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the new Santa Cruz Blur LT all-mountain bike has been revamped with improved linkage geometry and beefed-up pivots.

The original Blur LT was introduced three years ago and the all-mountain rig has become the brand’s bestseller. But the company is releasing a remodeled design intended to keep it at the top of its heap. The most visible new feature is the use of a carbon fiber upper VPP link. Less visible but more important is a careful re-tooling of the linkage’s shock rate. Santa Cruz engineers mellowed the rate out to offer a supple beginning stroke and and a linear feel all the way through to bottom out.

Professional teams caught up in a dispute between the Union Cycliste Internationale and major race organizers are poised to make a decision which could force an end to the dispute between the two warring parties. The UCI on Monday effectively warned teams they could be sanctioned if they turned up to race at Paris-Nice, the first major European stage race of the season, on March 9-16.

Victory in Portugal’s five-day Tour of the Algarve bodes well for both the immediate and long-term prospects of rising Belgian talent Stijn Devolder. The former Discovery Channel rider is taking on an ambitious 2008 calendar that includes a detour through the cobblestones of northern France and Belgium before a run at the top-10 at the Tour de France.

This past weekend’s trip to the Wisconsin north woods for the 35th American Birkebeiner, which for many cyclists is a festival of extreme winter cross-training, got me thinking about traditions. Being able to count on the recurrence of a tradition is comforting. Yet underneath, traditions can be fragile, no matter how long they have survived.

Riding the Portal_self portrait

Getting the race leader's autograph

Los Olivos welcome committee stage 5 ATOC

The war between the UCI and major race organizers took a significant new twist on Monday as world cycling’s governing body warned that it might have nothing to do with Paris-Nice, the European calendar's first major race of the season.

Tour de France champion Alberto Contador will look to continue venting his frustration on the bike when he saddles up for the five-day Tour of the Valencia Community on Tuesday. The Spaniard and his Astana team are still digesting the bitter pill of being left out of the Tour de France, and the Giro d'Italia due to controversial decisions by the respective race organizers.

Italian cyclist Marco Fertonani will serve a two-year ban for doping after a last-ditch appeal to the Italian Olympic Commitee (CONI) failed on Monday. Fertonani, formerly of the Caisse d'Epargne team, failed a test for testosterone following his fourth-place finish in the Tour Mediterraneen in February 2007. The 31-year-old appealed to CONI's appeals judge, claiming that the French laboratory at Chatenay-Malabry, which dealt with his samples, had made an error.

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