Bayern-Rundfahrt 2008 Part I

Team CSC accepted the invitation at the last minute. Team CSC participates
2008 edition of Bayern-Rundfahrt.
According to  

Bayern-Rundfahrt (planned) participants according to Team CSC official site.

1. Lars Bak
2. Matti Breschel
3. Lasse Bøchman
4. Karsten Kroon
5. Marcus Ljungqvist
6. Stuart O'Grady
7. André Steensen

And according to Cyclingnews.com, Bradley McGee is also participating.
We may have two Aussies with broken collarbones. If and when McGee is
there, I will get his autograph.

Team CSC announced that they would participate in BR on May 21st. Until
then I had no plan of going to see the race. I will go visit the riders on Sunday,
June 1st. The parcours is between Bad Neustadt a.d.Saale and Erlangen with
a feed zone somewhere between Mühlendorf and Unteraurach. I am planning to
see the start, feed zone and finish if possible.



Tour de Luxembourg (planned) participants according to Team CSC official site.

1. Kurt-Asle Arvesen
2. Fabian Cancellara
3. Volodymir Gustov
4. Juan José Haedo
5. Bobby Julich
6. Stuart O'Grady
7. Andy Schleck
8. Fränk Schleck

It will be the first time this season for me to see JJ Haedo. I will get his autograph.
And I will get one from Fabian Cancellara. I could get it at Roubaix but I held out
on it.

If I get McGee to autograph my jersey at BR and Haedo and Cancellara to do so 
at TdL, my jersey will be loaded with 27 autographs. Two more to go then.

Iñigo Cuesta Lopez de Castro and Jason McCartney must give me their autograph.



Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré participants according to Team CSC official site.

1. Lars Bak
   
2. Iñigo Cuesta Lopez de Castro
   
3. Alexandr Kolobnev
   
4. Karsten Kroon
   
5. Carlos Sastre Candil
   
6. Chris Anker Sørensen
   
7. Nicki Sørensen
   
8. Jurgen Van Goolen
   

Last year I was there to see all the stages. It was great! I enjoyed myself. I enjoyed
painting on the street.

Unfortunately this year I decided not to be there simply because the race is held in
a "too remote" region. Avignon is over 800km from my home. Instead, I decided to 
see Tour de Suisse.

Tour de Swiss 2008 Part I

The event is held 14th to 22nd of June this year. Last year I followed 
all the stages of Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré. It was fun! I intended
to do the same this year but it turned out the first couple of stages
would be held tooooo far away from my home in Germany. Shame!

So I switched to Tour de Swiss. Switzerland is not too far.

I intend to visit Switzerland between 15th and 22nd. I cannot follow
all the stages simply because I have to be careful about the money. Tour
de France is nearing and I know I spend a lot of dough in July.

My plan for the moment, I will ...

• Stage 1:14th (Saturday) be working and will miss out on the stage
  
• Stage 2:15th (Sunday) be in Langnau im Emmental
  
• Stage 3:16th (Monday) be somewhere and training on my bike
  
• Stage 4:17th (Tuesday) ditto
  
• Stage 5:18th (Wednesday) be at Lukmanierpass
  
• Stage 6:19th (Thursday) be in Ambri, I guess
  
• Stage 7:20th (Friday) camp out at Klausenpass and be painting
  
• Stage 8:21st (Saturday) be at Klausenpass
  
• Stage 9:22nd (Sunday) be in Bern
  

This way, I will save some money while having fun and can train
myself to be fit for Tour de France.

Reference altitudes and longitudes

1. Langnau im Emmental (N46 56.397 E7 47.144) The Start of Stage 1 and 2
   
2. Altdorf (N46 52.964 E8 38.490) The Start of Stage 8 and 9. William Tell?
   
3. Bern Finish (N46 57.710 E7 27.946) The Finish of Stage 9
   
4. Klausenpass (N46 52.103 E8 51.379) The Finish of Mountain ITT, Stage 8
   
5. Mauensee (N47 10.025 E8 04.333) The ravitaillement of Stage 9
   
6. Lukmanierpass (N46 33.797 E8 48.068) A category 1 mountain top of Stage 5
   
7. Ambri (N46 30.851 E8 40.912) The start of Stage 6 and it is an airport
   

You can copy what is between (  ) above and paste it in "Fly to" in Google Earth.

Tour de Luxembourg 2008 Part I

I had thought that this site
(http://www.tdl.lu/) was the official site of the organizer of
"Tour de Luxebourg". I recently found that I could have been wrong.

I found this site by Škoda Auto Luxembourg (http://www.skoda-auto.lu/).
You can follow the link from the menu above "Škoda Tour" to
"2008 edition". And additionally, this Škoda site
points to another site, which seems to be the official site of the
Tour. (http://toupatcri.googlepages.com/skoda-tourdeluxembourg)

I intend to visit Luxembourg Sunday June 8th to watch the last
stage of the event. I will join Schleck fan club people at "Côte de Clausen"
Côte de Clausen is the finish but before the race finished there, riders
pass that point several times. That would be a great place to sit and
enjoy.

If you use Google Earth, you can see how these places look
like from the sky. 
I use Garmin MapSource (since I own a Garmin GPS navigation system)
and Google Earth to locate (more like to decipher the blunt descriptions 
found on organizer's web site) the points I  would like to be on the route.

Mersch (M49 45.000 E6 06.347) The Start
Stafelter (N4939.508 E6 10.540) The ravitaillement, I guess

You can copy what is between (  ) above and paste it in "Fly to" in Google Earth.

Calendar and Results 2008 (May 4th)

Autograph collection after Rund um den Henninger-Turm (01. 05. 2008)
and Tour de Romandie (04. 05. 2008)

1. Stuart O'Grady
2. Karsten Kroon
3. Allan Johansen
4. Kurt-Asle Arvesen
5. Matthew Goss
6. Anders Lund
7. Matti Breschel
8. Marcus Ljungqvist
9. Lasse Bøchman
10. André Steensen
11. Jens Voigt
12. Andy Schleck
13. Nicki Sørensen
14. Michael Bludzun
15. Alexndr Kolobnev
16. Kaper Klostergaard
17. Bobby Julich
18. Gustav Erik Larsson
19. Fränk Schleck
20. Carlos Sastre Candil
21. Chiris Anker Sørensen
22. Lars Bak
23. Volodymir Gustov
24. Jurgen Van Goolen

24 riders so far.

Next stop.
June 8th Tour de Luxembourg (last stage)
June (15th - 22nd) Tour de Swiss (several stages?)

July 5th - 27th Tour de France (all stages including the team presentation ceremony)

Rund um den Henninger-Turm Part II

Shortly before the start, participating team were introduced. Our
Team CSC riders are here.


47th edition of Rund um den Henninger-Turm is on.


André Steensen notices that the glove on Matthew Goss's right hand
is different from the ones on sale for the general public in Team
CSC's webshop. Team riders' equipment (jerseys and etc.) are
specially made for the team and we (general public) can not get them.


Silence-Lotto.


Team Milram.
While the team presentation was on, Marco Velo had fun making fun of
a German photographer. He silently pantomimed comically that the
photographer directly in front of him should cut off the annoying
curly mustache(big Kaiser's mustache).


This is the famous German photographer.

Rund um den Henninger-Turm

May 1st, traditionally known as May Day, I went to see Rund um den Henninger-Turm.
It was my third time to be there. I was there in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

I drove directly to the feed zone (ravitaillement)  in the morning. I was there
around 3:00 in the morning! I took a brief nap and then started painting around
4:00 in the morning.


The bike of the winner in the morning. Tony had just checked out his bike.



At the brief team presentation, Karsten Kroon is being interviewed. The man
asked him what his tactics for the race would be that day. Karsten answered in
German (I did not get the exact words as my German is poor) that he would
try to finish in front of others at the finish. The audience laughed but who
had the last laugh? Karsten Kroon himself as he did it!!!



Andy's bike had the SRM transmitter. You could watch his output on TV
thanks to this equipment. You saw that "A. Schleck  400W" or something
on the screen, didn't you?



Karsten, Matthew and Andy preparing for the race.



For Karsten Kroon. The winner of the race. I hope he saw his name.



For Matthew Goss. My camera responds so slowly that I did not notice
at the time when I took this picture that a car was running over his
name. Maybe I need a better camera.



For Andy Schleck. Notice the "Ma" above? It is part of Ma-tthew.



For Andre Steensen.


For Lasse Bochman


For Lars Bak.



And the CSC logo.





to be continued......

Tour de Romandie 2008 Part I

I will start updating my blog this week. It has been an up-hill
battle since March 24th when I went to 24th Rund um Köln. Since
this Monday I have been to so many races on weekends.

Now I have some time to organize this blog and sort out the
pictures I took.

Come back in a week; sometime late May and you will see the results.
To begin with, I upload two photos I took at TdR.

I picked up two musettes from Team CSC at the Ravitaillement. Who
discareded those musettes? I know from the pictures below that
Volodymir Gustov and Kasper Klostergaard passed by me with the bags.
This fact eliminates these two riders since I found the bags about 200
meters before the point where I was. And the picture of Jens Voigt without
the bag may suggest that he dropped one of them.


Jens Voigt without the bag.


Two Team CSC riders with the bags.