Photographer Ken Conley is down in Georgia covering the 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, he’ll be checking in daily with a journal of each stage, as well as a photo gallery.

Today was probably the best day of my cycling photography career. First off, I got to ride the moto. Second, I got to ride the moto. Third, it was a fantastically designed stage. Not only was it a team time trial, but it was held on a racetrack so that spectators and photographers got many opportunities to see the riders. And fourth, I got to meet some people I only knew online (James of Bicycle Design and Frank of TdfBlog).

I started off the day shooting the Slipstream bikes once more, though I had a good reasons this time. I knew they were going to win and there was a good story element: the mechanic was attaching “Just Go Harder” labels to the back of the seatposts as a tribute to Timmy Duggan, who’s recovering in the hospital. I felt silly taking that many takes of the label, but there wasn’t much else going on, and I really felt that I would need a great take of it. James of Bicycle Design was there as well, busy shooting the Zipp 1080s.

I also stopped by the Rock Racing merchandise tent so that I could grab a shot of the aforementioned Beast that I helped load last night. I did my best imitation of the Rock-Racing-style-like processing that I learned about last night, but am having trouble translating from Lightroom to Adobe Bridge.

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Cervélo SA is pleased to announce the appointment of Michael Marx as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Company. A former World Team Pursuit champion, he shares with Cervélo an uncompromising pursuit of excellence.

Michael’s varied work experience over the past 27 years uniquely equips him to head-up Cervélo’s growing organization. His experience in the bike industry ranges from retail, as a bike shop owner, to sales representative, to almost a decade as the Managing Director of Continental Tyres, two-wheel division. At Prym Fashion (apparel industry) he was the Managing Director for subsidiaries in Germany, Romania and Turkey where he was responsible for the setup and establishment of these divisions. Michael also worked for BMW in sales management providing marketing and business consultation to car dealers. Prior to joining Cervélo he ran his own management consultancy and training company, Balanced Performance. With his diverse background in management, sales and marketing he will provide strong leadership as Cervélo continues to increase its market share in global cycling. Michael’s presence also provides the founders with the autonomy they desire to concentrate their focus on what they do best – engineering, product design and strategic issues.

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Photographer Ken Conley is down in Georgia covering the 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, he’ll be checking in daily with a journal of each stage, as well as a photo gallery.

I had shot a lot of pre-race photos by today, so I wasn’t too interested in taking lots of shots in the morning. I clicked off some for the Justin England fan club and also tried umpteen takes of the Slipstream bikes reflected on their bus, to no avail. Mario suggested heading up course to try and find a scenic spot, so I we high-tailed it out of town early.

Driving ahead of the caravan is a bit of a thrill. You have course marshals flagging you through the course, you’re speeding, and there’s Georgia State Police everywhere. You’re constantly having to decide “friend or foe” for each cop car you pass. I had read about Slipstream’s run-in with the po-po, so I was more than a bit paranoid.

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WATERLOO, WI - Trek Women Specific Design (WSD) has today announced the formation of its “Women Who Ride Club,” a network of women from all walks of life united in a common interest: a love of riding bikes. An off-shoot of Trek WSD’s successful “Women Who Ride” program — an eclectic group of five women blogging about their lives on and off the bike — the “Women Who Ride Club” gives female cyclists of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds access to the larger community of women cyclists. Club membership provides a number of benefits, including exclusive “Women Who Ride” gear, a club newsletter with training tips, inspirational stories, expert advice, and product info, monthly product giveaways, VIP access to Trek WSD-sponsored events, and a number of other perks.

“We’re really excited to build on the success of our ‘Women Who Ride’ program by introducing this new club,” noted Trek WSD Brand Manager, Krista Rettig. “Trek Women is dedicated to expanding and supporting the community of female cyclists, both new and experienced riders alike. Whether they want to ride to race, ride to get in shape, ride to work, or just ride around the block with family and friends, our mission is to get as many women on bikes as possible. It’s really all about strengthening the community by providing a range of resources to help make cycling as fun and as rewarding as possible.”

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Photo by Ken Conley

GAINESVILLE, Ga. – After knocking on the door of a stage win yesterday, Greg Henderson (NZL) of Team High Road launched himself through the tight downhill turns of the Gainesville circuit finish to narrowly defeat teammate Andre Greipel (GER) and win Stage Three of the Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T. Finishing behind the High Road duo was Tyler Farrar (USA) of Slipstream Chipolte. With the win today, Henderson will take over the lead in the General Classification (G.C.) and wear the AT&T Overall Leader jersey during Stage Four.

“Right at the finish, I had Kansta Siutsou (High Road) and George Hincapie (High Road) looking after me pretty well. I don’t think we left the top five for the last three laps,” said Henderson, the 2003 Tour de Georgia Overall Sprint Champion. “Then coming up 500 meters to go, George just nailed it and Greipel (High Road) actually dived down inside me on the last corner. I was like ‘that looks good, three High Road.’ And it was just a drag race between Greipel and I to the line. And, yeah I was lucky enough to get it.”

Farrar moved to second place in the G.C., nine seconds behind Henderson. Stage Two winner Juan Jose Haedo (Team CSC) moved to third in the G.C. Several notable American riders moved up in the G.C. including, George Hincapie of Team High Road (18th), Chris Horner of Astana (20th), Tom Danielson of Slipstream Chipotle (24th), Bobby Julich of Team CSC (30th) and Levi Leipheimer of Astana (47th).

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Gainesville, GA – Sporting the King of the Mountains jersey he earned in Stage 2, Frank Pipp of the Health Net Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis went back on the attack in Stage 3. He was the driving force behind a four-man break that left the peloton about 39 miles into the 108-mile stage. The foursome stayed away for the next 60 miles, with Pipp being the last hold-out to be caught by a charging peloton driven by the sprinters’ teams.

“I was one of the guys on break duty today,” Pipp said. “We were all trying to get in moves. I just happened to get in the right one.”

Despite his work to help get the break established and stay away, Pipp wasn’t rewarded with the day’s Most Aggressive Rider jersey. That honor went to his teammate, Rory Sutherland. In the closing kilometers, Sutherland, who helped Pipp with a lead-out to take the KOM in Stage 2, took a late flyer in an attempt to steal the stage from the sprinters. He quickly opened a 12-second gap, but was tracked down by the charging peloton, setting up the sprint finish that was won by Greg Henderson (High Road).

“I wasn’t too upset that I didn’t get the most aggressive jersey,” Pipp said. “It stayed in the family, so it’s all good. Though Rory didn’t suffer for quite as long as I did today.”

With no KOM points on the offer in Stage 3, Pipp retained his KOM jersey. He’ll keep it at least through the end of Friday’s Stage 5 since Thursday’s stage is the team time trial and again, no KOM points will be awarded.

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Watertown, Massachusettes - Seven Cycles has hired Jim MacLeod to be the company’s director of global sales. Jim is a 26-year veteran of the bike industry and brings extensive sales management experience from both the supplier and retailer sides. Prior to joining Seven, Jim served as Director/Senior Manager for Shimano American’s bicycle division and before that was GM and National Sales Manager for Jamis Bicycles. Jim also served as the GM & COO of Bike Line, one of the industry’s largest retail chains, where he helped to grow the company to 75 stores over his twelve-year tenure.

In speaking of his move to Seven Cycles, Macleod says, “This is an exciting opportunity for me. Seven’s exceptional product quality was certainly a draw, but the company’s uniqueness and vision was also very compelling in my decision to come here. I look forward to helping drive continued grow for the company.”

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Professional Triathlete Chris Lieto announced today the launch of Base Performance Nutrition. Base Performance Nutrition provides premiere nutritional supplements for endurance athletes.

Base has developed a unique and simple system with a variety of products for endurance athletes to create a strong nutritional base. Athletes know the value and importance of base training. The theory behind Base Performance is no different. Having a strong base nutritionally will allow athletes to maintain a healthy body so that they can train, recover, adapt and get stronger in order to perform at their very best.

“In addition to training and racing this year it has been important to me to have balance in my life and plan for my future. This year I created that balance with work and family. I have been busy launching my new company Base Performance Nutrition. I have had years of learning what works for me and what doesn’t work for me and I want to share my successes with those who are passionate about endurance sports. Nutrition is a tough part of the puzzle and I want to help others succeed in this area.”

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Photographer Ken Conley is down in Georgia covering the 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, he’ll be checking in daily with a journal of each stage, as well as a photo gallery.

Today started off a bit early as I was desperate to get out of my less-than-stellar, Hotwire-booked hotel room. This gave me plenty of time to admire the downtown architecture of Statesboro, which is so quaint that it lies at the intersection of not one, but two Main Streets. I caught the rider rollout through this intersection as well as a friendy Nydam/Leipheimer greeting and some Zabriskie mustache twirling. The highlight of the morning was Freedom, the young bald eagle. Freedom is so cool that he has his own Bald Eagle mascot.

The rest of the day Rocked, as in, I teamed up with the staff of Rock Racing. Mario, a Rock fashion photographer converted over to cycling hitched a ride with me along the stage. I’m glad I don’t do fashion, as he told me how other photographers will screw with your gear if you let it out of your sight. We were reminded later that US cycling photography is much more friendly.

Despite overshooting our destination twice, we managed to catch the riders at Millen and the finish. I was caught a bit off guard in Millen as we were told that the Marco Polo rider was 2 minutes ahead. Instead, we were greeted to the sight of the Marco Polo rider being enveloped by a Tyler-Farrar-led sprint. I squeezed off a panning shot of Farrar taking the sprint and a series of slow-shutter shots of the riders zooming past Millen’s stately building, hoping to get something usable. Intermediate sprints often don’t have as much race story in them, so you’re much more free to screw around as a photographer.

After an accidental detour into South Carolina, we made it to Augusta. Mario noticed that there was a balcony overlooking the finish and came up with the idea of handing off our second cameras to the PR folks. He gave his to Sean Weide and I gave mine to Katrina Florence, who did a stellar job. Mario and I caught some shots of riders hopping the RR tracks and he was probably happy to get some shots of Sevilla jumping off the front with one lap to go.

I did the normal finish line shot from the photographer scrum. It was fairly easy to pick out JJ Haedo screaming up the middle, though I missed the victory salute because I flubbed my focus onto Farrar. I didn’t realize until I checked my camera that the sprint was really, really close — Henderson’s wheel was maybe a quarter wheel behind Haedo’s.

Katrina Florence’s photos:

The podium presentation was interesting. They had grabbed Tyler Farrar for the Best Young Rider jersey, but after later realized that the tie-breaking rules actually kept the jersey with Sanderson. They brought Dominguez on stage instead to give him the sprint jersey, but the Lt. Governor accidentally grabbed the blue jersey with the Slipstream logo on it. Dominguez jokingly pushed it away, saying that he would get fired if he put that on.

Sanderson was fetched from his hotel, but the Best Young Rider had a Slipstream logo on it. In the first of three attempts, they brought Sanderson on stage and gave him flowers, but no jersey. Off stage they then stuck Sanderson in a green jersey and attempted to peel the Jelly Belly logo off of it. With the announcer already bringing the festivities to a close, they snuck Sanderson on stage with the green jersey. They still needed to show off the blue jersey, so finally brought all the jersey holders on stage and somehow managed to get Dominguez a blue jersey with a Toyota-United logo on it. Make sense?

I pretend not to understand these things — for example, I have no idea why Sanderson was awarded the green jersey at yesterday’s podium ceremony, when it was actually Dominguez who won it. I am also puzzled as to why Justin England didn’t get the Most Aggressive Award today. Actually, not puzzled — it’s probably because Dominguez had yellow and green — but I like Justin England and wish I got to shoot him on the podium, instead of in front of the broom wagon, tired from his hard work.

Follow along as photographer Ken Conley checks in from the Tour de Georgia everyday!

Canadian Eric Wohlberg is a three-time Olympian and has been racing for fifteen years for many well-known teams, including Magic Cuts, Seldane, Shaklee, Sierra Nevada and the powerhouse Saturn team for three years. He joined the all Canadian continental Symmetrics Pro Cycling Team in 2004.

As part of his numerous accomplishments, the 43-year old Wohlberg won the Canadian Individual Time trial National Championships eight times in a row, and many stage wins all over the world. Stories about Wohlberg’s toughness abound. For example, he raced with a broken wrist and finished a respectable 25th in the time trial wearing a cast on his left hand in the 2003 World Championship.

Last year, the Symmetrics team won both the individual and team competition at the UCI America Tour. The chase for the valuable UCI points all over North and South America (and earning Canada an additional Olympic berth) was exhausting and the Symmetrics team went into 2008 with specific focus of helping its riders make it to the Olympics.

It’s now fairly well known that the Symmetrics team is currently undergoing financial trouble due to sponsors pulling out putting the team in jeopardy. While the team was snubbed by the Amgen Tour of California, they were invited and are racing in the Tour of Georgia.

Road Bike Review caught up with Wohlberg before the start of the Tour de Georgia to get his thoughts on the current team situation and its impact on the team. He was coming back from he called a ‘big ride’. A 200 kilometer ride, with a 34 km climb to the top of Mt Hamilton, around Livermore, push a bit in the valley and then back to his home in the Bay Area.

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