Bahati Foundation Exits Tour of Utah

The Tour of Utah, America's hardest stage race with thirty thousand feet of climbing, scheduled to start on August 17 and end on August 22, 2010, has already provided some surprises. Bahati Foundation has vanished from the team list entirely, without explanation, but one could suppose that the Jeff Novitzky doping probe of Michael Ball and Rahsaan Bahati and is gaining ground.

Nevertheless, the rider lists have been published and 2009 Tour of Utah champion Francisco Mancebo Perez will return with Canyon Bicycles.

The overall best team of the 2010 Tour of Utah will be BMC Racing Team with former national champion George Hincapie paired with 2009 Tour of Utah Prologue time trial winner Brent Bookwalter and 2008 Tour of Utah winner and 2009 podium finisher Jeff Louder. Other potential challengers of note are Team Type 1 rider Mike Creed and KFAN Composite Team rider Burke Swindlehurst. Team Radio Shack rider Levi Leipheimer will compete as an independent rider and it will be interesting to see how he will fare unsupported on the climbs without any teammates! With simple cycling tactics one would expect Hincapie, Bookwalter, and Louder to employ simple team tactics to isolate and eliminate Leipheimer.

United Health Care rider Brad White returns to challenge for King of the Mountain. In 2009 Brad White lead the pack over Big Mountain in East Canyon by three minutes.

The Tour of Utah begins at the Utah State Capitol building on August 17, 2010 with a prologue time trial up City Creek canyon to the snow removal area and loops back to the Capitol building, the course is uphill, downhill, flat, short, and very fast.

See you there!