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. (more…)

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. (more…)

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. (more…)

Coming into the race this year we talked about ideal situations. At the top of the list was Svein taking the GC lead in the Time Trial. And that is exactly what happened today. Svein ripped the race a new one winning the stage by 40 seconds and going faster than Ben Day's impressive time from last year. Coming into this block of racing Svein was quietly confident with the indicators he was getting from training and we were hoping for the best. (more…)

Tour de Beauce - stage 3. The stage that inspires the most oohs and ahhs of fear in la Beauce is without a doubt Mont Megantic. Wether or not this beast of a mountain deserves its rep in recent years though is in doubt. Biking has changed a lot since the 90s… and more and more it seems the strong TT men can climb with the waife like climbers. (more…)

Tour de Beauce - Stage 2 - Valle Jonction Qc. Today was 165km. We were not sure how today would go, but were hoping that Tecos would take control and our guys would have a reasonably easy day. It looked like that is exactly how it was going to work out after about 70km. Then a small but dangerous break of six got away and we missed it. Lucky for us Matt Willson, the TT1 rider in the break, had a mechanical and had to come back to the group. We think if it weren't for that we'd have had to ride hard because none of our guys made that move, and Tecos put Guinez in there who was a threat to take the GC lead. (more…)

The hardest thing about today's stage was what we've endured in the last three days. Sunday we were up at 5:30AM to prepare for the Commerce Bank Philadelphia classic. That one was tough with the distance, heat and quality field. Immediately after the race we were on the road. We drove 5hr  after a 6.5 hr race. We slept in a good hotel in Albany, were up at 7AM and out of Albany by 8AM. We rolled into St. George at 4PM, a solid 8 more hours of driving. It was rush rush rush from the time we arrived to the time we were in bed at about 11PM. (more…)