The SRAM Tour of the Gila continued Saturday with a challenging one mile criterium which was won with a textbook sprint finish by SRAM Force-equipped Land Rover Orbea’s twenty-year old Roman Van Uden. Van Uden said the rider in front of him moved over and opened up a straight line to the finish, which he took full advantage of with a perfect two handed salute to the 5,000+ Silver City crowd as he crossed the line. Van Uden was swarmed by the press and the youngster was obvioulsy in great spirits in what was certainly …

After throwing me out of the ‘official’ team area team OUCH leader Rory Sutherland took a few minutes to chat before the stage three time trial at the SRAM Tour of the Gila. Rory covers a range of subjects including the fact that he no longer gets into breakaway because they hurt too much, but he defines it more clearly than that. Sutherland is a big rider at 6′ 2″ with a ton of class and speed. He is originally from Barton, Cranberra, Australia, and currently sits in 12th on GC.

The SRAM Tour of the Gila continued its relentless uphill course on Friday with a 16.15 mile TT that began with a punishing four mile climb into a headwind. Leipheimer’s aggressive aero tuck, supreme climbing skills, and world class TT speed were more than enough to give him the win.

Levi averaged an incredible 29.5 mph and finished in 32:59, setting a new course record. Mellow Johnny’s teammate Lance Armstrong finished third, 1:23 back at 34:22.

The race continues Saturday with a Criterium in downtown Silver City.

The SRAM-equipped Webcor Women’s team has come to the SRAM Tour of the Gila with winning on their mind. Yesterday Gina Grainger (check out the video) took the sprint win with time to celebrate and teammate Katheryn Mattis sits in second overall in the GC. They take a few moments to talk to me maybe 30 minutes before their TT start on Friday. This team has already made some strong impressions in this race and they remain super motivated, look forward to seeing their continued great results through this race and the entire season.

Snuck behind the Mellow Johnny’s curtain and took some footage of Lance on his new TT bike warming up for the 16+ mile SRAM Tour of the Gila TT. Nothing earthshaking here but just cool to see the guy doing his thing. Lance finished third and reportedly has lost more than 5 pounds since the Tour of California. He looks super strong and is starting to approach his ideal racing weight…

Got to the time trial stage of the SRAM Tour of the Gila a little early and caught up with a few of our athletes and teams, here is an interview with Kelly Bennefit’s Alex Candelario, who talks about his crash where he blew a tire on the wicked descent yesterday and went down hard. The Kelly team brought Candelario all the back to the front after losing two minutes, and sprinted for seventh on the stage. Cando seemed a little disappointed but crashing hard, chasing back, and sprinting against some of the heavy hitters here …

Today’s stage was aggressive from the gun according to SRAM’s David Zimberoff, who was in SRAM NRS Support car #1 just behind the Pro leaders (driven by Ben Raby). Four riders, including SRAM RED-equipped Floyd Landis (OUCH), got away on the backside of the 80 mile loop and drove to a lead of nearly three minutes. Apparently Floyd was going so fast down the second technical descent the entire field, less three riders, were unable to stay on his wheel. The Mellow Johnny and Bissell squads kept it all in check and pulled the remnants of the escapees back within …

Andy Schleck rode away from the elite of world cycling today and won Liege Bastogne Liege in the style of a great champion at only 23 years of age. Andy made history as the first Saxo Bank /Specialized Bikes/SRAM Red race winner and what a race do do it in. This is also SRAM’s first Spring Classic victory!
Andy blasted away on the Côte de la Roche aux Faucons with 20km remaining to win by over a minute in from of Spains Joaquím Rodríguez . The Saxo Bank Team contolled the race with 6 …

Here are some exclusive 1st pics of the new TT Bike that Saxo Bank stars Fabian Cancellara, Frank and Andy Schleck will line up on very soon. Fabian liked it so much he decided to get a few pics for himself!

The guys were heard to be saying things like; “Awesome, A Weapon, Everything you need to win a Tour TT” and so on. Looks like the bike left an impression.

The Specialized is fitted …

The phone rang at 7am this morning and we got word that Lance, Levi and Chris Horner would be coming to the SRAM Tour of the Gila after all, what great news. It’s been a turbulent few days trying to sort it all out but USA Cycling apparently made it happen and the townsfolk, promoters, and even the other racers are stoked. Looking forward to hopefully some time with those guys this week.

What a day, the SRAM Tour of the Gila Press conference went great, we hosted 15 media including two local …