Velonews reporting…http://velonews.com/article/86912/former-tri--champ-rana-racing-the-road
Spanish ITU god, Ivan Rana will race road this season. We had Spencer Smith race with the Linda McCartney Foods team in 2000 was it (I think he was racing road while a ban was in place for triahtlon - but I don’t recall the details). Have we had many other pro-level triathlon folks go to road?
Ian
Chris Lieto.
Lance Armstrong, Chann McRae
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I kinda think of the LA example as on another level but yeah, triathlon turned roadie for sure. Chan - I know he did Kona after the road career but what was his triathlon existence like before road?
Like someone said, Chris Lieto races some road for the Cal Giant team. There are a couple of gals who moved over to the road, but the names escape me right now.
clm
Chann raced tri before he raced on the road, just like Lance. Both these guys tortured some of the established gods of triathlons at various races before switching to the road.
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/…;;page=unread#unread
Like someone said, Chris Lieto races some road for the Cal Giant team. There are a couple of gals who moved over to the road, but the names escape me right now.
clm
I think Kristin Armstrong would be the best women’s example.
Mike Pigg, Jimmy Ricatello, Molina, and myself, all raced in the pro peleton for awhile. None of us retired to it, but raced it at the same time as our triathlon careers. Here is a shot of a medicore pro triathlete in the winning break of the US pro championships, 3rd in line there…
The cover story of the May 1993 issue of Triathlon Today was “Two Different Worlds: Ken Souza and Team Mrs. T’s Pierogies take on top pro cyclists at Redlands Bicycle Classic”. Team was you, Pigg, Riccitello, Souza, Zach, and two former age group triathletes, Bruce Reid and Tom Resh. Coach was John Howard. No fairy-tale ending - but the team did finish 9th out of 25 and Pigg was 15th in the GC.
Mari Holden was an All-American triathlete as a teenager, then shifted to cycling and won several national titles and the 2000 Olympic silver medal in the time trial. Sue Schlatter of Canada did pretty well as a pro triathlete for a few years (top ten at worlds one year, if I remember correctly), and then went on to be a very good elite cyclist. And then, of course, there was John Howard, who won two Pan Am golds in cycling and the 1981 Ironman.
No fairy-tale ending - but the team did finish 9th out of 25 and Pigg was 15th in the GC. \
What that result doesn’t say, is that there were 40+ teams that wanted into the race, and we beat teams like the Canadian national team, Team Saturn, our training buddies at Swamis, and several other well funded pro teams…For us, it was a very good result, and the pro MTB’ers the next year, only got 10th…And those were guys like Tomac and a lot of other names bike racers would recognize… And Pigg was only a couple minutes off the podium as I recall, never got dropped in any race during the tour…
And thanks for the history lesson on the womens side…And John Howard doesn’t count, this was a triathlete to bike racer thread…Although I did manage to beat John in a heads up sprint in a 300k road race once…He wasn’t too happy about that…
How about Steve Larsen, Laurent Jalabert, Kai Hundertmarck…
I believe Larson was a cyclist long before he got into Tri he was successful in both road and MTB before he raced and won IMLP
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How about Steve Larsen, Laurent Jalabert, Kai Hundertmarck…
They all did the opposite. The question was, who started in triathlon and then moved over to race on the road.
What that result doesn’t say, is that there were 40+ teams that wanted into the race, and we beat teams like the Canadian national team, Team Saturn, our training buddies at Swamis, and several other well funded pro teams…For us, it was a very good result, and the pro MTB’ers the next year, only got 10th…And those were guys like Tomac and a lot of other names bike racers would recognize… And Pigg was only a couple minutes off the podium as I recall, never got dropped in any race during the tour…
And thanks for the history lesson on the womens side…And John Howard doesn’t count, this was a triathlete to bike racer thread…Although I did manage to beat John in a heads up sprint in a 300k road race once…He wasn’t too happy about that… Another thing the results don’t say: if it weren’t for Pigg, Resh, and Reid, we would’ve been dead last. All of us but Pigg, Resh, and Reid got killed in the TT (Souza was “MOP” I think). Jurgen got dropped literally 1 mile into the first stage, only to ride alone for the rest of the stage, missing the time cut (we had to petition to get him back in). Much to his dismay, he was also among the first dropped in each subsequent stage - he was off the back before he crossed the start line, in the crit. Souza also struggled with mightily with the peleton. Redlands was not the Wednesday Ride. On the Oak Glenn stage, before the final climb, I remember being 2/3 of the way back - the field strung out single-file - looking up towards the front and wondering who the hell could go that fast for 20’ without using a motorcycle. Once the climb started, I rode up with Davis Phinney (yes, I know he’s a sprinter). He blew chow at least 5 times. When I asked if he was okay, he said that’s what he gets for riding hard at the front for 20’ without being in great shape. Puts things in perspective. Pigg, Reid, and Resh finished in the field in the crit. The rest of us were destroyed. I was lapped at least 3 times before I was mercifully pulled from the stage - and I’m pretty sure I lapped your ass before I was pulled. We were “in the way.”
Above said, I did have some good results in other races - even won a few in solid Pro/1/2 fields. Raced La Vuelta de Bisbee, when it was the warm-up race for the Tour de Trump, on a composite team with Bobby Julich and other up-and-coming cyclists. Spanked all of my team mates in the 3 mile uphill prologue (7th on the stage), and then spent 4 long days on the front (literally) with domestique duties. Lost 2 minutes in the 10m TT - and felt GREAT (those guys ride fast). We finished 1,2,3 (Coberstein, Julich, McNeil) in the Individual GC and first in the Team GC (I was about 50-60th in the Individual GC). They all went on to have a decent Tour de Trump, except Greg McNeil, who crashed and broke his collar bone.
Matt Cooke has done pretty well as a triathlete turned cyclist. He raced Pro for Navigators and won the Elite Natl RR. I’m missing a couple other recent converts . . . I’ll remember.
JR
Kristen Armstrong. She’s done all right.
I wish I had the results of that old race for each day, I rmemeber it a bit differently…In defense of Jurgen, I think he got 11th in the TT, 2nd to Resh on our team, then he came down with a virus and suffered the rest of the race. As I remember, of the 7 guys each day, 5 had to score for team standings, so we always had at least that many in the hunt… I got a muset bag thrown into my rear gears in the big RR, bent the dropout, and had to race with just two gears, 53/13 and 42/13…That was me that barley made the cutoff that day, wasn’t too much fun climbing that hill in a 42/13…Kenny was pack shy to say the least, but on the last day, he jumped from 3rd pack to the lead group, almost entirely on his own…It was the only way he knew how to ride…As for the TT, I think we were all in the top 65 of the 130 riders, it was not a good tt for triathletes. Almost entirely uphill, and pretty short as I recall…
I was trashed from that RR effort, and I think just scored in the circut race…The crit was a death march, and it was Jurgen and I getting lapped over and over, I think 4 times at least…Last day I flatted early when the hammer was down, and didn’t get a wheel because the car was up the road with a break… I’ll have to ask Kenny what he remembers of his races from back then…
Was that the TT in the Redlands Classic which was basically an uphill and a downhill and Steve Hegg won it riding a monster pizza plate on the downhill?
You guys were my heros beating the Canadian National Cycling team at that Stage race…every time a local roadie gave me smack I told them to shut and up and stop making fun of my aerobars cause Pigg and the boys buried the best cyclists in our country…
Went back to the May 93 issue. Triathletes didn’t do as badly as you remember in the time trial (1st stage), especially if you include Eric Cech, who had started his pro career as a teenaged triathlete. Since there were at least 159 riders in the GC (we know this because Monty was in that position in the GC after stage two), all finished in the top half of the time trial:
Thanks Lew, my memory was not too far off. SO Jurgen was our top guy, and I was still in the top 40% or so as the last one…I remember that we were very happy with our first day result as a team, and to Dev, I do not remember any downhill in that first tt…
And I was so bummed to have that mechinical in the toughest race of the tour. That was my forte back then, long, hilly RR’s… I should of just quit then, but the way they scored it, by using each days results seperatly for the team score, I figured I might be able to contribute later on… So I rode a gear that netted me about 20 RPM’s for a large portion of the day, and tested the strenght of my knees…
Oops. My memory failed me regarding the TT. Apologies to Jurgen and Souza for the TT. I think I remember the rest pretty well, though - don’t I?
Thx Lew.