The beloved König vs. Junk Food King Horner

Tune in Amgen Tour of California

1. Chris Horner
2. George Bennett
3. Matthew Busche
4. Tony Gallopin
5. Ben Hermans
6. Ben King
7. Thomas Rohregger
8. Jens Voigt

Vengeance!

After a, self proclaimed, poor Flanders campaign Fabian Cancellara was back to winning ways at the tour of Romandie. A superb show of strength in the tough terrain ensured Fabian took our fourth win of the epic era in style, no one was able to match his ferocious attack in the last kilometre. This achieves our medium countered goal of winning at stage at the tour of Romandie. A goal which we thought Fabian had a better chance of winning at the upcoming TT. This bodes well for our upcoming goal at the Giro, where Fabian will be racing, of two stage wins.

STAGE 1:

A show of strength to start off California.

RadioShack were arguably the busiest team on stage 1 of the Tour of California. Our riders showed really well on the day and, in an effort to set up Gallopin for the stage win and keep Horner out of trouble, we rode on the front of the peloton more than any other team.

Our efforts were well supported by the fans and the results of the stage were fruitful. Gallopin managed to finish 3rd on the stage, second in the depleted bunch sprint, and all 8 of our riders made the lead group at the finish. Our lowest finisher was American Ben King in 34th showing we have brought a well drilled team to our home race. Expect more success in the days to come.

A hard uphill finish on stage 2 saw, a breakaway take the spoils, and Leopold König take over the GC lead. At the end of the stage Horner was 4th37 down on the NetApp rider, his great enemy in this race. RadioShack, in a stark contrast to stage 1, were absent from the front of the peloton today. We hope, for the sake of the rest of the race, that the guys didn't burn themselves out after stage 1.

STAGE 3:

Sagan unstoppable as Gallopin manages his second podium finish.

Sagan, the record holder for stage wins at this fine race, sprints with ease to another stage win as Tony Gallopin rounds out the podium behind Rui Costa. Tony is showing some fantastic form for us here, a great result after the lacklustre stage 2.

Rabottini takes the win from the break.

Some aggressive racing pays off for Fini Vantini today as Rabottini takes the win from the break. Sagan again won the bunch sprint with room to spare, but to his disapproval it wasn't for the stage win. It was a day to recharge the batteries for RadioShack today, with decisive GC days still to come.

The break would again fight out the stage today, with Sagan comfortably leading home the bunch sprint. Gallopin would finish 7th on the stage but second to Sagan. Horner finishes safely in the bunch.

Chris Horner put in a super ride and finished 12th after the crucial TT. He does move down to 6th in GC and is now '38 down in the GC, but un-expectantly he puts time into some GC rivals including König, who loses the GC to Bradley Wiggins.

Bennett, surprises many attacking up Mount Diablo, on his way to an 8th place finish.

It goes to plan! Chris Horner finishes the crucial GC day and ends up in 3rd in GC. Talansky's brave attack will likely result in him winning the GC but Horner manages to finish 4th on the stage and leapfrogs the likes of Wiggins and König thanks to his mountains prowess. Bennett shows really well hanging on to an 8th place after being in the break.

Objectives are completed in California! Chris Horner does enough to ensure we complete our goal of a top 5 GC with his 3rd place. We don't leave with a stage win but with two podium finishes by Gallopin and being one of the most animated teams in the race it has been a good race for us.

That wraps up the Tour of California review. We would like to thank Nacho for the reporting of the race. Let's finish on a light note.......

Chris Horner (3rd) wins the battle with Leopold König (6th). There was much attention and speculation between who would finish 1st between the two, well neither of them won the GC, but we are pleased we are on the winning side with Horner in this little battle. We welcome future battles with NetApp and Peter Luttenberger in the future, perhaps with different riders in different races.

RadioShack 1 - 0 NetApp - Endura

The decision to send Fabian as our leader to Romandie really did pay off. After already winning a road stage he had more than enough left in the tank to exhibit a time trial master class on the final stage to pick up his second stage win on a race he targeted before the season began. His consistent display throughout the race means he leaves with the points jersey and the accolade of being RadioShack's highest finisher in the GC (63).

Winning the TTT was a big goal for the team. For the 3rd consecutive TTT Cancellara was dropped after putting in huge efforts throughout the course, however, in the end it was in vain as the team finished 10 seconds adrift of team Sky. A solid result nevertheless, however, with this result we then knew it would be extremely difficult to achieve two stage wins.

Robert Kiserlovski announced to everyone that he is a more than capable three week stage race rider with a top 10 finish in the GC. He has improved greatly since EPIC began and may well challenge for GT podiums at some point.

Few were surprised that Fabian Cancellara rolled home to victory in the TT on stage 8, to earn us our 6th victory of the season. He would win our only stage of the Giro by an impressive margin of '50, his TT form has been excellent this season and will be a favourite heading into the world champs.

Cancellara showed himself once again on stage 16. He finished the stage 2nd after a real battling performance which saw him claw back riders on the descent after losing time on the final climb. So close but so far from our goal of two stage wins.

Okay so we didn't achieve our main goal but thanks to a great collective team performance we did manage to win the coveted team classification. Performing well in the mountains with Kiserlovski (8th in GC) and support from Zubeldia and Bakelants, both who got better as the race went on, enabled us to win the team classification by 5 minutes.

Some had doubts about RadioShack's ability to perform in a GT saying we are purely a classics team, well this Giro has quenched those doubts.

Alinejad unlikely to race Vuelta!

Iranians were in uproar this morning as they discovered that Naveed Alinejad will likely miss the Vuelta. The RadioShack team director had this to say ' Naveed has simply not given enough effort for the team and is therefore likely to be missing the Vuelta.'

It is believed Naveed Alinejad was targeting the Vuelta so this, 'punishment', comes as a shock to the Iranian. Five have suspected to have been injured in protests.

We are back for the final instalment of the first chapter of EPIC. The pace of EPIC has been like that of a Tumbleweed, but we are hoping everything soon speeds up so we can reach the much anticipated transfer period.

RadioShack - Leopard - Trek Goals:

[Easy] - Vuelta a Espana (1 stage win)

[Medium] - Eneco Tour ( Top 5 in GC)

[Hard] - Tour de France ( Top 3 in team classification)