Former Tour de France winner loses fight against cancer

Laurent Fignon has passed away after losing his fight against cancer, French television has announced.

The Frenchman twice won the Tour de France during his career. He was 50.

Fignon disclosed in June 2009 that he was undergoing treatment for cancer. It is said to have started in his intestine and then spread further through his body. He continued to commentate for French television on the Tour de France this summer despite a tumour affecting his vocal chords.

“I don’t want to die at 50,” he said, earlier this summer. “All I know is that my cancer isn’t evolving. I’m still fighting.”

Fignon won the Tour de France in 1983 and 1984, and a total of nine Tour stages. He also won the 1989 Giro d’Italia. He famously finished second in the Tour in 1989, famously losing to American Greg Lemond in 1989 by the slimmest margin ever in Tour history, a mere eight seconds.

Fignon was diagnosed with cancer in May 2009, and he revealed his illness it shortly thereafter. He had been very open with the press and public about his illness. In his book, “Nous étions jeunes et insouciants” (We were young and carefree), he confessed to having doped during his career. Later, he discussed the possibility that his cancer was linked to his doping.

The Vuelta begins today.

Be sure and watch the Vuelta unfold on one of these great sites:

Velo News

SteepHill

Cycling News

La Vuelta official site

The Schleck brothers, Denis Menchov, Tyler Farrar, David Millar, David Zabriske and Mark Cavendish will lead an all-star cast at the 2010 Vuelta a España, which clicks into gear August 28 in Sevilla.

Andy and Frank Schleck (Saxo Bank), Tour podium-man Menchov and sprinting ace Cavendish are among the confirmed headliners for the Vuelta, which will be celebrating its 75th anniversary this summer.

Javier Guillén, director general of the Vuelta, said the 2010 edition will have a “magnificent level of participation.”

“We doubt Contador will come. He’s just finished the Tour, which was very hard for him,” Guillén said. “History has shown us that it’s difficult for the Tour winner to come to the Vuelta, even though Carlos Sastre did it (in 2008), something that we’re still grateful for.”

Other big names expected to start include Tom Boonen (Quick Step), Oscar Freire (Rabobank), Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and Filippo Pozzato (Katusha).

127 HOURS is the new film from Danny Boyle, the Academy Award winning director of last year’s Best Picture, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. 127 HOURS is the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston’s (James Franco) remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah. Over the next five days Ralston examines his life and survives the elements to finally discover he has the courage and the wherewithal to extricate himself by any means necessary, scale a 65 foot wall and hike over eight miles before he is finally rescued. Throughout his journey, Ralston recalls friends, lovers (Clemence Poesy), family, and the two hikers (Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara) he met before his accident. Will they be the last two people he ever had the chance to meet? A visceral thrilling story that will take an audience on a never before experienced journey and prove what we can do when we choose life.

More info at: http://geckomovies.com/upcoming/127-hours

HT The Goat for the heads up.

Andy B
outsideallday.com

I miss my Nintendo!

Andy B
outsideallday.com

Fight Gone IV at EmerFit from Chris Brown on Vimeo.

Fight Gone Bad 5: http://fgb5.org/, September 25, 2010

Emergent Fitness has been involved with the Fight Gone Bad Fundraiser from the beginning. For the first FGB the gym was still in my basement so a few of us met at Bacon Elementary and did the workout there. For FGB II we partnered up with Front Range CrossFit and traveled to Aurora for the fun. FGB III and FGB IV saw more than 30 athletes show up at the original EmerFit gym and we raised thousands of dollars.

More info: http://www.emerfit.com/blog/2010/08/18/thursday-100819/

In this workout you spend one minute at each of five stations, resulting in a a five-minute round after which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. This event calls for three rounds. The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of ‘rotate,’ the athletes must move to the next station immediately. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower, where each calorie is one point.

The workout 3x:
1 minute max reps of Wall Ball
1 minute max reps of Sumo Deadlift High Pulls
1 minute max reps of Box Jumps
1 minute max reps of Push Press
1 minute Row for calories

We have a trial run for Fight Gone Bad at Emergent Fitness this Friday. I don’t know if I’m tough enough, I know Sellers isn’t.

Andy B
outsideallday.com

Road and Trail Running Shoes
Get in gear with these heavy-duty trail runners and barely-there road shoes.
By Lisa Jhung

Outside Magazine has posted a list of their top 8 favorite road and trail running shoes.

Click here to read the entire article.

Andy B
outsideallday.com

Where is that damm soapbox of mine?? Ahh, there it is.

I’m healthy again.

That’s kinda a misnomer if you know anything about my past. I have wrecked my body through climbing and mtb biking in more ways then I have time to list today. And after coming off a broken foot, I have been training again to get back to climbing hard. I’ve been feeling pretty good, actually taking some good climbs again, and then a friend I work with sent me a blog link.

It was to a friend who had a liver transplant from his brother. His brother had given 60% of his liver so that my friend could live. Then his brother died…

Suddenly my stupid, petty little climbing thing didn’t seem that big a deal.

His faith really impressed me. This is a man who knows his brother died because he loved him. He was willing to pay the ultimate price to help his brother, and he did. It reminded me of a story I read often in the Bible. The one about this guy names Jesus who died for people who He didn’t know, but was still willing to pay the ultimate price for.

I am not a religious nut.

I am a man who has seen what God can do in your life when everything falls apart because God was there walking with me through every part of my accident and recovery.

I am just like every other climber I know. I am a dirtbag at heart. And I know that God made me that way for a reason.

Stories like this always put my drive in check for a moment in time; I will stop and look around at things with great clarity.

I remember laying on the hospital bed waiting to go into surgery to cut my leg off, and being able to hear the wind blow in a window down the hall, I could hear the drips in my IV, and the curtains around me moved and rubbed back and forth so loud, I could tell when someone was approaching. That clarity comes very few times in life, and I’ve learned to appreciate the calm before the storm. The one thing I know for absolute is that there will be storms, and the better I have a grasp on the fact that I have no control, the better I do.

I’ll always be driven when I climb, God made me in such a way, that when I am climbing I am happy.

But today, I’ll take one less lap on the boulder, one less lap on the trail, to be at home and spend the time with the people that really do matter.

One of the other things that being so banged up teaches you is that the things I accomplish on rocks pale in comparison to the relationship I have with God and my family.

Those things are the things I want to be remembered for.

And those are the things I think about when I’m outside doing what I love.

Craig DeMartino
outsideallday.com

Our friends at YourGroupRide.com sent me a few updates to the Fort Collins Cyclocross calendar.

Update to the New Belgium Cyclocross 2010 series:

When: 430-730ish pm every Tuesday in October (5th, 12th, 19th and 26th)
***These are NOT happening in September as originally posted.

Where: New Belgium Brewing

More info to come. To keep up to date on cyclocross in Fort Collins bookmark this page:
http://yourgroupride.com/local-races/new-belgium-series/788-fccx-series-

Crazy Joe is a ton of fun. It’s less than 1 mile from my house (in the field south of Fossil Ridge High School) so I think I need to show up…

For more info on Crazy Joe Cross 2010 click below:
http://www.yourgroupride.com/local-races/crazy-joe-cross/789-crazy-joe-cross-2010

Andy B
outsideallday.com

Enjoy complimentary ground shipping on orders of $50 or more.
Simply enter code KIEHL upon checkout

30-60% savings ends today: don’t miss the Summer Sale

By Charles Pelkey • VeloNews – Updated: Aug 20th 2010 4:55 PM EDT

Increasingly concerned about news leaks and the apparent focus of a federal investigation involving doping, Lance Armstrong has added more muscle to his legal team, that of former White House special counsel Mark Fabiani.

News media reported in July that Armstrong had enlisted the services of former assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Daly of the Los Angeles law firm firm Sheppard Mullin Richter and Hampton in response to a federal investigation headed by the same investigators and prosecutors who ran the BALCO investigation. While news reports of Fabiani’s participation in Armstrong’s defense team emerged only this week, Fabiani told VeloNews that he’s been working with Armstrong since early July, even visiting the Tour de France at one point.

Armstrong is currently the apparent focus of a federal inquiry into doping in cycling, particularly during the years when his team was sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service. The investigation is headed up by Food and Drug Administration Criminal Division investigator Jeff Novitzky, who was a key investigator in the federal case involving the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO). Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Miller, who prosecuted many of the criminal cases that emerged from that investigation has also been assigned to the case.

Fabiani served as special counsel to the president from 1994 to 1996 and served as deputy campaign manager for communications and strategy for former vice president Al Gore during the 2000 election. He acted as campaign spokesman during the controversial Florida recount.

As president of his own law and PR firm, Fabiani has taken on difficult jobs throughout his career, including the Herculean task of trying to clean up image of the investment firm Goldman Sachs. Indeed, his involvement in some of the most controversial news stories of the past two decades has earned him the label “Master of Disaster,” which may be why Armstrong hired him.

The current federal investigation shifted its focus to Armstrong in April when Floyd Landis admitted to having doped throughout his career and alleged that he had learned methods to avoid detection from Armstrong when the two were teammates on U.S. Postal. Armstrong has repeatedly denied the allegations.

While Novitzky and Miller have declined to comment on the record, several former riders and their attorneys have confirmed that they have been contacted by federal authorities.

Fabiani said he was reluctant to comment on the case, but offered an observation he’s shared with others in the media, noting that Novitzky, a former IRS investigator, is now employed by the criminal division of the FDA.
Trek Travel

“At a time when salmonella is forcing the recall of 380 million eggs, we’re all scratching our heads trying to figure out why the FDA is paying for a multi-million dollar fishing expedition, based on the word of the disgraced Floyd Landis, into international cycling events that occurred years ago,” he noted.

The Moosejaw Really Super Sale: Save up to an additional 25% on Sale Items

Use Coupon Code: JACKSON
Sale ends: 8/22/2010

So much good stuff on sale!

Andy B
outsideallday.com

On Sunday my buddy Jobe and I tackled Longs Peaks. I picked him up from the Group Publishing parking lot at 1:50 am and we were running the trail by 2:50 am (I didn’t sleep that night), in pitch black, with our head lamps on. We hiked/ran as much as we could.

We summitted in just over 4 hours and spent 20 minutes on the top, I think we were the 3rd team to summit that morning. It’s the most amazing view I’ve ever seen. 14,240 ft reeks havoc on your lungs and we were burning on the way up. On the way down we were moving fast, even running a lot of the sections until Jobe took a fall onto his knee and popped his right ankle. Jobe’s the man though and kept moving fast while suffering.

The GPS info below is missing 1 hour of data. Our total time was 8:40. For some reason the watch turned off. The actual hike 14.7 miles long.

We celebrated the day with taco’s for Taco Bell in Estes Park.

The hike was perfect prep for the Steamboat 50. I needed to have that much time and effort put on my legs and feet. Thanks again to Emergent Fitness for forcing me to do all of the back squats, the legs felt really good. After being up for 36 hours, the Sunday afternoon nap and epsom salt bath felt really good!

Video of the day to come…

Andy B
outsideallday.com