It is sort of strange thinking about not hearing from Jonathan Vaughters, what seems like, ages. When I start to think about it, it seems like he sort of fell off the face of the Earth right after Tom Danielson was found to be positive last year.   Jonathan used twitter to announce that the Cannondale Team would continue, even though Jonathan had sworn that if one of his guys tested positive that the team would disband.   And he sort of has faded away since then.

Maybe I just haven’t been following the Cannondale team enough.  Has Jonathan been as active on social media as always?  I don’t really use Twitter, so maybe he is a tweeting fiend.   I know Velonews did an article on the 2016 Cannondale Team a couple weeks ago, but that is normal media.  Jonathan usually creates his own media.

I have to give praise to Jonathan for ejecting Ryder and replacing him with Lawson Craddock. Lawson is the real deal and is going to be great cyclist.   Lawson was picked to do the Tour for Cannondale, which is just going to give him more experience to use in the future years.

And what is going on with Andrew Talansky?   As if not enough controversy already surrounds the guy, someone decides that he is going to skip the Tour to ride the Vuelta.  Let’s back up a bit.

Andrew won the US time trial Nationals last year.  Then he beat Taylor Phinney in a 24 minute time trial at the Tour of California a month ago, finishing 2nd to Rohan Dennis.  But, Andrew decides to skip the US Professional Time Trial Championships the following week.  This pretty much removed his name from making the Olympic team, I’d think.  So he goes and rides, and is 2nd with one stage to go.  The last day is a mess and he drops to 5th overall.

Then it is announced that he would skip the Tour de France to ride the Tour of Spain because he wasn’t prepared because of a “personal issue”.  Seems like he was pretty prepared to me.

If Andrew would have ridden the US Time Trial Championships, and done as well as the week before in California, I would have to assume he would have been in the running to get one of the two Olympic spots available.  Then he would have gone to the Tour de Suisse, did what he did and ride the Tour.  But no, he skips the TT Natz, and then skips the Tour, to prepare for the Vuelta. Seems pretty screwball.

In previous years, Jonathan would have been all over explaining what was up.  But with this media blackout deal, silence.

Cannondale just got a new sponsor.  Well, not exactly new, but they are merging with the Drapac organization.  It might just be happenstance, but he seems to have narrowed his search for cycling sponsors to already existing cycling teams.

I’m not sure whether I like the new quite Jonathan better than the outspoken media Jonathan. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.  Honestly, I miss he throwing things out there.

 

I’m hoping for dry, or dry-ish conditions today at 10 am for Elite Criterium Nationals.  I don’t really have much desire in riding in circles in the wet with 100+ other guys that mainly don’t want to be riding in circles.  The radar is showing just about rain.  Like it might move north, but could be heavy.  Forecast says 60% chance.

We rode over to the criterium course yesterday, sort of out of the way to go to Cherokee Park to watch Finn Smith race at 2.  The course is alright, nothing to really write home about.  I honestly think that all criteriums should have at least four 90 degree corners.  This course has maybe one that might qualify.  The more corners, the safer the race, generally.

I never saw the course that was deemed too dangerous, by USAC, to run over 100 guys on, but this one should work.  It is pretty wide open, which doesn’t suit my liking much.  I think you should get rewarded for better bike handling skills criterium racing.

Anyway, the race is at 10 am today, 75 minutes, which is fine.  It is supposed to be raining at 10 and 11, so there is that.

We’re pretty much packed up, so we’re taking off right after the race and driving to Delavan Wisconsin, to stay the night with Trudi’s family.  Her mother, plus her sister’s family is there for the holiday.  It is about 400 miles from Louisville to Delavan.  We’ll stay there tonight, then do the rest of the drive to Cable, Wisconsin on the 4th.

I think my form is like throwing darts right now.  I rode 50 miles yesterday and was all over the place depending on where on the ride I was.  If it’s wet, then I might be in for a short day.  Or maybe it will benefit me, who knows.  I surely don’t.

Oh, how about Lea Davison finishing 2nd yesterday in MTB World Championships.  Super result. Two North Americans on the podium with Emily Batty, Canada, finishing 3rd.

Okay, that’s about all I got for ya this morning.

  Not good. 

  Current.