of separation.

I also find it interesting that Armstrong has been deafeningly silent about the conclusion of the case on Twitter – his social media platform of choice when he wants to gloat about something. Did his team of lawyers get a hold of him and confiscate his iPhone to prevent him from saying something damaging?

Many of you have a firm opinion about Armstrong – he’s guilty as sin or he’s a persecuted man. I won’t try to convince you one way or the other. But this will continue and the Lance Armstrong legacy is still not in the clear.

This past Wednesday I wrote a post regarding the Shiv road bike that Specialized’s creative director Robert Egger has been riding on the the company’s famous lunch ride. Like many of you I was intrigued by the idea of taking a time trial bike – in this case the Shiv – and converting it to a road machine.

I wondered out loud how the Shiv frame would handle in a road situation and if there had been any modifications to the frame to make it more road-like. I e-mailed Robert and he was kind enough to respond to my questions.

Browne: I realize that the frame isn’t UCI legal, but how often do these one-off projects become reality?
Egger: We are always trying new ideas. I love to borrow (steal) ideas from other segments of our business. When we were working on the Shiv Tri I knew right away it could make an interesting road bike.

The shapes up close are really beautiful, the wind tunnel told us what the shapes needed to be. I felt the sheer size of the downtube would be a great canvas for a crazy graphic. I used our old 74′ graphic as a way to balance old and new. I like that tension in Design.

I like to do these exercises to make us think about what can BE. Our biggest enemy in the bike industry is complacency. We have to evolve and reinvent. Realistically one out of 10 make it. Probably not nearly enough…….

Browne: Was this Shiv road bike just a fun project or is it being used to test a possible new aero-type frame?
Egger: I will get in trouble if I say too much here. We are never satisfied with what we are doing today. For me this project was partly about making a cheater bike for our very competitive lunch race.

Browne: How does it ride?
Egger: I set the bike up with the same seat and bar position as my normal road bike (actually also a cheater bike). It rides quite well but certainly lacks the lively ride of an SL4. I find myself riding a gear higher with the same amount of energy. On the flats it’s a dream! I haven’t done any longer climbs but I felt no compromises on an undulating course.

The Shiv TT frame in action

Browne: Did you change to angles on the frame or fork to make the handling more “road bike like”?
Egger: Angles are per our existing Shiv geometry.

Egger also confirmed that the carbon fiber layup hadn’t changed and it was a standard Shiv production frame.

While Egger is coy about what features could dribble down into a road bike, I can imagine that the 2014 models and beyond will be Shiv influenced. Other bike companies are also embracing aerodynamics in their road frames: Scott Foil, Cervelo P3, Felt AR, Neil Pryde Alize…you get the point.

Just one more thought – can you imagine if the UCI’s 3:1 aero ratio rule didn’t exist? Seat stays with aero farings? Seatposts with whale tail spoilers? Pointy head tube? Hmmm…