TOUR OF AMERICA DETAILS RAISE QUESTIONS


Las Vegas is well known as the land of the ridiculous and the press conference for the recently announced Tour of America held true to this.
Talk of a new race first came out during the Interbike show that took place this week. But with wild claims of a bigger event than the Tour de France coming from a group that few in the sport had heard of, the idea of a Tour of America wasn't being taken seriously.
A press conference held on Thursday (Sept 27) did little to convince people that this was a genuine event to be added to the cycling calendar. It has no UCI sanction, and the race director has never organised a cycling event before.
Below is the supposed outline of the race.
Date: Sept 6 2008 ? Oct 5 2008
27 stages
30 days (three rest days)
4,500 miles
225 riders
25 teams
$30m budget
$11m prize money
$1m first prize
Start ? New York, Finish San Fransisco
Six mountain stages
Four time trials (including prologue to finish at Ground Zero)
13 stages over 200 miles
Four stages over 250 miles
And it wasn?t even April 1st.
RELATED LINKS
2008 ProTour dates unveiled
Tour of America announced
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Editor of Cycling Weekly magazine, Simon has been working at the title since 2001. He fell in love with cycling when channel surfing in 1989 and happening across the greatest ever edition of the Tour de France. He's been a Greg LeMond fan ever since. He started racing in 1995 when moving to university in North Wales gave him more time to train and some amazing roads to train on. He raced domestically for several years, riding everything from Surrey leagues to time trials, track and even a few Premier Calendars. In 2000 he spent one season racing in Belgium with the Kingsnorth International Wheelers.
Since working for Cycling Weekly he has written product reviews, fitness features, pro interviews, race coverage and news. He has covered the Tour de France more times than he can remember along with two Olympic Games and many other international and UK domestic races. He can still be seen at his club's evening races through the summer but he still hasn't completed the CW5000 challenge!
SIMON IS CURRENTLY RIDING
Road bike: Pinarello K8S with Shimano Dura Ace
TT bike: Specialized Venge road bike with FFWD wheels and Easton Attack TT bars
Gravel bike: N/A
Training bike: Rourke custom hand made with Reynolds 853 steel
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