Tour of California
Yesterday I spent most of the day at the time trial in Solvang. I set up a meeting with one of the Velonews tech editors and our meeting point was the Highroads team booth. It was cool to see the riders warm up (Michael Rodgers was there for about 10 minutes), but the real cool thing was that, after his race, Mark Cavendish, stood at the end of the booth and got his picture taken with anyone and everyone and signed autographs for almost a half hour. He had a huge smile on his face and it’s clear he really enjoyed it.
Fresh off two consecutive wins, he’s got to be one of the top riders at the event. How often do you see, in any sport, a top level pro really enjoying the fans. No announcements, no fanfare, just a guy out to please the crowd. I must admit that since Highroads headquarters happens to be a few miles from my house, I am partial to their riders but this really elevates him to one of my favorites.
Mancebo won the controversial stage into Santa Rosa. Controversial, because it was shortened at the very last minute. As it turns out it’s not going to be a factor in the race, but it had a lot of people worried that he could win the race because of the late official call shortening the race.
What seems to have slipped under most people’s radar is that he, along with the entire Rock Racing team, are riding stock Kestrels. The same exact frames you can find online at bargain basement prices. They have to be stock because the decision to go with Kestrel was made at the very last minute and this is one of the first races of the year. As it turns out, the riders really like the frames.
This comes as no shock to me whatsoever. The Kestrel frames used to be (and I assume still are) made by Martec and they offer similar stock frames for the same basic price that I pay for my carbon frames. The point being that the level of quality of the stock Taiwan carbon frame makers offer is extremely close, if not equal to, the other Pro Tour level frames.