Critérium du Dauphiné Libere Stage 6 - L'Alpe d'Huez - Contador, Brajkovic

The Day Before Tour of California Starts

Sacramento, CO. Here are a few images of my day at the race hotel...

Team Fly V australia discusses stage one details.

Chris Butler prepares for his second race as a professional cyclist on Team BMC.

Jani Brajkovic of team Radio Shack getting ready to film a SRAM commercial.

VeloCenter: ATOC preview

I haven't done an entry on my blog for a while so I thought I'd pass along all my plans for the Amgen Tour of California that begins Sunday. I'm flying out tomorrow morning for Sacramento and will primarily be travelling within the Fly V australia camp. However I will be making my rounds to several teams each day.

I'm analyzing and posting race files from Fly V australia and Team Saxo Bank each day so once the stage finishes my work just begins. My goal will be to download files from Fly V and Saxo Bank's Jakob Fuglsang ASAP. I am then writing a race report and data analysis article which will get posted here: www.TrainingPeaks.com/atoc

Besides posting race files from two riders each day (one Fly V and Jakob Fuglsang of Saxo Bank) I will also be working with Henk Vogels and Ed Beamon who are Fly V's directors. I will be sharing my thoughts with Henk and Ed as I review Team Fly V australia's daily files. I will also be working with Team Saxo Bank's director Bobby Julich who is a long time childhood friend of mine.

I'm also planning to support my other close friends: Neil Shirley of Kelly Benefits (who just returned from a crazy hard Tour of Korea); young neo pro on team BMC Chris Butler (ToC is his 2nd ever Pro race!); Phil Zajicek of Fly V has been "flying" as usual at the recent Tour of the Gila, and finally super talented Jani Brajkovic of Radio Shack who just finished top 10 at Romandie (yet another top-10 placing in a Euro stage race).

Who will Win?

Mmmm tough question. Levi has the experience, hometown crowd and focus. Fabian can never be counted out, but how much celebrating has he been doing since his victories in France and Belgium? Garmin is a tough unit to beat as well and Zabriskie can rise to the occasion like no one else. A surprise victor could spoil it all as well as this is bike racing, maybe a Zajicek possibly. All eyes were on other teammates when Brajkovic rode away with the victory in the Tour of Georgia a few years ago.

Look for me on VeloCenter TV as I hope to do short daily field reports on what was interesting from the previous day's data files. I will also be conducting my own interviews with directors, riders, sponsors and more so stay tuned at the following outlets:

-Twitter.com/DirkFriel

-Twitter.com/TrainingPeaks

-follow Twitter hashtag #atoctp

-TrainingPeaks blog http://blog.trainingpeaks.com/

-TP.com's YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/TrainingPeaks&rclk=cti

-iTunes channel http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/official-blog-trainingpeaks/id36070495

Many thanks to Team Fly V australia for their unending enthusiasm to improve. They are proving with more than 35 victories so far in 2010 that no dream is too large. Visit them at: http://www.pegasusracing.com.au/site/

I'd like to thank Team Saxo Bank for their support and the use of TrainingPeaks.com for the second year in a row. I had Julich's support from the beginning and now Bobby has proved how valuable that data can be for all involved. Also thanks to the team for supporting of my vision to promote daily stage files from the world's biggest races. Transparency has its rewards. Please visit the team web site at http://www.riis-cycling.com/ as well as the Saxo Bank Taking the Lead site at http://www.saxobanktakingthelead.com/?p=3436

Life on the road will be tough for me this next week but I welcome it with open arms. I will probably hit the sack well past midnight each night and "the sack" may be the team RV for as much as I know. No worries though. Just being at such a huge international event on US soil is a dream and I'm proud to tag along. I'm also honoured to work with the talented riders, staff members and as always the amazing sponsors that make such dreams come true.

Ciao and see you in Cali!

Dirk

The weather in on the front range of CO has been horrible this winter. Usually we get a 50+ degree day weekly and this year we've had about 5 since Christmas. I have more hours XC skiing this past two weeks that riding. I'm just glad we have an indoor velodrome to help supplement the training hours. I hate riding indoors.

When I'm not XC skiing I'm alpine skiing with my daughter Keara and she is doing awesome.

Today in fact was a great ski day at Eldora. 5" of new snow and sunny blue sky. Keara has been rockin' out at age 7 on the double black diamond runs. Check out this photo of her hitting the glades on the south side. Notice the "Black Diamonds" in the background. I couldn't do that when I was age 7. No way.

We also ran into a Natural Grocers/Vitamin Cottage teammate of mine, Christian McCarthy, and his son Zach at Eldora today. It was like a holiday in Boulder County today as the School District had an in-service day for the teachers. It seemed as if half of all the students headed up the mountain to Eldora for an incredible ski day.

Let The Classics Begin!!!

Lastly, Het Volk, now called Het Niewsblad, starts in just a few hours from now in Belgium and I can't wait to watch. Check out www.Cyclingfans.com or steephill.tv for the live video feeds.

Back when I raced it in 1993 (Team Saxon) there wasn't even a such thing as e-mail, no live video etc. I'd call home from Belgium once a month from the pay phone and my mom would just cry on the other end. Nowadays mom and dad can tune in live almost no matter where little Johnny is racing to see first hand live action. Sure wish I had that.

I gotta give a shout out to Lance Armstrong today for tweeting the following:

"@DirkFriel definitely remember that. i was rockin' tube socks and a hanes beefy tee undershirt. ah, the good ol days. be well."

Lance was referring to my tweet of:

"Het Niewsblad is tomorrow. Hard to believe I raced it 17yrs ago. Good memories of being in the break for 100+kms w/ @lancearmstrong"

Yep, back 17yrs ago I suffered on a cold wintery day in Belgium in thick thermals trying to stay away in a break with Lance, Marc Seargent, Johan Capiot and Edwig Van Hodoynck. We took off on the Kwaremont and stayed away until the Bosberg, 100+kms. It was a great day at my first ever spring classic. It also happened to be Lance's first ever Spring Classic so I was pretty happy to share rotations with such a select group.

I made it into the break as we were entering the final 300meters before the old Kwaremont. We were on a 3-lane road and somehow the group spread cur to curb racing for the final turn before we entered the narrow farm roads of Kwaremont. The group literally opened up in front of me as if the skys were parting and I made a huge effort to squeeze the gap and seize the opportunity I had been given. I knew the chace only comes a few times in a classic and so I sprinted to the front front of the bunch as if it were the finish line.

I entered the Kwaremont about 12th place and was quite surprised with how things eased up once we hit the one-lane road. The cobbles hadn't started yet so I was trying to gather myself and get ready for the mad dash for the cobbled section. A couple guys attached and I didn't take much notice, but ten I said to myself "what the heck" why waste this opportunity? "Go for it man."

So there I went. With no radios back in 1993 we raced with instinct. I just bolted off and never looked back. Sticking it out with the front breakaway for nearly 70 miles sure wasn't easy, but I pulled every trick in the book to stay with those guys.

Eventually the tall Edwig Van Hoydonck stopped working because Johan Capiot was also in the break with us and Johan had won the race in previous years with a mean sprint. Edwig was the strongest guy in the break, but he had no chance if it came to the a sprint finish with Johan. And of course, no one knew me and they had little knowledge of a young Lance Armstrong (who would eventually become world champ later that year). So we were brought back in by the field after the Muur de Grammone and the Bosberg.

I have to say that has to be one of my best memories of racing in Europe between 1990-1995. Entering such important climbs in the front with grand champions of the sport on roads which helped write the history of cycling from the earliest beginnings makes me proud.

Thanks mom and dad for allowing me to live my dream and leave home to pursue my adventure when I was just 19.

I hope I can provide my daughter, Keara, with the same opportunity someday.

Love you mom and dad,

Dirk

WKO 3.0: Comparing Files with Multi-File/Range Analysis Tells a More Complete Story

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TrainingPeaks (Peaksware) Turns 10 Years Old

It is hard to believe that somehow an idea and need I had 10 yrs ago has developed into something inconceivable a decade ago. I'm proud of all the hard effort our employees have poured into Peaksware over the last decade and am especially thankful for all the support provided by our customers.

Ten years ago, TrainingPeaks got started with a conversation between myself and Gear Fisher at a bar in Vail, Colorado called The George (ironically Gear’s real name). Within three months Gear had built a very powerful web-based system for myself and my father, Joe Friel, which allowed us to manage our coaching clients.

Thanks to all of our partners along the way as well. We couldn't have done it without the entrepreneurial spirit displayed by endurance coaches and the dedication of their athletes. It feels great knowing we have played a small part in helping thousands of athlete's reach their dreams. Many of those same athletes have turned to our Professional Edition software to help them launch coaching companies in order to help others.

Millions of workouts have been recorded and are safe and sound. If you recorded a workout a decade ago it is still accessible today. Just login and take a look. Our focus is to be able to say the very same thing decades off into the future from now.

To read more about our history feel free to visit http://www.peaksware.com/corporate-overview/history.aspx

TrainingPeaks recent blog post about our anniversary can be seen here.

Today the Natural Grocers team visited the Scheels store in Reno. Scheels is the worlds largest sporting goods store. Awesome place! They are also a Blue Bicycles retailer which is the bike our team is sponsored by.



Each entrance of the store has huge aquarium arches. Pretty amazing.

This is the Gary Fisher museum in the store. Really cool stuff.

here is the team with Scheels bike shop employees. Thanks for the hospitality!

Yes they have a 3-story ferris wheel in the store. This is more of a mall than a single store. Amazing.

Tour de Nez
Reno, NV


Last night was stage one of the Tour de Nez in Truckee, CA. It was a 60-minute criterium and on about lap five Chad Gerlach and my Natural Grocers teammate Jon Baker attacked and went on to stay away for the entire race. With about five laps to go the two-man break lapped the field and duked it out for the victory within a 40-man field.

Here is a race report from Velonews.

Here is the race report from the Reno Gazette.

My race went smooth and the rest of the Natural Grocers team did an amazing job of covering every move that attempted to chase. I put out a big effort leading into the final lap to help Baker stay at the front.

Gerlach was my teammate on two teams back in the late 90's. The most amazing results I witnessed by Chad were two stage victories in the 1998 Tour de Langkawi, Malaysia. That year our team was even first place in the Team Classification ahead of Mapaei with only two stages to go in large part due to Chad's placings.

Today is the downtown Reno criterium which is a crazy technical .79 mile loop with 10 turns! Wow holy cow get to the front!

Ciao
Dirk