Philadelphia, PA - The former Scott-American Beef (Saunier-Duval) team, registered with the UCI last week under the name of GM Bikes, has announced today that the team has acquired title sponsorship for the 2009 season from the Fuji bicycle company and Servetto, an Italian company which manufactures accessories for wardrobes. The Pro Tour team also will also be supported in 2009 by TMC Transformers, designer and manufacturer of electric transformers, and of the government of Cantabria.

For Fuji bicycles, the largest brand of Advanced Sports, Inc., headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, this will be its first foray into the Pro Tour ranks. Previously the sponsor of U.S. Continental team Toyota-United, Fuji continues to expand its presence in the elite sports arena. In addition to Fuji-Servetto, Fuji bicycles will sponsor the Pro Continental team Elk Haus, based in Austria. Fuji also continues to sponsor Equipe Nurnberger, the top-ranked women’s pro team out of Germany as well as U.S. Olympian and current National Champion in triathlon, Matt Reed.

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Quite a year for Canadian Dominique Rollin. On his first year with the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team and his second year racing on the North American circuit, he caught everyone’s attention after the fourth stage at the Tour of California, the 135-mile (217 km) slog from Monterey to San Luis Obispo. In horrendous weather conditions, Rollin pulled away from his breakaway companions with 12 miles (20 kms) to go and held off some of the best riders in the world, including a chasing George Hincapie (Columbia) to take the stage win after nearly seven and a half hours in the saddle. He also went on to win the Sprint Competition.

Throughout the year, the 6 foot 2 inches, 182-pound Rollin worked hard for his team to bring in victories and Rollin himself finished thirteen times on the top step of the podium in 2008 (so far) which included a stage win at the Cascade Cycling Classic and the CSC Invitational.

I caught up with a relaxed Rollin at the start of the Tour of Missouri where after joking about wishing for windy and horrible weather conditions for the upcoming race, Rollin who excels and loves racing in bad weather, looked back at his year.

Rollin was also looking forwards to a final racing push starting with the Tour of Missouri, the World Championships and finishing up with the Jayco Herald Sun Tour in Australia.

“It’s the second year that I do the Sun Tour, it’s a good experience, I like it. This year, I’m taking advantage that half my team is Australian to stay a it in the warmth before returning to the cold weather in Quebec. It’s a way to extend the season, to take a rest a little later, this way I don’t really have a morale break or a loss of motivation.”

Team for 2009. His Toyota-United team is ceasing its existence after three years  as its primary sponsor  decided not to continue after the end of the year. At the time of the interview, Rollin said he had a few offers and declined to talk more about them.

“It’s a strange year. I only hope not to gain the reputation of shutting down teams, two in two.” smiled Rollin whose previous team Kodak Gallery/Sierra Nevada folded at the end of 2007. “Joking aside, it was disappointing to have a team like Toyota-United leave.”

During Interbike, I learned that Rollin is joining the new Cervélo TestTeam for the upcoming season.

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Dominique Rollin Wins KOM Competition; Ivan Dominguez Places 2nd in Stage 6

Team Racks up 66 victories and 146 podiums in 2008

Team Wins 162 Races and 355 Podiums in its Three-Year Existence

Bend, OR – In what was the teams final official team race under the Toyota-United moniker, the boys in red, white and blue didn’t disappoint as they fought hard all week to keep their stage win streak alive, currently holding the record at 9 stages in America’s largest grand tours; Amgen Tour of California, Tour de Georgia Presented by AT & T and the Tour of Missouri, the most stage wins of any team world wide. Unfortunately, the team came up a little short with Ivan Dominguez placing 2nd in Saturday’s stage 6, losing to Mark Cavendish (Team Columbia), arguably the world’s fastest man with four stage wins at this years Tour De France and three stage wins at this year’s Tour of Missouri. “I tried so hard to beat Mark on Saturday, my boys set me up perfectly, but when we arrived at the finish Mark hesitated with 200 meters to go due to the headwind sprint and I waited on him when I should have jumped him instead and he beat me to the line” said Dominguez.

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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

After a self-professed frustrating year, the 2-Time USPRO Time Trial Champion, in 2003 and 2005, Chris Baldwin (Toyota-United) is skipping the TT this year to focus on the road race in the upcoming US Professional Championships in Greenville. Combined with the lost of the team sponsor, 2008 has been a rough ride for the (almost) always smiling rider but that didn’t dim the tremendous passion the 32-year old still feels  for the sport or his  optimism about the state of cycling in the US.

After playing phone tag with Chris, I caught up with him while he was on an afternoon bike ride with his lovely wife Kimberly, a retired professional cyclist. He took the time to answer all my questions about his year, his future and his thoughts about US cycling.

Let’s talk about the US Nationals coming up this weekend.
Chris: I actually decided against doing the time trial this year, I’m really trying to focus on the road race and hoping that goes well. With the time trial the day before, I think that takes the sting out of your legs for the next day, so that is the focus and I’m looking forwards to ride with Chris [Wherry] and Justin [England] and we have kind of a small squad but a good hit squad, so it should be fun.

What do you think is going to happen this year? Current Road Champ Levi Leipheimer is not riding and you were one of the few that stuck with him last for a bit anyway.
Chris: (laughs) I think a bit is right. I think that’s it going to be pretty similar with everybody looking at Garmin because they have so many riders, they have the most opportunities to use the riders for breakaways and what not, key on them, and then George [Hincapie] is going to be good and I think he has a couple of teammates.

What’s the plan for the Toyota-United team? Are your teammates riding for you?
Chris: No. We’re just three guys, I don’t thing anyone is riding for anyone else, we’re all riding for each together, we’ll see how it goes. Luckily, it’s kind of a mountain bike race in its style, in that it’s a hard enough race that the selection happens naturally, I think it bodes well for a smaller team.

Was the decision not to do the TT based on the road race the day after or the new course?
Chris: I would say all of the above. If there had been a decent break between the two, I would do it regardless just to do it. But with just not feeling it and not time trialing well all year, and the course, just like you said, is now flatter and two turns, a u-turn… All these factors combined, it doesn’t look like a good course for me, I’m not timetrialing well, not enough rest before the road race, it just kind of all pointed towards to just not do it. Not having it as a goal, well it’s a load off my shoulders, I’ve been training hard to timetrial all year and it just hasn’t happened, there comes a point where you feel like beating a dead horse, banging your head against the wall. Personally, it’s nice to focus on the road race for a change.

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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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On Thursday evening, the 70 (or so) riders lined up in front of an enthusiastic crowd in historic Downtown Truckee, for the fast 75-minute Truckee Criterium. Ian McKissick and his three BMC teammates had their hands full trying to control the attacks. BMC’s Taylor Tolleson crashed out in Wednesday’s Reno Criterium, and broke his collarbone. In the end, a trio got away from the field, and Roman Kilun (Health Net-Maxxis) won the stage for his first NRC win. Amateur Jon Baker (Vitamin Cottage) took second and Justin England (Toyota-United) was third. McKissick kept the leader’s jersey, and England moved himself up to the second spot at 6 seconds back. Health Net-Maxxis duo of Corey Collier and Matt Cooke are at 17 seconds back.

(l-r): Strategy meeting for the Kelly Benefit/Medifast team; BMC’s McKissick and Scott Nydam; Riders lined up and ready to go

Aaron Olson (Bissell) checking behind him

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Breaks 21 year-old record set by Andy Hampsten a former Giro d’ Italia Winner

“Chepe” Garcia Wins Toyota of Stuart Cycling Classic

Bend, OR– After seven weeks of pain and frustration due to his high-speed crash at this years Tour de Georgia, Ben Day finally turned the corner by winning the famed 9.8 mile Vail Pass Hill Climb in a record pace of 25:48, beating the old course record by 45 seconds set by Andy Hampsten in the 1987 Coors Classic. “I spent five days last week in Durango with a teammate’s chiropractor who helped me get my full pedal stroke back and I have to say it felt great to not ride with pain for once”. Day continued, “There was definitely a tailwind, but I guess you have to take what the course, gives you and today, it happened to be in my favor for a change”.

Day’s Teammate Chris Baldwin was second place in a time of 26:29 also besting the record by 4 seconds. For Baldwin, this is a good sign of the form he is building after what’s been a slow start to his season by his own standards.

Back in Stuart, Florida, “Chepe” Garcia and Justin England bathed in the hot June sun typical of the Toyota of Stuart Cycling Classic held each year by John Pierson’s Toyota. Toyota-United riders look forward each year to attending this race as Mr. Pierson hosts the riders and a first class bike race.

After placing 3rd and 5th place in