Cervélo RS

PERFECT FOR: All-arounders looking to climb, sprint, and tour with the best. WHY IT’S COOL: Want race-proven? Riders from Team CSC won the last two editions of Paris-Roubaix, held on cobblestone roads, on Cervélo’s revered R3. For the RS, Cervélo took the squared tubes and springy seatstays that give the R3 its coveted power-train stiffness and bump absorption, then lengthened the wheelbase for better stability and raised the handlebars to reduce back strain. The result is a bike that makes any ride feel better. BEFORE YOU BUY: Sell your old bikes. Unless you race time trials, this is the only one you’ll need. $4,000; 16.3 lbs, 56cm;

Schwinn Le Tour GSX and Trek Pilot 5.0

Schwinn Le Tour GSX and Trek Pilot 5.0

Trek Pilot 5.0

PERFECT FOR: Committed roadies whose idea of “just staying in shape” involves four-hour-plus rides on hilly roads. WHY IT’S COOL: With a full-carbon frame, vibration-damping handlebar inserts, and a hand position that’s three-quarters of an inch higher than the tallest of Trek’s race-oriented Madone frames, the Pilot is built for comfort. But it’s also light and stiff enough that you could swap out the triple chainring for a more aggressive double and be ready for local races. BEFORE YOU BUY: The Bontrager Race wheelset underdelivers for this frame. $2,310; 18.7 lbs, 56cm;

Schwinn Le Tour GSX

PERFECT FOR: Newbies ready to become local century contenders without breaking the bank. WHY IT’S COOL: With bikes this inexpensive, there are always a few shortcomings and lingering gripes: too noisy, harsh, or sluggish or all three. Not so here. In fact, you don’t really notice the bike at all. The neutral handling keeps it going where you point it, and the carbon-fiber fork and seatstays take the sting out of the aluminum frame. Upshot: It’s a remarkably efficient ride for the price. BEFORE YOU BUY: If you’re heavy or riding in hilly country, the Tektro brake calipers are a bit too flexy to stop with any authority. Swap them out for something stiffer. $1,000; 21.8 lbs, 56cm;

Marin Verona and Look 585 Optimum

Marin Verona and Look 585 Optimum

Marin Verona KILLER VALUE

PERFECT FOR: Everyday cyclists looking for a responsive bike that won’t jar sensitive backs on long-haul training and club rides. WHY IT’S COOL: Though the Verona is made primarily from aluminum, the engineers at Marin have radically altered the shapes of the tubes to deliver vertical flex—to smooth out fatigue-inducing road chatter—while preserving aluminum’s inherent stiffness in key areas for efficient energy transfer. With the carbon-fiber seatstays absorbing any remaining road buzz, this is about as smooth as an aluminum frame can get. BEFORE YOU BUY: The steering, while stable, is a bit sluggish, though it handles exceptionally well for this price range. $1,655; 18.9 lbs, 56cm;

Look 585 Optimum

PERFECT FOR: Elites who want to ride very fast—and very far—without feeling it. WHY IT’S COOL: A proprietary carbon-fiber technology delivers pro-level stiffness in the bottom bracket for maximum efficiency, while the wishbone shape of the seatstays provides plush vibration damping for comfort in the saddle. And at just 2.2 pounds, the frame can be built up as light as almost anything you’ll see in the Tour de France, meaning it can, and should, be raced. BEFORE YOU BUY: Unless you’re competing or out to crush your buddies on weekend rides, this might be more bike than you need. $2,699 (frame and fork); $6,000 as tested; 15.8 lbs, 55cm;

Dream Rides

Break in your new rig on these life-list-worthy tours

1. CALIFORNIA’S WINE COUNTRY

Spin past old-growth redwood forests and vineyards in Napa and Sonoma counties, braking only for wineries, coastal views, and some of the classiest inns north of San Francisco. 16–55 miles per day, $2,598;

2. THE TOUR DE GEORGIA COURSE

Test your mettle for six days on the scenic roads lacing the southern Blue Ridge Mountains near Atlanta between stays in the Peach State’s finest resorts. 40 miles per day, $2,995;

3. THE SONORAN DESERT

Pedal lightly trafficked roads past the giant cacti and red-rock canyons outside Tucson, Arizona, for six days, enjoying light-pollution-free nights at historic guest ranches. 24–40 miles per day, $2,195;

4. VERMONT’S CHAMPLAIN VALLEY AND ISLANDS

Sign up for a six-day circuit through the rolling, postcard-perfect countryside of Lake Champlain, with stop-offs in classic New England B&B’s. 10–33 miles per day, from $1,395;

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Appalachian Gap

WAITSFIELD, VERMONT

HIGHEST POINT: 2,392 feet VERTICAL GAIN: 1,500 feet LENGTH: 6.3 miles GRADE: 4.5% average SIMILAR TO:Col de Tamié, Stage 8, July 15 (5.9 miles, 1,250-foot vertical, 4% average)

Don’t plan on getting into a rhythm on this one. The Appalachian Gap includes brief sections of 7, 12, 10, and 14 percent before settling back down near the finish. “It’s a bit short,” says Chris Carmichael, who trained on this road as a young pro in the eighties. “But it compares to Tour climbs in its steepness and varying pitch.”

Big Cottonwood Canyon

HOLLADAY, UTAH

HIGHEST POINT: 8,705 feet VERTICAL GAIN: 3,852 feet LENGTH: 14.7 miles GRADE: 5% average SIMILAR TO: Cormet de Roselend, Stage 8, July 15 (12.4 miles, 3,959-foot vertical, 6% average)

A favorite training climb of Utah nativeand Team CSC pro Dave Zabriskie, Cottonwood snakes its way east from Salt Lake City. The steepest pitches come near Storm Mountain, after mile two, and between Solitude and Brighton ski resorts. “It’s a big road, and it can get really windy,” says Zabriskie. “The fun thing to do, when there’s no snow, is keep going up over Guardsman Pass.” From that 9,695-foot perch, you have the option of bombing down into Park City, 2,671 feet below.

Latigo Canyon

MALIBU, CALIFORNIA

HIGHEST POINT: 2,122 feet VERTICAL GAIN: 2,016 feet LENGTH: 9.2 miles GRADE: 4.2% average SIMILAR TO: Montée de Hauteville, Stage 8, July 15 (9.5 miles, 2,566-foot vertical, 4.7% average)

A winding, wide-open road that seems designed for bikes and convertibles, Latigo begins with a sharp hump, then settles into a steady but steep grade for about six miles as it rises into the Santa Monica Mountains. “It’s reminiscent of climbs in the Pyrenees, because there’s very little cover from trees and it can get really hot,” says Carmichael. The ride ends on Kanan Dume Road with a 50-mile-per-hour descent to the beach.

Gibraltar Road

SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA

HIGHEST POINT: 3,588 feet VERTICAL GAIN: 3,264 feet LENGTH: 9 miles GRADE: 6.9% average SIMILAR TO: Col du Galibier, Stage 9, July 17 (10.9 miles, 4,068-foot vertical, 6.9% average)

A narrow road with fractured pavement that heads up into the coastal mountains above Santa Barbara, Gibraltar was a frequent training climb for Lance Armstrong. “The effort it takes to get up that definitely compares to some of the climbs in the Tour,” says California resident Levi Leipheimer (see page 24). Yeah, but Tour climbs don’t have ocean views.

Ebbetts Pass

MARKLEEVILLE, CALIFORNIA

HIGHEST POINT: 8,718 feet VERTICAL GAIN: 3,016 feet LENGTH: 13 miles GRADE: 4.4% average SIMILAR TO: Port de Balès, Stage 15, July 23 (11.9 miles, 3,881-foot vertical, 6.2% average)

“The best place to simulate a Tour climb is right outside Carson City, Nevada,” says three-time Tour champion Greg LeMond, who regularly trained on Ebbetts Pass during his career. After six miles of a steady 4 percent grade, the climb kicks up to 22 percent in a hairpin turn and ultimately hits a roughly mile-long stretch of 15 percent up to the summit.

Pine Flat Road

JIMTOWN, CALIFORNIA

HIGHEST POINT: 3,165 feet VERTICAL GAIN: 2,936 feet LENGTH: 11.1 miles GRADE: 5% average SIMILAR TO: Col de la Pierre Saint-Martin, Stage 16, July 25 (8.9 miles, 2,414-foot vertical, 5.2% average)

The vineyards surrounding the first mile of Pine Flat Road resemble terrain riders will pass through at the Tour, and the comparison holds to the summit. “It’s not steady,” says Leipheimer, who rides up Pine Flat twice a week during preseason training. “The grade changes a lot, and it’s nice and long.”

Mount Wilson

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA

HIGHEST POINT: 5,699 feet VERTICAL GAIN: 4,827 feet LENGTH: 22.4 miles GRADE: 4.1% average SIMILAR TO: Col du Galibier, via 2006 route (26.6 miles, 6,220-foot vertical, 4.5% average)

“This would be a Category 1 climb in any grand tour,” says Discovery Channel pro Tony Cruz. With 17 miles of relentless climbing, save for a brief downhill scream near mile 11, Wilson’s only recent Tour equivalent is the Col du Galibier, via the 2006 route, which takes in much more of the alpine beast. Starting from the nearby Rose Bowl gets the mileage and vertical up to Galibier standards.

Mount Baldy

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA

HIGHEST POINT: 6,314 feet VERTICAL GAIN: 4,669 feet LENGTH: 12.6 miles GRADE: 7% average SIMILAR TO: L’Alpe d’Huez, last used in the 2006 Tour (8.6 miles, 3,608-foot vertical, 7.9% average)

Baldy doesn’t have the 21 brutal switchbacks that make L’Alpe d’Huez the Tour’s most iconic climb, but it can nearly match it in grade and surpass it in length as it rises from the SoCal sprawl into Angeles National Forest. “I use it to prepare for big stage races,” says Cruz. “It has the look and feel of a European high-alpine climb.”

BONUS CLIMBS

Brasstown Bald

TOWNS COUNTY, GEORGIA

HIGHEST POINT: 4,741 feet VERTICAL GAIN: 2,065 feet LENGTH: 3.1 miles GRADE: 12.6% average, 21% maximum SIMILAR TO: Nothing in France compares.

The Tour de Georgia introduced Brasstown Bald to pro cycling in 2004, and the peloton has been wincing ever since. “It feels like your arms and head are going to explode,” says Discovery Channel climbing ace Tom Danielson. “Seriously, your arms feel worse than your legs, because you’re working them so hard just to keep moving forward.”

Mount Washington

GORHAM, NEW HAMPSHIRE

HIGHEST POINT: 6,288 feet VERTICAL GAIN: 4,725 feet LENGTH: 7.6 miles GRADE: 12% average, 22% maximum SIMILAR TO: Nothing in France compares.

“When you combine the grade, the weather, and the gravel road, there’s nothing in the Tour de France like Mount Washington,” says Carmichael. Just two-thirds of the road is paved, hurricane-force winds can blow riders off their bikes, and the grade gets progressively worse the higher you go, finishing at a nearly impossible 22 percent.

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It’s an odd quirk of bike racing that the sport would be so environmentally taxing. But with an armada of support vehicles driving every route—about 1,500 cars, trucks, and motorcycles crawling over 2,000-plus miles in the Tour de France alone—the emissions add up. So this year, the domestic Kodak Gallery Pro Cycling Team, presented by Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (the sponsorship dollars add up, too), will become the first carbon-neutral pro bike squad, purchasing enough wind-energy credits to offset all of the emissions the team and staff will generate. “Nobody recognizes the impact of air pollution more than a cyclist who’s out on the road five hours a day,” says marketing director Rob O’Dea.

While Kodak Gallery is a rarity among individual teams, in the larger world of sporting events, the concept is running full-throttle, so to speak. The Olympics and the World Cup have taken major steps to reduce their footprints, and the NFL has relied on renewable-energy credits, recycling, and tree planting to green up every Super Bowl since 2005. “One event won’t make the difference,” says Jack Groh, director of the NFL’s Environmental Program. “But it may trigger interest.”

We just hope NASCAR’s paying attention.

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GEORGE HINCAPIE

Tour Guide

Click here for ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø‘s insider look at the 2006 Tour de France.

Also, visit ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online daily during the 2006 Tour de France (July 1-23) for race analysis by Chris Carmichael (the man who coached Lance Armstrong to seven tour wins), the latest stage results, and exclusive photos from our on-the-scene photographer.

Levi Leipheimer

Levi Leipheimer

Age: 33

Team: Discovery (USA)

TDF Finishes: 10

AFTER SEVEN YEARS as a dedicated lieutenant to Lance Armstrong, George Hincapie shocked the cycling world with an authoritative victory in the most difficult climbing stage of last year’s Tour. Hincapie has long been America’s greatest threat in the spring classics—cycling’s toughest one-day races—but his time as Lance’s chief wind block transformed him into a more complete rider, with the skills to challenge in any stage race. Discovery Channel is stacked with talent, though, and team director Johan Bruyneel refuses to say whether Hincapie will be the leader. “We have three or four riders of that type,” he says. “The race will have to determine who works for who.” Hincapie claims that a broken shoulder suffered in a crash in the Paris–Roubaix in early April won’t be an issue. The Tour’s July 8 time trial will be the test. If he shines there, he’ll be trying to make it eight wins in a row for the U.S.

DAVE ZABRISKIE

Age: 27

Team: CSC (Denmark)

TDF Finishes: 0

NO AMERICAN RIDER better embodies the agony and the ecstasy of the Tour than Dave Zabriskie. He grabbed the yellow jersey with a record-setting 33.97-mile-per-hour ride in last year’s prologue, just edging ex-teammate Lance Armstrong. Three days later he crashed out of the team time trial, suffering injuries that eventually forced him to abandon. “I still haven’t figured out what happened,” he says of the freak accident. (Even in replays, it’s unclear why he went down.) “Lance had a voodoo doll maybe.” Still, Zabriskie is the only American ever to win a stage in all three grand tours (France, Spain, and Italy). While he hasn’t shown the climbing chops needed to be a serious Tour challenger, he did take sixth overall at the Tour de Georgia. And he’s a threat to win every time trial he enters. Watch for him to crush it in the prologue.

TOM DANIELSON

Age: 28

Team: Discovery (USA)

TDF Finishes: 0

AFTER FLOYD LANDIS, America’s best shot at winning the Tour in the next five years is probably Tom Danielson. “If you put him at the bottom of any hard climb and you’re racing bottom to top, he’ll beat anybody,” says George Hincapie, Danielson’s Discovery Channel teammate. A somewhat wasted year on the Italian Fassa Bortolo squad—where he spent his first season in Europe being largely ignored by the team directors—prompted Danielson to jump to Discovery in 2005, where he began studying the race tactics and gamesmanship he needed to get the most out of his raw talent. With Lance riding in support, he promptly beat America’s best, including Landis, to win the 2005 Tour de Georgia. And last September he finished eighth overall in a particularly mountainous edition of the Vuelta a España, his first grand tour. A solid time-trialist as well as a world-class climber, Danielson set his main goal for 2006 as May’s Giro d’Italia—in preparation for an assault on the Tour de France in 2007. “I’ll only ride the Tour if my form is so good that I have a shot at the overall,” he says.

LEVI LEIPHEIMER

Age: 32

Team: Gerolsteiner (Germany)

TDF Finishes: 3

WITH THREE TOP-TEN finishes at the Tour de France and a third place at the 2001 Vuelta a España, Levi Leipheimer is a seasoned vet in the dogfight for the overall. The one knock against him is that he has lacked the extra kick that would get him to the top of the podium. But he dropped a stacked field—including Jan Ullrich—on the steepest climb of the nine-day Tour of Germany last August to sew up a win against the world’s best. So what of his prospects in France? He can crush any climb, and a time-trial win at the Tour of California in February showed that he’s made needed gains in that discipline. Also, unlike last year, when he lined up as co-leader of the Gerolsteiner team, Leipheimer will be a fully supported solo captain in ’06. He plans to make the most of it. “The results I achieved in 2005 have raised my expectations,” he says. “It’s not worth it to make all the sacrifices my wife and I make for cycling to not give it everything.”

The Bottom Line: Shameless Tour Promotion From the Experts

“The people who got into cycling in the last seven years aren’t going to quit. It’s an addictive, social sport.”



Greg LeMond—three-time Tour de France winner

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Age: 23
Team: Crédit Agricole (France)
TDF Finishes: 0

CYCLISTS, AND ESPECIALLY stage racers, generally peak in their late twenties to early thirties. There are exceptions—Jan Ullrich became one of the youngest-ever Tour de France winners in 1997, at age 23—but for the most part, any discussion about riders in their early twenties inevitably involves the word “potential.” And recently no American rider seemed to have more of it than 23-year-old Saul Raisin. “Saul is the future of American cycling,” Levi Leipheimer told ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø earlier this year. “I see him riding with the best in the mountains of the Tour someday.” Indeed, Raisin was coming off a breakout season and had kick-started his 2006 campaign with a win in the toughest stage of January’s Tour of Malaysia. “I feel like an equal to the other pros,” the Georgia native told us on April 2. “They might be older or stronger, but primarily I just think I have a lot to learn.”

Two days later, during the first stage of France’s Circuit de la Sarthe, Raisin suffered a horrific crash that left him fighting for his life. While he lay in a French hospital recovering from a broken rib and collarbone and a slight concussion, a bruise under Raisin’s skull burst, and he was placed in a medically induced coma to reduce the pressure on his brain. Doctors were unsure whether he would survive the night and, if he did, what permanent damage he might have suffered. Within days, though, Raisin was well enough to respond to questions and, to the chagrin of his doctors, remove his respirator while no one was looking. It will be months before doctors can assess Raisin’s long-term prospects. But he was strong enough to return to Georgia on May 1 to begin his long rehabilitation.

Raisin started racing at age 13 and quickly climbed through the junior ranks. He took the best-young-rider award at the 2003 Tour de Georgia as a member of the domestic Ofoto-Lombardi team. That performance landed him a 2004 contract with French ProTour team Crédit Agricole, where he quickly proved himself a more well-rounded stage racer than even Lance Armstrong at that age—Armstrong specialized in one-day races early in his career—and also one capable of bouncing back from injury. He finished ninth overall at last year’s Tour of Germany, just three months after breaking his hip when a motorcycle ran him off the road during a race in France. It’s too early to tell whether Raisin can make another comeback. Still, American cyclists have a knack for overcoming life-threatening experiences. Greg LeMond won his second and third Tours de France with shotgun pellets in the lining of his heart, and Armstrong has repeatedly stated that he would never have won the Tour had he not gotten cancer. Raisin, meanwhile, already seems eager to rejoin the peloton. Just a day after arriving home, he was back to posting on his blog (). Among his first comments: “Too bad I’m not doing the Giro.”

The Bottom Line: Shameless Tour Promotion From the Experts
“Cycling is still cycling with or without Armstrong. It’s a magnificent sport . . . In track and field, you run ad nauseam in a circle. In cycling, at least you get to travel.”


Bernard Hinault—five-time Tour de France winner

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Run of the River Inn and Refuge, Leavenworth, Washington

Bike-friendly Hotels

Illustration by Marcos Chin

Owners Monty and Karen Turner took six months off from operating their rustic seven-room lodge on the Icicle River to tour the world on a tandem; then they returned and wrote a guide to the rides in the Icicle Valley and surrounding Wenatchee National Forest. Handcrafted log furniture, Jacuzzis, private decks with wilderness views, and Specialized mountain bikes come with every room. Doubles, $205–$425; 800-288-6491, ‡Signature Ride: Take a three-mile spin from the inn to the 14-mile Freund Canyon Trail, which starts off with a 1,400-foot ascent up hardpack singletrack. ‡The Bike: The nearby Das Rad Haus bike shop rolls out hardtails and full-suspension rides. $30–$40 per day; 509-548-5615

Gonzo Inn, Moab, Utah
With a 24-hour espresso bar and a tool-equipped wash- and workstation in the parking lot, this 43-room Spanish-style hotel in downtown Moab is the ideal resting place for slickrock pilgrims. Every suite in this comfortable compound comes with a refrigerator for storing postride brews. Doubles, $179; 800-791-4044, ‡Signature Ride: The Amasa Back Trail, five miles from town, lacks the cachet of the Slickrock Trail but offers a technical, 5.5-mile doubletrack climb up slickrock domes and over rock shelves. Up top you get a great view of the La Sal Mountains before descending on exposed singletrack back to the valley. ‡The Bike: Chile Pepper Bikes rents hardcore mountain rigs like the Cannondale Prophet and Santa Cruz Nomad for $40–$75 per day. 888-677-4688,

Tamworth Inn, Mount Washington Valley, New Hampshire
Innkeepers Bob and Virginia Schrader are more than just bike fans—she’s a veteran triathlete, and they both ride centuries. That’s why their 16-bedroom country inn, set on the banks of the Swift River in the White Mountains, is set up for bike geeks, with a small workshop in a massive barn where you can also store your bikes, two on-site restaurants that offer eats like Maine rock shrimp ravioli, and cozy New England–chic rooms. Doubles, $120–$300; 800-642-7352, ‡Signature Ride: Try the 28-mile roadie loop to Sandwich, then cool down with a swim in Potholes, a legendary spot on the Cold River. ‡The Bike: The inn offers Trek hybrids for $25 per day. Bob & Terry’s Ski & Sport Outlet, in nearby North Conway, rents Trek 4500 mountain bikes for $25 per day. 603-356-3133

Calistoga Ranch, Calistoga, California
Wine lovers from around the world pilgrimage to Napa, but the Mayacama Mountains, which ring the valley, and the year-round mild weather draw cycling fanatics. The ranch’s 46 freestanding suites, on 157 acres of private land in a secluded canyon, provide a world-class hub for road and mountain riding right out the door. Each suite offers high-ceilinged space, minimalist decor, and a deck with an outdoor fireplace. Loosen your pistons at the Bathhouse spa, or call in a private massage therapist. Doubles, $475–$1,225; 707-254-2800, ‡Signature Ride: For a tough 70-miler, hit the asphalt at the ranch, pedaling past vineyards on the extra-wide shoulder of Silverado Trail. Then head toward Lake Berryessa to take in Ink Grade, a six-mile climb that crests on a ridge separating the Napa and Pope valleys. Loop back on the Silverado Trail. ‡The Bike: Calistoga Bike Shop provides free hybrid loaners to ranch guests and can deliver rentals like Bianchi Brava road bikes ($40 per day) to your door. 866-942-2453, .

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Name: MONIQUE “PUA” SAWICKI

EXPRESS DELIVERY: Pua getting ready for a very long ride.

Home: MILILANI, HAWAII
Gig: ENDURO MOUNTAIN-BIKE RACING
Height: 5’4″
Weight: 120
Age : 26

Sponsors are always on the lookout for up-and-comers with the potential to dominate their sports. So why did marathon mountain biker Monique “Pua” Sawicki have to fund her own racing schedule last year? Because the Hawaii native skipped the up-and-coming bit. In only her second year of racing, and her first in the pro ranks, Sawicki took the 2005 National Off-Road Bicycle Association (NORBA) marathon season title and the 24-hour national championship. She was an out-of-nowhere champ who never gave anyone a chance to discover her. “Monique has the genetic predisposition and training ethic to go as far as she wants,” says bike builder Tony Ellsworth, who was one of many people scrambling to get his name on Sawicki’s jersey for 2006 and will supply her frames for the coming season.

A scholarship cross-country runner at Honolulu’s Chaminade University, Sawicki also showed early promise as a triathlete. But it was in long-distance mountain biking that she found her niche. She took third in her first organized race, a 2004 NORBA marathon event, despite racing against seasoned vets; she went on to win the marathon season title and take third at the national championships. She turned pro in 2005 and supported herself between races by installing window coverings with her husband, Ron, who doubles as her support crew on the road. “We’d go to a race and be gone a week, lose that pay, and never catch up,” says Sawicki, who spent $30,000 of her own money to race last year. “We didn’t know how we’d buy food or pay rent.”

For ’06, Sawicki has lined up primary financial sponsorship with Irvine, California–based shipping company Sho-Air International, as well as all the gear and clothing deals she will need to compete as a full-time professional athlete. She plans to take full advantage. In addition to racing the NORBA season, she’s aiming for a return to her triathlon roots, with an eye toward the Ironman. “This situation is a dream come true,” she says. “Now I’ll be able to see what I can really do.”

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LINING UP at the start of April’s six-day, 650-mile Tour de Georgia was an all-star cast of American cyclists: Lance, Bobby Julich, Levi Leipheimer, and Floyd Landis, among others. Buried in the pack somewhere behind them was America’s next generation of Tour contenders, one of whom was Craig Lewis, a shy, soft-spoken 20-year-old South Carolinian riding for the TIAA-CREF squad. Looking at Lewis’s whippetlike five-foot-ten, 143-pound frame, few would peg him as the next Lance Armstrong. But Jonathan Vaughters, the team’s director and himself a four-time Tour rider, calls him just that, and he isn’t kidding.

Craig Lewis

Craig Lewis

Craig Lewis

GEN NEXT: Get used to seeing this face. Ascendant cycling phenom Craig Lewis may be Lance’s heir.

“Of all the 20-year-olds in America,” Vaughters says, “Craig has the best chance to win the Tour de France.”


What’s caught his eye is Lewis’s phenomenal power-to-weight ratio and the singular fact that, in the Spartanburg native’s first two years of bike racing, he progressed from a rookie in the Junior class, battling other 16-year-olds, to a pro racer taking on the top cyclists in the world. As Vaughters puts it, “He’s the only kid who has Lance’s kind of motor.”


That motor has brought Lewis recognition, but it’s also put him in the way of catastrophe. During the 18-mile time trial in the 2004 Tour de Georgia, Lewis was cranking downhill at 40 miles per hour when a 65-year-old retiree gunned an SUV directly into his path. Lewis never had a chance to put on the brakes. At the time of the crash, his pace had him finishing in the top ten. But instead of sprinting for the last mile and a half, he was being rushed to the hospital with both of his lungs punctured, a fractured scapula, collarbone, tibia, wrist, and skull, 14 cracked ribs, a broken nose and vertebra, plus a busted jaw. When Lewis regained consciousness several hours later, he motioned for a pen and paper and wrote, WHEN RIDE?


Eight weeks later was his answer. And in an uncanny parallel to Armstrong’s assertion that, compared with the pain of chemo, riding a bike is nothing, Lewis returned with a new tolerance for suffering. “My pain threshold is now ten times higher than it was before the accident,” he says. “Attacking a big climb, I can go all out forever. I’ve broken beyond all my limits.”


Nowhere was this new grit more evident than in his off-season training rides in South Carolina with Armstrong’s longtime teammate George Hincapie, who has made Lewis his protégé. “He looked like a really talented rider, loved to ride his bike,” says Hincapie, “and he didn’t mind doing hard work, so we got along right away.”


This past winter saw a big jump in Lewis’s power, when for the first time he beat Hincapie, one of the U.S.’s premier speedsters, in a couple of training sprints. Says Hincapie, “Lewis is definitely capable of racing in Europe as a pro.”


Four years ago, nobody would’ve predicted this. Lewis was a straight-A high school junior from the rural South with a predilection for the music of Linkin Park and 50 Cent—and no interest in sports. “He’d become a couch potato,” says his mother, Judy Lewis, a supervisor for Spartanburg’s Department of Social Services. But then Lewis caught a mountain-bike race on OLN early in the summer of 2000. “I knew right away that I wanted to do that professionally,” says Lewis.


Within a month, he’d bought a bike and was charging around the trails surrounding his home in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Two months after his inaugural turn of the pedals, he entered and won his first mountain-bike race, finishing five minutes ahead of the pack. Then, to train for off-road racing, Lewis bought a Giant TCR 2 aluminum road bike and later notched a top-20 finish in his very first road race.


Lewis’s big break, which shifted his focus to road racing, came in September 2001. While competing against elite locals in Greenville, South Carolina, he caught the eye of Hincapie’s brother, Rich, president of Hincapie Sportswear, a local race promoter, and team director of the amateur Fairway-Subaru racing team. Rich brought Lewis onto the Fairway-Subaru squad—then mostly made up of top veteran riders in their thirties—and quickly upgraded his racing license so he could face off against pros. “He weighed 115 pounds soaking wet,” says Rich, “yet he kept up with the best pros in the region.”


Lewis also brought a level of sophistication and maturity that shocked both Hincapie brothers. “He was very meticulous with his training and preparation and nutrition,” says Rich. “That’s expected of an experienced vet, but when you’re a 16-year-old kid going to high school—it was something we’d never seen before.”

IN THIS, HIS SECOND year of competition against the some of the planet’s best riders, Lewis has made it as a bike racer, albeit one earning just $800 a month as a member of TIAA-CREF, a development team composed of riders aged 23 and younger. And while his middling 54th-place finish in this year’s Tour de Georgia is a reminder that Lewis is still defined mostly by that elusive word potential, seasoned observers and participants in the pro peloton, such as Vaughters and Hincapie, say that’s all he needs right now.


The reason? In physiological terms, the 20-year-old is where Lance Armstrong was at roughly the same age. In 1993, tests of a 21-year-old Armstrong after he won the World Championship road race showed him churning out 5.5 watts per kilogram of body weight over a sustained period. Last winter, when Lewis performed the same test, he pumped out 356 watts, which when broken down per kilo of body weight matches Lance’s output of 12 years ago. And as Lewis matures and peaks in the next decade, he could see a 20 percent jump in power—the difference between a podium finish and ending up at the back of the pack.


Despite Vaughters’s and Hincapie’s excitement over Lewis’s biology, both know that the key to his success is not to rush him. After all, most pros now peak in their late twenties to early thirties.


“He’ll be ready to ride the Tour for the first time when he’s 25 or 26,” Vaughters explains. “Until then he’ll probably need two years of racing in the States and a few select international competitions. Then he’ll be ready to sign with a ProTour team and either sink or swim.”


“Our data show that it’s up to 45 watts harder just to ride at the European level,” says Steve Johnson, director of athletics for USA Cycling, the governing body for cycling in the U.S. “To ride at that level, you have to be exposed to that level of competition for a long period of time. If you can get accustomed to that pace—plus the crashes and the cutthroat tactics—then you can ride anytime, anywhere, and with anybody.”


If all goes as planned, Lewis will be getting a taste of Euro power in June, when he’s slated to compete in the four-day Route du Sud, a brutal race through the French and Spanish Pyrenees. “A lot of the top teams will use this as a final preparation for the Tour,” says Vaughters. “Just finishing it will be a big step in the right direction.”


Ultimately, however, success will come down to Lewis’s drive to dominate, and, according to Vaughters, he’s got it. “Craig wants to win in Europe, and he knows that racing there’s not going to be fun, but he doesn’t care. He’s going to make it anyway.”

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