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Riding his Canyon Aeroad CF, Katusha Team rider Joaquim Rodríguez won Stage 10 of the Giro d’Italia in Assisi in a dramatic uphill finish and rode into the lead at the 2012 Giro.

Rodríguez has had his best year ever racing and celebrated his 33rd birthday on Saturday.
Today Purito Rodríguez made all the right moves and moved to the head of the class with his 5th win of the 2012 season. 

“It was an important stage win especially for the bonus,” Rodríguez said post-stage. 
“Some journalists told me about the finish here and I now realize that it was perfect for me. 
When you get to a finish like this one you have to use it to your advantage. My sports director Valerio Piva warned me that the finish had two parts and I had better wait for the second half,” the Catalan climber explained post-race. 

I also have to thank my Katusha Team for working so hard all the way through the stage. 
They raced really hard, keeping me in contention and pegging back the break.”

As for the future at the Giro, Purito explained looking ahead to the difficult third week, “Now we have the jersey we will fight hard to keep it.

Great Job Purito!

The 33 year-old Catalan was able to give himself a belated birthday present on stage 8 of the Giro d’Italia yesterday, 13 May. He got himself into a breakaway on the 229 kilometer stage and snatched third place after a tough final climb to the finish on the Colle de Molena.

A day earlier on the 202 kilometer 7th stage Rodriguez just missed out on a place on the podium and moved into a very creditable fourth place overall. Daniel Moreno was also in the top ten, finishing seventh just nine seconds down on the stage winner Paolo Tiralongo from the Astana team.

Thanks to his good performance at the weekend Purito Rodriguez was able to improve his position in the general classification and move into second place overall, nine seconds behind race leader Ryder Hesjedal from the Garmin-Barracuda team.

We would like to congratulate Purito for this performance and wish the Katusha team a great start to the coming week!

Preview of this week’s stages:

Today’s ninth stage will be mainly on flat roads and most certainly fast and furious. On the 171 kilometer course from San Giorgio del Sannio to Frosinone there are no points in the mountains competition on offer, but merely a few little undulations for the riders to overcome. The stage will be most likely decided by a bunch sprint.

On Tuesday, stage 10 takes the riders from Civitavecchia to Assisi. The 187 kilometer stage is undulating and there are two tough climbs with points on offer in the mountains competition.

On Wednesday 16 May the longest and flattest stage of this year’s 96th Giro d’Italia takes place with a 243 kilometer ride from Assisi to Montecatini Terme. At about half way there is a climb that counts towards the mountains competition although the climb itself is nothing of any real note. This stage will require considerable stamina and tactical skill!

Stage 12 on Thursday 17 May promises to be most exciting. On the “short” 157 kilometer hilly stage the pros will have to show what they can do on four climbs in the mountains competition. On the route which follows the coast from Seravezza to Sestri Levante the climbers will then have the opportunity to prove just how good they are. There are sure to be lots of attacks and breakaway attempts.

We’ll keep you updated!

Canyon and Katusha: Learn from each other, win together!!

The Team led by General Manager Hans-Michael Holczer has set its sights high for this year’s Giro d’Italia because the Giro is the dress rehearsal for the forthcoming Tour de France.

The action began last Saturday, 5 May with an individual time-trial over 8.3 km in Herning, Denmark. The leader’s pink jersey was scooped by Taylor Phinney from the BMC Racing Team. The fastest Katusha riders were Joaquim Rodriguez, Daniel Moreno and Alexander Kristoff.

Stage 2 of the race also began in Herning (Herning – Herning, 206 Km). On the approach to the finish there were several crashes in the peloton in which Alexander Kristoff was also involved. He sustained a cut to the head, but luckily his injuries were not serious. Aliaksandr Kuchynski finished 21st on the stage. The win went to Mark Cavendish from Team Sky Procycling.

Stage 3 (Horsens – Horsens, 190 Km) in Denmark was also characterized by a chaotic final bunch sprint with numerous crashes. The big crash was caused by Roberto Ferrari (Androni-Giacattoli), who switched Mark Cavendish, causing him to crash. As a result of this unfair move by Ferrari numerous other riders including Taylor Phinney (BMC) and three riders from the Italian Farnese-Vini-Team crashed in dramatic fashion. Alexander Kristoff finished back in 7th spot despite his crash on the previous stage!

After the rest day and transfer on Tuesday, on Wednesday it was time for the team time-trial.

A major success for the brand new Speedmax CF Evo
Although the new Speedmax CF EVO had just been unveiled to the world’s press, the new time-trial machine already proved its worth at the 96th Giro d’Italia. The pros of the Katusha team rode their brand new aero race machines superbly along the 36 km course and secured a place on the podium! The team finished in a superb time of just 37.09 minutes, just five seconds down on the stage winners Garmin-Barracuda.

We are extremely proud of our team and would like to congratulate them on their sensational second place!

The standings after stage four:

1. Ramunas Navardauskas (Garmin-Barracuda)
4. Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Barracuda) +0:11
9. Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Barracuda) +0:26
10. Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) +0:30
14. Daniel Moreno (Katusha) +0:31

We’ll keep you updated!

Canyon and Katusha: Learn from each other, win together!!

What a great finish! In a brilliant final sprint Purito Rodriguez snatched the first classic win of the season for Katusha on his Aeroad CF.

After 194 hilly kilometers through the Belgian Ardennes from Charleroi to Huy Rodriguez put in an impressive performance and confirmed his role as one of the race favourites. After 2 finishes in second place in the last two years it was a real coup for our climber.

We produced an Aeroad CF in a special design for Purito alias Joaquim especially for the Ardennes week.

And as if we’d half expected it the Mur de Huy, which was beautifully emblazoned on the top tube of the Aeroad CF, played a key role in the outcome of yesterday’s race.

This Sunday the Katusha pros are in action once again in the final event of the Ardennes-triple. The crowning glory is the classic event Liège-Bastogne-Liège. This will be no mean task because this is the oldest one-day race still on the calendar and is regarded as one of the toughest in the sport with its hilly profile which works its way through the Wallonian countryside.

Then Purito will have to overcome the last tough climb, the Côte de la Redoute!

Purito is the best whenever it gets mega steep and we are therefore tipping a win for him in Liège-Bastogne-Liège!
Congratulations to Rodriguez and the rest of the team!

Canyon and Katusha. Learn from each other, win together

Hello Canyon fans,

A lot has happened in such a short time. Scheldeprijs, Paris-Roubaix and “Rund um Köln” were on the programme.
The Scheideprijs in Belgium is so-to-speak the road sprinters world championship, which Marcel Kittel was able to win. Congratulations to him.
Our sprinter Alexander Porsev finished in a very creditable 7th place. As it began to rain on the last lap, it became extremely dangerous and this also showed in the finishing straight.

The advertisements on the road surface became very slippery, causing a crash, in which I was involved. As we used this race to test the Roubaix bikes, it was all the more annoying. I was rushed off to hospital for an X-ray where the diagnosis was a bruised wrist and cut elbow which required a few stitches.
And if all that wasn’t enough, I picked up a cold because had to sit in the hospital with wet clothes on for ages.
It was as if somebody up there did not want me to ride Paris-Roubaix!

But I really wanted to start in the “Queen of the Classics”. Since I’ve been cycling this has been one of my favourite events. All in all it was rock hard, but great fun and I even finished without crashing and without having a mechanical defect. My Canyon is a super bike!
Luca Paolini finished in a fantastic 11th place and I finished 61st – that was very good for my first time out in Paris-Roubaix.

…Ding Dong… Yes, can I help you? Drug check Mr. Selig…
This is also what being a pro rider is all about. Blood and urine tests were already sprung on me several times, but I think it’s good because this is the only way we can really clean up the sport.
The worst thing is having somebody watching you while you’re passing water :-).

Moving on from that, after Paris-Roubaix I drove directly to Cologne to ride the classic “Rund um Köln”. As expected I didn’t have much in my back pocket for that event after the stresses and strains of 260km (including 51km of Pavé) in France.
I finally got dropped and wanted to jump in the broom wagon, but it didn’t come and I was suddenly standing with Jan Dieteren, whose derailleur hanger had been ripped off at a really crucial point of the race, soaking wet at the roadside. What should I do now?

Thankfully the fire brigade in Odenthal took us in! Thanks very much again for the coffee and cake boys!
In the evening I flew to Berlin and am now looking forward to 6 days break from training which I will spend in my hometown Leipzig!

Next event is the Stoppomat-Challenge where I’m going to try to break Erik Zabel’s course record.
So bye for now and maybe I’ll see you in Koblenz!

Greetings from Berlin,
Rudi

Rüdiger “Rudi” Selig is one of the youngest riders in the squad of our Russian Pro-Tour team Katusha at just 23.
The talented young German sprinter is in his first season on the pro scene and has the potential to be in there with the men who matter on his Ultimate CF SLX.
During the season Rudi will report about his experiences as a new pro with Katusha and keep us up-to-date on his progress with some exciting insights from behind the scenes.
Here is another report on his latest experiences.

Hello Canyon Fans,
I’m reporting from the airport in Brussels, which I’m slowly getting to know inside out!

Belgium is Mecca for the racing cyclist and bike racing in Belgium is comparable with football in Germany.
The races have been going really well for Katusha recently. Seven victories and several places on the podium in the last few weeks.
On Saturday 31 March wins in Limburg with Pavel Brutt and the Gran Premio Miguel Indurain with Daniel Moreno. I picked up 6th place in Limburg and I can feel how my form is developing.

As silly as it might sound, these smaller races make you a lot more nervous than the big events. They are much more dangerous as many smaller continental teams can take part and of course want to impress at any price and are therefore more willing to take risks.
Therefore at the start there were many crashes when riders were still fresh.
The main difference is only the stamina that’s required because the races aren’t faster but ridden harder for longer. The peloton gets smaller and smaller towards the end of the race, leaving only the strongest to fight out the finish.

All these impressions very much reminded me of last season when I still was in one of the smaller teams and wanted to show the big teams what I could do. The race was great fun and it was also nice to talk to German riders during the race.

As Torsten Schmidt (Sports Director) likes to say “We cyclists are gluttons for punishment…” You have to enjoy squeezing the absolute maximum out of your body, otherwise you’re in the wrong sport.
It’s not just cycling that’s an attitude to life. It’s not like in other sports (not mentioning any names here :-) ) where you can sit on a bench and enjoy a crate of beer with the other members of your team!
Healthy nutrition, no alcohol, no drugs and above all plenty of sleep are the key to success, otherwise the body would not be able to repeatedly reproduce the high level of performance required.

I have often talked about this with my best friend and training partner in Leipzig Rick Ampler (son of former Olympic Champion Uwe Ampler), who is currently right on track to follow me onto the pro scene with Team Nutirixxion. We agree that we both can no longer imagine a life outside cycling. It has dominated the majority of both our lives to date, including our difficult teenage years! We both don’t know any different, other than to do without luxury in order to measure up to standards that are set for us.
This all might make us sound like real eager beavers and kill-joys, but anyone who has crossed the line in first place in a race understands that this moment is more than enough repayment for all the effort! It also becomes addictive…..
I can still remember this time last year how I was beaming at the airport in Brussels when I won the 1.1 event Binche-Tournai-Binche. No one could harm me or put me down. I really got goose pimples.
Therefore I can recommend that if you do something that you do it right!
So stay healthy and I’ll be in touch soon, but forgive me if I’m not so dynamic in the coming months :-).

Ciao, Rudi

Greetings Canyon Fans!

Today I’m going to try to tell you a little about what it’s like behind the scenes in pro cycle sport although I’ve not been at it myself for all that long.

Perfect organization is the key to success!
This is the thin line between pro and amateur sport.
You don’t have to bother about anything except packing your case and now and again putting new music on your MP3-player so that you don’t get bored :-).

You check your mails and there everything is listed down to the smallest detail. When your plane goes, (which of course is already booked and paid for), when you land, who collects you from the airport, in which hotel you stay (this is really important for the ADAMS system-I’ll explain what that is later on), and who then drives you back to the airport; this all requires an enormous amount of coordination, for which I have the greatest respect.

A team doesn’t just consist of 8 riders per event, as you also have the mechanics, masseurs, the sports director as well as the people who have to fetch the cars, buses and trucks from Italy.
And on top of that many a team for the most part competes on two fronts, i.e. two different teams at two different events.

This takes lots of stress off you as a rider and you can concentrate on the most important thing – cycling!
You therefore normally arrive at the hotel in a completely relaxed state, get your room key, and go for a 1-2 hour ride.
Test everything to make sure there’s nothing wrong with the bike, which is very rare since the bikes are checked, repaired and washed in Italy.
Any fine tuning that needs to be done with regard to your position on the bike can be quickly taken care of by the mechanic, who is always on hand to help.

Then it’s off up to the room for a shower and a one-hour massage. Then you get your plan for the following day. This tells you when you get up in the morning, when you have breakfast and when you have to put your case out in front of the door. The plan also tells you what time the team bus leaves, how far the race is and how far it is from the hotel to the start. Without this list you would be left pretty high and dry :-).

Then it’s time for dinner, where the team provides a box containing healthy food, which you normally can’t get in the hotel.
Katusha attaches a great deal of importance to nutrition, therefore you mostly only get noodles with olive oil and parmesan for every meal.
In the evening you then check the doping system ADAMS, in which every rider is registered.

You can think of it as a calendar where you enter all your daily activities, for example training from 9.00 to 14.00, followed by massage and aerobics from 16.00 to 18.00 etc.
In addition, the place where you are staying is entered (exact address), competitions (entered by the team) and most importantly, a 1-hour time frame where you can be reached to take part in the doping test.
If you miss 3 tests, you get a 2-year ban. It’s a bit like „big brother is watching you”, but this is the only way one can get the problem of doping under control in my opinion.
I’ve enclosed you all a copy of my ADAMS page.

That’s all from me for today.

Stay healthy and keep working hard!
Rudi