Marcel Kittel proved popular with the ladies even before his second place finish in stage seven. Photo: VeloImages
              
RBA MINI-VIEW: STEVE BAUER
Yellow Jerseys & The Super Teams

Steve Bauer is one of Canada's most celebrated of road men. remains a proud Canadian (aren't they all?!) Like any guy who has been involved in the sport for over three decades, Steve has seen a lot and has plenty of opinions. In his years as Pro he was celebrated for winning a bronze medal at the worlds to wearing the coveted yellow jersey at the Tour de France.

The first and last time I met Canadian cyclist Steve Bauer was back in 1993 in the Arenberg forest at Paris Roubaix. What was most notable about that day was that he was riding a sweet custom Eddy Merckx that had super laid-back angles to allow the team Motorola rider to get further behind the pedals over the cobbles - that bike was rad.

Today Steve is the director of the Pro Continental Spidertech -C10 team and I caught up with him just prior to stage seven to find out what the latest was with the Canadian effort.


Argon 18 is the bike sponsor for the Spidertech team.

RBA: What's the history of Steve Bauer?
Steve: I turned Pro in 1984 after competing in the Los Angeles Olympics. In 1984 I earned a bronze medal at the Worlds in Barcelona and after that I was hired my La Vie Claire. Over the next few years I rode for the Toshiba and Helvetica-Swiss teams and then joined 7-Eleven in 1990. That was the year that I wore the yellow jersey in the Tour de France for nine days. That was also when 7-Eleven was going away and I think (7-Eleven manager) Jim Ochowicz used that to show Motorola the kind of publicity they could get with cycling and they signed on. I rode with Motorola through the '95 season, rode for Saturn in 1996 and then raced in the Olympics in Atlanta that year as a bookend to my career.

RBA: Can you give us some background on the Spidertech team?
Steve: We started a local team out of Ontario, Canada back in 2008 and in the short time since we've ramped it up to Pro Continental status. Right now we have a good opportunity to get even stronger next year with a goal of gaining World Tour status in 2015. Making the World Tour grade is a tall order and we still need to build our organization, but we have some good interest with some business guys who are also proud Canadians and want to see the team grow. It's interesting to see how the sport is getting nationalized with teams like Sky (Great Britain) and GreenEdge (Australia). I wish we had more Canadian riders coming up, but after the Pan Am games in 2013 (in Ontario) I think we'll start seeing more. We want to be a legitimate Canadian team with good Canadian content and rise to the position of being selected for the Tour de France.

RBA: As an up and coming team, what's your opinion on how the sport is evolving in respect to the so-called "super teams"?
Steve: I think a real balance has yet to be struck with the UCI, the teams and the races. The UCI is trying to stabilize and looking at the valuation of the teams. Right now the big money teams are hiring successful riders away small teams to get their points, but the teams that developed them and helped get them the points lose out and get nothing in return. You also wonder about the sustainability of some of these teams give the current market conditions. Look at Highroad, a really successful team, but when their price rose to $100 million (Euros) for four years, that was big ask?!


Bauer's trick Eddy Merckx lowrider mounted with special Rock Shox fork based on the Mag-21 mountain bike fork. How about that chainstay length?!

RBA: So what do you recall about that special Merckx bike?
Steve: Yeah, that bike was something eh? I guess the idea for it came from some old local Belgian rider that was killing everybody on it, so somehow news of it got to the team and we had one like built up. I got the bike in the winter so that by the time Roubaix came up I had gotten plenty of time on it. It worked completely different muscle groups than a bike with standard geometry so that's why I needed the extra time on it train my muscles to work specifically for the frame design. I think the seat angle was about 67 degrees or something. That thing was like a Cadillac on the cobbles, but overall it was not a good bike because it lacked the versatility of a standard road bike.

BACK DOWN PIT ROW...

The Andulcia team mixed their drivetrain parts by importing a Rotor chain catcher with their Shimano drivetrain. Now that SRAM has made it a production feature with their new Red drivetrain, it will be interesting to see if Shimano follows the growing trend of spec'ing a chain catcher with their soon to be introduced 2013 DuraAce kit.


Although most of the team rides the aero framed R100, a few Farnese Vini riders opt for the more traditional R800 frame.


Both Astana and Bretagne-Schuller were running these minimalist spoked Corima wheels.


Go ahead, say this Astana rider's name real fast three times.


A standard feature at every team hotel the world over - the room list.


Lacking their team buses, in the time spent before the race all the riders were searching for some relief from the hot Turkish sun.


For the SaxoBank team their shade came by hanging with the locals outside a souvenir shop.


Besides all the other details they take care of, race organizers pack a lunch for all the volunteers, media, team staff and security...that's a lot of chicken sammys.


While the race organization of the Tour of Turkey is first rate, the same can't be said about all  the roads...but they're working on it!


In actuality, the world of cycling journalism is not all free bikes and plush accommodations. After a long day shooting photos and scouring for words, a handful of working journos found the press room already filled to capacity so the next best thing was to make it happen outside on the ground. Although...


A few hours later however, life did get pretty sweet with this view from our hotel room.