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Vande Velde analyses the USA Pro Cycling Challenge route by Kirsten Frattini August 22, 2011 cyclingnews

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:26:29 -0400

Garmin-Cervelo motivated to perform well in home state event
Christian Vande Velde tipped his hat to the USA Pro Cycling Challenge prologue held in Colorado Springs on Monday. The American is confident that his Boulder-based Garmin-Cervelo team will put forth a strong performance in the opening day's 8.2km prologue time trial and carry that through the seven-day even held from August 22-28.
"We checked out the course this morning," Vande Velde said. "It was a spectacular course and it will be really cool. We fly through the most beautiful parts in the country in Garden of the Gods, a spectacular left-hand corner into the Springs and right downtown. It will be fast and a great kick off for the Tour of Colorado."
Tour de France winner Cadel Evans (BMC Racing) echoed Vande Velde's opinion with regard to the prologue course and believes it will be a high speed battle for the early race lead.
"For the eight kilometres you just have to go fast like every other time trial," Evans said. "From a racing perspective it is a false flat downhill and will be a really high average speed and fast times, I think. It will be interesting."
Garmin-Cervelo is fielding a quality team that also includes Tom Danielson, who placed ninth at the Tour de France, Peter Stetina, Ryder Hesjedal, Daniel Lloyd, Tom Peterson, Danny Summerhill and US National Time Trial Champion Dave Zabriskie.
"We have been based out of Boulder, Colorado since day one with Jonathan Vaughters in 2003," Vande Velde said. "We have extra motivation when we are on US soil but being in Colorado and on a lot of our home roads, we are extra excited. It's nice to come off of a great back foot of the Tour de France and race back here on American soil."
The USA Pro Cycling Challenge is hosting 17 teams that includes seven ProTeams Garmin-Cervelo, HTC-Highroad, BMC Racing, Saxo Bank SunGard, Leopard Trek, Rabobank and Liquigas-Cannondale.
"I'm really excited about doing this event, as is most of the peloton," Vande Velde said. "Even talking to Andy and Frank Schleck and guys from Europe, who were excited about coming over and racing some of the infamous climbs. Our team has always had this event in the back of our heads, during the Tour de France. It was fun to race in the Tour but it will be great to race in front of hometown crowds."
A handful of contenders
Vande Velde placed 17th at the Tour de France despite crashing several times during the three-week event in July. He returned to the US to compete in the Tour of Utah two weeks ago in order acclimate to the elevation and prepare for the USA Pro Cycling Challenge.
The course includes numerous high altitude ascents including Cottonwood and Independence Pass, both climb above 12,000 feet during stage two. However, he predicted that the stage race will come down to a handful of riders who are capable of contending for the overall victory.
"I think there is going to be a few guys that are up in the same category as far as climbing goes, probably five or ten guys," Vande Velde said. "So, the time trial is going to be a huge factor. There is no mountaintop finish that really separates everyone and there will be a little bit of regrouping on some of the descents. For the most part there will be five or ten guys who are pretty close and the time trial will definitely be the turning factor after that."
Vande Velde and Danielson believe that the stage three time trial in Vail could be the deciding factor between the strong climbers in the overall classification. The event is 16km and predominantly uphill with 1,783 feet of climbing. The course was revived from the former Coors Classic held in the 1980s.
"I think the prologue will be a key component of the race and it will dictate how a lot of the GC guys will race the race," Danielson said. "If you take more seconds in the prologue then you might be able to have a more comfortable ride on Independence Pass. The race of truth will be on that Vail time trial.
"I rode that course and it is not easy, not straight forward and not a typical time trial," he said. "It is difficult to read and know what equipment to use and how to guage your effort on the time trial. Going into the prologue, winning or being up there on Independence Pass and the Vail time trial are the key components."

Vande Velde ends 'horribly hard' Tour de France on podium Philip Hersh July 24, 2011, Chicago Tribune

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 14:16:39 -0400

The picture shows how the Tour de France ended Sunday for Christian Vande Velde:

With a big smile (he's the third man from the left) and arms around the Garmin-Cervelo riders with whom Vande Velde stood on the podium as winners of the team classification title.

The team's highest-placed finisher, Tom Danielson, was also the top U.S. rider, in 9th place. Vande Velde, 17th, was the second-best U.S. rider.

"It means a lot especially since I was part of building this little team, from Slipstream to Garmin to Garmin-Cervelo,'' Vande Velde said. "In 2008, we were begging for a spot in the Tour de France. Now we won the team classification. That overshadows individual awards and things.''

Vane Velde, 35, is in his fourth year with the team, with one more to go on his contract. In those four seasons, he has finished 4th, 8th and 17th in the Tour de France. He withdrew last year after a bad crash in the third stage.

"This was horriblly hard, the hardest Tour de France I've ever done,'' said Vande Velde, who has finished seven. "It wasn't because of the speed we were going or the wattage. It was because of the intensity and the nervousness of being on small roads, in the rain for about nine days, and the descents.

"We had one descent the final week that was terrifying. Take Lombard Street (the San Francisco street with eight hairpin turns called one of the crookedest in America) and make it 20 percent steeper, have it go 10 miles, and that's what it was.

"That kind of stuff beats you up mentally. You have to be `on' for five hours at a time. You cannot let up, or you find yourself on the ground.''

Vande Velde hit the deck five times in this Tour, but none of the crashes was serious. A bruised knee was the biggest damage.

"I've got bruises all over the place. I look like a crack addict,'' he joked.

He flies home Monday to Lemont and then will finish his season in the Tour of Utah Aug. 9-14 and the USA Pro Cycling Challenge Aug. 22-28 in Colorado.

Vande Velde has one more year on his Garmin-Cervelo contract. He would like to finish his pro cycling career at next year's London Olympics.

He now has been part of a team with the Tour winner (Lance Armstrong and U.S. Postal in 1999) and a team that has taken the team title. As a career snapshot, that's a good one for any scrapbook.
Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune

Arvia: Christian Vande Velde has Tour de France team title, but how long will he keep pedaling? PHIL ARVIA July 29, 2011 11:06PM

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 14:09:45 -0400

Christian Vande Velde reached into his sock drawer — well, what would be most people’s sock drawer, but in his case a catch-all of freebie sunglasses and other pocket-size accoutrements lavished often upon the best road cyclists in the world — and produced an etched crystal disc.
“This is all you get,” he said.
He was smiling as he said it, kidding. Still, it seemed not enough. A slim strand of blue silk ribbon, a crystal coaster, a few words:
“Classement par Equipes.” (Team Classification).
“Vainqueur 2011.” (Winner 2011).
“Tour de France.” (The Super Bowl — Bicycle Division).
For three weeks, Vande Velde captained the Garmin-Cervelo team across the 21 stages and 2,132 miles of the Tour de France. Garmin dominated. Or, as he said, “As a team, collectively, we killed this Tour de France.”
And this is all you get.
OK, bicycling has also gotten Vande Velde a house in Girona, Spain, and another, with a Corvette in the garage, on eight acres in his hometown of Lemont. There he stood Wednesday, perhaps 20 hours after returning from Europe for the first time since Jan. 3.
Which maybe explains why the big house he and his wife, Leah, have owned for a year now seems a bit light on furniture. Or why he had to ask her the address a few hours earlier when giving directions to an impending visitor.
The visitor suggested, almost immediately, “This is your retirement house, isn’t it?”
It’s a fair question. Vande Velde is 35. He’d never before been part of the winning team in the Tour de France — though he’s been riding in Tours since 1999. He finished 17th overall as an individual — not bad, but not his best (he finished fourth in 2008).
“It’s totally been entering my mind, that’s for sure,” Vande Velde said of retirement. “I have another year with Garmin. After that, I don’t know. ... I just don’t know how long I want to keep on doing it.
“And it’s not even my age or anything. It’s the sacrifice you start to have to make when you have a wife and kids and just more responsibilities.”
Vande Velde has lived in Europe full-time for 14 years. Daughters Uma (4) and Madeline (2) go to school in Spain.
You sense he’s beginning, at home, to notice what he’s missing. And, on a bike, beginning to grow not so much weary as wary.
This year’s Tour de France was among the most crash-filled in the race’s 108 years. Vande Velde crashed three times the first day alone, and went down in a horrific pileup during Stage 9.
“That’s the biggest thing — I think the risk-taking is at the forefront of reasons why I would stop,” he said. “I’m probably better than I used to be. I know where I need to be at every time. But you can’t control all the variables around you. You can’t control a 22-year-old shooting up your left-hand side and risking life and limb for something that could be a massive deal for him.”
Still, he’ll risk one more year, for a Tour and what would be his third Olympics, in London. Most of Garmin’s core will be back next season (though Thor Hushovd, who wore the race leader’s yellow jersey most of the first week, likely will not).
After all, winning the team title is nice, but ...
“It’s bittersweet, you know?”
Not really.
“I gave myself a very good opportunity this year,” he said. “The hardest thing is mentally, knowing you’ve made all those sacrifices to come to the Tour in top condition ... then the first day, just like that, you’re almost two minutes behind.”
Still, as Stage 9 began, Vande Velde had it in his mind to be in the yellow jersey at day’s end. Broadcaster Bob Roll picked him to win the stage. Then the crash.
“You can go ‘What if?’ all day long,” he said. “I’ve learned if you start playing that game, you drive yourself completely insane. You’ve got to try to make your own luck, like I was trying to do that day. And even after you do crash, you have to say, ‘It could have been a lot worse. I could have been in the gully, where guys were 20 feet down in a ditch, broken bones, screaming in agony.’ ”
Besides, there was a team race to be won. The team classification counts each team’s top three riders in each stage and totals those times. On Stage 10, Vande Velde finished third among Garmin riders, despite still suffering from the Stage 9 crash.
“I was destroyed,” he said. “I’d never had a day like that in the Tour de France in my entire life. ... In hindsight, if I would have completely sat up that day, like I could have — because there was no reason for me to keep trudging on for 40th place or whatever — we wouldn’t have had a chance at the podium.”
One more chance is all he wants.
“Perfect scenario? I would love to have a great Tour next year, have the same kind of success we had this year, maybe some more personal success, be on the podium, go to the Olympics, then, ‘Hasta luego.’

Get to know Christian Vande Velde, professional cyclist By Janice Hoppe, jhoppe@mysuburbanlife.com Suburban Life Publications Posted Aug 04, 2011 @ 01:00 PM

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:55:05 -0400

Lemont, IL~ Following in his father’s footsteps, Christian Vande Velde always knew he wanted to be a professional cyclist.
Vande Velde just finished his ninth trip to the Tour de France and took 17th place out of 198 competitors. The tour started off rocky for him when he crashed three times and went through a lot of trauma.
“I had to roll with the punches,” Vande Velde said. “We had a great tour as a team.”
To get in shape for the tour, Vande Velde rides at least four hours a day. He’ll leave his house in Lemont and heads south toward the Route 66 raceway in Joliet.
He logs about 20,000 miles a year.
“My favorite ride is going far south and riding down the Kankakee River and back,” Vande Velde said. “However, the mountain biking trail riding here is becoming very nice and I spend most of my off-season riding those trails in Palos and taking the bike path back that parallels the canal.”
He grew up in Lemont, and after being away most of the year, he likes to come home.
“No one ever gets used to it,” Vande Velde said about the tour. “It’s never the same route.”
He said this year seemed to be even more stressful than previous races.
“The bikes themselves, the technology has gone through the roof,” he added. “The technology makes it just faster and things have increased.”
Not only have the competitors and the equipment enhanced, but the tour also is more intense. In France, Vande Velde said there are a lot of obstacles in the road such as round-abouts, signage and the amount of traffic that makes the route more dangerous.
“It’s more cutthroat these days,” Vande Velde said. “I would say people are more athletic and the level of the field has changed.”
Vande Velde has one more year left on his contract and will be going to the tour again.
“I don’t know what I am going to do after my career,” Vande Velde said. “I am really trying not to think about it too much. Right now I am more worried about my career.”
RESIDENCE Lemont AGE 35 YEARS CYCLING PROFESSIONALLY 19 FAMILY Wife, Leah; daughters, Uma and Madline NOTABLE Has been a professional cyclist since 1998, placed fourth in the Tour de France in 2008
Copyright 2011 Lemont Reporter. Some rights reserved

A conversation with Christian Vande Velde: Still looking ahead by Andrew Hood August 8, 2011 Velonews

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:49:55 -0400

Christian Vande Velde didn’t have the Tour de France that he was hoping for. After an injury-free run into the Tour for the first time in three years, Vande Velde crashed three times in the first stage and barely rode out of the first half of the Tour after a string of other painful spills. While other GC favorites were sent packing, the 35-year-old toughed it out and was able later to make important contributions in the final week that helped Garmin-Cervélo win the team GC prize.
Vande Velde will race the Colorado tour later this month, looking to turn the form he carried out of the final week of the Tour into a strong performance. VeloNews recently caught up with Vande Velde to talk Tour, crashes and what Garmin’s great ride meant to the team.
Q.
After the Tour, what’s ahead for the remainder of the season?
A.
I am really looking forward to racing in Colorado. It’s going to be cool racing on those roads. Everyone is very excited about it. It’s going to be cool having stages on those old routes from the Coors Classic. I’ll also do Canada and maybe the worlds. I won’t shut the door on it if Ty (Farrar) want me to come in for him.
Q.
This year’s Tour obviously didn’t work out as you hoped after your crashes, what were your personal expectations for this year’s race?
A.
I had good form coming to the Tour. I was still able to finish in the top-20, so that reflects a little bit of what could have been. That’s the Tour. That’s how it goes. I am still really proud of what we accomplished.
Q.
How bad were the crashes for you?
A.
There were quite a few days I thought I would be packing it in. I hit the deck too many times to count. The only positive thing was that I was still able to ride my bike. I could still contribute. You could see a lot of people who went home, who weren’t even able to continue. With the team having so much success, there was no time to feel sorry for myself. It was always good to have a goal to get through each day.
Whether it was the team GC, looking after Tom, defending the yellow jersey, leading out Tyler, that was good for me personally, to have something to focus on and forget the pain.
Q.
Were the crashes really worse this year or did it appear that way because more the GC riders were abandoning?
A.
It was way worse. It was really bad. There were a lot of bad crashes. I crashed hard four times, I was never myself after that. It was not fun in the first 10 days. It was frankly quite horrible. Small roads, then smaller roads, wind, rain and absolute panic in the bunch. Everyone wanted to be at the front, then there were crashes and people started to lose time. All the guys who were going for GC were fighting to be at the front. It just went on and on and on. There was never a let up. That’s just modern racing. That’s just what the Tour de France has become in the first week. The race is just on from start to finish. Until you get that first GC selection, everyone still has that dream inside them, so everyone has their priority to put their leaders at the front. The road is only 12 feet wide, there is only so much room for warm bodies. Having a big TT early would create more of a pecking order and let everyone know where they stand.
Q.
Despite some crashes for you, Garmin had its best Tour ever, what did it mean for the team?
A.
It’s huge for us. I was definitely skeptical coming in, because JV was pushing us on all fronts. You can start to wear yourself thin, but the first ambition was the TTT, then stage wins, then the yellow jersey and then the top 10. Ryder and I had some pretty gnarly crashes early and that took us out of GC contention real fast. TD stepped up nicely. The success was absolutely massive for us. Thor in yellow, defending the jersey for a week. Tyler winning a stage, Thor winning two, the yellow jersey, the TTT, and the team GC on top of all that.
It’s been a landmark Tour for us, for sure. After coming so close, it’s nice to have all that success after four years. I am scared for next year.
Q.
The team GC prize was there for the taking toward the end of the race, describe the effort it took in the final stages to secure that.
A.
It was always a subtle goal for the team GC. You cannot go into the race thinking about it, because it can drive you crazy. It’s a horrible thing to try to hold onto. We had a couple days when we had to throw everything in except the kitchen sink to retain the team GC.
The last two days in the Alps, we had some good rides, but the previous days before that, that’s when it took days off your life. It’s just so hard. All hell breaks lose when the break goes. It’s the last week of the Tour. Everyone has different ambitions. People are riding to defend jerseys, GC placings, going for a stage win. I’m really glad we could stick it out and push hard for that. We had come too far to let it slip away.
Q.
What was your impression of Cadel Evans during the Tour?
A.
Cadel rode a great Tour. His team kept him out of trouble. He took the initiative when he needed to. He didn’t cry or whine when the others didn’t work. He took the bull by the horns and rode up the Galibier. Andy had an amazing ride that day, but Cadel dug deep and saved his Tour that day. He singlehandedly took back time in the last 8km that saved him the Tour. There were quite a few days when he had ride defensively in the mountains. He knew more than anyone that this was his Tour to lose. Hat’s off to him. They had the jersey for just one day, but they had it on the right one.
Q.
Do you still have some unsettled business with the Tour?
A.
I have a contract with the team through 2012. I’d still like one more crack at the Tour. It’s awesome being part of a great team like this. I still love racing my bike. It’s never fun having bad luck, but like they say, if there’s no bad luck, there’s no good luck.

Garmin chasing final podium with teams classification by Brian Holcomb 7-21-2011 Velonews

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 09:33:18 -0400

PUY SAINT PIERRE, France (VN) – As teams whose top-five GC hopes have faded often do, Garmin-Cervélo is chasing the teams classification at the Tour de France. But with four stage wins, a week in the maillot jaune and an American rookie fighting for the top-10, Garmin’s Tour has been their best ever and Tom Danielson leads the squad in a run at the final podium in the final three days of the race.
Ryder Hesjedal and Christian Vande Velde rode themselves into the ground Thursday on the Col du Galibier to protect the team’s place atop the leaderboard. Hesjedal collapsed to the road after crossing the finish line.
“Yeah, why not? We’re leading,” he told VeloNews after finishing tenth. “We always knew we started this race with three guys who could be there. Now we’re coming through this last week, it’s nice to stay on the podium. It’s all a process of trying to keep Tom in the top 10 and ride strong. It’s all just part of the equation.”
Team standings are decided daily by the total time of a squad’s first three riders to cross the finish line. The classification is that time, added up from every stage.
Team GC after stage 18
1. Team Garmin-Cervelo, in 238h 16′ 08″
2. Ag2r La Mondiale, at 10:30
3. Team Leopard-Trek, at 11:06
4. Katusha Team, at 28:42
5. Team Europcar, at 29:21
6. Sky Procycling, at 39:26
7. Euskaltel – Euskadi, at 42:26
8. Saxo Bank Sungard, at 1H06:27
9. Team Radioshack, at 1H18:37
10. Fdj, at 1H18:49
11. Cofidis Le Credit En Ligne, at 1H26:57
12. Quick Step Cycling Team, at 1H34:18
13. BMC Racing Team, at 1H44:07
14. Vacansoleil-Dcm, at 1H48:01
15. Pro Team Astana, at 1H50:43
16. Liquigas-Cannondale, at 2H00:03
17. Rabobank Cycling Team, at 2H00:30
18. Omega Pharma – Lotto, at 2H06:30
19. Saur-Sojasun, at 2H12:25
20. Lampre – Isd, at 2H26:35
21. HTC – Highroad, at 2H29:24
22. Movistar Team, at 3H00:03
Rarely does a team enter a race with team GC as a priority, but when the opportunity presents itself to take the yellow numbers the leading team wears everyday, squads often go after it. Two weeks into a Tour there is a big draw in the opportunity to stand on the podium as a team in Paris at race end.
Garmin entered stage 18 with a 5:27 lead over Leopard-Trek.
Danielson finished ninth, Ryder Hesjedal tenth and Vande Velde twelfth on the highest summit finish in the Tour’s history. With Leopard putting all its focus on Andy Schleck’s long-range attack on the Col d’Izoard, that team plummeted down the leaderboard and Ag2r La Mondiale moved into second in the classification.
Garmin pushed its lead out to more than 10 minutes.
“Top 10 is one thing, but team GC is a lot bigger,” said Vande Velde, fourth overall in 2008. “That’s why we keep on going or else I wouldn’t push like that for 25th.”
When Vande Velde and Hesjedal fell off the pace of the Cadel Evans-led chase group midway up the finish climb, they were forced into a familiar position: riding alone together on a remote climb. They tried to come back to Danielson, but could not. The team GC drove them on.
“I had a good time riding with Ryder,” said Vande Velde. “We teamed up together. It’s just kind of funny when you train that much together — Hawaii, Girona, here — and then you find yourselves alone together on the Galibier. It’s cool.”
“Yeah, they’re there and riding really strong and it’s good to see,” said Danielson, who at 33 years old is three days from finishing his first Tour. “I had a bad day yesterday and I felt good today. One more day in the mountains and then I get to do the time trial and I’m excited about that.”
Three categorized climbs, a hilly time trial and a sprint stage on the Champs Elysées lie between Garmin and the final podium. The team began the Tour with eyes toward a top-ten in the final overall standings and stage wins. With Danielson hanging in ninth and four very different victories since their stage 2 team time trial win, a trip to the stage beneath the Arc de Triomph on Sunday would cap off Garmin’s best-ever showing in July.

Arvia: Vande Velde knocked down, not out of Tour de France 7-11-2011

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:21:59 -0400

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Tour de France: Vande Velde in 29th Place with Six Stages Remaining by Amanda Luevano 7-18-2011 Lemont Patch

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:00:16 -0400

With one week of racing left in the 2011 Tour de France, Lemont native Christian Vande Velde continues to battle through crashes and minor injuries to remain in 29th place overall.
After Stage 15 on Sunday and a rest day Monday, the 35-year-old veteran, who is competing with Team Garmin-Cervelo, is still 21:06 behind the overall leader, Thomas Voeckler.
Vande Velde's teammate, world champion Thor Hushovd, won Stage 13 on Friday, giving him nine career Tour de France wins. Hushovd called the moment "the best moment ever" in his career.
"Awesome day of racing here at the #tdf. Made even better by Thor putting on a clinic of domination," Vande Velde tweeted Friday afternoon.
Going into Stages 14 and 15 over the weekend, Vande Velde was in 32nd place overall. Prior to Stage 12 last Thursday, he had held on to 19th place for three straight stages and was only 4:53 behind Voeckler.
"Long day at the office today. The crashes have taken their toll. However, @tomdanielson (teammate Tom Danielson) flew the flag for us today, lots of racing to come," Vande Velde tweeted Thursday.
Vande Velde has had a difficult Tour thus far, crashing multiple times during Stages 1, 9 and 10. The Stage 9 crash eliminated his teammate, David Zabriskie and left Vande Velde with minor injuries to his chin, shoulder and hip.
"For everything that went right this week, everything went wrong this week," Vande Velde told Versus after Stage 9. "Half our team crashed, it was very unfortunate. I feel horrible for those who are out of the race. I was never the same after that.”
Despite the crashes, Vande Velde has remained near the top of the 180 cyclists left in the Tour:

This year marks Vande Velde's ninth Tour de France appearance. He was part of Lance Armstrong's winning U.S. Postal Service team in 1999, finished fourth in 2008 and eighth in 2009.
The Tour will resume in the medium mountains Tuesday with Stage 16, a 101-mile race from Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux to Gap.

Christian Vande Velde puts decade-old disappointment behind him after TTT win Bonnie D. Ford 7/3/2011 ESPN

Tue, 5 Jul 2011 08:35:49 -0400

LES ESSARTS, France -- To understand what Garmin-Cervelo's first Tour de France stage win in Sunday's team time trial meant to veteran Christian Vande Velde, it's necessary to go back to the same event in the same race 10 years ago.
At the 2001 Tour, the 25-year-old Vande Velde was a support rider for two-time defending champion Lance Armstrong on the U.S. Postal Service team. Jonathan Vaughters and Thor Hushovd, a newly minted 23-year-old pro from Norway built like a brick barracks, rode in the green-and-white kits of a team sponsored by a French bank, Credit Agricole.
Vande Velde, the son of a track cycling Olympian from Chicago, had been part of Armstrong's inaugural Tour win in 1999. Vaughters, a slender, bespectacled Colorado-bred climbing specialist whose father was a lawyer, had previously been Vande Velde's Postal teammate and roommate in Girona, Spain.
It rained the day of Stage 4 in 2001 as the Tour teams negotiated the 42-mile course in northeastern France from the World War I battlefield of Verdun to Bar-le-Duc. Postal had finished second to the powerful Spanish ONCE team in the TTT the year before and Armstrong and director Johan Bruyneel -- a former ONCE rider -- were keenly intent on winning. Vande Velde was equally intent on restoring his status as a valuable Tour domestique after having to sit out in 2000 due to a freak infection.
[+] Enlarge
Bryn Lennon/Getty Images
David Millar, left, team director Jonathan Vaughters, center, and Christian Vande Velde have been together since Garmin's inception.
With 12 miles to go, Vande Velde's wheel slipped out from under him on a slick white lane line. He crashed, toppling Spain's Roberto Heras with him. Vande Velde did a heroic job towing Heras back, but the team would finish fourth.
The jubilant role of upset winners that day belonged instead to Credit Agricole, which hammered the pace in the downpour to try to defend the yellow jersey worn by Aussie rider Stuart O'Grady and finished half a minute faster than mighty ONCE.
Hushovd "was also the strongest that day," Vaughters recalled. (Major contributors to the effort also included Bobby Julich and Jens Voigt.) Vaughters, tipsy on champagne, sang opera on live French television. Every rider on the team says it was one of their best days on the bike.
It was one of Vande Velde's worst, and his relationship with Postal was never the same. He crashed out of the Tour two days later and fell out of favor with the team over the next two seasons, eventually migrating to Liberty Seguros for one unhappy year (2004) and contemplated retirement before signing with CSC (2005) and then Garmin (2008).
"Don't think I didn't think of that leading up to this day," Vande Velde said on Sunday. "There's been a lot of anticipation about this day since November, given the team we knew we had. It would have been a shame to let this opportunity slip through our fingers.
"Watching my friends and ex-teammates win the team time trial over the years, not being part of it ... I didn't think I was going to get this opportunity again."
Vande Velde wasn't selected for Tour rosters in 2002, 2003 and 2005. The 2004 Liberty Seguros team had no shot at contending for the TTT, and the event wasn't included in the race for the next three years. Garmin won the opening Giro d'Italia TTT in 2008, putting Vande Velde in the pink leader's jersey and helping secure its title sponsor, then brought a stacked team for the Tour de France TTT in 2009. Whittled down to the minimum five finishers early on, Garmin would finish second to Astana in Armstrong's first comeback season.
Even with a great ride, even with all the technology that could be mustered, Vande Velde knew there was no guarantee he would get a shot at that Tour TTT ride he so coveted. Execution and circumstance have to be knit together as tightly as the fiber in a space-age skinsuit.
Garmin had a start position midway through the field Sunday, thanks to the crash-marred Stage 1 that affected Vande Velde and other team leaders (he actually hit the deck three times). When Garmin finished in 24:48 Sunday, it was far from certain the time would hold up. As the afternoon went on, temperatures warmed and wind speed dropped, making conditions slightly more favorable for later-starting teams.
Vande Velde felt his heart rate soar as he and his teammates watched rival squads sprint in one by one on the television inside the team bus. Cheers erupted after Great Britain-based Sky, one of the favorites, stopped the clock a mere four seconds slower. Tension mounted as four other teams -- Radio Shack, HTC-Highroad, Leopard-Trek and finally BMC Racing -- came within 10 seconds of Garmin's time, with Leopard and BMC equaling Sky's time.
When Omega-Pharma-Lotto crossed the finish line to make the result official, Vande Velde embraced his teammates. Seven of nine have been with the team since its ascension to the elite level in 2008 under Vaughters' direction.
"We've been through so much together -- there's an insane chemistry between us," Vande Velde said.
Hushovd, who led Garmin across the line, leapfrogged into the Tour leader's yellow jersey by a second over BMC's Cadel Evans. Afterwards, he gave Vaughters credit for making a tough final roster decision, picking Lithuanian road champion Ramunas Navardauskas over some more experienced riders in part because of the role he could play in the TTT. Navardauskas is 23, the same age Hushovd was in 2001 with Credit Agricole, and Hushovd had mentioned that coincidence to his younger teammate that morning.
Vande Velde can finally put his decade-old disappointment to bed now. Few would have more of a sense of what this meant to him than David Millar, who played a big part in convincing Vande Velde that they could lead Garmin to this level when both signed on for the 2008 season. After the initial celebration in the bus, Millar came back to Vande Velde and gave him another bear hug. Vande Velde finally felt his guard crumble and began to cry.
"I'm not going to play this down," he said. "It was a seriously emotional day for me."

Vande Velde pleased with Tour de Suisse showing by Shane Stokes Saturday, June 18, 2011 Velonation

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 17:43:52 -0400

Fourth on yesterday’s stage boosts morale

Two weeks before the start of the Tour de France, Christian Vande Velde got a confidence booster on yesterday’s final mountain stage of the Tour de Suisse. The Garmin-Cervélo rider was one of seventeen riders who went clear on the first category climb of the Flüelapass, and fought it out for a podium place on the final climb up to the line.   Vande Velde eventually picked up fourth place, 51 seconds behind the winning time of Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil DCM), who had seized his chance inside the final 25 kilometres. Double Tour de France runner-up Andy Schleck (Leopard Trek) was second, 35 seconds back, with Vande Velde yielding just 16 seconds to him.   “I’m happy with my build up here at the Tour de Suisse,” he said. “Today was not planned by any means but I was happy to be amongst it. It showed me what I still need to work on and that I am not that far off of where I need to be.” He was sitting 20th overall going into today’s penultimate stage.   The Chicago rider is best known for his fourth place in the 2008 Tour de France. He returned the following year and was eighth, despite fracturing several bones in that year’s Giro d’Italia. He was once again one of the Garmin team’s key riders in last year’s race, but unfortunately crashed out on the stage two to Spa.   Vande Velde’s disappointment was such that he considered retirement, but got his morale back and rode the Vuelta a España in order to build up for 2011.   Working hard since the start of the year, he showed that his form was on the up when he finished fourth overall in the recent Tour of California. Yesterday’s fourth place in Switzerland will be further encouragement to him, and he’ll hope to once again fight for a high placing in cycling’s biggest event.   Vande Velde is likely to share leadership with Ryder Hesjedal in this year’s race. The Canadian placed seventh overall last year, raising his game after his team-mate crashed out.

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