Hincapie: Roubaix on the mind

With the first UCI race of the year in the books and training camp completed, BMC Racing’s George Hincapie returned home to Greenville, South Carolina for a bit of rest and relaxation before he begins his Spring campaign. However, that relaxation will be short lived as his first European race of the season is set for the end of the month in Belgium’s opening weekend of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. Hincapie will then travel to Italy for Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo, before heading back to Belgium. Next on the agenda is Ghent-Wevelgem, which has been moved to a Sunday and lengthened this year, followed by the Tour of Flanders.

Naturally, these races are all a build up to the race where victory has so far eluded him – Paris-Roubaix. With seven top ten finishes in “Hell of the North” including a second in 2005, the American is part of the rare breed of cyclists that posses a passion for the cobbled classics.

Hincapie took the time to speak to VeloNation regarding his new teammates and how they will play a role in the team, his relationship as not only a rider, but also as a team sponsor, and what new technology BMC is going to be showcasing once the season is underway. Of course we ask the question that is on everyone’s lips, “Are you going to win Paris-Roubaix?”

VeloNation: You’re back home from BMC’s training camp. How does that compare to other training camps you’ve attended? How does it compare to the other bigger teams you’ve been a part of?

George Hincapie: As far as that is concerned the team, the management and the organization is right on par with any other team I’ve been on. There is all the same sort of things that go on like all the other camps I have been to. We talk about equipment, schedules, and team technology. We were busy all day from core [workouts] in the morning, to training in the mid-morning through the afternoon and then meetings before dinner. I really enjoyed meeting all the new guys. The level of the team is going to be a much higher than most people expected.

Complete interview at VeloNation.com

George set the tempo all weekend CREDIT: Chris Anderson

This past weekend the 2010 Hincapie Development squad got together for the first time. Excitement had been building for the riders the week before and the U23 riders were chomping at the bit to throw a leg over the new Shimano Dura-Ace, Ritchey and Thomson equipped BMC Pro Machine. This was going to be my first time meeting the riders as a mentor/coach for the team. The Hincapie’s have been spending their time and resources on developing future American talents and it was starting to come to fruition. Craig Lewis, now a member f the HTC-Columbia squad, got his start on a team sponsored by Hincapie Sportswear. Chris Butler, a member of the Hincapie Devo team last year who made the jump to BMC for 2010, is heading off to the team training camp in California at the end of the month. Strad Helms is another rider from the Hincapie Development class of ’09 that made the jump to the big leagues joining Team Type 1 for 2010. With that kind of track record this year’s crop of U23 riders should be showing results.

Friday night was the first official team meeting. And like any professional organization there were certain rules and regulations that are expected of the riders. As I sat there I thought how similar this was to other pro team training camps I’d attended. Just before forms were filled out and swag bags passed out Steve Baker, Hincapie team liaison/mentor, reminded the riders how important this opportunity was to them. He also relayed the fact how important it was to the team that no one drops out of a race unless it’s an injury or mechanical failure. “George doesn’t quit a race.” Baker said. I thought about that and I couldn’t think of an instance when George Hincapie headed to the broom wagon because he’s been dropped or when the race wasn’t going his way. The times he hasn’t finished a race was when he had crashed out and was physically unable to cross the finish line. Crossing the finish line, or completing what you say you are going to do, is an important trait for the Hincapies whether in a race or in the business world. Hopefully the riders on the team will pick up on this type of work ethic and transfer it to their daily lives.

Sponsor goodies courtesy of Oakley, Giro & Hincapie Sportswear

Saturday was a team training day and George met the squad to lead the ride. This Tuesday he packs his bags and leaves for the Tour Down Under, so he still needed to log training miles. The temperature in the morning was in the 20s. Thick tights, insulated jackets, shoe covers and full finger gloves were the bare essentials for the day. Our group had swelled to over 20 riders which included almost the entire Hincapie Devo team, as well as also mentor riders and supporters. We rolled down the road, riding two abreast, George at the front keeping a steady tempo. I have ridden with pros before and I am always in awe of how easily they flick over the pedals as if the cranks were just an extension of their legs. George is no exception and kept the pace constant and unwavering. Beyond the smooth nature of Hincapie’s pedaling I also noticed new BMC rider Chris Butler’s style. Butler’s pedaling is just as fluid, however his body is more compact than George – the obvious morphology of a climber with the results to back it up. Butler is a student at Furman University in Greenville and had planned on missing part of the upcoming BMC camp. That has changed and he is going to attend the full training camp, which means recon rides of key Tour of California stages. The new devo riders showed the potential that caught the eye of Hincapie Sportswear and showed a certain amount of souplesse as we ticked over the miles. None of the riders had hunched shoulders and sloppy pedaling technique even after several hours in the saddle. When it was all said and done my Garmin 705 laid out the facts: we’d ridden for three and a half hours, 60 miles total and with an elevation gain of 5,800 feet (twice over Paris Mountain). Not too bad. I didn’t hear any whining or complaining from any of the riders, even when we made that left hand turn to climb over Paris Mountain for the second time.

The following day was a shorter ride with George again riding point. While the previous day’s ride was well over 20 riders, Sunday’s was down to the devo riders, mentors and George. We zig-zaged across the Upstate with seemingly no rhyme or reason. George apparently knew where we were going as he confidently and without hesitation pointed which way to turn. He must have the innate gps-like ability of a homing pigeon as I had no idea where we were. I have written this before and I’ll say it again; I don’t know why most pros don’t live in this area. The conditions are fantastic. Sure we’re in the middle of an unusual cold snap, but when dressed for the conditions, it isn’t that much of a hardship. And I can count on one hand how many cars we encountered once we were out of town.

This is what it looks like to follow George up Paris Mountain

After about an hour and 40 minutes George and Chris Butler turned right, heading to the six-mile climb of Caesar’s Head. For those two it was another long day in the saddle, but for us it was time to head for home. With riders coming from all over the southeast, a few riders were facing several hours drive back home. Back at the starting point it was a little over two hours, but with some heavy legs from the previous day, that was enough. It’s only January and a lot of racing is still in front of them.

It was a great weekend of riding. We rode, swapped stories and consumed massive amounts of well deserved calories together. Some riders knew each other and the staff, but for me it was a great opportunity to get acquainted with the riders and be a part of something that these guys will always remember.

Hincapie Sportswear Development Roster
Stephen Colavito
Justin Lowe
Parker Kyzer
Tyler Karnes
Mike Stone
Blair (Edison)Turner
Logan Haskew
Matt Lipscomb
Aubrey Moore

Sponsors
BMC
Hincapie Sportswear
Shimano
Oakley
Giro
Thomson
Ritchey
FinishLine

Hincapie photo by Chris Anderson

National champion kit

One of the advantages of riding with the Hincapie Sportswear staff is that I’ve gotten to see or hear the inside scoop on what’s going on with the BMC team. When I rolled into the office today for a ride, UPS had just dropped off a huge shipment of the first batch of team issue BMC clothes. The staff was quickly separating what the team needed for the upcoming Tour Down Under and what they need for the California training camp later this month. While they allowed me to take a look at the new kit I had to take a blood oath not to post pictures or even discuss what colors they used. I’ll say that the kit looks clean and will standout from the rest of the peloton.

I spoke to Rich Hincapie about the production details of the clothes Hincapie Sportswear had to produce for the BMC team. Add to the fact that the team has two current American national champions, a world champion, as well as former national champions on the team there needs to be elements beyond a standard jersey design. The UCI has certain standards for how a world champion stripes, as well as how a national champion jersey, is to look. After the technical details of how wide the stripes need to be or exactly what shade certain colors needs to be, the rider gets to weigh in on the design. This takes a lot of emails back and forth with the rider and many late nights at the office. After seeing the kit myself and witnessing the work first hand, I’m confident that the tifosi will approve.

Quick Facts:

• The BMC team has 23 pro and three U23 riders.
• Each rider will get approximately 60 pieces of cycling clothing throughout the year. Clothing is replaced when riders crash, lose them or wear out.
• Casual clothing will include Hincapie denim jeans, track suits and collared shirts. If you want to hear a fun story ask Rich what he had to do to the track jackets before they were sent to the team.
• The total amount of clothing pieces sent to the team are in the thousands (in addition to the basic kit of shorts and jersey there are many different types of gloves, various skinsuit types, various jackets and shoe covers to name just a few pieces).
• The retail cost for the amount of clothing for the team is between $300,000 to $400,000.

There's a lot of clothes that need to be checked in

BMC Pro Machine full Campy, Easton parts, Speedplay pedals

It is officially the beginning of the pre-season. Teams are coming together around the globe for training camps. There have been some early training camps, but those are mostly for the sake of the press and sponsors. The camps from here on out are getting a little more serious. Today I had an early evening meeting with Hincapie Sportsware. I will be one of the mentor/coaches of the U-23 Hincapie Development squad and at the end of the week the U-23 guys are coming to Greenville for a mini version of a training camp. We’ll be handing out team products, explaining goals and aspirations of the team and having a good time for the few days that we are together. I am very much looking forward to working with the riders. It’s going to be a great year of racing and riding from a personal standpoint. I’m hoping these young pups will whip me back into shape.

As I was waiting for the meeting, the Hincapie art department was doing a photoshoot with George in the new national champion kit along with his new bike. Over the din of the cranked to maximum spaceheater I think someone said his BMC Team Machine was 15.1 pounds. Soon George will be heading to his training camp in California and other local teams will be having theirs. Team Type 1′s camp is in Georgia next month and I’ll drop by and see the guys. Another pro team that I have a weakness for is the Kenda p/b Geargrinder team. Their founder Chad Thompson is a can-do guy and has put his blood, sweat and tears into making that program work. An example of his Herculean effort is bringing Frankie Andreu onto the staff. Andreu is a stand-up guy and any organization should be proud to have him working for them. Their camp is also next month in Georgia so that gives me another reason to visit. It’s only January and my travel calendar is starting to fill up.

Just a tease of the national champion's BMC kit

This image comes courtesy of Craig Lewis‘ twitter account. As I looked at the image I pondered, “If I publish it will I find myself thrown out of Greenville (yes, the Hincapie’s do have that type of power)?” Then I figured, if it wasn’t me it would be someone else posting this photo. So for your enjoyment and continual speculation a tiny tease of the Hincapie national championship kit.  Looks like we’ll have to wait till early January for a full frontal of the complete kit.

Well we have just woken up from an epic post-race party at the Hincapie headquarters. The men of the weekend, Dave and Levi, were naturally in attendance. Dave did leave early as he has got to get back to training for the upcoming Worlds. Levi hung out longer as his last race of the year is going to be Tour of Missouri, which i don’t think will be too much of a challenge from him. I have heard all kinds of rumors regarding Levi’s next team. The strongest rumor is Predictor-Lotto and one journalist swears that he is going to Slipstream. I’m guessing he will announce something prior to Missouri. I chatted to Tony Cruz and he gave me the low-down on the team’s strategy, which was fairly elementary. If Levi can get away solo, Discovery won’t work. If the peloton is still together at the finish then they would set up George for the sprint. Tony told me that John Devin was doing 380 watts on the second ascent of Paris Mountain. Tony pinned it at the bottom of Paris Mountain the following lap, took the field almost to the top and then Devine punched it past him to finish the climb off. Levi was yelling into the earpiece “You’ve killing them. Go, go!” and that was that. He was gone.

The general feeling from the riders was that they liked the changes done to both the time trial and the road race. The road race wasn’t the death march it was last year and was a little more strategic. Talking to Medalist it looks like neither course will be changed for next year.

Tim and I are in Greenville, South Carolina for the USPRO time trial and road race. For anyone who hasn’t visited Greenville, it really is a hidden gem and I can see why George Hincapie as well as Craig Lewis call this city home. Greenville is located at the base of some mountainous roads that offer great training routes. The downtown area is very cool with eclectic coffee shops (ROAD recommends the Coffee Underground), a variety of restaurants and amazingly friendly people. The local bike shop has almost daily rides through the countryside. I spoke to Rich Hincapie and he told me they have a nightly Tuesday road race with a police escort! How cool is that?! Back in L.A. the only time the police come out to our rides is to tell us to ride single file. I gotta figure out how to open a satellite ROAD office out here.

While we were walking around downtown we came across Lucas Euser and Chad Hartley enjoying a post-training ride coffee. We swapped stories and rumors for a few minutes. Both those riders are up and comers and we’re sure we’ll see them on a ProTour team in the future.

Next was the press conference. Press conferences are useful, not to so much for us, because we’re not too concerned with getting timely quotes up on the web, I’ll leave that to the other guys. For ROAD it’s about getting our credentials and more importantly grabbing food. Before the press conference began I caught the eye of David Zabriskie who was at the dais with George Hiincapie, Race to Replace winner A.J. Smith, Chris Wherry and Chris Baldwin and Craig Lewis. We nodded to each other and I noticed that Dave is rocking a full beard. I rubbed the side of my face and gave and mouthed, “What’s up with the beard?” David shot me back a double thumbs up. Classic David Z…doing his own thing. Dave is a fast rider, in contrast to his every movement which is like watching him in slow motion. From unscrewing the cap to the bottle of water, to running his hands through his hair: slow and deliberate.

The mayor as well as sponsors spoke about how excited they are about this being the first time the USPRO is open to Americans only, as well as the first time that it isn’t being raced in the streets of Philadelphia. Usual press conference stuff.

However, David Zabriski stole the show with his deadpan answers.
Announcer: What motivates you?
David Zabriskie in a slow drawl: I want to win. That’s what motivates me.
Announcer: How’s your form for tomorrow?
David Zabriskie: It should be okay. I can’t complain.
David Z is like the comedy of Monty Python. Some people think it’s the funniest stuff ever or they just don’t get it.

Afterwards I put some important questions to Dave.
ROAD: You’re rocking the beard. What’s up with that?
David Z: After I got done shaving my arms and legs, the razor was too dull to go to the face.
ROAD: You didn’t decide to go buy another blade and shave again?
David Z: There comes a time when every man needs a beard.
ROAD: Will you shave it down to a goatee for the time trial?
David Z: They kicked out the only other guy with facial hair, so…

After the conference we went to the lobby of the hotel to where the food was being served. It was classic delicious Southern fare, but one entrée stood out. They were serving what I called grit-tails. Poured into a plastic martini glass were grits and shrimp. Let me tell you, it was damn good! A.J. Smith sat down with us to give us the full scoop on riding for the Discovery Team for one race, the time trial. He was blown away by the organization of it all. Unfortunately, he’s had some hamstring problems that haven’t allowed him to train for the past two weeks. But he doesn’t lack in confidence. A.J. and I made a few $10 bets. When we gave him a copy of our Tour of California issue he bet me $10 that he’d win a stage of that race, another $10 bet that we’d have him on the cover of ROAD, and $10 that he’d win the upcoming national pursuit championships at the ADT Velodrome. Some might say that’s cocky, but in order to win you need to be certain of what you want to accomplish, otherwise you’ll always be the guy who finishes top 10.

Tomorrow the T.T. Stay tuned for more random stuff.

I’ve been slacking recently about blogging, but I do have a reason. When I returned from the Tour de Georgia we immediately went into “production.” This is a week of laying the magazine out, collecting the articles and finding out that we are missing a photo or other random stuff. This is when working at a magazine sucks. So we got that issue done and I just needed a week to relax and ride. Now I’m back and on the gas again to crank out the next issue. But looking back at TdG there was some stuff I didn’t have a chance to write about. On the first stage I got James Brown to autograph a copy of ROAD. Not sure why, but it seemed like a cool thing to do. I had brought extra issues of ROAD with me to give out and I kept the autographed issue separate from the others. However, in the confusion of packing and re-packing every day I must have stuck my signed copy with the issues I was giving out. So someone, somewhere has my autographed copy from James Brown. Damn!

One of the hardest climbs I’ve done is the Brass Town Bald stage. When we started the last three miles of climbing I was forced to zig-zag back and forth on the road. Talk about a kick in the ass!! One of the guys we rode with got off and walked and was faster than we were. Then to see Floyd and Tom battling it out on those slopes and riding straight up after racing for four hours was amazing.

People ask if I get in the team cars for stage races. I usually don’t because it is like being stuck in traffic for four hours. You generally don’t see anything and when you do it is an emergency, so the stress in the car goes from a two to ten in a matter of seconds. The exceptions to that rule are circuit races and time trials. Circuit races are fun for a lap, like stage 7 at the Tour of California. I jumped in with the Sierra Nevada team and got to see the mass of crowds for myself and then get out at the finishline a lap later. At Georgia I jumped into the Navigators team car during the tt. The course was fairly straight forward, with a few downhill, off-camber turns. The driver of the Navigator car had those tires squealing as he whipped the team issue Audi from side to side. Plus, I’m able to crawl out the window of the car and get some good shots. You can’t really climb out the car window in a mass start race because of the ref and because it is a bit dangerous, so I have to choose my moments when the ref ain’t looking.

So I’m at the finish of the tt and David Zabriskie comes over to me. He wants me to take a picture of him giving a CSC jersey to this guy in exchange for the Discovery Channel jersey he was wearing. David is getting CSC fans one at a time.

Just got in the ROAD jerseys from Hincapie Sportswear and they look great. We are expecting ROAD bib shorts and caps as well. Damn, we’re going to look good!