The tall Canadian covered the 40 km out-and-back course in 52.44, finishing 0:38 seconds ahead of last year's Canadian TT champ Svein Tuft (Symmetrics).

"It was a bit rainy at the start but eased up after a bit," Hesjedal said. "The majority of the out portion of the course was uphill, gaining maybe 300 or 400 meters. There was a lot of wind, but I was able to stay on top of my gears and keep a good cadence. After the turn, it was pretty much all downhill with a tailwind." The favorable conditions allowed Hesjedal to maintain a consistent 70 km/hr (about 42.5 mph) pace on the return portion on his way to the win.

"I've been close the last couple years," he said of his 3rd and 2nd place finishes in 2005 and 2006 respectively. "I wasn't going to be happy with less than a win this year.

"Svein is leading the UCI Americas Tour right now and he's been solid all year," Hesjedal said of Tuft. "I'm not a TT specialist, so to beat a guy like him is pretty special. It was a good victory and a good time trial. I've been wanting both for a while."

Results

1 Ryder Hesjedal (BC) Health Net/Maxxis                               52.44
2 Svein Tuft (BC) Symmetrics                                           0.38
3 Zach Bell (BC) Symmetrics                                            2.00
4 Eric Wohlberg (ON) Symmetrics                                        2.07
5 Greg Reain (ON) Calyon / Litespeed                                   2.43
6 Dominique Rollin (QC) KodakGallery p/b Sierra Nevada Pro Cycling     2.44
7 Andrew Randell (ON) Symmetrics                                       2.47
8 François Parisien (QC) Slipstream                                    2.53
9 Mathieu Toulouse (QC) Eva-Devinci                                    2.58
10 Ryan Roth (ON) Kelly Benefit                                        3.19

Vogels hopes to be back in six weeks

As reported Toyota-United rider Henk Vogels crashed on Saturday during the Cougar Mountain Classic. Vogels was attempting to solo bridge to a 10-man breakaway that included teammate Ivan Dominguez when he struck a crowd control fence post in a tight corner on the Infineon Raceway.

"My shoulder hit it and I heard it snap," Vogels said.

The violent impact didn’t knock the 6-foot, 175-pounder off his bicycle and he was able to make his way to the finish line where medical personnel rushed him to an ambulance.

When Dominguez’s breakaway lapped the field, the Cuban sprinter started searching for his leadout man.

"It never crossed my mind that he was no longer in the race," Dominguez said.

Ryan Miller said he didn’t know what happened, but it didn’t look good.

"You deflate when you’re rolling through the finish and see your teammate lying on the ground," Miller said.

A few hours later, Vogels received confirmation of what he already suspected: his collarbone was broken. The injury is expected to sideline him for six to eight weeks.

"Hopefully, it’s more on the six weeks side," Vogels said Sunday. "Fortunately, it was a clean break so I didn’t have to have an operation."

Vogels’ injury is a "huge blow" to the team, said Toyota-United Team Director Kirk Willett.

"He will be sorely missed, as he is one of the best in the world at what he does," Willett said. "The fact that he has played a pivotal role all year in delivering Stevic and Dominguez to so many top placings makes our pursuit of the Team NRC (National Race Calendar) title an even greater challenge. We are going to have to fill a big horsepower and leadership hole as a team."

Indeed, the 13-year pro has played a key role in several victories – none bigger than Dominguez’s win on Stage 7 in Long Beach in the Amgen Tour of California.

"I'm optimistic that with any luck, a speedy recovery will see Henk able to start training within a month and racing in late August or early September," Willett said.

That timetable puts Vogels back in action in time for the final NRC races, as well as the inaugural Tour of Missouri, Sept. 11-16.

Toyota-United for Bend Memorial Clinic Cascade Classic

Toyota-United will put no fewer than four riders on the start line of this week's Bend Memorial Clinic Cascade Classic stage race who have the ability to win the overall title.

The powerful lineup features:

■ Two-time (2002 and 2006) Cascade winner Chris Wherry, who won last year’s race on the final stage.

■ Chris Baldwin, who has a pair of runner-up finishes in National Race Calendar stage races (Tour of the Gila, Tri-Peaks Challenge) to his credit this season.

■ Burke Swindlehurst, a three-time stage winner (1998, 2002 and last year) at Cascade who won the mountainous High Uintas Classic stage race last month.

■ Justin England, a climbing specialist who finished second on the difficult Oak Glenn stage earlier this year at the Redlands Classic.

So much talent on one team for one race is a nice problem to have, said Toyota-United Team Director Kirk Willett.

“Baldwin, Wherry and England are all riding to maintain their pos-itions on the National Race Calendar standings,” Willett. “So those guys will be protected. Burke is in a role where he’s had such incredible results at this race before that with the right strategy or breakaway, he’ll be right in there, too.”

Wherry has had a quiet season, though he has played an integral role in many of the team’s victories by powering its lead-out train.

“We’re hopeful this is the event where he comes out and is on form,” Willett said.

Baldwin is searching for his first victory of 2007 after compiling five second-place and five third-place finishes.

“With the time trial being twice as long as it was last year, he’s a big favorite,” Willett said.

Also in the lineup for Toyota-United will be Ivan Dominguez, who has his eyes on Friday night’s Stage 4 Desert Orthopedics/Rebound Physical Therapy Downtown Criterium. Dominguez will race Cascade for the first time and see his first action in a stage race since crashing out of the Tri-Peaks Challenge in mid-May.

“I really want to do this race,” Dominguez said. “I cannot keep training and training and training. I need to race to get faster.”

In addition to those five, the remainder of Toyota-United’s roster will be Stefano Barberi, Heath Blackgrove and either Sean Sullivan or Jose Manuel “Chepe” Garcia. Sullivan experienced some knee pain over the weekend, Willett said, keeping him out of the team’s lineup for the Cougar Mountain Classic.

Toyota-United lead-out specialist Henk Vogels is out for six to eight weeks with a broken collarbone suffered on the first day at Cougar Mountain while newly crowned “B” World Champion Ivan Stevic remains in Europe after racing in his country’s national championship.

Cascade Classic Stage-By-Stage Preview
Toyota-United Team Director Kirk Willett has either raced in, or served as a team director, at the Cascade Classic all but one year since 1990. (He even competed in the Masters 35+ division last year.) With that in mind, here is his stage-by-stage assessment of this year’s five-day, six-stage National Race Calendar event that runs in and around Bend, Ore.

Wednesday, July 11
Stage 1: Ironhorse-Brooks Resources Prineville Road Race
91.2 miles (146.7 km)
"This is actually a deceptively hard stage. Two things have traditionally happened: either a breakaway has gotten away and held off the rest of the field or a good-sized group has come to the foot of the mile-long climb up Pilot Butte and it becomes a sprint from there. It is supposed to be close to 100 degrees, too, so that will make this race even more difficult. There is also one good climb about two-thirds of the way through the race and if the wind is just right – a crosswind – that climb never ends because you’re in echelons all the way into town, then it’s up Pilot Butte at the end."

Thursday, July 12
Stage 2: Meridian Realty McKenzie Pass Road Race
79.5 miles (127.9 km)
"This is a rolling stage until about the last 10 kilometers when it climbs up McKenzie Pass. It is never steeper than five percent but it’s hard enough that the non-climbers will be eliminated. Still, for the top 10 to 15 riders, it is unlikely to be a decisive stage."

Friday, July 13
Stage 3: Bend Research, Inc. – Skyliners Time Trial
15 miles (24.1 km)
"This stage – and Saturday’s race – are the really important ones. It’s uphill all the way out and downhill all the way back. That’s where the top 15 guys in the race are going to be separated by big chunks of time. You’re going to have to ride a great time trial in order to win the race overall."

Friday, July 13
Stage 4: Desert Orthopedics/Rebound Physical Therapy Criterium
90 minutes
"We’re the defending champions on this course so hopefully we’ll be able to set up Ivan Dominguez to have a good sprint. This is a really special race with it being at twilight and always in front of a large crowd. If a team can control the front, it takes a pretty special rider to come around a lead-out train on this course."

Saturday, July 14
Stage 5: Pacific Power Cascade Lakes Road Race
92.4 miles (148.7 km)
"This stage has the most difficult uphill finish of this year’s race. It’s not quite as steep as Pilot Butte, but on the fourth day of racing and at a higher elevation (almost 6,500 feet), it’s about a 5 km climb that really separates the top riders. You won’t see 10 guys coming into the finish together. There will likely be groups of two or three. And thought the time gaps between them won’t be huge, there will be solid separation."

Sunday, July 15
Stage 6: Deschutes Brewery Awbrey Butte Circuit Race
80 miles (128.7 km)
"This circuit race is hard. A lot of times if a strong team has the general classification lead, it can be controlled fairly well. But if a strong team does not have the lead, this course is hard enough that you’ll see a lot of splits. There are also multiple time bonus sprints on this stage so that adds a little extra tactical twist to the entire week. If there are four or five guys within 20 seconds and a team has a guy who can sprint well, he can come from behind and win."

Toyota United's Sean P. Tucker: "My team and our fan members aren’t going to Europe until they come up with real penalties and real doping controls."

Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team Owner Sean P. Tucker has gone on record that he is disgusted by the current state of professional cycling in Europe.

Days before the sport’s greatest race – the Tour de France – was set to begin, talk of doping scandals and recent confessions by riders and team personnel gained the lion’s share of media attention.

“It is disheartening to see this sport unraveling,” Tucker told USA Today reporter Sal Ruibal in a front of-the-sports-page story in last Thursday’s edition of the nation’s largest newspaper.

“My team and our fan members aren’t going to Europe until they come up with real penalties and real doping controls. The fans follow their sports heroes, then you find out about this stuff that’s going on. It’s criminal.”

In the article headlined, “Tour de France's downhill slide caused by scandals,” Ruibal pointed out that every Tour winner since 1996 has been accused of, charged with, or admitted using illegal performance-enhancing drugs or techniques. That includes Tour winner Bjarne Riis, director of Team CSC, who admitted to using EPO to win the 1996 edition. He cannot be charged or disciplined because of pro cycling's eight-year statute of limitations.

Said Tucker in the 1,400-word article: “If they really had character and integrity, they would never have crossed the line. Did any of these guys apologize to their clean competitors for taking money from their families?”

The article mentioned that Tucker is a former professional racer and principal owner of the Toyota-United cycling team, which has more than 20,000 fan members with a financial stake in the squad.

Read more about Sean P. Tucker's opinion about doping in our interview: Toyota United's Sean P. Tucker: "There are ... only two ways to fix the problem of doping"