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Mark Cavendish (Columbia-Highroad) carved another masterpiece Friday on the fast road to Florence, dashing to his third sprint victory in five stages before taking an early exit from the Giro d’Italia. Within shot of the towering duomo, Cavendish made easy work of Italian star Alessandro Petacchi (LPR) to claim his 11th win on the season. [nid:92327] In post-race comments, Cavendish hinted that he would leave the Giro. A press release from his team a few hours later confirmed his early departure.

Twenty-six-year old Garmin-Slipstream pro Lucas Euser got his start racing mountain bikes while in high school in California’s Napa Valley. He turned to the road as an undergraduate at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on California’s central coast, and is now in his third year racing in Europe. VeloNews caught up with the 5’7”, 130-pound rider at his home in Girona, Spain, where he is on crutches recovering from a May 14 run-in with a car. VeloNews: Last week you had an accident. What happened?

High school champs crowned in California

The 2000-plus bicycle racers descending on Durango, Colorado, for this weekend’s 38th Iron Horse Bicycle Classic are all begging Mother Nature for sunshine. And no snow. It was one year ago that a spring snowstorm forced the cancellation of the road race, which debuted in 1972. After an unseasonably wet 2008 winter, snow clouds gathered over Durango three days before the event. By race day, the 47-mile course, which includes two summits over 10,000 feet, was covered in six to 10 inches of the white stuff.

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I'm going to start by tooting my horn a bit here and saying that I'm a fairly handy time trialist. Furthermore, I'm lucky enough to be riding the finest, fastest, and one of the most heavily sought after time trial machines on the market, the Cervélo P3. That might stir up a lot of questions to the tune of, "Hey when are you going to get the P4?!" Well that's for me to know and you to find out.

The cycling community in Bend, Oregon, is organizing two bike rides as memorials to multi-sport legend Steve Larsen, who died Tuesday. A memorial service is planned for Saturday at 1 pm in Bend. The first ride is the regular Saturday morning hammer ride, leaving from Hutch's East Side bike shop at 820 NE 3rd Street, Bend. A friend said "the ride will hammer as usual. Steve would want it that way." The second ride will meet at 12:30 p.m., at the Drake Park Stage. The group will parade from there to the memorial service. All bikes and riders are welcome.

Taylor Phinney will get to wear the white leader's jersey of the Fleche du Sud another day, as he defended it in Thursday's first stage of the Luxembourg race. The American track champion won the prologue Wednesday, his first win in the Trek-Livestrong colors. Stage 1 went to Germany's Marcel Kittel, who was second in the prologue, at three seconds. But Phinney sprinted to third place on the stage, finishing in the same time as Kittel. Luxembourg's Cyrille Heymans was second.

American Kristin Armstrong moved into second overall at the Tour De L'Aude Feminin on Thursday, after finishing with a three-woman break that came in more than six minutes ahead of the field. Armstrong finished third in the break, 14 seconds behind stage winner Trixi Worrack (Nurnberger Versicherung) and five seconds behind Armstrong's Cervelo TestTeam teammate, Claudia Hausler. Dutchwoman Marianne Vos (Dsb Bank) led in the field for fourth place, 6:14 behind Armstrong.

Denis Menchov (Rabobank) became the first Russian since Pavel Tonkov to don the maglia rosa after his impressive performance in Thursday’s 60.6km time trial along the Cinque Terre. The 31-year-old is already a winner of two editions of the Vuelta a España and takes a slender, 20-second lead to Levi Leipheimer (Astana) going into the decisive second half of the 2009 Giro d’Italia. Menchov spoke to the assembled Giro media following his victory. Here are excerpts from the press conference: Question: Were the time differences as you expected?

A spectacular 60km course along Italy’s stunning Cinque Terre lived up to expectations Thursday as Denis Menchov (Rabobank) pulled the double, winning the stage and snatching away the maglia rosa from Danilo Di Luca (LPR). Levi Leipheimer (Astana) – who had won three time trials in three starts this season ? almost walked away with the jackpot, finishing just 20 seconds slower than Menchov and climbing into third overall at 40 seconds back.

With the centennial edition of the Giro d’Italia at its halfway point, and with less than three minutes covering the top 10 riders on GC, doing well in Thursday’s ultra-tough Cinque Terre time trial is the key to overall victory. But besides the expected challenges to Danilo Di Luca’s pink jersey by Denis Menchov (Rabobank), Michael Rogers (Columbia-Highroad), Levi Leipheimer (Astana) and Ivan Basso (Liquigas), a handful of other TT specialists will by vying for the prestigious stage win.

Magura USA and the upscale red rock town of Sedona, Arizona, played host to the brand’s annual press camp during the week of May 18, 2009. The company used the event to announce two new additions to Magura USA’s distribution portfolio: UVEX helmets and sunglasses, and Vaude bags, packs, and clothing. The two new brands add to the company’s existing distributorship of Syntace, creating a significant beachhead for German brands in the United States.

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Check out CyclingTips's author page.

An autopsy showed that multi-sport athlete Steve Larsen likely did not die of a heart attack, his brother told VeloNews Wednesday. Mike Larsen said the autopsy ruled out a heart attack and a blood clot. The cause of death may have been viral or related to allergies, he said. "The last few weeks he had been having serious troubles with his breathing," Mike Larsen said. He said his brother had been seeing a doctor about his breathing troubles and had been unable to finish his workouts.

American Kristin Armstrong won the fifth stage of the Tour de l’Aude Féminin on Wednesday, outsprinting her breakaway companions Amber Neben and Grace Verbeke. Olympic champion Armstrong (Cervelo TestTeam) and world TT champ Neben (Nurnberger Versicherung) are the best-placed Americans in the prestigious 10-day race. After Wednesday's stage, Armstrong moved into fourth place, 1:15 behind her teammate, race leader Regina Bruins. Neben, who led the race earlier in the week, is now in sixth, 1:25 behind Bruins.

Taylor Phinney (Trek-Livestrong) won the 4.2km prologue of the Fleche du Sud stage race in Luxembourg on Wednesday.

The world’s best cross-country mountain bike racers will break out the hardtails this weekend for the fourth round of the UCI World Cup, held Sunday in Madrid, Spain. The dusty course spins an eight-kilometer circuit through an urban park in the Spanish capital, and includes plenty of fast hardpack and flat pedaling sections. Speeds on the track are high — the Madrid course lacks serious technical obstacles, but includes a plethora of punchy climbs, loose corners and gravel.

German cross-country racer Wolfram Kurchat caught and dropped Olympic champ Julien Absalon on the seventh and final lap to win the May 17 Bike the Rock cross-country race in Heubach, Germany. The event was the third round of the 2009 MTB-Bundesliga International, Germany’s national cross-country racing series.

Dear Readers, While doing Live Updates during the Giro d’Italia this past week, I am pleased to see that our new update tool offers readers the chance to chime in with questions during our coverage. We do get to read all of them and I often try to include some of them during our coverage. Unfortunately, I can’t answer all of them personally. But there are some pretty interesting questions posed and I thought I’d use this week’s column to answer some of the more common questions I’ve received over the last few days.