Chris Anker Sørensen Daniel Martin Thomas Lövkvist
I don't think we're gonna expect to much from Danny Martin today, he is in wretched form, and is here just to train it up, but I have big believes and hopes in Lövkvist
A breakaway of 14 riders gets away, but the peloton is in control. The breakaway never got more than 4 minutes, Sparebanken Vest have learned their lesson
The breakaway is caught, now follows 20 km's uphill and Vino is giving it a try!
The gap have grown to over 2 minutes, but now Vino is clearly loosing pace, he is very tired, I don't think it will hold because it's still 8 km's to go.
The three chasers are Rohregger, Denifl and Fothen and they take some seconds on Vino for every 100 meter, but where is Lövkvist??
Here he comes! And Fothen have no chance following him! Still a decent gap up to Vino, can he make it?
Yes! He cannot believe it himself, he's gonna win this by a good margin!
Congratulations Vino! He can actually be the new overall leader if not Rohregger or Denifl is coming soon!
The clock is ticking, still no sign of the chasers, this may be Vino's big day!
Oh, here they come, and it's a even race between Rohregger and Lövkvist, but its gonna be a second place for Rohregger, a great finish by the austrian!
This has been a fantastic day of cycling, espescially for The Sparebanken Vest team. We're glad to see that Lövkvist now is only 2 minutes behind a top five overall standing, and of course, we are very happy for Vino's yellow jersey, and we will do everything to keep it inside the team. Edited by Bjartne on 22-02-2011 11:01
This looks like a typically Bole-stage, but we're gonna set a high pace in the mountain, so we have to see how much power he has left, or if he even sits in the peloton over the top.
Favourites: Thomas Lövkvist Michael Albasini David Herrero
Today's breakaway consisted of 7 riders, whith Robert Förster beeing one of them, they quickly gained 6 minutes on the peloton.
We are at the start of the mountain now, the peloton is getting closer and is having a very high pace at the moment. We allready see riders falling of the pack.
With just one kilometer to go to the top of the mountain, there is only 29 riders left in the original peloton, and 5 of them are Sparebanken Vest-riders, and yes, Grega Bole is among them, this looks great!
It's now just 5 kilometers to go, Thomas Lövkvist is giving his last power to help Bole and Vino to get a great position before the hill finish
The sprint has started! Vino, Grega and Chris are in a great position! Will this be a new treble!?
Surely not a treble here. Thomas Rohregger is coming like a rocket on the left side, but can Vino hold his lead?
And here is Tejay Van Garderen on his right side, the best time trialist in the pack! It will be a close race for second place.
But no, Van Garderen is too strong today. Congratulations yet again to Thomas Rohregger. A great victory by the Vorarlberg rider
2 flat stages and a time trial are still to be raced. The time trial will decide everything. Tejay Van Garderen have 82 in TT-skills and will be very hard to beat, and Markus Fothen is a decent time trialist, but Lövkvist will hopefully also advance some places. Really looking forward to it. Edited by Bjartne on 22-02-2011 12:38
Stage 6 - Österreich Rundfahrt
Perfect stage for the sprinters, let's hope Bole is in the same form as the earlier stages.
8 riders in todays breakaway, the best placed is Fröhlinger at a 22nd, while he is 10'12 behind Vinokourov. The pack decided to let the breakaway get some minutes, but when it came to 18 minutes, Sparebanken Vest began to set the pace in the peloton. They are to close the finish line to catch them, but as long as they not get 10 minutes, everything is fine for us.
Nobody could stop Fröhlinger, and he takes a great victory, now, everyone is waiting for the peloton. Will they make it to the finish before the magical 10 minutes?
Sparebanken Vest is riding as fast as they can, to still have the yellow jersey at the end of the day. It's gone some minutes since the breakaway finished, now they are just kilometers away from Laxenburg.
The sprint is on! The Slovenian champion Bole, followed by the Swiss champion Beuret, followed by the Ukraine champion Chuzda!
Bole takes the sprint.
I forgot to export, but everything is the same in the overall, except that Fröhlinger have made the top 10, the overall list wil come after the time trial Edited by Bjartne on 23-02-2011 00:21
Favourites: Tejay Van Garderen Chris Froome Thomas Lövkvist
Nothing big to report at the first stage of the race, but now thing has happened.
Lars Ytting Bak, this years Danish TT-champion, have just set a excellent leading time at the intermediate point, and it's a very solid lead! He is also passing Sparebanken Vest's David Milán here, this looks promising for the dane.
We are waiting for Thomas Lövkvist to arrive at the intermediate point. He should be there by now...There he comes! And he is placed fourth, 15 seconds behind Bak.
And look who's coming here, it cannot be Van Gar....IT IS Van Garderen!!! He is, believe it or not, 34 seconds before Bak's fantastic previous leader time. WHAT a time by the american lad!!
Van Garderen is passing Anders Lund after just the halfway part of the stage too, this is a race for the history books!
Meanwhile, Thomas Lövkvist is fighting for a top five place at the finish, he looks great, and is passing the finish just....there! We are waiting for his time. How many seconds behind Bak will he be?
Race Radio: "We have a new leader time! Thomas Lövkvist is 13 seconds ahead of Lars Ytting Bak! A great time!"
Wow, his finishing effort really paid off, he is the leader of the race. But not long, here comes Van Garderen allready.
1 minute and 9 seconds before Lövkvist. He is in a completely other class. He have just smashed some of the best time trialists in the world! Awesome performance by Van Garderen here, and this must means that he advances on the overall list, a well deserved victory for HTC!
lluuiiggii wrote:
Pretty nice stage, Vino consolidating his overall win, and Lofkvist with a podium plus entering Top 10.
Great performance by Van Garderen, indeed it's another class, bad he missed the podium by 4 seconds after such a ride.
Yes, he deserved a top three after that performance. Albert Timmer is there of one reason, he was in the first breakaway, and he is "ok" in the mountains and in time trial, so he only loose some seconds every stage. But now, Vino's yellow should be secured
Hello mates! I have been extremely busy the last weeks, with preparin the Ski World Championships in Oslo, and together with that, it seems that the last stage of the Österreich Rundfahrt have dissapeared. So yesterday I played trough the rest of the season. As expected, we promoted this season, with quite a big margin down to Cofidis:
Now the new season start, and the races will be much more tougher! We are looking forward to a hard season and I will post the most important races for the team here.
The season goals is as follow:
And as the expectations to our team is raised, we had to do something with our current squad. Some didn't get their contract renewed, and some new faces were brought in.
Sparebanken Vest is proud to present their new signings for the 2014 season: Rafael Valls Francesco Masciarelli Chris Anker Sørensen Flemming Skogli Tor Asle Bech Sveinung Østigård
All of them are great additions to the squad! 3 well known and respected riders with some fantastic abilities, and 3 promising youngsters from our own academy, making up the perfect mix of our team!
The whole squad can be found here:
We looking forward to the new season, and we believe that with this squad, we can be succeeded with many of our sponsor goals, as well as fighting to avoid relegation.
Our first report is from Tour de Langkawi, where we are expected to win the whole stage race. It will be tough, but we will give it a try. To then, thanks for reading
We are ready for this years first sponsor goal, and we aim to win Le Tour the Langkawi 2014. Then we need a strong team, this is our selected rosters:
Thomas Lövkvist Rafael Valls Daniel Martin Francesco Masciarelli Chris Anker Sørensen Grega Bole Diego Milán Christophe Riblon
Lövkvist is our captain trough this stage race, and will get great help from Rafael, Daniel, Francesco and Chris. Grega and Diego will represent our jersey in the sprint fight, while Christophe get a free role in the team, where he can try to join breakaways or simply collect bottles and help out our sprint train if he has enough power in the end.
We have big ambitions for this race, and the results for the first stage is coming soon
Favourites: Tom Veelers Diego Milán Romain Feillu
An exciting first stage, with a lot of sprint candidates. Feillu was magnificent in Tour down Under, and he will be very hard to beat here too. But if we have the day, we should get a man on the podium here.
Another stage for the sprinter's. Let's hope Gregas performance raices from yesterdays poor sprint.
Christophe Riblon gets away, and manage to get 10 minutes on the peloton. But he is all by himself, this will be though.
Riblon still holds a solid lead, with about 7 minutes down to the peloton, but the pace of the chasers are much higher now.
Sergio Manangelli tries to attack when the last mountain sprint is over, he goes for victory!
But when it's 3 kilometers left, he is caught by Sparebanken Vest's sprint train. Milán is leading out Bole in a great position here!
Still a lead for Milán and Bole, but the other contesters are closing in as the hilly finish arrive.
Jussi Veikkanen, the finnish champion from the Omega Pharma team, takes the stage, and this is interresting! The sprinters have had such a high pace, that the rest of the peloton have a gap up!! Very dramatic for the overall riders, the peloton is splitted in several small groups, and the clock is ticking! This may be a very important stage when we sum it all up!
Great race by Jussi Veikkanen!
Favourites: Thomas Lövkvist Francesco Masciarelli Daniel Martin
We are clear favourites before this race, and this is a very important race in order to get the overall leader inside our team
Yet again, Riblon manages to get inside todays breakaway. 9 other riders, Lequatre among them, are joining him. They got about 8 minutes here.
20 kilometres to go, and still over 2 minutes back to the peloton!
10 kilometres left and still 1'30 back to the peloton. Riblon begins to think this is possible now and raices the pace of the breakaway group.
5 kilometres to go, the pack is just 1 minute behind, they have a terrible high speed and they now have visual contact with Riblon!
Riblon is still leading, while the rest of the breakaway is about being caught by Sparebanken Vest.
Riblon, did it! Alone against all! A great victory for the french man!
Thomas Lövkvist secure the second place, a double, and a great team performance for Sparebanken Vest!
Unluckily we didn't manage to get some time on the other big riders, like Voeckler, Feillu and Coppel from the FDJ team, so we're still behind in the overall rankings.
jeffyboy222 wrote:
What an amazing team performance! Six guys among the ten! You are doing a really good job!
Thanks mate! But there is a pretty weak peloton in this stage race. I think it will be a fight between me and Francaise de Jeux, who have all of their best rosters
Favourites: Thomas Lövkvist Francesco Masciarelli Daniel Martin
This is the toughest stage in Le tour de Langkawi, and of course the most important for those riders looking for the yellow jersey. We expect that there will go a breakaway early, but that in the last hill before the finish, they will be caught, if not before.
Todays breakaway is a strong one! Without our own Riblon, it also contains Andrey Kascheskin and Xavier Tondo with several other good climbers.
However, they got company on the first mountain, by Chris Anker Sørensen, Francesco Masciarelli, John Lee Augustyn and Sebastien Joly. It's a incredible strong breakaway, but the peloton are awake, and keeps the gap in about 1 minute.
Sørensen, Masciarelli, Augustyn and Joly are attacking right over the top, and Jussi Veikkanen tries to counter attack, but he came the long way from the peloton.
They keep attacking and they now hold an impressive 2'30 lead on the peloton! Veikkanen is 40 seconds behing the first four.
20 kilometers to go. Sørensen are slowly loosing ground to the chaseaway.
10 kilometers left, and Joly attacks, This may be the decisive attack!
Joly have been caught, with only 5 kilometers to go, and now Augustyn is holding the pace up. SPV are leading the peloton, as they are coming closer and closer.
The peloton is closing in as the sprint starts, but Augustyn and Masciarelli still have some seconds down to the chasers.
Masciarelli takes it before Augustyn and Joly! They managed to hold the lead right to the finish line. Impressive!
Favourites: Thomas Lövkvist Francesco Masciarelli Daniel Martin
I don't think we have a very good chance of getting seconds compared to the other favourites at this stage, but we will try our best!
The Sparebanken Vest team held a big pace over the first mountain, and the peloton is crushed into pieces, the peloton does however go back again to a large group after some kilometers.
With the pace going down in the peloton, some other riders snaps the oppurtunity to break away, and they get 8 minutes on the peloton. No big names were involved in this group, and therefore no threath against the yellow jersey.
The peloton is taking some minutes on the breakaway, and with just kilometers to go, Pieter Vanspeybroeck from the Veranda Willem team are trying to do a solo effort!
And he suceeds! Congratulations to the belgian amateur, he climbs to top ten in the overall rankings!
Favourites: Thomas Lövkvist Francesco Masciarelli Daniel Martin
This is maybe our last chance to grab the yellow jersey, so we have to use the opportunity good. I think we should be able to win the stage, but the difficult part is to gain time to Augustyn and Joly.
A single man break away, with Riblon as usually. He has 4 minutes with just 20 kilometers left, but he is tired, very tired. Can he stand the distance?
5 kilometers left, and 2 minutes down to the chasing peloton, but Riblon is completely dead, and he is losing seconds for every breath that he takes.
The sprint starts, while the peloton gains visiul contact on Riblon. It will be a fight for the victory!
With just one kilometer to go, Riblon is still holding the lead!
But in the end, Lövkvist had the power to win the sprint, and what a team performance! They taking the fibble(!!), if that's even a word.
Löfkvist 
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