Levi Leipheimer, the Astana rider who abandoned this year’s Tour de France with a fractured wrist while lying fourth in the general classification, has confirmed that he will be joining Lance Armstrong’s new RadioShack team for the 2010 season.
RadioShack, which will be managed by Johan Bruyneel with Dirk Demol as directeur sportif, will be Leipheimer’s seventh professional team. The 35-year-old, who has won the last three editions of the Tour of California, joined Saturn in 1999 and subsequently rode for US Postal Service, Rabobank, Gerolsteiner and Discovery Channel before moving to Astana in 2008.
With Sergio Paulinho and Gregory Rast also signing for RadioShack, the team’s roster goes a long way towards answering questions surrounding the internal politics within the Astana team at this year’s Tour de France, where the relationship between Armstrong and eventual winner Alberto Contador became stretched beyond breaking point.
Two other former Astana riders joining RadioShack are the Spaniard José Luis Rubiera, whose climbing skills helped pave the way for five of Armstrong’s Tour de France wins, and the Lithuanian Tomas Vaitkus.
The other signings announced to date are both Belgian riders, Sébastien Rosseler, currently at Quick Step, and Gert Steegmans, who left Katusha last month after controversially refusing to sign the team’s anti-doping charter.
The signing of Leipheimer in particular will be a fillip for Armstrong following George Hincapie’s decision not to sign for RadioShack but instead to join BMC Racing, which has also recruited World Road Race Champion Alessandro Ballan.
Leipheimer, who has signed a two-year contract, said that "There were other possibilities, but I've signed with the best team in the world, an American team that's going to sign more American riders." He added that his plans next year will focus on the Tour of California, the Dauphiné Libéré and the Tour de France, which he described as "my three favourites races and my top objectives for next year."
The RadioShack team is scheduled to make its first appearance at next year's Tour Down Under, which begins on January 17.
Straight into the sun is perhaps an exaggeration, but at that time it would be about ESE, and there are bits of the road which head roughly SSE, so...
7 October was just a bit of harmless fun until the "msm" ramped it up.
It's not censored if you just pirate it
an example of Kesgraves "best cycling infrastructure in the country" https://maps.app.goo.gl/GsCMbzDUTPdq59qS9
They are not going full gas at every point. They would destroy themselves. And tactics, they save themselves for when effort is really needed....
It turns out that that is national police policy. We found out from this process that there is national 'secured by design' policy which causes...
Been available for quite a while, full GRX mechanical 12 speed. Probably around the same time as 105 mechanical 12 speed if I were to guess.
Less harmful citrus degreaser is easy to find at £8 or less for 5 litres. Works ok for me, even diluted up to 4:1. Both paraffin and white spirit...
Nope, it's to keep your straps down and quieter. Plus most sunglasses are polycarbonate and aren't going to shatter like glass anyway
And, more seriously, where's the coverage of the closure of the cycle lane which forces you to cycle on the Totton bypass.