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Vande Velde Mounts Comeback: Crashes and broken bones have marred Christian Vande Velde's last few Grand Tours. He hopes the Vuelta will turn his luck around. James Start Bicycling.com

Wed, 1 Sep 2010 05:10:48 -0400

American cyclist Christian Vande Velde has shown the ability to be one of the world’s top stage racers, finishing fourth at the 2008 Tour de France and ninth in the 2009. But the Garmin-Transitions cyclist can also be one of the peloton’s most accident-prone: he crashed out of the Giro d’Italia in 2009, and again in 2010. Then, he tumbled out of the 2010 Tour de France with four broken ribs.

Such misfortune has not stopped Vande Velde, 34, from starting yet another Grand Tour—he’s currently racing at the Vuelta a Espana. This time, instead of racing for results, his top objective is simply to finish.

In all fairness, Vande Velde is not a dangerous rider. He has ridden in an impressive 16 Grand Tours throughout his professional career and finished all but four of them. In addition, his crashes at this year’s Giro d’Italia and Tour de France were virtually unavoidable.

Now, Vande Velde talks openly about one of cycling’s most avoided subjects: fear. “I do have fear,” the always-amiable Vande Velde told Bicycling in a telephone interview last weekend. “I was definitely thinking about stopping quite a few times. I mean, it hits home when family and friends are looking at you asking, ‘Why?’"

Vande Velde is committed to beating the fear. “At the end of the day, I just love to race and I know if I can get past the fear, past the pressure I put on myself, I can be one of the best,” he says. “That’s what drives me. And I don’t want to look back and think that I didn’t leave everything on the road before I hung up the cleats. So now I just want to get through this race.”

By comparative standards, Vande Velde is off to a reasonable beginning. He has already made it to stage five, farther than in his two previous Grand Tour starts. But perhaps more importantly he has already made it past his first crash, as he fell on Monday’s stage three but continued to the finish with only minor bruises.

“I’m beyond myself!” Vande Velde said in a follow-up conversation after Tuesday’s stage. And while he has lost more than 14 minutes on each of the last two stages, he is pleased with how he is riding. “It’s been gnarly with the heat down here and a lot of guys are really messed up. I can’t believe how good I feel. But I don’t want to turn myself inside out in the first week. I want to ride into shape as the race goes on.”

While Vande Velde’s goals are modest at this Vuelta, he hopes to ride well in the high mountains and strives to help team leader Tom Danielson. “Tom really deserves to have our support here I just hope I can have some standout performances being at the front and helping him out,” Vande Velde says. “I’d love to win a stage as well, but it all depends how the body reacts.”

Though Vande Velde has made it through five days of racing, he understands that two and a half weeks of racing still await him and has not lost track of his main goal. “First and foremost,” he says, “I need to stay out of trouble.”

Christian Vande Velde: Christian soldier American rider Christian Vande Velde has gone from one of cycling's also-rans to a potential winner of the Tour de France Paul Kimmage Timesonline July 20, 2008

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:26:37 -0400

“Everybody cheats. I just didn’t know”  Dave (Dennis Christopher) in the film Breaking Away
Let’s start with the cheating. Let’s start with what he didn’t know. Let’s start with the training camp that morning in Solvang, California, when they left the team hotel and rode out into the valley until they reached the team cars. It was January 1999. He was 22 years old and about to embark on his second season with the US Postal team. “Okay, Christian,” they said. “This is what we want you to do.”
It was a 10km time trial. His instructions were to ride flat-out from the valley to the top of the hill, where a doctor would be waiting to take a sample of his blood. The blood would be tested for lactate. The numbers would be posted on a chart. The chart would tell the tale of the rider’s fitness and potential. Every member of the squad was being assessed.
He took his place with the big Postal stars as they lined up in the valley: Tyler Hamilton, Frankie Andreu, Jonathan Vaughters, Kevin Living-ston, George Hincapie and, last but never least, Lance. Lance with the legendary physiology; Lance, who prided himself on winning every test; Lance, so determined to win again: “Nothing personal, guys, just business.” How could he lead the team if he was not the team leader?
But here’s the twist. Lance Armstrong is not the team leader. No, the rider with the best figures that morning is the young Belgian-sounding Chicagoan, Christian Vande Velde. So you can imagine the howls at management level when the doctor arrives with the results. “Oh Christ! Who’s going to tell Lance?”
So the result is “massaged” so that Lance can feel good about himself, and Vande Velde is cheated; cheated of the buzz that comes with winning; cheated of knowing that on that day in 1999, he had more physical gifts than the man who would go on to win seven Tours de France. And for the next eight years, that’s mostly how it is.
There’s a lot more cheating and a lot more losing and he struggles constantly with injury. And two weeks ago, when he starts his sixth Tour de France, Christian Vande Velde is still a minor leaguer, performing unnoticed in the shadow of the gods. He has no ambition of winning. He has no idea how good he is. But what if he just found out?
Stories of most American cycling prodigies usually start with LeMond. This one starts with Lemont, a satellite town to the southwest of Chicago. John Vande Velde is a second-generation Belgian and inherits a deep-rooted love and talent for cycling, his grandfather’s favourite sport. John enters the family business (barricades for road construction) but the bicycle is his passion.
In 1968 and 1972 he makes the US Olympic team. In 1976 Christian, the first of his three children, is born. In 1979 he is cast as one of the Team Cinzano bad guys in the Oscar-winning movie Breaking Away. “That’s how I knew my dad was famous,” Christian says, smiling. “It was a big deal to be able to stay up past nine o’clock to watch Breaking Away when it was on TV.”
Christian had a talent for golf at high school, but there was no escape from his destiny. There was the “Vande-drome”, John’s portable wooden track on which he learnt to ride; the racing caps he was given regularly by John’s racing pals; and the fuss made for Patrick Sercu and the other famous Belgian racers who dropped by when they visited Chicago. “I liked golf but never took it seriously enough,” he says. “John Daly wasn’t my father. Why fight the grain?”
When he was 15, he travelled with a friend to a cycling camp in Wisconsin hosted by Tom Schuler, a top professional with the Motorola cycling team. It rained all week but the bug had bitten and he signed up shortly afterwards for his first race in Des Moines. It was not an auspicious debut. “I just ate shit [crashed]. All I could think of was wrecking my $85 pants and what my dad would say.”
The plus side was that the only way was up, and for the next five years he soared, securing his first professional contract in 1998 on a US Postal team that included the talented but somewhat goofy Coloradoan Vaughters. “He was a nutcase,” Vande Velde recalls. “He was a quirky, messy guy that nobody else wanted to room with and I was like, ‘Yeah, just throw me in there’. Jonathan was different from the other guys. He was relaxed and helped me with my training and diet and liked to talk about things other than cycling. He was a good friend.”
They were six months into their first season and rooming together at the Cascade Classic in Oregon when the Festina scandal broke on the Tour de France. Everybody was cheating. He just didn’t know. “It didn’t really affect me because I was so far away from all that. I was having the time of my life – ’98 and ’99 were good times for me.”
The good times got better on his Tour debut in 1999. Fourteenth in the prologue and the white jersey holder as the leading young rider, he shelved his personal ambitions and spent the next three weeks working tirelessly for Lance, but still managed to finish a superb 16th in the final time trial – a performance that astonished Vaughters. This kid was the real deal.
“We had a great time that year,” Vande Velde recalls. “There was like the three kind of lead guys in one camper, Kevin, Tyler and Lance, and the five goons in the other; I didn’t have a space to even lie in the camper . . . The only low point was at L’Alpe d’Huez. It was one of my first days in the grupetto [the last group]; I had tendonitis so bad.
“It was over seven hours and I thought I was done. I said, ‘I can’t do this any more’ and Lance looked at me and pretty much laughed. ‘You’ve gotta do it. You don’t have a choice’. But I was doing more damage than good.”
He was injured (a delicately positioned ingrowing hair follicle) for the Tour King’s second win in 2000 but returned a year later in the quest for number three, when the pressure was almost unbearable. “There was so much pressure being with Lance to do everything right,” he says. “We had a bigger team with a bigger budget and better riders and you really had to cut the mustard just to be there. It was really harsh.”
After crashing in the team time trial and again during another stage, his race ended on a miserably wet Bastille Day when he lost control on a tricky descent and hit a pole, smashing his back and breaking an arm. “I felt like I let them down,” he says. The arm kept him out for the rest of the season. The back continued to plague him to the end of 2003. Postal had had enough and offered to pay half his contract if he joined another team.
Vande Velde was distraught. “I could do these tests and knew that when everything was square, I was testing as good as anyone on the team – that’s what kept the desire alive.” But the penny had dropped. Everything wasn’t square. There was cheating. He knew it. How could you compete with that? He picked up the phone and managed to blag a place on the Liberty-Seguros team for 2004. And things just got worse.
“That whole year sucked. They dropped the ball completely. I didn’t have a visa, so I couldn’t race and I was at home for half the season.”
It was time to start begging again. He called Bjarne Riis and offered to ride for 2005 on the minimum wage with CSC, but the nightmare continued. Underraced and struggling with his back, he finished the Tour of Italy but suffered like a dog. He returned to his home in Girona, lit a fine cigar and drank two bottles of wine with his wife, Leah. He was done. It was over. He phoned Vaughters at three o’clock in the morning. “I’m hearing good reports about your new outfit,” he chirped. “Think you could do with another good director?’”
Vaughters convinced him to keep racing. He sat out the Tour and had started training again when he got the call; the call from Shaun Tucker; the offer that turned him round. Toyota had agreed to sponsor a new US team and were offering to sign him. He was thrilled. And he returned to work with CSC feeling a lot more relaxed.
But he still wasn’t confident. He remembers a stage of the Vuelta (Tour of Spain) that autumn, jumping away in a breakaway group that is moving clear of the pack. They reach the critical phase and he knows what’s coming next . . . The team car drawing slowly alongside . . . the window being lowered . . . the manager glaring.
“Can you win?” Riis barks. “What?” “Can you win the stage?” He considers his response. If he says “no”, Riis will immediately order the team to chase. If he says “yes” and fails, Riis will go berserk. It happened at least five times in that Vuelta and his answer was always the same. “No.”
Christian Vande Velde was the greatest enigma in cycling. Injuries (two broken collarbones) continued to plague him in 2006, but then, after eight years as a pro, he won his first race in Europe at the Tour of Luxembourg. He raced well for CSC the next year and had established himself as one of the best domestiques in the peloton when Vaughters presented his exciting plans for Slipstream. “There will be no cheating,” JV assured him. “You will know.”
Vande Velde wasn’t sure. He was already racing clean and liked the crew at CSC. But he also liked David Millar and Julian Dean and Will Frischkorn and Ryder Hesjedal and Danny Pate. And he absolutely loved Vaughters. “It was an American team, a new team, and I saw this as a challenge; I could work with the young Americans and tell them the good and bad things that have happened to me in the past. It wasn’t about being a leader.”
Vaughters had other ideas. After a promising start to the season at the Tour of California, he presented his masterplan. The team would prepare for the Tour at the Giro D’Italia, spend 10 days resting at St Moritz and sharpen up for the race at a training camp in the Pyrenees. Vande Velde wanted to kill him. Then Vaughters showed him the new paint scheme for the bus and Vande Velde wanted to throw up.
“At first I kind of played it off,” he says, “because it was said offhandedly: ‘Oh, your face is going to be all over the side of the bus’. I said, ‘Okay, whatever’. And then I saw it and felt very insecure that I was being picked and cast above the rest of the team.”
The insecurity continued into the first week of the Tour and on the morning of the first big rendezvous – the time-trial in Cholet – he was spotted pacing the corridor of the team hotel with headphones on.
“What are you doing?” I inquired.
“Just trying to work on my head and believe in myself,” he said.
“How can one of the best guys in the race not believe in himself?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Two days later, he attacked the leaders on the climb to Super-Besse and described in a blog how “unusual” it felt. And then on Monday, after the second Pyrenean stage to Hautacam, something extraordinary happened. Face covered in grime after more than four hours in the saddle, he was standing outside the team bus with a handful of reporters when someone handed him a results sheet. The sheet had not been doctored. That really was his name in third, just 38 seconds behind the leader, Cadel Evans. And there was a sudden spark in his eyes as his mind registered thoughts he had never previously considered.
Did he feel lucky? No. Had he pushed himself into the red or close to the limit?
No. Would Evans beat him in the final time trial?
Not certain. Had Christian Vande Velde just realised for the first time in his life that he could win the Tour de France?
YES. He felt elated. And scared. This is unknown territory.
“It’s a lot more scary to achieve things than not,” he says. “I think about winning the Tour; I think about what it would be like for my family and my life; I think of my dad on his hands and knees in front of the TV . . . It’s like a script from a movie. If I had stayed at CSC, with the same exact form, there’s no way I’d be in third place right now – I’d be on the front, working for someone else. Bjarne would never have sculpted my programme as beautifully as Jonathan.”
And the most beautiful thing of all? In a Tour once again sullied by doping, Vande Velde – sitting third after yesterday’s 14th stage – is doing it clean.
“I’m really happy to be on a clean team,” he says. “And I’m even happier now because it has just occurred to me all the questions I am going to be asked if I do well because I’m an ex-US Postal rider. I’m happy that I’m going to get a diploma from ACE [the Agency for Cycling Ethics] that I’ve had 87 blood tests this year and from last year, and that I can document everything I’ve taken and not taken. It has been a pain in the butt sometimes but it pays off tenfold and I’ll do it any day.”
He takes out his BlackBerry and shows me a message he has just received from Tom Schuler, the old Motorola pro who first encouraged him to race.
“Man o man, the boys back here in Wisconsin are riding along with you, especially the boys in the plastic jackets. They are coming over to see you on the Champs-Elysees. Seriously, if you don’t know it already, everyone back here in Wisconsin, and everyone who is a cyclist in the whole USA, is riding with you. We are all incredibly proud of you. Please don’t answer this email, just save the extra energy for the efforts in the days ahead. You are going to need every ounce to do the things I know you can do. Go baby go.”
And he smiles, a believer.

Christian Vande Velde interview: bouncing back in the Vuelta a España Shane Stokes 8/30/2010 Velonation

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:54:40 -0400

Garmin-Transitions rider fights back from Giro and Tour injuries

Forget the Mallot Jaune or, in the Vuelta, the new Maillot Rojo. If there were jerseys for fighting back from adversity, Christian Vande Velde would surely be the honorary wearer by now. Since he finished fourth in the 2008 Tour de France, the Garmin Transitions rider has had a scarcely-believable run of misfortune. He crashed in the 2009 Giro, suffering three fractured vertebrae, two cracked ribs and a fractured pelvis, bounced back to take eighth in the Tour de France, fell in the 2010 Giro and broke his collarbone and cracked more ribs, then hit the deck again in the Tour.   The latter crash saw him fracture two more ribs, ending his race and almost putting paid to his career. You can be one of the toughest guys in cycling, but at some point enough is enough.   Fortunately Vande Velde has decided to give it another shot. He is here in the Vuelta a España, starting his third Grand Tour of the year and hoping that this one finally hands him some better luck. He’s not quite sure what to expect – not surprising, as he’s been on the ropes so long that he needs to work out what shape he’s in – but said in weeks leading up to the race that he intended playing things by ear and doing what he could.   “I think I will have a better idea of where I am a week into it,” he told VeloNation. “It is one of those things where you don’t want to set the bar too high, but you don’t want to eliminate yourself either. You never know what you are going to end up being like. I might be great, I might be very mediocre. Who knows?”  Garmin-Transitions physiologist Iñigo San Millan feels that results are not the important thing right now, but rather getting back on the bike and clocking up some important racing kilometres. “For Christian, just to be here at the start of Vuelta is a huge thing, and you can tell that he is so excited just for this,” he explained on Saturday. “He is in good spirits and feels fine, although he is aware that he is not at his best.. He needs to race this race or as much of it as possible to get things back on track, especially from the psychological standpoint. The result or performance is not important…just to race and have as much fun as possible.”  Team CEO Jonathan Vaughters is in complete agreement with that. He’s not putting any pressure on the Chicagoan to chase stages, win jerseys or do anything specific; his biggest priority is that Vande Velde has the chance to get through a Grand Tour without more trips to the hospital. The important thing is to clock up important racing kilometres that will stand to him next year.   “Now he needs to do the Vuelta, he needs to finish the Vuelta - I don’t care where he finishes, he just needs to finish the race, and start that as a slow and steady and consistent building process towards next year,” he explained to VeloNation.   “If he can do that, then he can get into the spring races next year and let off the brakes a little bit. He can start taking a few risks, start being a bit more daring and feel comfortable with that in the peloton. If he can work on that progression, then he certainly can come back to the highest level in the sport. But he needs to really want it now. It is harder to come back when you are older than when you are younger, that is for sure.” 

The fact that he is here is a good sign in itself. After Vande Velde crashed out of the Tour, Vaughters felt that he needed to take some time to himself, weigh everything up and decided what he wanted to do next. There was no pressure, and statements after that crash even hinted that he would have understood had the rider decided to retire.   Of course, it’s not that Vaughters wanted to see his team captain leave the sport. Rather, he knew that he needed some space, and not to be put under any pressure by the team. If he returned, then it would be for the correct reasons.   “His was a case where he psychologically almost had to let it go all the way to be bottom. It wasn’t really worth trying to rebound, so you sort of let it drift all the way down to the bottom. Sometimes that’s the way it is in life, you have to let it go all the way,” Vaughters explained.   “Now he has chosen to come back to cycling. It was his choice, it wasn’t that anyone forced him. He chose because he wanted to return. Because of that, I think he has realised that he missed the sport. That he enjoys being a racer and a competitor. Hopefully that will be what gets him back to the highest level. He’s not doing it out of obligation, he is doing it out of passion.”   Slow burner comes good:   Vande Velde was, for many years, something of an undiscovered talent. The son of former pro John Vande Velde, he turned professional with the US Postal service team in 1998 and rode there for six seasons. He did his first Tour in 1999, holding the white jersey for almost a week but then dedicating himself to protecting the yellow jersey of Lance Armstrong in the mountains.   He slotted into a support role, but some performances that year hinted at his ability. He won the Redlands Classic, took a round of the UCI World Cup in the individual pursuit and netted third overall plus best young rider in the Four Days of Dunkirk. There was also another indication, too, but we’ll return to that soon.   After 1999, several quieter seasons followed. Then a move to Team CSC saw things begin to pick up again. He spent much of his time riding as a domestique for the team leaders there, yet still won the mountains classification in the 2005 Eneco Tour, took the Tour of Luxembourg in 2006 (also netting third on a stage of the Tour), and was then second overall in the 2007 Tour de Georgia as well as sixth in the Tour of California.   Vaughters snapped him up at the end of that season and set about trying to convince him that he had the potential to lead a team. At first, Vande Velde didn’t have a whole lot of confidence in the notion that he could target races like the Tour. However after netting third in the Tour of California, second overall in the Circuit de la Sarthe and leading the Giro d’Italia, something changed. Self belief growing, he went into that year’s Tour determined to give it a shot, and had a superb race in taking fourth.   Around that time, a story emerged that put a very different light on his career. Irish journalist Paul Kimmage spent that year’s Tour embedded in the Garmin team and wrote a very interesting piece on Vande Velde. One of the most eyebrow-raising points came right at the start, when he revealed that the-then 22 year old had beaten every rider on the team in a pre-season uphill time trial back in 1999. Even the undisputed team leader.   He was fastest to the top of a mountain near the US Postal team’s training camp in Solvang, California, yet the team changed his result so that Lance Armstrong – and not Vande Velde – was named as being quickest.   Kimmage’s point was had Vande Velde been allowed that small success, that validation of his talent, perhaps he would have had greater faith in his own abilities and gone on to a very different career.   Vande Velde finally caught up with his natural level nine years later, finishing close to the podium, and left that Tour realising that he had undersold himself. Not only in the years since that Solvang test, but also in the 2008 race itself. Had he gambled more, he realised, had he ridden a little more aggressively, he would have been in the top three in Paris. That increased his determination for the following year.  

We know now that his hopes of building on that fourth place weren’t realised. The terrible injuries he suffered in the Giro put paid to those ambitions, yet fighting back to take eighth overall just a couple of months after fracturing his back and pelvis was a staggering feat. Let’s not forget that he rode for Bradley Wiggins in that race too; it was an incredibly courageous performance.   That’s why in a fair world, he would have returned to the race this year and showed what he could do. The Giro crashed messed that up, though, and then his big fall on stage two took him right out of the race.   “It happened on the Stockeau, where so many others had problems,” he told VeloNation. “Some of my closest friends went down. There was oil on the road, but I had made it all the way through. That was the worst part of it, afterwards, the fact that I had gone by pretty much everybody and then someone crashed right in front of me towards the bottom. That was it – lights out.”  Lights out, and Tour over.    Rebuilding, yet again:  The next few days were emotional ones. Initially, he was relieved in some strange way. “I was so beat up by that point that I had had enough. From that aspect, it wasn’t hard to just go home and say, ‘I’ve had enough at this point in time.’   “It wasn’t heart-breaking. It was like a sick joke that someone had been playing on me for a while. I was over it. At first I was relieved, I said ‘okay, I am out of here, I am going home, I am going to see my family. The pain is over, I don’t have to suffer any more for a while. I am still healthy, I am not too beat up. It could have been much worse.’  “Then after a couple of days, reality started sinking in more. You realise that you are not going to get the 2010 Tour back. I realised how much work I did do this year, and how fit I was, and how I was ready to do battle. When you revolve the whole year around it, when you do the training camps, when you do the altitude camps…everything revolves around those three weeks, and it hurts for that to be taken away from you.”  Fortunately he had a couple of distractions and those allowed him to switch off. He went back to the US, didn’t follow the Tour on the internet or on TV, but instead concentrated on moving into his new house. Lifting boxes didn’t help his ribs much, and lying on his back at night was very painful for a while, but he was able to get his mind off cycling and push the reset button.   “It was the biggest break that I have ever taken during the season,” he said. “Then when I got back on my bike, I actually felt great…I was pretty astounded how much my body probably needed the break, both physically and mentally.”  Vande Velde continued building, having moments where he questioned his decision to come back, but gradually moved on and got to the point that he is racing again. His initial goal of helping the team to win the team time trial on Saturday didn’t work out [the Garmin Transitions team was sixth, hampered by injuries suffered by Julian Dean], but he’ll keep pushing on. Supporting Tyler Farrar on the flat stages and Tom Danielson in the mountains are two motivations, and so too the possibility that he’ll click into form near the end of the race.   If he does that, a stage win would be a slice of good karma after what he has been through.   Either way, Vaughters still believes that the 34 year old has good performances left in him. “His opportunities are fewer as he is older now,” he said. “But when I look at our team, does he still hold a place where he can go to the Tour next year and be an integral part of the team time trial squad, and then hopefully dispute the GC? Absolutely. He has got the opportunity to do that. There is no questioning that.”  One thing is certain. If he does pull off a big performance in the 2011 Tour, there will be many who feel it is completely deserved. Virtual jerseys for coming back from adversity don’t exist in the sport, but when he next clocks up a big result, it will be warmly applauded.

Read more: http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/5459/Christian-Vande-Velde-interview-bouncing-back-in-the-Vuelta-a-Espana.aspx#ixzz0y7oQ7bA6

Vuelta a España: Garmin-Transitions hoping third time’s a charm for Christian Vande Velde Velonation 8/26/10 by Ben Atkins at 6:24 PM EST

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 07:43:57 -0400

Argyle team's Tour casualties return and hope for better luck in year's third Grand Tour

The Garmin-Transitions team has announced its nine-man roster for the Vuelta a España, which starts with a team time trial in Sevilla on Saturday evening. Christian Vande Velde returns to racing for the first time since he crashed out of the Tour de France on the third stage between Brussels and Spa.

The Vuelta will be Vande Velde’s third Grand Tour of the year, but will hopefully have better luck this time; the American also crashed out of the Giro d’Italia in May, hitting the tarmac and breaking his collarbone in stage 3 between Amsterdam and Middleburg, Netherlands.

The Vuelta team also includes other casualties from that Belgian Tour de France stage. Sprinter Tyler Farrar fractured his wrist but managed to soldier on until stage 12, almost managing to pick up a stage win on the way. Like Vande Velde, Farrar is also starting his third Grand Tour of the year having abandoned both of the others; he recently won the Vattenfall Cyclassics and came second in the GP Ouest France-Plouay and will be looking to continue to build his form towards the World Championships in Melbourne, Australia just after the race.

David Millar suffered a suspected fractured wrist on that crash-marred stage but managed to survive to Paris, despite riding alone behind the “autobus” on the tough mountain stage to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. Julian Dean suffered bruising to his back but finished the race strongly as the team’s sprinter, finishing second in Bordeaux and third in Paris; both times behind Mark Cavendish.

Both Millar and Dean also rode the Giro but neither reached the finish.

US time trial champion Dave Zabriskie survived the Tour relatively speaking without incident, while Tom Danielson and Matt Wilson ride the first Grand Tour of their seasons; Wilson’s first since the 2005 Giro d’Italia.

Michel Kreder and Tom Peterson are both to ride the first Grand Tour of their careers.

Read more: http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/5415/Vuelta-a-Espana-Garmin-Transitions-hoping-third-times-a-charm-for-Christian-Vande-Velde.aspx#ixzz0xo2a40sb

Ride with Christian Sunday, October 17, 2010 Save a Limb Ride

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:06:48 -0400

If you are in the Maryland area this October you might want to meet Christian and participate in a fun ride for a great cause.

One in 125 children is born with a limb deficiency and many others suffer from limb deformities. Some children undergo amputation because they do not have the resources to travel to a specialist and pay for limb lengthening or reconstruction surgery.
Over time, many people's joints wear down creating painful conditions that make simply walking to the door an excruciating task. Whether from degeneration, arthritis or injury, some people are unable to receive treatment because they cannot afford the cost of surgery or physical therapy. They are forced to alter their lives because of the pain, giving up many of the activities that previously brought them joy.
The Save-A-Limb Fund was established in 2001 and supports in the fight to save limbs from amputation and provide hip and knee replacements to patients in need both domestically and abroad. The fund also works to advance patient care through the research and the work of the physicians and staff of the Rubin Institute for Advanced Orthopedics (RIAO) at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. The Save-A-Limb fund is a program of Sinai Hospital, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. To learn more about how the funds are used, please click here. If you would like to make a donation to the fund, please visit the Save-A-Limb Fund donation page.
The Rubin Institute for Advanced Orthopedics provides two main types of orthopedic treatment:
Joint Preservation and Replacement:  The Center for Joint Preservation and Replacement at the Rubin Institute for Advanced Orthopedics is nationally recognized for specializing in non-operative and surgical methods for the comprehensive treatment of hip, knee and shoulder arthritis. Annually, thousands of patients receive advanced non-operative and operative care for their arthritic joints as well as all types of painful joint disorders such as avascular necrosis, degeneration, and injury.
Limb Lengthening and Reconstruction:  The International Center for Limb Lengthening at the Rubin Institute of Advanced Orthopedics is internationally recognized as the most experienced center for limb lengthening and reconstruction in the world. The center is committed to providing the most comprehensive and technologically advanced treatments available for children and adults with limb discrepancies, short stature, bone defects, bone infections, and nonunions.

Vande Velde to ride the Vuelta but reveals he almost quit the sport Daniel Benson 8-20-2010 Cyclingnews.com

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 08:40:30 -0400

Garmin-Transitions rider talks about his emotional comeback from Tour de France crash
Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Transitions) will be at the start of next week’s Vuelta a España but has revealed to Cyclingnews that he almost quit the sport after he crashed out of this year’s Tour de France.
Vande Velde crashed during stage two of Tour de France from Brussels to Spa in Belgium, the day a huge number of riders crashed on the descent of the Stockeu and the peloton waited for the Schleck brothers and finished all together in protest. Vande Velde was unable to make it back to the peloton after fracturing several ribs and suffering a nasty cut above his left eye, finishing ten minutes down.
He failed to start the next stage and returned home to his family in Spain. After a few weeks of training and a call from directeur sportif, Matt White, he was persuaded to return to Europe for the final grand Tour of the season. However he admits it has not been easy.
“I almost didn’t get on the plane to come over here in all honestly. I was feeling pretty bad again last week. But White called and told me to get on the plane and it’s been an enjoyable experience so far,” Vande Velde told Cyclingnews.
Vande Velde’s recovery involved three weeks of full rest and he didn’t even look at his bike until the day before his teammates reached the Champs Elysees in Paris. His training has been moderate and although he admits he won’t be a GC threat at the Vuelta, he would like to play a part, especially with the race starting with a team time trial in Seville.
“I’d be lying if I said the team time trial wasn’t a factor, although I don’t know how much help I can be. I need to get through the Vuelta but I’m not just doing it to ride my bike or for training. I’m there to support my teammates and when I have good enough form, go for stage wins.
“I truly gave myself a lot of time to recover. I’m still a bit tight, taking transatlantic flights with four broken ribs isn’t always the best thing but it’s much better. I’m definitely undercooked but I really want to get this race under my belt, go into the winter with a Grand Tour in my legs and have some fun racing again.
“I’m not in horrible shape but I’m nowhere near having the fitness to go in there with high aspirations. I did my first five hour ride since the Tour yesterday. That says it all.”
Two tough seasons
Vande Velde has suffered horrendous luck in the last two seasons. He crashed out of the 2009 Giro and only just made it back to form for the Tour, where he finished in the top ten. A crash at the Tour of Missouri ended his 2009 season, while his 2010 campaign got off to a nightmare start when he was forced to abandon the Giro in the first week for a second successive season.
However it was this year’s Tour setback that had the biggest effect on him.
“In a weird way I was fine for the first few days. So much shit had happened in the last year, so I was just thinking, well what else can happen? I was just going home and wasn’t worried about anything. I was almost euphoric about going home and seeing my family and not having any stress.
“Then reality set in and I realised how hard I’d worked all year and then I was down for a while. It was a big roller coaster for the next two weeks.”
After a brief stop in Spain he swiftly packed his bags and took his family from their European base in Girona back to the US, where he was moving house. Without television or internet for over a week he was able to switch off from racing and reassess his year and his future.
“I had to get out of Spain because I was constantly reminded of the Tour and people were asking me questions and giving me pity. I left as soon as I could. It was great, I didn’t know what was going on in the race, I never would think having no television or internet in this day and age would be nice but I really enjoyed being away from it all.”
Family support
Once back in the US and with just his family around him, Vande Velde was able to reflect on his setbacks and plot a path back to form. However it wasn’t easy and at a number of times he even contemplated quitting the sport.
“When you are this beat up all the time you have to use so much motivation all the time and that’s what sucks the life out of you,” he admitted.
“You go from the physio, to the osteopath, from x-ray to x-ray, it’s just hard to regain your motivation. I had all this doubt and didn’t want to ride through pain.
“Seeing my wife and kids, and seeing my daughter look at me, looking at my scars, and you have a lot of doubt and you don’t want to be hurt anymore or see their faces or disappointment. That’s what really cut through everything. I can take the pain and discomfort it’s more seeing your loved ones, not sad, but scared for you. That was pretty hard to take.”
In the end it was the support of his wife that helped him through, while the call from White gave him that extra push to return.
“I came pretty close to hanging up the wheels, very close a couple of times. It was more my wife talking me back into it and saying that I shouldn’t go out like this and have second doubts for the rest of your life. I agreed with her but I’m glad I got that push from White.”
How Vande Velde performs at the Vuelta is an unknown. The lack of racing miles should not hold him back but more likely to be a factor will be his luck. With a long break from racing and no pressure to perform, he could have the perfect atmosphere to get him through three weeks of racing. He certainly isn’t lacking motivation.
“I’m always motivated. I just want to be on the top of my game and enjoy the sport that I love. If you’re willing and able and have the opportunity then you should take it and get back on the bike.”
And as for the future, the American has already pinpointed a place and time when he’d like to say goodbye to the sport on his terms.
“I’d love to make the Olympic team in 2012 and finish there. For now, though, I want to concentrate on this team and see it succeed. It’s been a lot of work and I want to be a part of it either if it’s me or anyone else having success. I love seeing the younger guys coming up and having success. It’s great to watch.”

Broken ribs crack Vande Velde’s Tour dream CyclingNews

Tue, 6 Jul 2010 10:51:26 -0400

American out after stage two crashes

Garmin-Transitions general classification hope Christian Vande Velde has withdrawn from the Tour de France after suffering two broken ribs after a crash-plagued second stage. Vande Velde was caught in two accidents on the Stockeu, which also left him with left eyelid lacerations that required multiple stitches.
The American rider was obviously disappointed with the news, and made his feelings towards the day’s stage clear. “No one wants to leave the Tour de France,” he said. “I worked really hard to get myself ready to be here again and I was just starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
“I’m indescribably disappointed to not be starting tomorrow. I wish everyone luck – my team and all the other riders at this Tour de France,” he added. “I don’t ever want to have to see another day like today, whether I’m in the race or not.”
Team director Jonathan Vaughters said he was proud all of his riders finished the day’s stage, despite the injuries they carried. Vande Velde is the only Garmin rider that won’t start today’s third stage, which has an obvious impact on the team’s plans for the event.
“Clearly, this will mean a change in the general strategy for team Garmin-Transitions,” said Vaughters. “We will focus on the multitude of talented riders we have on this team. We’ll be looking for stage wins and ways to animate the race.
“I’m proud of the ride our team did today,” he added. “We’ve lost Christian, and we’re all sad about that. He’s had a tough season and has preserved and pushed himself like few other athletes could.”
Vande Velde lost nearly 10 minutes on the main general classification contenders, with the pain too much to stay with the likes of fellow crash victim Andy Schleck. He described both crashes, saying he hit a pole after being flung into a ditch on the descent.
“I crashed once right before the Stockeu. Riders crashed in front of me and I wasn't able to avoid them, so I went down,” he said. “We all knew it was important to be at the front over the climb and at that point, I felt ok and got back on and made it back to the front to get up Stockeu.
“Then another rider lost control in front of me and again, I couldn't avoid it,” he added. “I crashed and landed in a ditch. I’m not sure what I hit; I think it might have been a pole. At that point my eye was bleeding pretty badly and the pain in my side and my back was excruciating. I got back on the bike though, and was coming back with Andy Schleck. I tried to stay with that group, but the pain was too much and I couldn’t get out of the saddle to make it back on.”
Team sprinter Tyler Farrar will start stage three, despite suffering extensive injuries. He sprained his left elbow, fractured his left wrist and suffered a significant hematoma and abrasion.
“Tomorrow is going to be painful for Tyler,” said Vaughters. “He’s got significant injuries, so starting alone is a huge step, and from there we’ll have to see how he goes. But regardless, a good, strong team remains at this Tour and we’ll be a part of the action throughout.”
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Garmin-Transitions leaders crash heavily on Stockeu Cyclingnews

Tue, 6 Jul 2010 10:46:44 -0400

Tyler Farrar (Garmin - Transitions) in agony after crashing on the descent of the Stockeu.
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Vande Velde, Farrar and Dean taken to hospital after stage two
Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Transitions) crashed and lost nearly ten minutes on stage 2 of the Tour de France from Brussels to Spa. He was taken to hospital along with teammates Tyler Farrar and Julian Dean. Two other Garmin riders, Robbie Hunter and David Millar, also fell during the stage.
Vande Velde came into the race as the team's GC contender and although nearly all of the pre-race favourites crashed, the 34-year-old American was unable to regroup with the leaders and now sits in 146th place, 9:50 down in the overall classification. With such a big time gap to his rivals and uncertainty over whether he will start tomorrow's stage, team director, Matt White admitted that Vande Velde's overall aspirations could already be over.
"I've never seen so many guys come down in such a short period of time, I think half the bunch could have crashed today. As for Christian, the overall is pretty much over assuming that he rides tomorrow. First priority is to make sure he's okay," White said.
The stage was marred by crashes. Dean was the first Garmin rider to go down before a large proportion of the field crashed on the descent of the Stockeu. However, White, who raced as a professional for US Postal and Cofidis amongst others, was quick not to lay the blame at the organisers for including the descent in the race.
"Nothing is ever too dangerous. Yes, it was a slippery day but it's the same roads they raced on at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. I don't know if there was oil on the roads or what but there were numerous huge crashes."
After the descent, the yellow jersey group led by Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) sat up and waited for the majority of the field to regroup. The peloton then rode to the finish without contesting the sprint. White, who dictates the Garmin-Transitions tactics from the team car, wasn't aware of where the go-slow orders came from.
"I have no idea. It was obviously something they were talking about in the bunch. We could tell they weren't racing but we had five guys who crashed. Christian, Tyler, Julian, Robbie and David. It was pandemonium and crash upon crash. It hasn't been a good day."
The Tour hasn't been kind to the boys in Argyle so far this year. Tyler Farrar finished in an excellent top ten position in Saturday's prologue but Vande Velde lost over a minute to winner Cancellara. On stage one Farrar missed out of the sprint finale within 300 meters of the line when his bike became tangled in that of another rider who had fallen off.
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White's main man Christian Vande Velde in for Tour long haul

Thu, 1 Jul 2010 11:23:05 -0400

While White has yet to finalise his nine man squad, he has pinned his hopes on American Christian Vande Velde as his main hope in the race for general classification.
“Christian could finish anywhere between the podium and top 10,” White said when I caught up with him at his Spanish base in Girona.
“The Tour de France is won in the last week of July, not the first,” he added.
My only concern about Vande Velde heading to the race start in Rotterdam next Saturday is that he's a little banged up.
The American broke his collarbone in a race fall early on at the Giro d'Italia last month then returned to race the Tour of Switzerland where he lasted just a day, fracturing two ribs in a fall on the opening day prologue.

“He's come back strong, has the experience and knows just what it takes to be right up there in the mix for the overall at a big tour,” he adds.
Garmin-Transitions main hope for the green sprinter's jersey in what is shaping up as a very open competition this year is Tyler Farrar.
“I don't it is a given that Mark Cavendish has the jersey in the bag,” says White.
“The Englishman's preparation hasn't been ideal and I think Tyler can capitalise on that fact.”
Other chances in the green jersey competition in White's “tartan army” include the New Zealander Julian Dean and South African Robbie Hunter.
Hunter is no stranger to our shores, having raced the now defunct Commonwealth Bank Cycle Classic as an amateur and the Tour Down Under when he rode for Barloworld.
White will finalise his squad on Monday following consultation with team boss Jonathan Vaughters.
As for our own Cadel Evans' chances at the Tour, White adds: “if he rides smart, I see no reason why he can't have a good race.”
BY THE NUMBERS
FOR the dedicated number crunches among you, here's a few figures to ponder in the week leading up to the Tour de France prologue start in Rotterdam next Saturday.
ZERO: For the third year running, race organisers are not awarding any time bonuses.
ONE: Prologue. Eight kilometres of racing on the southside of Rotterdam. Watch for Fabian Cancellara, the Swiss head teller at Saxo Bank to give it a real shake.
TWO: Rest days. Monday, July 12, and Wednesday, July 21. The riders will need them.
THREE: Countries. The race starts in the Netherlands, heads to Belgium and then in a clockwise direction around France.
FOUR: Medium mountain stages that don't figure in the Alps or the Pyrenees.
FIVE: Times The Netherlands has hosted stage of the Tour.
SIX: True mountain finishes. The climbs are much, much tougher than what you saw in Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen's excellent coverage of Le Tour on SBS a year ago.
EIGHT: The number of podiums for Lance Armstrong, seven wins and a third in 2009. He's back with a new team in Radio Shack.
NINE: Flat stages. Let's cheer home our own Robbie McEwen, who will be looking to add to his 12 stage wins riding for Katusha.
TEN: Number of times an American has won the overall. seven with Armstrong as mentioned previously and three with Greg LeMond.
ELEVEN: New host towns and cities.
TWELVE: The number of Australians and a new record on the start line in Rotterdam. The figure could be boosted by one or two more late entries.
FOURTEEN: Starts for Stuey O'Grady.
FIFTY ONE: Total number of kilometres for the individual time trial in Bordeaux on the second last day.
2,115: The number of metres of the climb to the top of the Tourmalet, the highest peak at this year's race. They do it twice.
3,596: Total number of racing kilometres.
3.2 Million: In Euros, which is what the race organisers have set aside in prizemoney. 450,000 of them goes to the winner. Handy pocket money in anyone's language.

Vande Velde and Farrar lead Garmin-Transitions for 2010 Tour de France Ron Calahan Velonews

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:46:55 -0400

A healthy Christian Vande Velde and an ambitious Tyler Farrar will lead Garmin-Transitions as the U.S. team brings a deep team to fight on all fronts to the 2010 Tour de France.
Farrar will see additional help in the sprints as he vies to topple Mark Cavendish (HTC-Columbia) while Vande Velde will be making a push for the Tour top-3 podium.
Joining the pair will be ace lead-out man Julian Dean and South African Robert Hunter, who will give Farrar more support in the final kilometer of the sprints.
Road captain David Millar will be helping in the sprints and in the early climbs as well as looking for a stage victory. Time trial specialist Dave Zabriskie will also be hoping to shine against the clock.
Ryder Hesjedal, winner of a stage in last year’s Vuelta a España, will be one of Vande Velde’s most useful helpers in the mountains and might be able to go for a stage victory if the right scenario unfolds for the Canadian.
Classics strongmen Martin Maaskant and Johan Van Summeren were included to provide some heft for the first week and can play versatile roles, both in the sprints and flats.
The odd men out were Danny Pate, a popular rider who has been a fixture on the past two Tours, as well as Tom Danielson.
Garmin-Transitions for 2010 Tour de France
* Tyler Farrar (USA)
* Christian Vande Velde (USA)
* Julian Dean (NZL)
* Ryder Hesjedal (Can)
* Robert Hunter (RSA)
* Martin Maaskant (Ned)
* David Millar (GBR)
* Johan Van Sumeren (Bel)
* Dave Zabriskie (USA)