wild
Kirsten Wild (Argos-Shimano) won the second stage of the Ladies Tour of Qatar ahead of Specialized-lululemon’s Ellen van Dijk and Trixi Worrack.
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
Posts tagged ‘Specialized-Lululemon’
Jan 30
Jan 21
gillian
Specialized-lululemon’s Gillian Carleton hit the track last week for the World Cup in Mexico. She and her Canadian team mates won the team pursuit, Carleton won the individual pursuit leg of the omnium, and she finished fourth in the omnium. Sarah Hammer won the omnium.
Carleton will ride her first full season on the road this season, after winning a bronze medal in the team pursuit in London. From Victoria, BC, Carleton got her start playing bikes with alley cat races, that mad crazy game of racing single speeds through city streets.
May 10
Evelyn Stevens Interview and Extras
I had the chance to interview Olympic hopeful and World Cup race winner Evelyn Stevens of Specialized-lululemon. Which, yes, that was cool. I think she’s the first U.S. woman to win a World Cup race since Kristin Armstrong won Ronde van Drenthe. Calling trivia experts to the women’s racing phone!
Two extras that didn’t fit into the story:
If you’ve been following Stevens’s story for a while, you’ll know that she is a good luck charm girl. She has her lucky sports bra, lucky hair bands, lucky quilt, lucky bracelet. She said she carried all her good luck charms Flèche Wallonne, and if you look at the photos from the race day, you can see her black hairbands on her fingers. Stevens said her lucky charms remind her of her friends and family, icons of home that she carries on the road.
Stevens also does advocacy work with Transportation Alternatives in New York. She is a big fan of using the bike not only for racing but also as a way of life, and she wants to support the New York cycling community who helped her get her start on the bike. In Boulder she has a single speed she uses to jam around town.
I live on a really steep hill. And the other day, I had a bunch of groceries and I had to walk up the hill. It was kind of embarassing. I started to paper boy, then I had to get off and walk.
Stevens: Winning on the Mur de Huy. Still working on the Grocery Race. Next up for Stevens is the GP Gatineau races this weekend, then the Exergy Tour in Boise. And of course, she’s hoping for good news when the Olympic team announcement comes out at the end of this month.
Apr 25
Noemi Cantele won the Gp Liberazione Crema, today. Meanwhile, over in Czech, Ellen van Dijk won the prologue for Garcia Orlova.
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
Apr 18
Video: Evie Stevens Wins Flèche Wallonne, Podium and Finish Replay
Thanks @ednl for the video. Super impressive win from Evie Stevens of Specialized lululemon on the Mur de Huy. She followed the wheel of four-time winner Marianne Vos, then with picture perfect timing, came around to win by a bike-length and then some. Linda Villumsen of GreenEdge finished third, well back from the leading pair.
At the beginning of the year, Stevens said that Flèche Wallonne was among the races she would most like to win. She believed the final climb suited her, but she had struggled in the past with the narrow, technical roads that lead to the final climb. Earlier this season, Stevens crashed trying to follow an attack from Marianne Vos at the Trofeo Alfredo Binda. This time, Stevens kept the bike upright.
From the start, her coaches have raved about her power and her physiology – that Stevens has that perfect balance of strength, weight, and speed to win the big races. Now, we finally start to see what the fuss has been all about.
Also notable, Megan Guarnier of Team Tibco finished seventh on the Mur de Huy. Guarnier is a rider on the move – she won her first international race last year at the Giro di Toscana. She is more in the mold of a sprinter than Stevens, but seventh in this World Cup is a big step forward for Guarnier, an ex-swimmer turned bike racer.
For the U.S., the results from Guarnier and Stevens are good news. The U.S. started the season on the knife edge of the Olympic selection game. Would the U.S. get two starts or three starts in London? Much depended on how the U.S. riders finished in these early season races. I haven’t done the math just yet, but today’s race should help that cause significantly.
At the beginning of the season, Tibco team owner Linda Jackson said she was committed to helping the women chase the UCI points necessary to make it to the Olympics and she arranged for the team – including Guarnier – to travel to Europe to race. It takes a village.
For Stevens personally, this result should also help her cause in the selection game. And if the U.S. does in fact get those three starts? Guarnier looks better and better as a possible pick for London.
Certainly, the list is shrinking: Stevens, Kristin Armstrong, Amber Neben, and Megan Guarnier have the most recent top level results of the American women.
Video: Evie Stevens Wins Flèche Wallonne, Podium and Finish Replay
twobluebikes.com 