second tier? yes and no...

hmm... what a difference a week makes.

stage 6, tour of georgia. 4/21/07

1 Fred Rodriguez (USA) Predictor-Lotto                            
2 Juan José Haedo (Arg) Team CSC                                             
3 George Hincapie (USA) Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team

stage 7, tour of georgia. 4/22/07

1 Juan José Haedo (Team CSC)     
2 Fred Rodriguez (Predictor-Lotto)   
3 Sergey Lagutin (Navigators Insurance)
4 Ivan Dominguez (Toyota-United)     
5 George Hincapie (USA) Discovery Channel

looks like the wrist is feeling better.

i suppose it saves you the trouble of riding all those cobbles
for 4th place or worse....  

speaking of second-tier, the new issue of road has a nice write up
on a few second-tier pro teams.
one is kelly-benefits, and the other is rock racing.



kelly seems to be trying to find a groove with their team,
hopefully they can work out the kinks.
they should be getting some results with their roster, but
bringing a bunch of guys together and trying to get a team
to gel tends to take a little time.
pretty stressful.

also, can some make any sense out of why this team
has red helmets?
i don't get it.



rock, on the other hand...
well, rock & republic denim, the title sponsor, reportedly
signed on for 10 years with the team. unheard of!
as if that wasn't enough, they also provide all their
riders with heath coverage, and above average salaries.

what a sweet sponsor! imangine that, getting treated like
a real person as a pro cyclist.
must be nice.

cycling needs more sponsors like this. kudos to r&r.
i wish them luck. ...and i will wear my designer denim
with a heightened sense of pride, and solidarity.

i don't think they will be second-tier for long.

the article also says that r&r ceo michael ball is an ex-track
racer and set up the team with bahati after watching him at us track
nationals in la.

another reason to ride the velodrome!



and whats better than sponsoring a cycling team? 

well, sponsoring a cycling team and an indy car team, of course!

bad ass.

almost as bad ass as lgr's team car will be. (can anyone loan us $8k?)