For the third time, a rider from l'equipe Bouledogue tour noir has appeared in the leading Chicago endurance sports magazine, Windy City Sports. In the February 2009 issue, Steven Vandeven is pictured in a full-page ad for the 2009 Chicago Criterium held in Grant Park.The photo was taken in the heat of the action in the previous year's race, and Vandeven is shown racing in last year's team uniform (when the stripes were green) alongside some of the nation's top-level professional athletes like Fred Rodriguez (Tour of Italy stage winner), Jonathan Page (thrice a US national champion), and Ivan Dominguez (Tour of California stage winner).
Just a few months after this photo was taken, Vandeven suffered severe head trauma when a Chicago cab collided with him and his bicycle. Although Vandeven will most likely be unable to race his bike in 2009, everyone in Chicago expects to see him racing alongside the nation's elite in 2010.
Bouledogue tout noir wishes Steve a quick recovery and a safe reunion with the peloton.
3 comments:
That's a Team Get A Grip rider.
That is true in a sense, the rider in the photograph is both a Bouledogue tout noir and a Get A Grip rider, since the two were one in the same in 2008 when that photo was taken.
From 2007-2008, Bouledogue tout noir was sponsored by Get a Grip Cycles and so the racing name of the team was Team Get A Grip Cycles. I created, managed, and built the team and its direction and image was solely my own. At the end of 2008, I decided that it was no longer in the best interests of Bouledogue tour noir to be partnered with Get A Grip Cycles and some of the riders who had ridden on my team. There were several reasons for terminating these relationships--some personal, some ethical, some based on failures to live up to obligations-- and it is best just to leave it as it is. I still believe that Get A Grip is a fine shop with some excellent staff.
After we announced our departure, some male riders from the team decided to stay with Get A Grip and create a new team based on a "club" model so that their category 1 and 2 riders could use the dues from beginning riders to pay their way to races, so that the general manager (now fired)and some riders could put wealthy clients and friends on the team, and other reasons that just perplex me. They created a new, decentralized management structure, website, and infrastructure (seemingly exact copies of what I had done), and brought on riders who had been voted down from Bouledogue. They also decided to reuse the name Team Get A Grip Cycles with my blessing, and continue to ride around in the Bouledogue uniforms from 2007-2008 (we much appreciate the compliment), which is unfortunate but necessary since neither Bouledogue tout noir or the new GAG have their 2009 kit. Their team (especially in the category 3 ranks), most of whom I recruited, will be very strong and we are looking forward to competing with them in the coming years.
Bouledogue tout noir has always been an "elite" team (meaning that its membership is restricted to quality category 3 riders and above) and I intend to keep it small and strong and to push our riders to greater acheivement. We do not collect dues and treat all riders, regardless of sex or racing category, exactly the same. Through our racing, we hope to improve awareness among the cycling community about certain charities that are dear to us--and we have decided to dedicate a significant amount of our racing strip to each of them something which was resisted by members of the new GAG. As a secondary mission, I do my best to find emerging and promising female riders and I think that the team's track record in that regard (Devon Haskell, Valerie Brostrom, Emily Hutchins, Lindsay Koren, Melanie Wong, etc.) speaks for itself. We have some exciting partnerships in the works with other teams from Chicago and Milwaukee-Madison, and are excited for the future.
So, to make it clear and to cut through all of the recent propaganda: although there is a 2009 racing team known as Team Get A Grip Cycles, it is a new organization; and, other than counting about half of my former riders as members, it shares little else with the Team Get A Grip Cycles/Bouledogue tout noir of 2007 to the present. There are arguments to the contrary, but the proof is in the pudding: I still own the license, rights to the uniforms, website, etc. We will still be rolling in the same kit as 2008, albeit with some color changes, and the members of the new GAG team have pledged to change their uniform design so that racers, officials, and others can tell us apart, and to reflect their own, new, image.
Jon, this is a hoot! Are you going to be posting regularly?
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