SOURCE: Trek Bicycles

Feb 16, 2008 19:07 ET
Levi Leipheimer Unveils LetLeviRide.com
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LetLeviRide.com

PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - February 16, 2008) - Speaking at a press conference on the eve of this year's Tour of California Prologue, defending Tour of California champion and 2007 Tour de France podium finisher Levi Leipheimer unveiled LetLeviRide.com, a grassroots campaign to appeal the Amaury Sport Organization's (ASO) recent decision to ban Leipheimer's team, Astana, from participating in this summer's Tour de France. Visitors to LetLeviRide.com have an opportunity to pledge their support for Levi and add their name to a petition directed at the ASO.

"With LetLeviRide.com I'm not disputing the ASO's right to decide which teams it invites to the Tour and which teams it doesn't," noted the USPRO Champion Leipheimer. "I'm drawing attention to the fact that this decision by the ASO is completely arbitrary and unjust. I had nothing to do with Astana prior to joining the team this year. There are many other teams with tainted pasts that haven't changed management or structure like the new Astana has, yet Astana is singled out and excluded. Where's the consistency? By taking action now it looks political. It looks like the ASO has a grudge against a team that can win its races. My hope is that this campaign will encourage the ASO to reconsider its decision."

On February 13th, the ASO barred Team Astana from competing in any race or event organized by the ASO in 2008. The ASO owns premiere cycling events like Paris-Nice, Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Tours, and the famed Tour de France. To justify its decision, the ASO cited the doping scandals of last year's Tour de France.

For anyone who has followed cycling's ongoing battle against doping, the ASO's rationale is suspect. Astana's entire organizational structure has been rebuilt under the direction of the team's new General Manager, Johan Bruyneel, who has thoroughly cleaned house. What's more, Astana has adopted the rigorous doping controls developed by the highly respected anti-doping expert Dr. Rasmus Damsgaard, and Astana now spends more money on anti-doping controls than any other team in the pro peloton. There's no comparison between the Astana team of 2007 and the new Astana.

"That the happenings of last year ... prompted the Tour organizers to leave Astana out of the season's most important race sounds understandable," noted Bruyneel. "However, Astana Cycling Team 2008 has nothing to do with the team of last year. We have done everything to change the dynamics of the team. New management, new riders, new philosophy. Only the name of the sponsor remained."

The ASO has nonetheless largely ignored the new Astana's restructuring efforts, and as a consequence of excluding the entire team from competing in ASO events, has stripped athletes like Levi Leipheimer of the opportunity to realize their life's ambition of competing in the Tour.
"I've trained my whole life to race the Tour," noted Leipheimer. "It's my dream to win the Tour de France; it's my life long goal."

Levi Leipheimer Post Tour 2007 Interview... My good buddy, Mark Shimahara, flew over for the final stage on the Champs Elysees at Odessa Gunn's invitation. Here is Mark's exclusive interview with Levi.

Mark Shimahara, cycling photographer par excellence, is in full swing on YouTube with his great cycling interviews. This interview of Levi as after Stage 7 of the Amgen Tour of California. Click on the Link to go to his YouTube site, Bikedreams, and see the other interviews of 2007 Amgen Tour of California riders.

I like this image that I took of Levi Leipheimer and JJ Haedo on the Podium after Stage 4 of the Amgen Tour of California. It clearly shows that in cycling, guys can be rivals, but they don’t have to be enemies. Unlike some other sports, there is a true camaraderie among cyclists. They may be competitors, but they all know that they depend on each other during the race for safety and for support, no matter what team they are on.

Levi was the Golden Boy of the ToC, but Discovery had to work their fannies off for him. It must have been really a bonding thing to have Ivan Basso riding his rear off for Levi. Jason McCartney was just fantastic, showing what he can do in the future. And Tony Cruz must feel like crap about touching Ivan’s wheel and bringing George Hincapie down with him.

Can you believe that George finished all those miles left in that stage with a broken wrist? Holy Crap - he must have been in such pain with all the bouncing around the bike does on the uneven pavement. Will he be out for Paris-Roubaix? How could he be able stand the constant bouncing around on the pavé (cobbles) with his wrist still in the healing mode? If he rides, that is.... What absolute bummer, crappy luck for him... Hang Tough, George....

OMG - What a nail-biter finish for today's Stage 6 of the Amgen Tour of California. A hold-your-breath chase led by Discovery Pro Cycling Team, who gathered up Health Net and T-Mobile to assist them. Only one lap of the circuit left and the DC guys closed the gap. Everybody was thinkin' Hushovd or Bettini, and out of nowhere came JJ Haedo to take the sprint. JJ wasn't wearing his green jersey, so was able to sneak up the side. Was that on purpose - a clever CSC strategy? Whatever - it worked... JJ really motored.

I watched and listened on the Tour Tracker - Robbie Ventura and his side-kick Joe did a great job commentating. Love the Google map tracking....

So Levi Leipheimer stays in Yellow, but he must have been pretty worried there at the end. Those guys were haulin A - they were just thundering around the circuit and O'Grady gave his all with the good fight. That guy has guts and legs to go with it...

What a race...

The Levi Leipheimer Look at the Start House in the Stage 5 Time Trial of the Amgen Tour of California. Levi looked like he would have ridden or run barefoot over hot coals to get the win. I have several shots of him there, and every one of them shows this same do-or-die- trying look. This guy is totally awesome. It was interesting that he said the same thing that Lance used to say - that what motivated him was the thought of facing the rest of the team at dinner that night if he failed. He just couldn’t let his team down after how hard they are working for him. Every one of those guys on the team are riding their hearts out for Levi..

Jason McCartney was absolutely outstanding with his hard work during the stage from Sacramento to San Jose, and then he turns in another outstanding performance to come in third in the TT... I have watched him mature into the consummate rider since his first training camp in Solvang, where he came up to me and shyly asked, almost in a whisper, if he could borrow my car to go to the grocery store. I really like this guy - he is gonna go far....

So I reluctantly left the Tour of California and headed back to San Jose yesterday after the race ended. Had an obligation here and you do what you gotta do, right? I’ll be watching on the Tour Tracker today, for sure.

I’ll also put up a few shots in the gallery. I switched to the Mozilla browser, and unfortunately, the upload for images on Smugmug is much slower than the one for IE, and the pics don’t upload in the order that I select, so I have to go back in and rearrange all the gallery pics... It is a slow, time-consuming process to go through a thousand images and select the right ones, crop and color correct, and then sit and wait for the slow upload. Obviously, my Dinosaur DSL Earthlink connection plays a big part in all this...

And I want to say thanks to all the people who came up and said hi to me. I'm always surprised at how many folks read this blog and view the smugmug gallery, and who recognize me. Thanks to the gal in Buono Tavola in San Luis Obispo for saying hello. Cycling fans are just the greatest people one could ever meet...

Levi Leipheimer took the prologue TT win by just a hair, but that's enough to let him ride victorious into his home town of Santa Rosa tomorrow. If you take a look at the images of Levi in my Smugmug gallery, you'll see a determination on his face that was unstoppable. Great day for Levi and great day for the Discovery Team.

It was just great in San Francisco and the crowd was huge... I ran into so many of my cycling friends that it was just like class reunion time. Anthony of cycling.tv tapped me on the shoulder and gave me a hug as I was talking with Odessa Gunn, who also hugged me. She, of course, was ecstatic over Levi's win. Lots of folks came up and thanked me for this blog and my smugmug gallery - that was really nice to hear, and I thank you all for reading.

I got caught in the most horrible traffic jam after the race ended - I was trying to figure out what I did last year to have missed the traffic. I guess I stayed pretty late hob-nobbing around, and missed the jam-up...

I took tons of photos, but I'm too fried to put up more than a few... More prologue images next week...