BOULDER, Colo. – Time is running out to bid on a one-of-a-kind piece of cycling memorabilia that will raise money for pro cyclists Ian MacGregor and Timmy Duggan’s “Just Go Harder Foundation” that supports youth mentoring and participation.

An official Garmin pro-issue jersey featuring the signatures of racers on the 2008 roster of Team Garmin-Chipotle presented by H30 is up for bid on eBay. In addition to Christian Vande Velde’s fourth-place finish at the Tour de France, Garmin won the team time trial at the Giro d’Italia and Vande Velde donned the pink jersey.

One-hundred percent of the profits from the jersey auction go to the Just Go Harder Foundation, a non-profit, 501(c) 3 organization that relies on fundraising and donations to offset the costs of sport and mentorship program fees. MacGregor and Duggan launched the foundation in 2007 to help deserving young adults enrich their lives through mentorship and participation in cycling and skiing.

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TOP U.S. PROfessional CYCLING TEAM, Garmin-Slipstream, PARTNERs WITH ADSI CONTINUE ANTI-DOPING PROGRAM

Participation in Anti-Doping Science Institute’s New Program Continues to Demonstrate Garmin-Slipstream’s Dedication to Anti-Doping and Ethical Sporting

December 8, 2008 - Slipstream Sports LLC and its chief venture, the Garmin-Slipstream Professional Cycling Team, isn’t just sporting a new name in 2009, when it will officially be called Garmin-Slipstream. The top U.S. team today announced that it will participate in a new program run by the Anti-Doping Sciences Institute (ADSI) to further its anti-doping mission. The program will include profiles from testing conducted over the last year and will share data with UCI and other international and national anti-doping agencies. ADSI has been involved in the management of the Garmin-Slipstream anti-doping program since June of 2008 as part of its previous relationship with the Agency for Cycling Ethics.

All 29 athletes on the team are voluntarily participating in the program, which will test them over 600 times in 2009. There will be an intense focus on EPO and related substances as well as continued focus on longitudinal profiling of blood and steroid levels. Detection of traditional doping products will also be included. Providing the oversight and program design for ADSI is Don Catlin, one of the leading names in anti-doping in the United States.

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Thousands of fans lined the streets of downtown St. Louis to watch Team Garmin-Chipotle’s Christian Vande Velde cross the finish line safely and win the 2008 Tour of Missouri. Vande Velde, winner of Stage Three’s Individual Time Trial, was awarded the Missouri Tourism Yellow Jersey for the race after successfully maintaining an 18-second lead over Michael Rogers of Team Columbia who finished second in the General Classification. Svein Tuft of Symmetrics rounded out the podium in third place.

“It’s been a really great race from day one,” said Vande Velde, who finished fifth in the 2008 Tour de France. “I didn’t expect to win the time trial, but from then on, it was game on with everyone throwing everything at us, trying to take away the 21-second gap I had from the time trial. In the end, I was happy that everyone gave us such a fight because the win means that much more to us.”

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Kids were out in force at the start where each class visited their adopted team.

Steven Cozza (Garmin-Chiptole)
“It [the moustache] started to go out of style, I was tired of eating hair with my food. Plus that Italian racer started growing his and kind of ruined it, I had to share it off.”

“It’s going to be a battle, we’re going to be riding in the front, it’s going to be really painful but I think we’re strong enough and we can do it. ”

George Hincapie (Columbia) puts in an attack in the first kilometers

Garmin-Chipotle team leading the field at the second KOM

Christan Vande Velde (Garmin-Chipotle)

“I was concerned all day. It was a brutally hard day and they threw everything at us, the team did a great job. There was no respite at all today. we want just trying to control it as much as we can. The strategy is to keep control of the race and not let anybody go.”

Dominique Rollin (Toyota-United), KOM
” tomorrow there’s only one KOM in the stage and I have a good enough lead to not worry about those points and just maybe hope for a little breakaway to take over those points and we can relax and wait for the final in the sprint. I think we build enough lead on the points scale so this way we can just keep on going for our ultimate goal, a stage win in this year’s edition.”

Mike Barry (Columbia), stage winner and Most Agressive
Our strategy today was to make the race as hard as possible for Garmin. We have a couple of guys that are very close in the classification and we’d like to wrestle it away from Christian. We have to make the race as hard as possible, to isolate him and we managed to do that towards the end of the race and we kept attacking until the end and I found myself in position to go for the stage win. The team rode really well today and really it could have been any of the guys with the opportunity to go for the victory, it just happened to be me to attack, I attacked at the right time and got away.

Eric Baumann (Sparkasse), second on stage

“A really tough stage, all the time up and down, very fast. My team did a really good job, we were able to put guys in the big breakaway and at the end, only one guy was stronger than us. For us, it’s okay second place.”

“We do all the time in Europe the races, then we had a chance to come over here and we want to keep this chance so we can come in the nest years with these nice tours. I am only here for bikes, baby clothes and gap for my kids (laughs). ”

All photos copyright Lyne Lamoureux

American Christian Vande Velde claimed dominance to the rest of the field, winning the individual time trial in Branson Wednesday at the Tour of Missouri.

Vande Velde, who finished an impressive 5th at this year’s Tour de France, finished the 18-mile race against the clock in 39 minutes and 51 seconds.

“The win was actually a bit of a surprise,” said Vande Velde, who recently fell off form at the Olympics less than a month ago, finishing 17th there. “This reinvigorates me, honestly. This was a big challenge. And, to beat the guy who won three world championships is big.”

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Making good on his promise to bring home his first American win, top sprinter Mark Cavendish (of Team Columbia surged pass the charging peloton in the final 200 meters to win stage one of the 2008 Tour of Missouri. Cavendish, an emerging international star with four stage wins at the 2008 Tour de France to his credit, finished ahead of Team Garmin-Chipotle H3O’s Tyler Farrar. Francesco Chicchi of Liquigas rounded out the podium in third.

“I was just there. I was on George’s (Hincapie) wheel and Toyota (United) got the jump in the last kilometer,” said Cavendish. “Tyler (Farrar) jumped at 200 meters and I just slotted on his wheel and that gave me an extra two seconds rest. It was just a case of kicking past him and crossing the line.”

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The contenders duked it out in the final climb of the Queen stage at the Tour of Utah. Before the stage, 13 riders were separated by 38 seconds in the general classification but after slogging it over 14,778 feet (4,504 m) of climbing over a 98-mile (159 km) road race, the race now comes down to 2 pretenders to the title.

Utah native Jeff Louder (BMC) was triumphant in front of a home crowd and crossed the line first, pointing in pride at his jersey. Yellow jersey Blake Caldwell (Garmin-Chipotle) crossed the line in second place, 13 seconds back. With time bonuses on the line, Caldwell now has a 7-second buffer over Louder going into the final stage, a relatively flat 12-mile (19.3 km) out and back time trial that starts and finishes at the Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele.

Jeff Louder (BMC) points to his BMC jersey when crossing the line in front of an enthusiastic crowd

A break of 7 riders went off in the first 10 miles of the race, and got almost a five minute advantage before being caught on the HC climb up Alpine Loop at around the 55-mile marker. One participant in the break was green jersey Brad White (Successful Living), on his third break of the race, who nailed down the Sprint jersey as no one contended the sprints.

The lone survivor of the break, Mike Creed (Rock Racing) grabbed the KOM points before re-integrating the chasing dwindling field.

By the time the lead group made it to the bottom of the final climb to Snowbird, the numbers were down to about 25 riders with all the contenders present and ready for action. Oscar Sevilla (Rock Racing) was the first one to launch a move which caused ripples in the group. Garmin-Chipotle duo including Caldwell started to chase him down which caused the BMC duo of Louder and Darren Lill to react and chase the argyle pair. Meanwhile, KOM Glen Chadwick (Team Type 1) flew away, passed Sevilla and got a 20 seconds gap to the chasers, but Caldwell went after him and passed the Kiwi.

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From the beginning, the Successful Living team has penciled in stage 3, the twilight criterium at the Tour of Utah for their fast man, Argentinean Ricardo Escuela, and ‘Tricki Ricky’ delivered the goods.

After yesterday’s stage, teammate and green jersey Brad White repeated the message ‘tomorrow is more about winning the stage with Ricardo.”

After 60-minute plus 3 laps around a four-corner course, the criterium in downtown Salt Lake City finished in a bunch sprint. Escuela crossed the line first followed by Fast Freddie Rodriguez (Rock Racing). Australian Jonnie Clarke (Toyota-United) was third. Yellow jersey Blake Caldwell (Garmin-Chipotle) crossed in fourth with his shadow Oscar Sevilla (Rock Racing) on his wheel.

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Two in a row for the Garmin-Chipotle team. This time is was Blake Caldwell who emerged from a break to win the stage and take over the yellow jersey from his teammate’s shoulders. After 85 miles (137 km) and 10,585 feet (3.226 m) of climbing, Caldwell outsprinted his two-man breakaway companion Darren Lill (BMC) to win stage 2 at the Tour of Utah. Bringing the chase group, 18 seconds behind for third place was BMC’s Jeff Louder.

Caldwell is now the new leader in the overall classification, with Lill in second place at 4 seconds back, and Jason Donald (Garmin-Chipotle) drops down from first to third.

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The first stage of the 2008 Larry H Miller Tour of Utah is in the books. Under blue skies with temperatures reaching the low 90s, Garmin-Chipotle’s Jason Donald won the 3-way sprint against his breakaway companions Sheldon Deeny (Fan Sports Network) and Brad White (Successful Living).

The field crossed the line 19 seconds after the winner, with Ricardo Escuela (Successful Living) winning the sprint.

An ecstatic Donald also grabbed the yellow leader’s jersey with added time bonus of 10 seconds. White won enough points in the three HotSpot Sprint lines to win the green sprint leader’s jersey.

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