Castelli Blog

The yesterday’s stage of the Giro can be described with three words - a short, fast and explosive stage with the final mountaintop finish at Blockhaus.

Carlos Sastre commented after the race, “I would like to thank all my teammates who have done a sensational job, helping to make the race as hard as possible for my benefit. But my rivals were stronger than me today and they managed to secure an important advantage in the lead up to the general classification of the Giro d’Italia.”

“The tactic today was the same tactic we’ve had for all three weeks,” said Sports Director Jean Paul Van Poppel. “Working for Carlos and to make sure to get him in the best position. Of course we know that Carlos is the man for very long stages with lots of climbs; that’s when he’s at his best. This stage was pretty short, so the team tried to make it hard by giving full gas throughout the stage.

As we got closer to the climb, we had Serge Pauwels, Vlody Gustov, and Philip Deignan driving for Carlos, and unfortunately, Philip took a corner a bit too fast and crashed. It was OK for us, because we still had Serge and Vlody there, but a shame for Philip as we don’t know yet how he’ll recover from that. I think Serge has done a really excellent job. We were surprised about his performance this Giro, but it just proves that young riders can improve so much in such a short time.”

“Further on, it was really up to Carlos to go full gas, and see what he could do. Unfortunately, there were stronger boys today. I sat behind him, and he gave not 100%, but 200%; he tried for his life today, but today there were some people who were better. That’s life, and we have to live with it, but the whole team did a really great job today and we’re very happy.

“We’re really very happy with the Giro so far. Good teamwork, good performances, two stage wins, and still a couple of days to go. We know what we’ve started with and where we want to finish. We’d like to give Carlos a chance to get back on the podium in two days. Thursday, we’ll sit back and not spend too much energy, that way we can go after a third stage victory on Friday at the last mountain top finish on Vesuvio.” said Jean Paul Van Poppel last night.

1 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 72.28.24
2 Danilo Di Luca (Ita) LPR Brakes - Farnese Vini 0.26
3 Franco Pellizotti (Ita) Liquigas 2.00
4 Ivan Basso (Ita) Liquigas 3.28
5 Carlos Sastre (Spa) Cervelo Test Team 3.30
6 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Astana 4.32
7 Michael Rogers (Aus) Team Columbia - Highroad 7.05
8 Stefano Garzelli (Ita) Acqua & Sapone - Caffe Mokambo 8.03

Carlos Sastre came out of the anonymity of the peleton Monday with a dramatic stage victory in a grueling, seven-hour march across the Apennines to re-energize his hopes of overall victory at the Giro d’Italia.

Sastre finished 25 seconds ahead of the maglia rosa holder Denis Menchov (Rabobank) and Danilo Di Luca (LPR Brakes - Farnese Vini). Sastre is now in third place in the GC 2′19″ behind Menchov.

“The sixteenth stage of this year’s Giro has been a very important day for me and the rest of the team,” said Sastre after his win. “Thanks to the whole team’s hard work I was able to secure a very nice and very important stage victory.

“I felt protected by my team mates throughout the day, who were close by at all times, giving me water when I needed it. Then, in the last part of the race, Serge Pauwels made a very important play that allowed me to see that some riders were struggling. That made me ride on stronger upon seeing a chance to get past the odd rider and earn important time against riders who were ahead of me in the general classification.

“Tomorrow is the second rest day of this Giro, which will come in really well for many of us. This race won’t finish until we reach Rome, there are two mountain finish stages left and anything could happen. I came to this Giro with the intention of really going for it and I’m here to continue doing so.”

“It was the third day in a row that was super hard and we knew this was the day it should happen,” said Sports Director Jean-Paul Van Poppel, “It was the day we shouldn’t talk anymore; we should talk with the legs. And it happened!

“Like a dream come true, the final climb shows up. Serge did a good lead out and after that the big boys tried to attack a few times. Carlos waited a little bit until Basso was finished with his attack and then he goes two times in a row, killing the other ones, getting the stage victory. Now he is third in the GC, so nothing to complain about.” said a satisfied sports director after the stage.

In the High-Definition documentary Beyond The Peloton, film makers Joe Finkleman and Booker Sim follow the creation and first racing season of the Cervélo TestTeam. With their all-access passes, they will show you what race footage fails to capture, everything “beyond the peloton”.

“One of the main goals of Cervélo TestTeam is to provide fans with better access to the world of pro cycling,” said Gerard Vroomen, co-founder of Cervélo. “Joseph Finkleman and his small crew have unlimited access to the team and we hope the series will show fans how a team is built, and what life is like on a professional cycling team. Fans can always watch race footage on television and online. But this is something different. We want to take the viewer, as the title implies, beyond the peloton to reveal everything that happens before and after the actual race. We’ll show the personalities of riders and staff, the equipment testing and all the effort it takes for a small team to compete against the biggest teams in the sport. I have always thought this is the most interesting part of cycling and I believe that cycling fans of all stripes will find it equally compelling.”

Joseph Finkleman, the director of the documentary, is a lifelong cyclist whose background in the film industry was discovered while he was working in Cervélo’s Toronto warehouse. Finkleman, who also directed Cervélo’s TV ads last summer, is a passionate cyclist. This has been a driving force in the development of the series, ensuring that the content will be of real interest to other cycling fans. “You’re not going to see much in-race footage or helicopter shots,” said Finkleman. “What I am going to show is what it’s like to build and be part of a pro team.”

Visit the official web-site of the Cervélo TestTeam to see the documentary of Beyond the Peloton. Click here >

This year’s 100th anniversary Giro d’Italia visits some of the great Italian cities, including Feltre (the home town of Castelli) which will be hosting the Castelli24h race on June 12-13.

Tomorrow, the Giro will hit the first mountains with Croce d’Aune as the first climb. You may recognize this as the name of a Campagnolo component group in the late 1980s. This is due to the fact that it was at the top of this very pass that Tullio Campagnolo got the idea of the quick-release skewer. He was competing in a springtime race in the 1930s that included the Passo Croce d’Aune. At the time, riders had single-speed bikes with a cog on either side of the rear wheel of different sizes. They rode up the passes with the larger cog and flipped the wheel around at the top to take advantage of the smaller cog for the descent. On this fateful day, it was snowing and cold. Tullio’s hands were too frozen to unscrew the wing nuts on the rear wheel. As a solution to this problem, he invented the quick-release skewer.

Its pretty much an average Giro stage with great rolling hills from Padova to Maser before coming into Feltre after 111km of riding and starting the climb of 8,5km, with an average gradient on 8,5%. Croce d’Aune is one of the harder 2nd category climbs. The road starts out hard from Pedavena (also the name and home town of one of the bigger breweries in Italy) with an average gradient on 10% as it moves out of town.

The climb is actually really entertaining throughout. It starts in town, moves up through the lush forests and open mountainside. After a couple of kilometers between houses and forest, the road widens and leveling off the gradient a bit. When reaching the summit, the monument of Tullio Campagnolo will show up on the right hand side.

Starting descending, the views heading down are spectacular during the first 3-4km. The following 24 km are all in the valley of Imer and Fiera di Primero before starting climbing again, the last 13,7 km to the finish at San Martino di Castrozza.