Svein Tuft's David and Goliath ride

Wow, wow, wow. What a ride by Svein in the time trial. Did you see it? Wow. Seventh - the only rider in the top ten not on a ProTour team. Sitting in the medal postions of the leader board untill the very end of the final wave of top seeded riders. Ahead of all riders from standout cycling nations like: France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Russia and Denmark. Here's a nugget of perspective to show the scale of Svein's David vs. the giants acheivement

Svein has slowly and progressively developed on this team over the last four years. Symmetrics in contrast to a rider like Cancellera -who won gold- operates for the entire year on about 1/5th of what CSC spends on Cancellera's salary alone.

Here's some more numbers on Svein's incredible ride, when you look at the top 30 riders in the Olympic TT:

• 23 riders were from Pro Tour teams
• 4 riders were from Pro Continental teams
• Only 3 were from Continental teams
• The next placed Continental rider was Santiago Botero - he was 25th. He's a former Pro Tour rider and former Time Trial World Champion and winner of TT stages in the Tour de France

We are simply awestruck by what Svein's achieved and couldn't be happier him.

				TEAM			ProTour	ProConti Conti
1 Fabian Cancellara (Sui)	CSC			x
2 Gustav Erik Larsson (swe)	CSC			x
3 Levi Leipheimer (USA)		Astana			x
4 Alberto Contador (Esp)	Astana			x
5 Cadel Evans 	(Aus)		Lotto			x
6 Samuel Sánchez  (Esp)		Euskadi			x
7 Svein Tuft (Can)		Symmetrics		 		  x
8 Michael Rogers (Aus)		Columbia		x
9 Stef Clement 	(Ned)		Bouygues Télécom	x
10 Robert Gesink (Ned)		Rabobank		x
11 Stephen Cummings(GB)		Barloworld  		 	x
12 David Zabriskie (USA)	Garmin				x
13 Stefan Schumacher (Ger)	Gerolsteiner		x
14 Bert Grabsch (Ger)		Columbia		x
15 Vincenzo Nibali (It)		Liqigas			x
16 Ryder Hesjedal (Can)		Garmin			 	x
17 Rein Taaramae (Est)		Cofidis			x
18 Vladimir Karpets (Rus)	Caisse D'espargne	x
19 Chris Anker Sørensen 	CSC			x
20 Denis Menchov (Russia)   	Rabobank		x
21 Vasil Kiryienka (Belarus)  	Tinkoff				x
22 Marzio Bruseghin (Italy)   	Lampre                  x
23 Kim Kirchen (Luxembourg)   	Columbia		x
24 Andrey Mizurov (Kazakhstan)  Astana			x
25 Santiago Botero (Colombia)  	Rock Racing				 x
26 Maxime Monfort (Belgium)   	Cofidis			x
27 Laszlo Bodrogi (Hungary)  	Credit Agricole		x
28 Simon Spilak (Slovenia)   	Lampre			x
29 Matej Jurco (Slovakia)    	Milram			x
30 Matias Medici (Argentina)    Scott-Marcondes			         x

Symmetrics Cam Evans is currently riding the Tour de la Guadeloupe as part of a project team out of the National Cycling Centre in Dieppe New Brunswick. Cam won stage three, and today after stage four is still in the general classification leader's jersey after another short, but hilly (mountain) stage. Read the rest of this entry »

Well Christian's got big news - he's landed himself a stagiare deal with Team Garmin-Chipotle presented by H3O (whew, that's a mouthful). We couldn't be more proud and happy for Christian. It has always been our goal to develop Canadian Cycling and our own talent. Ideally that means our team grows at the same rate as our athletes, but if we can't do that we are proud to see them move on. Read the rest of this entry »

Ah Gastown….what a race. For the past five years Symmetrics Pro Cycling has been trying to win THAT race and every year has been oh so close. Finally in 2008 we did it in style. The guys put on an amazing show and Svein clearly won the hearts of the fans with his solo attempt at the win. Unfortunately for Svein he got swallowed up on the final stretch leaving Pinner and Zach to take care of business in the sprint. And what a sprint it was….Pinner won by almost two bike lengths over the likes of Chris Horner, Kirk Obee, Hilton Clark and a charging field pro cyclists. It was an impressive display of timing, tactics speed.

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The boys did a great job this weekend takin' care of business at the Tour de Delta. Each year the team has gotten progressively better at Superweek and this year they really put the icing on the cake. We won all three stages and the overall GC not to mention the $2000 crowd prime at the Delta criterium on Saturday night. Can you remember the days when Wohlberg and his Saturn team used to show up and do that? God we hated them! We hated them so much we signed Wohlberg! :-) Ok we didn't really hate them but it definitely inspired the creation of this team to a certain extent.

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St. Georges, Quebec. Well Christian did it, he's won his first national championship as an elite at only 23yrs of age. Just like Cam did last year. Today's race was pretty intense, as we suspected it would be. It was a large field and a relatively short course at only 9.8km around with a steep hard climb each lap.

This was the same course we did on stage 5 in the Tour de Beauce, so we knew it well. We were very worried about the course, but it was also very suited to our abilities. With the heat and the distance though… you never know what is going to happen. The plan in races like this is really kind of simple-you do what you can, work the numbers. Read the rest of this entry »

St. Georges Quebec. We were joking with Isabelle today that we really do need to buy a house here in St. Georges. We were here just 10 days ago, and we are back again for the Canadian National Championships. Today was the Time Trial and with some big name non-starters like Ryder and Rollin not here Svein was the clear favourite. And Svein won. Svein was almost two minutes (1:52) faster than second place Ryan Roth from Team RACE Pro . After Ryan Zach Bell rounded out the podium in third. We placed four riders in the top six today, and are really happy with how the guys are riding heading into Sunday's road race. Read the rest of this entry »

Will's back from a long drive and a great win in his final prep for Nationals in a little over a week. Here are his thoughts on the Tour of Elkhorn which he won last Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

After the Commerce Bank Triple Crown Lehigh Classic regional TV news caught up with the team during our pos-race dinner. Watch the video feature: Read the rest of this entry »

Tour de Nez, California. from Velonews "Eric Wohlberg of the Symmetrics team was able to come away with a hard earned victory on the 6.5 mile mountain circuit, while putting himself back into contention for the overall title. " We can't say enough about EW, he's hard as nails and still amongst the best in North America. Read the rest of this entry »

St. Georges Quebec, June 19. Just three days after leaving la Beauce, Svein Tuft was back in St. Georges again. This time for the joint press conference to announce the 2008 Canadian Championships and for the CCA to announce the road selections for the Beijing Olympic Games. Svein has been -rightfully- named to the 2008 Beijing Olympic team for both Road and Time Trial.
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Last night we hit Lachine in Montreal for maybe the most famous Tuesday nighter in the world :) Seriously though, Tino Rossi does a fantastic job with this race series that has been running now for 34 years. We had a few things on the go and being in Lachine this Tuesday just after Beauce lined up perfect for us. We came with a squad of five guys - Randers, Pinner, Zach, Cam and Svein. Read the rest of this entry »

Symmetrics Pro Cycling Rider Svein Tuft Wins 2008 Tour de la Beauce - Canada's Premiere Professional Bicycle Race. Sets up strong candidacy for Beijing Olympic Selection

St. Georges Quebec, June 16 - 2008. Langley BC's Svein Tuft took a big step towards selection to the Canadian Olympic team yesterday cinching the final overall classification at the 2008 Tour de Beauce. The Tour de Beauce is Canada’s longest running and most prestigious professional cycling race and attracts a strong field of international cyclists to the tough and hilly roads of the Chaudierre Appalaches region of Quebec every June. This year’s event held special significance to a small group of Canadian cyclists who were in the final running for selection to the Canadian Beijing Olympic team. Read the rest of this entry »

Tour de Beauce - stage 5. Svein and the boys defended the GC today. One more day to go. We were confident and nervous for today. That's maybe the best way to be in bike racing, it keeps you on your toes but also kinda fearless. It's a wierd mental dichotomy to be in, and if there is any magic in cycling its having that state of mind and form. We now have one day to go. Read the rest of this entry »

Tour de Beauce - Stage 4B, St. Georges Criterium. We were nervous and ready for tonight. Randers said before the start it was the first time he's had the jeebies before a race in years. Svein was confident in the boys. We wrere afraid of what TT1 might throw at us. And it came on lap one with a bang. Six riders went up the road including Chaddy, Frank the Tank and Colex. Dangerous. We tagged it with Cam, Pinner, Jake and the young man.

Pinner and Cam promptly dropped back to help control from behind. We didn't panic and rolled the move back in 4 laps or so. The counters went. Again Sparkesse, TT1, Jittery Joes, Tecos had riders in the move. But this time the move was filled with riders who were not immediate GC threats. Perfect. The boys settled in to a tempo that would let the break roll away a bit. This neutralized the teams that were the threats. The guys rode awesome. Read the rest of this entry »