Bont`s Hendy wind Veulta stage 3!

They say that only two things in life are inevitable: death and taxes. Most forget to add that in cycling there's a third inevitability - the break on a dead-flat stage of a grand tour is always going to be swallowed up as the sprinters chew up the offerings available.

Today in Venlo that preordained fate met those brave enough to break away. Another day in Holland - albeit via Germany - tailored to sprinters delivered more rich rewards for the fast men. It wasn't without a trio of souls whose intentions were good, but in reality the three escapees never stood a chance.

What was unpredicted was the day's winner - New Zealander Greg Henderson benefited from the work done by his Columbia-HTC teammates in the final five kilometres to take his first win in a grand tour. The affable kiwi wasn't the intended 'go to man' but when he found himself in second wheel, sitting behind Borut Bozic, with only a handful of metres remaining, it was going to be Henderson's day.

Just as compatriot Hayden Roulston has enjoyed a fantastic resurgence this season with Cervélo TestTeam, his former national track teammate Henderson has carved himself a solid position in Columbia-HTC's squad and his win in Venlo is evidence of this. The 2004 scratch race world champion showed the speed he is capable of, finishing ahead of Bozic and Oscar Freire.

It moved Henderson to second on the overall standings, just six seconds behind Fabian Cancellara, who will wear the golden jersey heading into tomorrow's tricky stage to Liège. Gerald Ciolek moves down to third overall, a further two seconds behind Henderson.

"We were setting up the sprint for [André] Greipel - all day we were saying, 'Let's set it up for André'. Just after a k to go though, there was a sharp corner and Vacansoleil came flying through," said Henderson. "I was waiting and looking for Greipel but it was 150 metres to go so I thought I better go myself."

Henderson was jovial when informed it was the team's 72nd victory this season before paying tribute to the work done by team owner Bob Stapleton and directeur sportif Rolf Aldag. "Whenever there's a sprint stage, Columbia-HTC is always well represented," he added.

UPDATE FROM VBR TEAM

Hello all, The team has been doing pro track racing over the short NRC/USA crits break with already plenty of wins. Back to the Crits and to North Carolina for the Presbyterian Hospital Invitational the richest race in America. The race in Charlotte is 25miles on a fast downtown course and a prize purse of $25,000. Race was super fast with many attacks, VBR powered by D7S girls sat and waited for the finish sprint with the exception of Theresa Cliff-Ryan who was on a 4 rider break. In the finish Theresa came from 10th to place 3rd in the race. Jessie was the next best finisher coming in at the back of the lead bunch. Winner was Brooke Miller from Tibco, 2nd was Tina Pic from Colovita. The event was live televised on Time Warner and had a estimated 20,000 crowd. Thanks to all for your continued support. Gary Ryan VBR Powered by Delta 7 Sports __________

Congratulations To Bont`s Greg Henderson on new Arrival!

Greg  Henderson and Katie Mctier gave birth to a baby girl Charlie Margot Henderson on the 5^th of August . Both Charlie and Mum Are doing well. Congratulations from everyone at Bont.

Bont`s Roulston 3rd in tour Stage!

  

18-Jul-2009: Cervélo Test Team was once again in the thick of the action Saturday at the 2009 Tour de France as Hayden Roulston joined the winning 12-man breakaway and attacked to finish third in the 199km 14^th stage from Colmar to Besancon.

 

Russian rider Serguei Ivanov attacked with about 11km to go to solo to victory. Roulston chased in vain, but the Russian crossed the line 16 seconds clear.

 

“I was there to win the stage. You had to be strong and smart to win today, and I just missed out, so I am a little bit disappointed,” said Roulston, a winner of two Olympic medals on the track last summer in Beijing. “It’s always a 50-50 thing (when a rider attacks out of break), do you or don’t you. Do you chase and let someone else attack you or do you wait? There was still 10km to go (when Ivanov attacked), so I waited. It turns out it was a harder day than people thought.”

Albasini Wins Tour of Austria wearing Bonts!

 

The Columbia-HTC team added to its tally of victories in the Tour of Austria on Sunday, delivering Andre Greipel to the sprint victory and safely ushering Michael Albasini to the overall win in Vienna. Greipel secured the win in the sprint classification thanks to his third stage victory.

"I'm very proud of this win because it's the first stage race victory for Columbia-HTC this season, and it was a real team effort, too" Albasini said. "We only had six riders for a lot of the race, and that made it difficult to control at times, but we managed to do it. I'm very grateful to my teammates for all the hard work they did. Over the last two years I've worked hard to improve my climbing and that has helped me win here. It's very encouraging."

Coming into the penultimate stage, Albasini had just 11 seconds on Italian

 

Giampaolo Caruso, but put in a strong performance to extend his lead in the overall. "Time trialling remains my biggest weak point, but I managed to get through the race's time trial and then after that I could begin to think about celebrating overall," said Albasini

Bont`s Albasini extends overall lead on penultimate stage

Team Columbia-HTC's Michael Albasini pulled himself closer to the overall victory in the Tour of Austria with a solid time trial on Saturday. With his fifth place, the Swiss rider was able to extend his lead in the general classification to 1:12 over Ruslan Pidgornyy (ISD). 

Rabobank's Koos Moerenhout was the victor on the day, edging out Garmin-Slipstream's Svein Tuft by just two seconds.

Albasini, who does not normally excel in the time trial, was surprised with his result on the day. "Today it was an absolute surprise for me. I have done the best time trial ever," he said. "Now we have to ride well at tomorrows stage to Vienna and I can celebrate my first victory of this tour."

Time trial specialist Pidgornyy moved into second overall thanks to a poor performance by previous second place rider Giampaolo Caruso, who lost three minutes to Albasini. Yet the day was still a disappointment for the Ukrainian, who had hoped to win the stage

Bont`s Greg Henderson gives his take on the Tour

Hey there.

 TDF. My dark horse is Bradley wiggins. He won't beat Contador. Noone will actually. But he has stripped so much weight and now shows his class on the road switching from the track.

I really believe Astana will have 2 on the podium. This can be dangerous as everybody knows you need teammates to win the Tour. I still believe Contador will win.

Our GC hope will probably be Tony Martin the young German. He also has stripped a ton of weight but still has so much power and strength. Unfortunately Kim won't be ready in time and Mic wasn't up to scratch for a good GC after such a long season already including the Giro. He is a class rider but a sprained verterbrae isn't helping things now and is struggling to put power through the pedals.

Kiwis in the tour is so cool. I think if we design a road program with some proper guidance or direction and try to move away from our track orientated mentality then we can definitely see more guys riding the tour.

Julian is pure class. He has been racing at this level for so long now and delivers time and time again in positioning Tyler in the sprints.

Roly is going to have a hard time because I know the pressure he puts on himself. Its unfair to think for one minute that he can support sastre in the mountains. And then TDF sprints are crazy and finding the front to guide Hushovd will be very difficult for him also. I really hope Roly doesn't stress himself about these situations and just concentrates on riding from day to day. If Sastre get the Jersey then Roly will be perfect to ride the front. He is as strong as a ox on the flat.

Green jersey will be won by Cav if everything goes along incident free. Too many guys haven't scored points on some days. And our train is too good for anyone ...bar Julz...to come close too. But even Julz would have a problem competing against our boys.

Poor ol Cadel. Has the legs for the podium but unfortunately is let down by his team. He has no support up high in the mountains and his ttt was poor. But he is a fighter and will never say die.

I'm interested to see if there will be any in house fighting in Astana. You would think under Bruynel he will have this under control. If there is any then that's when other teams could take advantage. But...Kloden looks already set to ride for LA and AC.

I think Tony Martin will ride our GC. Maybe Kim will get better but the others will be looking for stages or helping Cav in the groupetto

Later,

Greg.