Prowomenscycling.com has a report and a replay-video of Sunday's road race in its entirety, courtesy UCI (as are the videos shown above).
The top women’s race of the year, the Giro Rosa in Italy, finished up on Sunday, July 13, atop the iconic Madonna del Ghisallo – one of the most legendary climbs of all cycling – Stage 9 went once more to the great British climber & time-trialer (& a former ITT World Champion) Emma Pooley (Lotto Belisol). But the race overall this year was about the near-complete dominance of a single team – Rabobank Liv – and it’s leader – a living icon in herself, the Olympic & World Champion Marianne Vos, who with the help of such strong teammates as Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Anna van der Breggen (who also finished 2nd & 3rd overall, respectively, completing a full GC-podium sweep for the Dutch team), survived the final 2 mountain-stages to claim her 3rd Giro victory.
The 2014 Giro Rosa (Giro d'Italia Internazionale Femminile, formerly known as the Giro Donne) kicks off tomorrow (July 4) with a 2 km individual time-trial prologue in Caserta, in southwestern Italy (on the Mediterranean coast between Rome and Naples).
No beating around the bush, here's Strava data on several recent rides I did:
Early morning on Friday, May 23 Saturday, May 24 Sunday, May 25 Monday, May 26 (Memorial Day) Early morning on Wednesday, May 28 Earl evening on Thursday, May 29 Saturday, May 31 Sunday, June 1 UPDATE: I've posted a pop-up page of my latest Strava ride-data here. This updates automatically whenever I upload new ride-data from my Garmin GPS to Strava). 2014 USA Pro National Championships, from Chattanooga, TN.
Tour Tracker w/video: http://usapro.thetourtracker.com/ As of this posting (4 PM on May 26) the Men's Road Race was in-progress. Alison Powers (UnitedHealthcare Pro Women's Team) has made US cycling history this past Memorial Day holiday-weekend by winning both the women's individual time-trial on Saturday and, earlier today, the women's road race - add that to the criterium race she won in August of 2013, Powers becomes the first woman to hold national-titles concurrently in all 3 road-disciplines governed by USA Cycling - she will defend that criterium-title in a few months. Round 5 of the UCI Women's Road World Cup took place on May 18 on Chongming Island, near the mouth of the Yangtze River just outside of Shanghai in China. Other than a suspension-bridge the course was pan-flat, which made this the "sprinters' round", and, given her success with bunch-sprint victories so far this year it was won by Kirsten Wild (Liv-Shimano).
Strava details below:
May 8 - Fort Caroline area of Jacksonville, Florida May 9 - Arlington and Fort Caroline areas of Jacksonville, Florida May 10 - Coastal areas from Mayport Ferry (Ft. George Island) N to Fernandina Beach, Florida Three rides I just did this past weekend... Strava details below:
May 1 ride (A1A, Ponte Vedra Beach thru Guana River State Recreational Area) May 3 ride (A1A, Jacksonville Beach - Ponte Vedra Beach - Vilano Beach to US1 N from St Augustine to Nocatee, then Hwy 210 E back to Ponte Vedra Beach) May 4 ride (Baldwin Rail Trail, and environs) The fourth round of the 2014 UCI Women's World Cup was a showstopper!! All the bigs of the women's peloton were here, including (starting their 2014 road seasons with this race) the reigning 2012 Olympic and 2012-13 World Champion Marianne Vos, and the former (2009) Women's ITT World Champion, Emma Pooley. Both have previously won here (Vos a record 5 times! - including 2013), plus top American all-rounder (and 2012 race-winner) Evelyn Stevens.
My good friend Sarah posted this on her blog prowomenscycling.com to help raise awareness that road cyclists have the same right to use the public roads as motorists do. Of course we cyclists (amateur/recreational, club racer, pro, whatever!) have certain conditions i.e. ride on bike lanes where existing, ride no more than two abreast if in a group, follow the same road rules as motorists etc., but that being said NO motorist, to the best of my knowledge, is permitted by law to deny or impede in any way access to the road to cyclists.
If only the knuckleheads in Jacksonville, Florida would only get the message... still, we on two wheels make our presence known, whether they like it (and us) or not! Preview video featuring past winners such as Marianne Vos, Emma Pooley and Evelyn Stevens, plus top contenders Elisa Longo Borghini and Tiffany Cromwell.
Video highlights of the 3rd round of the UCI Women's Road World Cup in Flanders (western Belgium), won by Ellen van Dijk (Boels-Dolmans Cycling Team). Van Dijk, the reigning Women's ITT (individual time-trial) World Champion, won the race in a late solo-attack. World Cup overall-leader (and Van Dijk's teammate) Lizzie Armitstead in 2nd, Emma Johansson (Orica-AIS) third.
Details at prowomenscycling.com! Listen also to (& read) Sarah's exclusive interview with Ellen. Video highlights of the 2nd round of the UCI Women's Road World Cup in Italy.. the final sprint won by Emma Johansson (Orica-AIS) over World Cup leader Lizzie Armitstead (Boels-Dolmans Cycling Team) and Alena Amialiusik (Team Astana-BePink), courtesy Sportissimo. More video highlights to come as they arrive... check with prowomenscycling.com for updates (which includes an exclusive podcast-interview with Johansson, recorded prior to today's race).
Strava details here.
Today's ride was a late-afternoon jaunt (roughly 24 miles altogether) around East Arlington, mainly the hillier sections along Fort Caroline Road. It was quite windy (a pre-frontal trough passed through that dumped a lot of rain last night & this morning, with a thunderstorm around noontime). The portions of the ride that were the hilliest (upper-right sections in the map above) had residential streets that had some really short yet punchy climbs averaging about 5-6% gradient - one hill in particular was quite steep with an 11-13% gradient near the top - that one was marked in Strava as a segment: the "(Un)Pleasant Hill Dr Climb" (tee-hee!). There's no need to tell you that this is one of my favorite riding areas in Jacksonville! Strava details here.
This ride had everything! Speed, a few climbs (well, overpasses anyway!), headwinds - even danger in the form of a large & rather mean dog deep in redneck-country who gave chase but I was able to channel my inner Mark Cavendish and out-sprinted the mangy mutt - it was pretty fast, I'll give it that - that little spike in watts & speed just after the 5-mile mark is where that happened. Lizzie Armitstead (Boels Dolmans Cycling Team) wins the first round of the 2014 UCI Women's Road World Cup in Drenthe, in a 2-up sprint with Anna van der Breggen (Rabobank Liv). More info on the race (& series) at prowomenscycling.com.
UPDATE: A more extensive highlights-video (produced by the UCI) is now available with commentary by Ant McCrossan and Wiggle Honda's Rochelle Gilmore. This is the first of, what I hope will be, a series of photo-galleries of some of my weekend bike-rides. This first gallery is of a location in the Amelia-Fernandina Beach ride I usually do on some weekends (the map & profile in the slideshow is courtesy of Strava, recorded on my Garmin Edge 605 GPS-unit). It is of the scenic & historic village of American Beach, one of Florida's oldest African-American communities, known during its heyday as the "Black Hyannis-Port". Located on Amelia Island (just south of Fernandina Beach, in the extreme northeast-corner of the State where the St. Marys River defines the easternmost boundary between Florida and Georgia), American Beach was founded during the Jim Crow-era South as a place where people of color, who couldn't - |