new orange ginger flavour and “bigger nuun” are available now
*nuun is pronounced “noon” and is never ever capitalized

Seattle, WA — creator of the sugar-free quick-dissolving electrolyte sports drink tablet—has added a new flavour to its family in 2008—orange ginger. Orange ginger is nuun’s fifth flavor— it joins lemon+lime, tri-berry, citrus fruit and kona cola to gives cyclists and runners more choices in the replenishing electrolyte drink.

Orange-ginger is available in two sizes. Each tablet of nuun makes 16 ounces of drink, approximately the size of a bicycle bottle. bigger nuun has a larger tablet size specifically formatted for ease of use in larger 32-ounce or liter-sized bottles and hydration packs. nuun was the first electrolyte drink ideally suited for use in hydration systems, because its sugar-free formula rinses cleanly and will not fuel the growth of bacteria. In 2008, a tube of bigger nuun is included with the purchase of Deuter hydration packs.

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BMC Racing Team’s Scott Nydam on only his second year as a professional cyclist made his presence known at the Amgen Tour of California by going on a solo breakaway on the second to secure the King of the Mountain (KOM) jersey, which he defended on the subsequent stages.

On his second year with the BMC team, thirty-one year old Nydam came to cycling following a diffferent path than most racers. He had a successful year in 2007, including a 6th place finish at the Tour de Georgia, and the KOM jersey, for the second year in a row, at Cascase Cycling Classic, and his 2008 season started with a bang at the Tour of California and is just beginning.

Scott had just returned from a trip to visit his father who has been fighting Leukemia when he patiently answered all my questions. The great news is that the cancer is in remission.

Scott Nydam at the start line, Photo c. Lyne Lamoureux

Lyne: You appeared in the radar only a few years or so ago, so how did you become a pro?
Scott: Yeah, I don’t think I took the normal step by step roadmap to cycling. I started in my mid 20s just trying to stay in good shape. The story is I did a quadrathlon in New Mexico, a winter quadrathlon, which entailed road cycling, running, skiing and snowshoeing. It was to the top of this mountain and then you do it backwards as well, you rode bike for 15 miles to a dirt road, you run 5 miles to the snow line, you get on your skis, you ski up 2.5 miles up steep stuff and then you jump in your snowshoes which you carried on your back skiing, and you snowshoe to the summit and then you turn around and you go down, and you do it all in reverse. Someone let me borrow their road bike for it, it was the first time I rode on a road bike and I enjoyed it, I did okay. (note: Scott finished second in his category behind Tom Zirbel).

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Henk Vogels makes lemonade out of lemons, after Toyota-United has a string of bad luck on day two of the San Dimas Stage Race

Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team followed the first day performance at San Dimas with a second place finish by Henk Vogels. Vogels continues his early season strength by jumping to the podium for the 5th time this year. The Toyota-United team looked strong all day and the finish was furious. “We had a little bad luck on the last few laps, with Chris Baldwin getting a puncture and Caleb Manion staying back with him and the two never made it back” said Vogels. He continued “Chris Wherry busted through a hull, but Justin England stayed with me on the final climb of 1500 m and took me from the 50th wheel to the 4th, right as they were making the final sprint.” “Borrajo went early and we all fired with him, but he was just too strong and finished the race with me on his wheel in 2nd” said Vogels.

Ben Day and Justin England continued to have strong days. Both still in the hunt for the GC with Ben Day just 17 seconds behind the leader and England a short 20 seconds back. Today the team will be shooting for time bonuses, as there are about 60 seconds worth of bonuses that could be used to secure the top GC spot. If those don’t pan out, look for Toyota-United to contend for the stage win again today.

Ben Day fires out of the gates with a strong showing in the first day of the San Dimas Stage Race

Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team came into the San Dimas race with strong early season momentum and rode away with another early podium showing Friday with a 3rd place finish by Ben Day. Ben rode hard up the 3.8 mile climb which had many twists. He finished 3rd , 16.38 seconds behind the lead finisher. The Toyota-United team also had Justin England finish 5th and Chris Baldwin finish 6th for a strong opener all around. “There is a huge mix of talent and understanding of racing in San Dimas this weekend, and we will try and figure it out over the next two days and respond to the race conditions” said Len Pettyjohn, team director. It was also nice to see some of the Boulder, Colorado based Toyota-United riders come out with strong early season form for their first west coast race of the year. Chris Baldwin and Justin England looked solid, although the heat was a factor for them. The team continues today in the 2nd Stage of the San Dimas race with the San Dimas Hospital Road Race. The conditions are expected to be cooler and cloudier, which will bode well for day two.

Photo ©: Kurt Jambretz /www.actionimages.cc

San Dimas, Calif. — In his first race in the United States, Oscar Sevilla overcame a mechanical difficulty Friday to deliver Rock Racing an impressive victory at the San Dimas Stage Race.

A shifting problem with his rear derailleur forced Sevilla to get off his bike and remount his chain in the final half-mile of the uphill Glendora Chevrolet Mountain Time Trial.

Despite those troubles, Sevilla still bested runner-up Peter Stetina (VMG-Felt-RGM) by eight seconds and third-place finisher Ben Day (Toyota-United Pro Cycling) by 16 seconds. Sevilla’s winning time of 13 minutes and five seconds on the twisting, 3.8-mile (6.1 km) course would have certainly been faster had he not had mechanical difficulties, Rock Racing Team Owner Michael Ball said.

“He lost at least 35 seconds – or even more by having to stop,” Ball said. “To have him pull off this victory today is very gratifying. Our original track was to see Oscar at the top of the GC (general classification) at any given race, especially domestically. So we’re back on track.”

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PHILADELPHIA, PA - Want to find information about who are America’s Pro Cycling Teams and their athletes? VELOBIOS is the ultimate website for cycling fans, journalists, team managers, and event organizers. VELOBIOS contains information on ALL THE UCI DOMESTIC BASED MENS TEAMS in one central location. Some of the rider bios on VELOBIOS date back up to eight years as well as keep track of last years rider transfers.

“VELOBIOS.com is the most efficient tool for anyone seeking detailed, current information about North American pro racers,” said Chris Spaeth, creator and developer for VELOBIOS. Visitors will be able to access loads of information on more then 260 athletes, view archived team information, and read the latest domestic team releases. New features to the website this year included an expanded team news section, and VELOBIOS Rss Feed for teams or media sources to run additional content on their websites.

About VELOBIOS
Chris Spaeth, creator and innovator of VELOBIOS spent over 18 years in cycling as both a competitor and then as an event coordinator for the Pro Cycling Tour from 1999-2005. During his time with the Pro Tour, Spaeth found an often frustrating lack of information available to the general public for North American cycling teams. The idea for VELOBIOS grew from his desire to fill this information gap and support the growth of Pro Cycling in America.

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aspiring junior cyclists will have a chance to race in the bright spotlight of North America’s biggest one-day professional bicycle race during the 24th running of the Commerce Bank Philadelphia International Championship on June 8, 2008. The Junior PCT, a points race for qualifying junior cyclists age 18 and under, will highlight the region’s best young talent as they compete on a portion of the same Commerce course as the international pros.

The Junior PCT race will include up to 28 junior cyclists, ages 15 to 18, with the top seven riders selected from the Junior PCT Qualifier category of each of the four events listed below.

The event will take place after the finish of the women’s race (Commerce Bank Liberty Classic) and approximately on lap six of the men’s event while the pros are out on the course. There will be a mandatory rider check-in at 22nd Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on the day of the race, Sunday, June 8 from 10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Junior PCT competitors will race across the same start/finish line as the pros in the Philadelphia International Championship. The five-mile course will be comprised of 3 ½ laps on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway between Eakins Oval and Logan Circle. The event will be run in a points race format with a sprint every lap except for the first half lap. Points will be scored five deep over three sprints with a point breakdown in each sprint of 7, 5, 3, 2 and 1. A $500 value overall prize list will be divided over the top 10 places.

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Embarking on its third year, the Successful Living presented by Parkpre team, after a training camp lined up at their first team race in 2008, the Sequoia Cycling Classic race.

Buoyed by the 3-year extension with their title sponsor Successful Living, and an increased budget, the team has set an aggressive long term goal, to be number one in the National Race Calendar (NRC) Team Classifications in three year.

“I think that realistically, I’d really like to see a top 3 NRC team by the end of the season, that’s pretty realistic goal with a lot of work, that will be very difficult to do but the horsepower is here, that’s what we’d like to do this season,” said Team Directeur and Olympic medalist Steve Hegg.

Successful Living leadout train at Visalia Crit

The team also wants to be invited to the big American races such as Tour de Georgia, Tour of Missouri and especially Tour of California as their home-state race. One way to get invited is to win more races and start climbing the ranks of the NRC overall.

“I think on paper we’re not as strong as a Toyota-United or a Health Net-Maxxis but I think that camaraderie and everything, we spent the past couple of weeks working on that and I think the guys get along really well and I think they’re going to win a lot of races this year.” said Rider Manager Ryan Yee.
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Concord, Massachusetts - Museeuw Bikes flax-carbon racing bikes are now available in the US. Founded in Belgium by the classics great Johan Museeuw, Museeuw Bikes is the first bicycle manufacturer to use revolutionary flax-carbon composites. The new patented material adds shock absorption to the stiffness, strength and lightness of high performance composite frames.

Who better than the “Lion of Flanders”, former World Champion and three-time winner of the Paris-Roubaix race over cobblestones, to create uniquely comfortable ultra high performance racing bicycles?

Museeuw Bikes will be exclusively distributed in the US by Velocon Sports of Concord, Massachusetts.

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Manchester, NH - The Biking Solution (TBS) continues to expand, adding six more new members and a total of ten locations in recent weeks. “We were extremely pleased with the quality of retailers we welcomed to TBS in the fall and winter, and we’re very excited to see that trend continuing in the early stages of 2008, not only with new members but also current members opening new branches,” said Greg Brodsky, managing director. “The response to our programs has been fantastic, and we’re hopeful that the enthusiasm we’re seeing will lead to continued growth in new markets over the coming months.”

The new locations are:
Conte’s Bicycle and Fitness Equipment – Conyers, GA
McLain Cycle & Fitness - Traverse City, MI (2 locations)
McLain Cycle & Fitness - Cadillac, MI
Santos Bike Shop - The Village, FL
Wheels In Motion - Dallas, TX
Radsport Outfitters - Chester, CT
Skirack - Burlington, VT
Papa Wheelies Bicycle Shop – Portsmouth, NH
Back Bay Bicycles – Boston, MA

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