The USA Pro Championship race weekend kicks off tomorrow with an afternoon press conference. So far, I have only seen a preliminary start list for the races, so it will be interesting to find out if there will be any surprise entries…probably no major ones at this point, but anything is possible I guess. My prediction is that the time trial will be a Zabriskie repeat, especially since VandeVelde is out and Leipheimer won’t be here to go for the TT title. Zirbel could possibly challenge on Saturday, but I still think Zabriskie is a pretty safe bet. If I had to predict a road race winner based on the current roster, I would probably go with one of the Garmin-Slipstream riders as well…maybe Danny Pate? I wouldn’t rule out Hincapie for a hometown road race win again, but it is going to be tough for him going it alone. Regardless of who wins, I am really looking forward to photographing the action again this year. You can see my road race and time trial shots from last year’s US Pro races if you are interested. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently put a few of my favorite race photos into a slideshow that you can see here. You can expect to see my shots from this year’s races on Flickr soon after the events.

I also want to remind everyone about the informal meet-up that will take place after the time trial Saturday 3:30pm at Barley’s Taproom in downtown Greenville. In addition to myself, other bike bloggers will be there including Byron from Bike Hugger, Robb from Mountain Biking by 198, Josh from Pro Bike Wrench, Briggs from Euro Peloton, and Frank from the Tour de France blog. I have also heard from a few others who might drop by…Brian from Renaissance Bicycles and Scott (@Fulspeed) just to name two. I am also hoping that a few local Greenville bloggers like Olivier from the BrandBuilder, Jonathan from Low Cadence, and Steve or any of the other bloggers from Hincapie Sportswear might show up as well. We will probably have a pretty good group, so if you plan to be in town for the races, stop by Barley’s and join us.

Since I am posting, I might as well throw in a little bike design content (which is not race related by the way).

Trek has released a short video titled “Welcome to Belleville: Building a Bicycle Better”. In the video, industrial designer Michael Leighton talks about the ideas behind the new eco-design bike that he designed for Trek. Michael talks about his efforts to reduce his environmental impact. Commuting16.5 miles everyday, along with his wife, to Trek headquarters is one way that he does just that. You hear a lot about new commuter/utility bike designs these days, but as you can see from watching this video, Michael is definitely one bicycle designer who practices what he preaches. Look for more about the design of the Trek Belleville in a future post.

One other new commuter oriented bike that I will mention is the Pasadena Crown City Commuter from Foes Racing. Read more about that bike, including the comments about fenders and racks, at this Cyclelicious post.