Team RadioShack Kits will be distributed exclusively by Gita Sporting Goods this March. The Team issue kits will be made available to retailers with Gita being its sole supplier.

Gita Sporting Goods won a multi-year deal with Nike and became the official distributor of technical race wear for Team RadioShack. They will be providing the pro team their racing gear as well as Team Issue kits for sale. The kit will include the Team RadioShack jersey and bib short. These are all designed to be stylish and comfortable at the same time. The patterns enhance maximum aerodynamics that works to give form fitting comfort and optimizes functionality. It also delays for fatigue to set in.

Giorgio Andretta of Gita Sporting Goods believes that becoming the official sponsor for Team RadioShack will allow them to bring cycling apparel to a higher level. He hopes that this vision to be a reality through the innovative designs for the professional road team and cyclists worldwide.

Gita Sporting Goods, LTD holds the rights to be the only supplier for Team RadioShack genuine apparel in the United States. The items will be distributed to select independent bicycle dealers. For each item sold, a portion is allocated to go to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Gita will also take care of the worldwide reach of the said race gear.

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Tejay Van Garderen of Team HTC-Columbia will be participating in his first professional “cobbled” race as he joins the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad this Saturday. Other big names joining him on the starting line will include Thor Hushovd (Cervelo) and Tom Boonen (Quick Step).


Van Garderen enjoyed a top ten finish at his last race, the Vuelta ao Algarve, and he is looking forward to testing his skills and gaining more experience at the cobblestones in the one-day Belgian cycling event.


“I was thinking it was important to have this experience of cobbled races, where they throw their elbows around so I’m going to get as much out of it as I can, learn and be aggressive.” Van Garderen added that he had specifically requested his team to include this race into his schedule because the learning experience would be invaluable.


As a first-year professional cyclist, Van Garderen still has a lot to learn, and he knows it. Aside from improving his skills on the bike, Van Garderen is also showing a mature approach to the game and is slowly but surely getting used to the different styles of the directors at Team HTC-Columbia.


“It’s a difference of each director having their own style. It’s interesting because you’d think that one is better than the other but that’s not the case. We’ve won with both styles,” Van Garderen says as he refers to his new directors Brian Holm and Tristan Hoffman at Team HTC.

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The recent addition to Cannondale’s Factory U.S. Racing Team for 2010 is Manuel Fumic. He was recruited to join other new cyclists Jeremiah Bishop and Tinker Juarez. Cannondale planned to expand their reach in the United States in 2010. January showed the acquisition of Juarez and Bishop. They formerly raced for MonaVie-Cannondale in 2009. The two cyclists will be racing in the U.S. circuit. CFR means to compete in World Cup races and long distance runs.

Fumic, the former Olympian will be racing this March at the SRAM XX Maremma MTB Cup in Italy to represent CFR. He will be with Italian teammate Marco Aurelio Fontana. CFR’s roster of riders also includes Roel Paulissen who is Belgium’s pride for being the 2008 Marathon World Champion and Swiss Martin Gujan.

Happy over their new teamplayer, Daniel Hespeler, CFR team manager, remarked, “I am confident that the team infrastructure will not only support Manuel’s current level of competition, but will allow him to develop his skills so he can move to the next level.”

Fumic’s goal is to grace the World Cup podium this year and dominate London 2012. He is excited to try and test Cannondale’s lefty-equipped Flash and Scalpel to help him reach his goals.

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The Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne race may have ended and although victory was well deserved for Bobbie Traksel, the runner up, Rick Flens was quite pleased over his own triumphant finish.

Flens admitted that Traksel is certainly someone who excels in sprint. On the other hand, Flens shines on time trials as he won the 2007 Post Danmark Rundt.

The challenge the recent race provided Flens his personalized time trial due to the fighting rains and winds. He noted, “It’s hard for everybody. I’m powerfully built. There’s a lot of oxygen in the air and I like that.”

Flens rode with Traksel soon after overcoming the Oude Kwaremont. Flens took the chance to accelerate when he noticed that nobody followed him after the Oude Kwaremont. For him, it was a decisive burst of energy that played well to his advantage.

During the time he was up in front, the breakaway was nearly overrun by a larger group that included Cervelo TestTeam’s Thor Hushovd but Flens did not allow panic to set in and remained calm, disregarding the cyclists who might have joined him in the lead.

The results of the finish line proved to be Flens’ reward as it is understood that the strongest of them all will be the ones who would bring home the glory.

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The 2010 edition of the Paris-Nice event will see the Col de Vence returning after eight years of absence to challenge the riders in the penultimate stage of the event. The last time the Col de Vence was featured in the Paris-Nice, it was 8 years ago in a relatively flat race. Now it’s back, along with eight other climbs, and this time, the climb is set to pose an arduous task to the pelothon just within 30 kilometers from the finish line at Tourrettes-sur-Loup.


The positioning of the Col de Vence will need some careful strategizing from the riders and team directors. Although there will still be some distance left after the climb to allow for some quick regrouping before reaching the finish line, any rider left behind on the Col de Vence will most certainly have to say goodbye to his chances of getting a podium finish.


1981 Paris-Nice champion Stephen Roche acknowledges the critical role that the Col de Vence will be playing in the race. “There’s no doubt that any of the favourites who are slightly weaker will get left behind at the Col de Vence. It’s a really tough climb and you need extremely good legs to tackle it.”


Roche should know, since he was also a Col de Vence victim way back in 1987, when he lost the leader’s jersey not because he got tired, but because of a flat tire. It was a burst tyre just before I reached the summit,” Roche recalls. “I had to stop at the top and wait for assistance. I then embarked on a kamikaze descent to catch up with the pack, but in the meantime there had been a split in the peloton.”


Roche had tried valiantly to close the distance, but the threesome of Sean Kelly, Charly Mottet and Jean-François Bernard had already opened a wide gap that was unsurmountable.


Roche’s son, Nicolas, is a rider in Team AG2R La Mondiale and is racing in the event. Nicolas has had plenty of training in the Col de Vence under his belt, which will prove to be an advantage at this point of the race.


As his father Stephen says, “He has recently realised the importance of checking out a road in advance to ensure there are no surprises during a climb. Not just because it lets you familiarise yourself with the route, most importantly it puts you in the right mindset for the race.”

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US cross-country star Adam Craig informed the world via his blog that he is currently recovering from having surgery on his anterior cruciate ligament and will not be able to compete until June of this year, at least. Craig underwent the operation last February 9, 2010.


The American MTB rider is known for indulging in other extreme sports when he is not riding his bike. Such activities include big mountain skiing and whitewater kayaking, but the ironic part of the story here is that it was on a simple morning jog across a parking lot that ruptured his ACL and sidelined him for an expected 4 months.


Of course, Craig won’t be found resting on the couch for so long, so he’s already up and riding on a stationary bike, but he’s being careful and taking it slow for now. “They’ve given me the conservative angle right now because they don’t want me to screw myself up trying to get back too soon,” says Craig on his blog.


He also mentioned his plans for joining the Mt. Hood Classic in May, which will be his first road race in two years, if he is able to get back on his feet by then. Craig blames his “momentary loss of focus” for the injury, also apologizing to his sponsors for the late start and thanking them for the support.


As what might be expected, the rider plans on making it up to his sponsors for the rest of the season. As he wrote on his blog, “I’m already getting fired up about turning a third or fourth row start into a medal. And I damn well better if I want people to forget about this little hiccup.”

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Team Milram has been enjoying a positive season so far and is looking forward to the Belgian Spring races with confidence. The German pro-cycling team has signed up new riders and carries a lot of momentum from its Australian and Arabian events this season.


Team Milram has signed up an additional four cyclists to its roster, specifically in preparation for the Spring races which will include the 2010 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the 2010 Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne events. Among the four newcomers are Roy Sentjens and Wim De Vocht, both established experts of the cobblestone races in Belgium.


Ralf Grabsch, a sports director in Team Milram, says that their goal will be to earn top-ten finishes in the two events, more specifically in the top six, at least. Grabsch is looking to specialist Servais Knaven to lead the team in these races. The rider has the winning form and experience on the cobblestones that Team Milram needs, with him winning third place overall in the 2000 season. Grabsch himself says that Knaven “will lead us with his experience. He… knows every cobblestone passage along the way.”


It seems that not only Servais Knaven but the entire Classics squad are enjoying the team’s confidence in their success at the races. Grabsch says that Milram’s lineup for the upcoming Belgian Classics are all healthy and fit, and that he is convinced of the “quality” of their riders.


As confident as Grabsch is, he will have to do without the services of Gerald Ciolek, one of their star sprinters. Ciolek was expected to lead Team Milram to the top rankings this spring, but unfortunately crashed in this season’s Tour of Qatar and is currently recovering after having to undergo shoulder surgery.


The rest of the squad have shown that they are capable of taking Team Milram to high places, however. According to Grabsch, “Our guys have brought in three Top Ten finishes so far,” which refers to the team’s finishes in previous events this season. The 2010 Tour of Oman saw Milram rider Niki Terpstra finish 6th overall, while Roger Kluge earned 4th overall at the 2010 Tour of Qatar, and Luke Roberts getting 5th overall in the Tour Down Under.

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