Schlecks in team schake-up

Those Schleck brothers have been in the news recently. First off it was the Luxembourg time trial championships, where young Andy beat off elder brother Frank for the title. Although I'm sure Andy did a good ride, when there's a field of 4 riders your chances of finishing up on the podium are pretty high. There might have been one more challenger, but one of the few other Luxembourg pros, Kim Kirchen, (Bile Beans TDF team 2009) has recently had some serious medical issues with his heart and his future career looks uncertain. He always seemed like a nice bloke to me, so I hope he gets well soon. 

Anyway, after the Schleck 1-2 it was Christian Poos who took bronze in the time trial. Christian's team won't be at the Tour, so I'm afraid we won't get to see Poos rolling down the start-ramp in Rotterdam. We might still see Poos on the roads next year though, as there's going to be a new Luxembourg team headed-up by those Schlecks. Cycling's a sport of ups and downs though, one minute Andy was all excited about his time trial win and new team, the next he was treating his wounds after an 'off' during training. Looks like he's using a combination of first aid products, beer and possibly olive oil to heal his wounds.

Maybe it was because of this little tumble that Frank got the better of Andy for the Luxembourg road title, or maybe its because their parents bought them up properly, and taught them how to share.

This last week has seen the running of various road and time trial National Championship races around the globe, and not just in big countries like Luxembourg. The winners of such events get to wear a fancy jersey for a year and are generally easier to pick out in a crowd of moving cyclists. The races can also be an indicator of who's got some pre-tour form. You can check out who won what over at Cyclingnews, but I was mostly interested in who snagged the British title. It was always going to be tricky for the smaller teams to get the better of Team Sky, and so it proved. It was a Sky 1-2-3 with Geraint Thomas winning ahead of  Peter Kennaugh and Ian Stannard. Thomas has made it into Sky's TDF squad, so we should see him showing off the National Champs jersey off on the roads of France.