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Timing is everything, especially on a fast, high-speed course in Madrid’s Casa de Campo, where passing lanes are as rare as they are on a Spanish mountain highway. Reigning world champion Julian Absalon (Bianchi) took some choice words of advice from his coach in the closing half-kilometer and sneaked past arch-rival Christoph Sauser (Specialized) to secure victory Sunday in the second round of the men’s World Cup mountain bike series. "I tried to drop him on the final hard climb, but he was too strong and I thought it would be a sprint, but my coach told me to get past him in the last flat

The Executive committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency, meeting in Montreal this week, has delayed a decision on whether to include the use of so-called "altitude tents" on its banned practices list until at least September of this year. The tents, and other equipment designed to mimic high-altitude hypoxic conditions, have been used by some athletes to artificially elevate their red blood cell counts. The committee issued the following statement in connection with a proposed review of the agency's position on the use of such equipment:Artificially-Induced Hypoxic ConditionsThe

Collegiate athletes mobbed the streets of downtown Lawrence, Kansas, on Sunday for the third and final race of the 2006 USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships. The finale, a criterium run on a one-mile course, saw Division I and II men’s fields race 65 minutes plus three laps and the women’s fields race 55 minutes plus three laps. The D-II men hit the streets first. The race held extra importance, as the team omnium was nearly tied after Friday’s team time trial and Saturday’s road race. Defending champions Whitman College trailed Lees-McRae College by a mere seven points. Both

Arkansas has been good to Gord Fraser (Health Net-Maxxis). In the final event of the Joe Martin Stage Race, a technical downtown criterium, Fraser won his third sprint finish and maintained his overall title. In the women’s race Erinne Willock finished fourth, 10 seconds down on race winner Kori Seehafer, to maintain first in general classification. Entering the final stage with the top two riders on general classification, Fraser and Scott Moninger, the Health Net-Maxxis racers had one thing on their mind – playing defense. On a criterium course in downtown Fayetteville featuring eight

Basso wins and takes over the jersey.

The truck is a big part of the CSC arsenal

Our tour guide, Nicholas Legan.

As expected, lots and lots of bikes...

... bottles...

... and a ton of spare parts

The power supply

The kitchen, when someone needs a quick snack...

... or laundry service.

An army marches on its stomach... and a bike team rolls on theirs.

The trainers come in handy on TT days.

Carol Hutton, winner Mara Abbott and Anna Milkowski after the women's D-II event

Brent Bookwalter out-sprints Todd Yezefski for the win

Think Fraser knows he has another win in the bag?

Well, he did ... and he kept his overall lead after the time trial, too

The chase is on

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

Moninger races up the GC into second

An aggressive women's field

Willock rips the time trial and seizes the lead

Dahle's not getting older, she's getting faster

McConneloug rides to a strong 16th

Catch and release: Basso caught Cunego and, after a short pause, rode into the leader's jersey

Savoldelli: I suddenly understood that I was not super.

To Milan?

Fraser takes his third stage and the overall

Willock follows the wheels and collects the win

Absalon shows 'em how

JHK led the way for the Americans

Saturday’s 236km stage from Cesana to Saltara certainly won’t decide the overall winner of the 2006 Giro d’Italia, but it may have revealed some cracks in at least one of the pre-race favorites. While Belgian Rik Verbrugghe was off the front gunning his way to a hard-fought solo stage win, Italian Danilo Di Luca was noticeably absent from a fast-closing group that included the rest of the Giro’s big GC guns — Paolo Savoldelli, Gilberto Simoni and Damiano Cunego. At the finish Di Luca (Liquigas) managed to limit his losses to second-place finisher Savoldelli (Discovery Channel) to 20

After a six-week hiatus, the cross-country mountain bike World Cup starts up again this weekend in Madrid. The long gap from the season-opener in Curaçao, in the Caribbean, means that everyone is starting from scratch, as far as knowing who is on form. Extremely large fields and a very hard, fast course also mean that a good start (and start position) will be crucial to doing well. The Madrid circuit, held in the Casa de Campo park just outside of the city central core, is well known for being extremely fast and dusty. Some of the descents are packed so hard that there are black skid marks

It takes a lot of things to make a ProTour team tick, and one of those is food — lots of it. During a grand tour like the Giro d’Italia riders must consume massive amounts of calories just to keep the legs churning. But if just one of those meals is bad, things can go wrong in a hurry. That’s why many teams — including CSC — employ a full-time chef who accompanies them on the road. On Friday night VeloNews sat down with Dane Søren Kristiansen, head chef for the squadre of Ivan Basso, Bobby Julich and the rest of Bjarne Riis’ boys. After part of the team – including Ivan Basso - fell ill at

VeloNews correspondent Jason Sumner is in Italy covering the Giro d'Italia for both the web and print versions of VeloNews. Part of his duties include a visit to the start before the stage begins and he invariably sends us photos for our Live Update pages. Just in case you missed them there, here is today's sampling:

Exhausted, but happy: Verbrugghe holds off a charging peloton.

New Shimano XTR levers

The trick paint job on Premont's bike extended to the fork. Note the new lightweight XTR discs

Savoldelli may have been the day's big winner

Sergei Honchar quietly accepts his second maglia rosa of this Giro.

Riding into shape: Riding the Giro appears to be good Tour prep' for the Kaiser

Nicer than Belgium at this time of year, eh?

A day at the office for the Disco' boys

Osa, Cunego and Basso rode smart

Aaron Olson

Axel Merckx fuels up

Big crowds on weekends

Problems with the caravan

Waiting for the start

Damiano Cunego

Entertainment in the start village

Danilo di Luca

Hoffman the espresso schlepper

Got room for another in there?

Spring time in Italy

The Boss is still big in Italy

Bradley McGee

A bit of morning reading

Pollack's one day in the jersey

Gilberto has style.

Strike up the band!

Is the espresso a littlle stronger than usual today?

Raisin recovery could take a yearSaul Raisin’s road to recovery continues in a rehabilitation center in Atlanta, but according to postings on his personal web page, his complete recuperation could take between nine months to a year. Raisin promised his parents he’d do it in “six months” as he works to regain full strength after his life-threatening crash in early April. “Every day I see lots of improvement. It is going to be a long hard road. For the most part I find myself eating candy and chocolate to keep my head happy,” Raisin wrote. “I am getting better, but I am still far away from

Aussie speedster Robbie McEwen continued his dominating run at the 2006 Giro d'Italia, grabbing a convincing stage-6 win at the finish of the dead flat, 227km run along the Po Valley from Busseto to Forli. The triumph gave the "Pocket Rocket" three victories at this year’s Giro, bring his career total to 11. One spot back of McEwen was T-Mobile’s Olaf Pollack, who was no match for the Davitamon-Lotto speedster. Still, he could take solace in the new pink jersey he would be taking back to the team hotel. Coming into the day, Pollack had trailed teammate and GC leader Sergei Honchar by 10

Some 400 collegiate racers are expected to descend upon Lawrence, Kansas, this weekend for the 2006 USA Cycling Collegiate Road Nationals. The three-day event, hosted by the Kansas University Cycling Club, includes a team time trial, road race and criterium, awards national-championship jerseys to individual race winners, and crowns team and individual champions in a points-based omnium. Schools with 15,000 students or more compete in Division I, while smaller schools race Division II. Last year’s DI team winner was the University of Colorado-Boulder, which ended the University of

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Dane Kuta’s letter regarding Lance Armstrong’s entry in the New York City Marathon (see Wednesday’s Mailbag: "Did Lance get a golden ticket?") drew quite a response — our virtual mailman has a digital hernia from lugging all that venom-soaked e-mail around. Your decision was virtually

Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California, will host the 2006 USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championships July 13-16 as part of the Infineon Technologies Cougar Mountain Classic. Originally planned for the following weekend, the 2006 USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championships have been moved up one week after a record amount of snowfall forced the event's relocation from Mammoth Mountain last month.

Commerce Bank, "America’s Most Convenient Bank," has announced that it is stepping in as the title sponsor to help continue America’s biggest and richest cycling week and a long-standing Philadelphia region tradition held each June. The Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling, Benefiting Fox Chase Cancer Center, will include three international professional cycling races: the Tom Bamford Lancaster Classic, the Reading Classic and the Philadelphia International Championship The 156-mile Philadelphia race, held annually since 1985, is ranked as one of the top ten bicycle races in the world. The