TIBCO and Kelly Benefits gave us plenty of material at Downers Grove, but we got to spend some quality time with our amateur athletes as well. Here are four interviews off our YouTube page.

The first is with Andy Jacques-Maynes, who recently returned to full-time racing after a few years working for Specialized. Andy and his twin brother Ben, who rides for Team Bissell, are big-time riders who have contributed a lot, on and off the bike, to SRAM. Thanks guys! Anyways, here’s Andy.

Interview #2 is with Anna Young from the America’s Dairyland …

Kelly Benefits isn’t the team that wins every weekend (although they do win their share of races) but we’ve never been around a pro team with a more relaxed, fun atmosphere. Here’s a photo timeline they spent their Saturday before the US crit championship last weekend. The full set of photos is on Flickr. Videos on the way.

10:09 AM

10:45 AM

11:10 AM

11:29 AM

12:14 PM

Team TIBCO had a great weekend in Downer’s Grove. Lauren Franges won the Saturday evening warm-up race and Brooke Miller took the national championship on Sunday. They also had a lot of fun, as you can see in this video that follows them through their day on Saturday. Get some breakfast, go for a ride, eat some lunch, head to the race, win the race. Not a bad day. Thanks to Ben Raby for helping out shooting photos and video.

The Tour of Utah started today and SRAM’s big time triathlete Chris Lieto is there with the California Giant Strawberry team - featuring newly crowned US amateur champion James Mattis. Here’s the first part of the interview that we taped with Chris earlier this week, where he talks about the benefits of incorporating road racing - stage races in particular - into his triathlon training. However, it’s probably not a surprise that his teammates aren’t incorporating triathlon training into their road racing by joining Chris for a post-stage run.

Our domestic teams Kelly Benefits-Medifast and Team Bissell had a great weekend on SRAM’s home turf at the Tour of Elk Grove this past weekend. Sadly, Astana’s Chris Horner had a not-so-great weekend as he broke his collarbone in a crash that will keep him out of the Vuelta next month. Anyways, here are some pics from our very own Michael Zellmann. More here.

Kelly’s David Veilleux enjoys his overall win in the three-stage race.

The final podium also had Bissell’s Tom Zirbel in third overall. He won the prologue on Friday night.

Chris Horner spent some time training in the suburbs of Chicago last week before racing in the Alexian Brothers Tour of Elk Grove Village. Unfortunately Chris was involved in a stage two pile-up and fractured his collarbone. Prior to the unfortunateness he gave me some updates on his plans and the recent Team Astana roster re-signings. His race plans will certainly change with the collarbone injury but he is excited about the team and its future, he also talks about (his former teammate) Cadel Evan’s …

We encountered some technical difficulties that prevented us from doing the live Q&A with Levi. However, we taped offline for about 45 minutes we’ve uploaded 30 minutes worth of clips to cover the questions that folks submitted. Thanks for all the questions and we hope you enjoy the interview. Thanks for all the questions and we hope you enjoy the interview.

- The Road Diaries

Click the Shows tab in the video player to hear what Levi has to say about:

Next year’s Tour of California route
Riding and working with SRAM
His Olympic TT …

So SRAM is with triathletes Desiree Ficker and Craig Alexander, along with Carmichael Training Systems, at the A2 wind tunnel in Mooresville, NC.

The goal is to refine the aerodynamic bike position of Craig and Desiree to help them go faster. Both athletes will potentially look at more than 100+ macro and micro adjustments to their aero positions on the bike and each session will take …

Wow. So today we all heard it at the same time. Ricco is out. We woke up shocked and in a complete state of utter disbelief. Two years ago, when we hooked up with the Scott boys and sponsored the team, we were excited to get our stuff on the pro’s bikes. We were excited to get our stuff “ProTour proven.” We were excited to go to the Tour de France.

We’re extremely disappointed that a team that we sponsor would have athletes that act with such disregard for the rules and regulations. At SRAM, we have a zero-tolerance policy …