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rubber

Image by Joost J. Bakker IJmuiden
Rubber has several meanings including:

Natural rubber, a latex material, originally from the Para rubber tree
Latex, the sap from various plants, including the rubber tree, that is a major component in the production of natural rubber.
Latex (polymer) – A stable dispersion (emulsion) of polymer microparticles in an aqueous medium.
Elastomer, frequently used interchangeably with ‘rubber’ to describe elastic polymeric (rubbery) materials, particularly man-made rubbers
Synthetic rubber, general term for many types of man-made rubbers
Rubber, two 100-point games in contract bridge
In baseball, the rubber is the thin white slab on the pitcher’s mound from which the pitcher throws, or at times, the pitcher’s mound in general
In some sports, including tennis and cricket, an individual game in a series of matches
Rubber, a name adopted by the band Harem Scarem from 1999 – 2001
Rubber (film), a 1936 Dutch film
Rubber (Gilby Clarke album), a solo album by former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke
In British English, an eraser used to remove pencil markings from paper
In British English, a slang term for galoshes (rubber boots)
In American English, Slang term for condoms
Rubber (electrical part)

Natural rubber is an elastomer (an elastic hydrocarbon polymer) that was originally derived from a milky colloidal suspension, or latex, found in the sap of some plants. The purified form of natural rubber is the chemical polyisoprene, which can also be produced synthetically. Natural rubber is used extensively in many applications and products, as is synthetic rubber

Varieties
The commercial source of natural rubber latex is the Para rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), a member of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae. This is largely because it responds to wounding by producing more latex.

Other plants containing latex include Gutta-Percha (Palaquium gutta),[1] rubber fig (Ficus elastica), Panama rubber tree (Castilla elastica), spurges (Euphorbia spp.), lettuce, common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), Russian dandelion (Taraxacum kok-saghyz), Scorzonera (tau-saghyz), and Guayule (Parthenium argentatum). Although these have not been major sources of rubber, Germany attempted to use some of these during World War II when it was cut off from rubber supplies[citation needed]. These attempts were later supplanted by the development of synthetic rubbers. To distinguish the tree-obtained version of natural rubber from the synthetic version, the term gum rubber is sometimes used.

Discovery of commercial potential
The para rubber tree initially grew in South America. Charles Marie de La Condamine is credited with introducing samples of rubber to the Académie Royale des Sciences of France in 1736. In 1751, he presented a paper by François Fresneau to the Académie (eventually published in 1755) which described many of the properties of rubber. This has been referred to as the first scientific paper on rubber.

When samples of rubber first arrived in England, it was observed by Joseph Priestley, in 1770, that a piece of the material was extremely good for obliterating pencil marks on paper, hence the name rubber.

South America remained the main source of the limited amounts of latex rubber that were used during much of the 19th century. However in 1876, Henry Wickham gathered thousands of para rubber tree seeds from Brazil, and these were germinated in Kew Gardens, England. The seedlings were then sent to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Indonesia, Singapore and British Malaya. Malaya (now Malaysia) was later to become the biggest producer of rubber. About 100 years ago, the Congo Free State in Africa was also a significant source of natural rubber latex, mostly gathered by forced labour. Liberia and Nigeria also started production of rubber.

In India, commercial cultivation of natural rubber was introduced by the British Planters, although the experimental efforts to grow rubber on a commercial scale in India were initiated as early as 1873 at the Botanical Gardens, Calcutta. The first commercial Hevea plantations in India were established at Thattekadu in Kerala in 1902. In the 19th and early 20th century, it was often called "India rubber."

[edit] Properties

Rubber latexRubber exhibits unique physical and chemical properties. Rubber’s stress-strain behavior exhibits the Mullins effect, the Payne effect, and is often modeled as hyperelastic. Rubber strain crystallizes.

Owing to the presence of a double bond in each repeat unit, natural rubber is sensitive to ozone cracking.

[edit] Solvents
There are two main solvents for rubber: turpentine and naphtha (petroleum). The former has been in use since 1763 when François Fresnau made the discovery. Giovanni Fabronni is credited with the discovery of naphtha as a rubber solvent in 1779. Because rubber does not dissolve easily, the material is finely divided by shredding prior to its immersion.

An ammonia solution can be used to prevent the coagulation of raw latex while it is being transported from its collection site.

Chemical makeup
Latex is a natural polymer of isoprene (most often cis-1,4-polyisoprene) – with a molecular weight of 100,000 to 1,000,000. Typically, a small percent (up to 5% of dry mass) of other materials, such as proteins, fatty acids, resins and inorganic materials (salts) are found in natural rubber. Polyisoprene is also created synthetically, producing what is sometimes referred to as "synthetic natural rubber".

Some natural rubber sources called gutta percha are composed of trans-1,4-polyisoprene, a structural isomer which has similar, but not identical, properties.

Natural rubber is an elastomer and a thermoplastic. However, it should be noted that as the rubber is vulcanized, it will turn into a thermoset. Most rubber in everyday use is vulcanized to a point where it shares properties of both; i.e., if it is heated and cooled, it is degraded but not destroyed.

Elasticity
In most elastic materials, such as metals used in springs, the elastic behavior is caused by bond distortions. When force is applied, bond lengths deviate from the (minimum energy) equilibrium and strain energy is stored electrostatically. Rubber is often assumed to behave in the same way, but it turns out this is a poor description. Rubber is a curious material because, unlike metals, strain energy is stored thermally. Also, natural rubber is so elastic that when force is applied, on natural rubber when it is on a surface similar to carpet, it may be difficult to ‘pull’ across the surface. It will stick.

In its relaxed state, rubber consists of long, coiled-up polymer chains that are interlinked at a few points. Between a pair of links, each monomer can rotate freely about its neighbour, thus giving each section of chain leeway to assume a large number of geometries, like a very loose rope attached to a pair of fixed points. At room temperature, rubber stores enough kinetic energy so that each section of chain oscillates chaotically, like the above piece of rope being shaken violently. The entropy model of rubber was developed in 1934 by Werner Kuhn.

When rubber is stretched, the "loose pieces of rope" are taut and thus no longer able to oscillate. Their kinetic energy is given off as excess heat. Therefore, the entropy decreases when going from the relaxed to the stretched state, and it increases during relaxation. This change in entropy can also be explained by the fact that a tight section of chain can fold in fewer ways (W) than a loose section of chain, at a given temperature (nb. entropy is defined as S=k*ln(W)). Relaxation of a stretched rubber band is thus driven by an increase in entropy, and the force experienced is not electrostatic, rather it is a result of the thermal energy of the material being converted to kinetic energy. Rubber relaxation is endothermic, and for this reason the force exerted by a stretched piece of rubber increases with temperature (Metals, for example, become softer as temperature increases). The material undergoes adiabatic cooling during contraction. This property of rubber can easily be verified by holding a stretched rubber band to your lips and relaxing it. Stretching of a rubber band is in some ways equivalent to the compression of an ideal gas, and relaxation is equivalent to its expansion. Note that a compressed gas also exhibits "elastic" properties, for instance inside an inflated car tire. The fact that stretching is equivalent to compression may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, but it makes sense if rubber is viewed as a one-dimensional gas. Stretching reduces the "space" available to each section of chain.

Vulcanization of rubber creates more disulfide bonds between chains, so it shortens each free section of chain. The result is that the chains tighten more quickly for a given length of strain, thereby increasing the elastic force constant and making rubber harder and less extendable.

When cooled below the glass transition temperature, the quasi-fluid chain segments "freeze" into fixed geometries and the rubber abruptly loses its elastic properties, although the process is reversible. This is a property it shares with most elastomers. At very cold temperatures, rubber is actually rather brittle; it will break into shards when struck or stretched. This critical temperature is the reason that winter tires use a softer version of rubber than normal tires. The failing rubber o-ring seals that contributed to the cause of the Challenger disaster were thought to have cooled below their critical temperature. The disaster happened on an unusually cold day.

Current sources
Close to 21 million tons of rubber were produced in 2005 of which around 42% was natural. Since the bulk of the rubber produced is the synthetic variety which is derived from petroleum, the price of even natural rubber is determined to a very large extent by the prevailing global price of crude oil.[citation needed] Today Asia is the main source of natural rubber, accounting for around 94% of output in 2005. The three largest producing countries (Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand) together account for around 72% of all natural rubber production

Cultivation
Rubber latex is extracted from Rubber trees. The economic life period of rubber trees in plantations is around 32 years – up to 7 years of immature phase and about 25 years of productive phase.

The soil requirement of the plant is generally well-drained weathered soil consisting of laterite, lateritic types, sedimentary types, nonlateritic red or alluvial soils.

The climatic conditions for optimum growth of Rubber trees consist of (a) Rainfall of around 250 cm evenly distributed without any marked dry season and with at least 100 rainy days per annum (b) Temperature range of about 20°C to 34°C with a monthly mean of 25°C to 28°C (c) High atmospheric humidity of around 80% (d) Bright sunshine amounting to about 2000 hours per annum at the rate of 6 hours per day throughout the year and (e) Absence of strong winds.

Many high-yielding clones have been developed for commercial planting. These clones yield more than 2,000 kilograms of dry Rubber per hectare per annum, when grown under ideal conditions.
Collection

In places like Kerala, where coconuts are in abundance, the half shell of coconut is used as the collection container for the latex but glazed pottery or aluminium or plastic cups are more common elsewhere. The cups are supported by a wire that encircles the tree.This wire incorporates a spring so that it can stretch as the tree grows. The latex is led into the cup by a galvanised "spout" that has been knocked into the bark. Tapping normally takes place early in the morning when the internal pressure of the tree is highest. A good tapper can tap a tree every 20 seconds on a standard half-spiral system and a common daily "task" size is between 450 and 650 trees. Trees are usually tapped alternate or third daily although there are many variations in timing, length and number of cuts. The latex, which contains 25 – 40% dry rubber, is in the bark so the tapper must avoid cutting right through to the wood or the growing cambial layer will be damaged and the renewing bark will be badly deformed making later tapping difficult. It is usual to tap a pannel at least twice, sometimes three times, during the trees’ life. The economic life of the tree depends on how well the tapping is carried out as the critical factor is bark consumption. A standard in Malaysia for alternate daily tapping is 25 cm (vertical) bark consumption per annum. The latex tubes in the bark ascend in a spiral to the right. For this reason, tapping cuts usually ascend to the left to cut more tubes.

The trees will drip latex for about four hours, stopping as latex coagulates naturally on the tapping cut thus blocking the latex tubes in the bark. Tappers usually rest and have a meal after finishing their tapping work then start collecting the latex at about midday. Some trees will continue to drip after the collection and this leads to a small amount of cup lump which is collected at the next tapping. The latex that coagulates on the cut is also collected as tree lace. Tree lace and cup lump together account for 10 – 20% of the dry rubber produced.

The latex will coagulate in cup if kept for long. The latex has to be collected before coagulation. The collected latex is transffered in to coagulation tanks for the preparation of dry rubber or transferred into air tight containers with sieving for ammoniation. Ammoniation is necessary to preserve the latex in colloidal state for long.

Latex is generally processed into either latex concentrate for manufacture of dipped goods or it can be coagulated under controlled, clean conditions using formic acid. The coagulated latex can then be processed into the higher grade technically specified block rubbers such as TSR3L or TSRCV or used to produce Ribbed Smoke Sheet grades.

Naturally coagulated rubber (cup lump) is used in the manufacture of TSR10 and TSR20 grade rubbers. The processing of the rubber for these grades is basically a size reduction and cleaning process in order to remove contamination and prepare the material for the final stage drying.

The dried material is then baled and palletized for shipment.

Uses
The use of rubber is widespread, ranging from household to industrial products, entering the production stream at the intermediate stage or as final products. Tires and tubes are the largest consumers of rubber. The remaining 44% are taken up by the general rubber goods (GRG) sector, which includes all products except tires and tubes.

Pre-historical uses
The first use of rubber was by the Olmecs, centuries later passed on the knowledge of natural latex from the Hevea Tree in 1600 BC to the Ancient Mayans.[citation needed] They boiled the harvested latex to make a ball for sport.[citation needed]

Manufacturing
Other significant uses of rubber are door and window profiles, hoses, belts, matting, flooring and dampeners (anti-vibration mounts) for the automotive industry in what is known as the "under the bonnet" products. Gloves (medical, household and industrial) and toy balloons are also large consumers of rubber, although the type of rubber used is that of the concentrated latex. Significant tonnage of rubber is used as adhesives in many manufacturing industries and products, although the two most noticeable are the paper and the carpet industry. Rubber is also commonly used to make rubber bands and pencil erasers.

Textile applications
Additionally, rubber produced as a fiber sometimes called elastic, has significant value for use in the textile industry because of its excellent elongation and recovery properties. For these purposes, manufactured rubber fiber is made as either an extruded round fiber or rectangular fibers that are cut into strips from extruded film. Because of its low dye acceptance, feel and appearance, the rubber fiber is either covered by yarn of another fiber or directly woven with other yarns into the fabric. In the early 1900s, for example, rubber yarns were used in foundation garments. While rubber is still used in textile manufacturing, its low tenacity limits its use in lightweight garments because latex lacks resistance to oxidizing agents and is damaged by aging, sunlight, oil, and perspiration. Seeking a way to address these shortcomings, the textile industry has turned to Neoprene (polymer form of Chloroprene), a type of synthetic rubber as well as another more commonly used elastomer fiber, spandex (also known as elastane), because of their superiority to rubber in both strength and durability.

Vulcanization
Main article: Vulcanization
Natural rubber is often vulcanized, a process by which the rubber is heated and sulfur, peroxide or bisphenol are added to improve resilience and elasticity, and to prevent it from perishing. Vulcanization greatly improved the durability and utility of rubber from the 1830s on.[citation needed] The development of vulcanization is most closely associated with Charles Goodyear in 1839.[3] Carbon black is often used as an additive to rubber to improve its strength, especially in vehicle tires.

Allergic reactions
Main article: Latex allergy
Some people have a serious latex allergy, and exposure to certain natural rubber latex products such as latex gloves can cause anaphylactic shock. Guayule latex is hypoallergenic and is being researched as a substitute to the allergy-inducing Hevea latexes. Unlike the sappable Hevea tree, these relatively small shrubs must be harvested whole and latex extracted from each cell. Chemical processes may also be employed to reduce the amount of antigenic protein in Hevea latex, resulting in alternative Hevea-based materials such Vytex Natural Rubber Latex that, while not completely hypoallergenic, do provide lessened exposure to latex allergens.

Some allergic reactions are not from the latex but from residues of other ingredients used to process the latex into clothing, gloves, foam, etc. These allergies are usually referred to as multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS).

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Jan Ullrich TextPortrait

Image by Hugger Industries
Racing cyclist Jan Ullrich TextPortrait by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer

Posted on Bike Hugger

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Jan Ullrich – Portrait – Ralph Ueltzhoeffer – Jan Ullrich (born December 2, 1973 in Rostock, Germany) is a German professional road bicycle racer. In 1997, he was the first German to win the Tour de France. He went on to achieve five second place finishes, along with a fourth place (2004) and a third place finish (2005). Critics consider Ullrich as one of the most talented riders of all time: he can combine great power with a soft, athletic style, with his time trials as perfect examples. Despite, or perhaps because of this talent, critics consider Ullrich to be "lazy" as he is notorious for becoming out of shape during the off season. Ullrich has won a gold and a silver medal in the Olympics 2000 in Sydney, as well as the 1999 Vuelta a España. Although not known as a one-day race specialist, he won the HEW Cyclassics in front of an adoring home crowd in Hamburg in 1997, and has made podium finishes in other editions of the HEW Cyclassics, and the hilly classic Classica San Sebastian. His victorious ride in the 1997 Tour de France led to a bicycle sports boom in Germany. Biography Early training Ullrich won his first bicycle race (at school) at the age of nine. He was educated in the sports training system of the German Democratic Republic, and attended the SC Dynamo sports school in Berlin in 1986. After the fall of the Berlin wall and the reunification of Germany, Ullrich and his trainer, Peter Sager, moved to Hamburg. In 1993, Ullrich surprisingly won the amateurs road world championship in Oslo. At the same time, Lance Armstrong won the professionals world championship. After this and other successes, Ullrich became a professional member of Team Telekom. From 1994 to 2005, he lived in Merdingen, Germany, with his long-term partner Gaby Weiss. The couple have a baby, Sarah, who lives with Gaby in Merdingen. Ullrich resides in Switzerland since they split up in 2005, allegedly due to Weiss’s reluctance to be in the limelight, which conflicted with Ullrich’s enjoyment of celebrity life. 1997 Tour de France In Ullrich’s first one and a half years as a professional, he was inconspicuous. At his first start at the 1996 Tour de France, he reached a sensational second place behind his Danish teammate, Bjarne Riis. He won the final individual time trial and secured himself his first Tour stage win. Ullrich with teammate Udo Bölts crossing the Vosges mountains during the 1997 Tour de France. Despite being a teammate of the previous year’s winner Bjarne Riis, Ullrich quickly became the favorite in the 1997 Tour de France. Riis was not strong enough to keep Ullrich down in the mountains or in the time-trials. After a dominant win in a mountain stage earning his first yellow jersey, the German press started following the Tour more closely. Despite Marco Pantani’s devastating attacks in the Alpe d’Huez and Morzine stages, Ullrich was able to limit his time losses. For performance and ability to keep his nerves, the French sports newspaper L’Équipe, considered him to be one of the top bicycle racers with the words Voilà le Patron ("Here is the boss"). Ullrich won another stage in the Tour and became the first German to be the overall winner. He also became the only person in Tour history to win a time trial with a three minute gap between him and the number two. At the age of 23, Ullrich was also one of the youngest winners ever. He was chosen "sports person of the year" in Germany in 1997. The eternal second Ullrich was the defending champion of the 1998 Tour de France. He again obtained the yellow jersey, but he had an off day day in the rainy mountains, where he lost too much time on the later champion and natural born climber Pantani. The Tour of 1998 was haunted by doping affairs, giving it the nickname "Tour de Dopage".The following year, he missed the 1999 Tour de France — which was won for the first time by American Lance Armstrong — due to a knee injury. However, he returned in time to win the 1999 Vuelta a España, defeating the Spanish favourite Abraham Olano of Team ONCE. He also became the world time trial champion, which made up for his somewhat lost season. The 2000 Tour de France saw former champions Ullrich and Marco Pantani and defending champion Armstrong line up against each other for the first time. However, Armstrong proved too strong to upstage, as he did again in the 2001 Tour de France despite Ullrich wearing the jersey of the German National Champion, and the fact that he arrived at the Tour obviously in form, finishing in fourth place just three seconds behind third place Armstrong in the opening prologue. His ride in the 2001 Tour was memorable for his crash during which Armstrong waited for him to return to his bike. In interviews, Ullrich cited his failures to defeat Armstrong despite his preparations as his reasons for falling into depression in the next year. Despite his failure to ascend the top of the podium in the Tour de France, Ullrich delivered an outstanding performance in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. After establishing a 3-man breakaway with Telekom teammates Andreas Klöden and Alexandre Vinokourov, Ullrich won the gold medal with Kloden and Vinokourov rounding out the all-Telekom podium. He established himself as a world-class time triallist by winning the Silver medal in the individual time-trial event, losing by a small margin to Viatcheslav Ekimov and beating rival Armstrong to third place. In May of 2002, Ullrich temporarily had his driver’s license revoked after a drunk driving incident. After a positive blood sample for amphetamine in June of 2002, Ullrich’s contract with Team Telekom was ended, and he was banned for 6 months. He explained that the positive result was from ingesting the recreational drug ecstasy, which had been cut with amphetamine. He had not been racing since January due to a recurring knee injury, and the German Cycling Federation’s disciplinary committee agreed that he was not attempting to use the drug for performance enhancement, so he was only given a minimum suspension. In January of 2003, Ullrich and his longtime advisor Rudy Pevenage joined the Team Coast outfit, but after severe financial problems, Coast pulled its sponsorship, and Team Bianchi was formed. He finally returned to racing in March of 2003, preparing for the Tour de France. The Tour de France of 2003 would become a memorable one. Nobody, including Ullrich himself, knew what to expect from him after such hectic years. For the first time in years he was not considered one of the top favorites; however, Armstrong still considered him very dangerous. In the first week, Ullrich got sick and almost retired from the race. In the Alps stages Ullrich lost one and a half minutes on Armstrong and his Tour seemed lost. In the 12th stage, Ullrich fought back hard in the time trial, as he became the only one to finish within an hour. Armstrong was overpowered and had trouble with the heat, and lost one and a half minutes to Ullrich. Ullrich now found himself within a minute of Armstrong in the classification. The next day, he closed the gap in the first mountain stage by another 19 seconds and the clash would become epic: Ullrich seemed stronger then ever as he was able to stay with Armstrong in the mountains. Two days later Ullrich was able to ride away from Armstrong on the Tourmalet, but he could not sustain his pace and Armstrong caught up. In the final climb of that stage Ullrich dictated the pace, and it seemed that Armstrong was not in the condition to attack. More than half way into the climb, Armstrong’s handlebar got caught in a spectator’s bag and he fell. Ullrich decided not to take advantage of the situation and waited. For some time, whether Jan Ullrich waited for Armstrong to remount was subject of intense debate, although Ullrich himself asserted that he did indeed wait and did not attack. In a recent interview Armstrong admitted that Ullrich did wait for him, and that Armstrong himself had been misled at the time by Tyler Hamilton’s gesture and assertion that Ullrich had not waited. According to Armstrong, his fall gave him such an adrenaline boost that he could attack. Ullrich lost 40 seconds in the final kilometers, but all was not over: the 2nd, and final, time trial would be decisive. In that time trial, Ullrich suffered a dramatic crash and saw a potential stage and tour victory disappear. In the general classification, Ullrich ended 2nd with a gap of just 61 seconds in one of the greatest Tours de France in history. Ullrich’s remarkable comeback was acknowledged by the Germans as they gave him the sportsman of the year award later that year. In terms of finishes, Jan Ullrich could be compared with Raymond Poulidor, who was called the "eternal second" (with the difference that Poulidor never won the Tour de France). Also like Poulidor, Ullrich has not donned the Maillot jaune since 1998. A better comparison would probably be to Joop Zoetemelk, who won the Tour once as well and finished in second place six times, only once more than Ullrich. For the 2004 season, Ullrich returned to Team Telekom (now named T-Mobile, after a popular division of Deutsch Telekom). Ullrich won the Tour de Suisse during his preparation for the Tour de France. In the 2004 Tour de France, he finished in fourth place, 8:50 behind Armstrong. It was Ullrich’s first finish lower than second. T-Mobile teammate Andreas Klöden finished second, and Ivan Basso third. Ullrich said that he had been infected by a cold from his newborn baby, and was not able to ride to his full capacity. Ullrich in Hanover. For 2005, Ullrich again captained the talented T-Mobile squad. As was his normal routine to prepare for the Tour de France, Ullrich maintained a low profile for much of the 2005 early season campaign, surfacing to test his preparedness in the 2005 Tour de Suisse, in which he finished third after Aitor González (Team Euskaltel) and Michael Rogers (Team Quick Step-Innergetic). Ullrich is constantly criticized, and sometimes parodied, for his weight, especially for large gains in the winter, but he maintains that he always races it off in time for the Tour. Compared to his perennial rival, Lance Armstrong, Ullrich has been said to have perhaps a more advantageous physiology that would prevail were it not for the near-maniacal training regimen of Armstrong, but this is debatable. Armstrong himself admitted that it is Ullrich whom he considers to be his most dangerous rival, going as far as admitting that he would examine photos of Ullrich in the early season races to see how his form was developing. The day before the 2005 Tour de France, during a training ride, Ullrich crashed. He was closely following his accompanying team car when it stopped unexpectedly. He was unable to stop and plowed into the back windshield, narrowly avoiding cutting a major artery by several millimetres. He was not wearing a helmet at the time. During the 2005 Tour de France, Ullrich was passed by Lance Armstrong in the first stage time trial after starting a minute before him, causing speculation that he was once more doomed to be beaten by the American. Ullrich fell again in the mountains, bruising his ribs. During several other pivotal moments in the Tour, he could not keep up with Armstrong or Ivan Basso. Ullrich began focusing on finishing ahead of the surprise star of the mountains, Michael Rasmussen, for a podium position in the general classification. At the individual time trials nearing the end of the 2005 Tour de France Ullrich had a stellar time trial, demolishing the competition, save Lance Armstrong who came through to set an even quicker time near the end of the stage. Rasmussen had a terrible time trial, which consisted of several crashes and around five bike changes, which ultimately gave Ullrich a podium place in the Tour de France. Post-Armstrong Lance Armstrong retired after the Tour de France in 2005, and Ullrich’s career is coming to its end as well. Jan has stated he will likely quit after 2007 season However, he seemed more motivated than ever to win at least one more Grand Tour (either the Tour,Giro or Vuelta ). Notorious for coming out of the winter with serious weight problems (see above) and in bad condition, he began his preparation for the 2006 season early, with his mentor Rudy Pevanage finally back in the T-mobile staff and watching his every move. Early reports indicated that Jan was indeed in much better shape than in previous years and would be ready for what could be his second victory in the Tour de France. Ullrich finished 115th in the Tour de Romandie on April 30. However, Jan injured his knee in the off season and this could have limited his performance in the 2006 Tour de France, had he participated (see below). In May, riding in the 2006 Giro d’Italia, not to win but to prepare himself for the Tour de France, Ullrich targeted the Stage 11 50km ITT, and won it by a decisive 28 seconds over Maglia Rosa Ivan Basso, who beat 3rd placed Marco Pinotti by another 33 seconds (which means Ullrich beat everyone except for Basso by over a minute). Only five riders were able to finish within two minutes of Ullrich’s time. Ullrich dropped out of the Giro during Stage 19, with back pain. Team Director Rudy Pevenage stated that the problem was not bad but merely as a precaution to avoid possible Tour de France problems. He won the Tour of Switzerland for a second time in preparation for the Tour de France, winning the final time trial in decisive and dramatic fashion jumping from third to first in the GC. Operación Puerto doping case In the weeks prior to the Tour de France 2006, Ullrich’s name was mentioned in a large Spanish doping scandal, nicknamed Operación Puerto doping case. Ullrich himself has always denied the rumors. However on Friday, 30 June 2006, one day before the start, he was suspended from participating in the Tour de France. Jan Ullrich’s biggest rival (according to many experts) Team CSC’s Ivan Basso, who finished 2nd in 2005, and several other riders were also excluded. The decision to exclude Ullrich could be based on several text messages from his mentor, Rudy Pevenage, with Doctor Fuentes. Ullrich himself stated that he has nothing to do with Fuentes and he will try to prove this. If found guilty by the UCI, Ullrich faces an almost certain career-ending suspension. As of 20 July 2006, Jan Ullrich has been fired from T-Mobile in relation to the aforementioned accusations. T-Mobile general manager Olaf Ludwig announced the news during the 18th stage of the Tour de France between Morzine and Macon, though the sacking had been made in writing on Thursday. The German rider published a statement on his website saying that his dismissal was ‘unacceptable.’"I am very disappointed that this decision was not communicated to me personally but that it was faxed to my lawyers," Ullrich added. "I find it shameful that, after so many years of good cooperation and after all I have done for the team, I am being treated as a fax number." There are rumours linking Ullrich with rivals Discovery Channel, team of retired Lance Armstrong. Discovery Channel opted for Levi Leipheimer, instead, as the future of Ullrich remains uncertain, as he also was excluded from the 2006 Vuelta. Ullrich is trying to defend his reputation in court,where he won a case against Dr. Werner Franke. Franke accused Ullrich of buying doping up to 35.000 Euros each year, after reviewing the files of the Puerto affaire. The court stated that Franke has to keep his comments out of the media as his statements lack solid grounds. Franke however also went to court against Ullrich, claiming that Ullrich lied while being under oath when asked if he had used doping. At this point, the Swiss cycling federation (Ullrich lives in Switzerland and rides with a Swiss license) are investigating all the documents and will come to a verdict soon. Meanwhile, the justice department raided his house for several hours, collecting DNA material. Ullrich was on a honeymoon during the event with his new wife Sara, and was so shocked with the news that he aborted it. Signature bike frame line In May 2006 Ullrich launched a signature bike frame line, the "Jan Ullrich Collection"[9], which he helped to develop. There are three models catering for all types of cyclist, from enthusiast to pro. They take their names after significant times in Jan’s career. The ‘Campione’, the ‘Olymp’ after his Gold and Silver Olympic medals, and finally, the ‘Grand Tour’ after his Tour de France victory in 1997. They range in price from 1395 to 2995 Euros and are available only as frames (not as complete bikes)

Jan Ullrich

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