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I just managed to sneak away from the Tech area at Sea Otter long enough for a quick update. A pre-dawn raid on SRAM's tech headquarters proved fruitful with us coming away with another first-look at 2004 products. Wanted to make sure you read it here first. Here's the short story (look for complete coverage in VeloNews #8 due out in two weeks). SRAM has introduced two all-new trigger shifters: the X-9 and X-7. Both use 1:1 "Impulse Technology" which is said to provide riders the flexibility to activate shifts with multiple parts of their hand. This translates into shifting ability with

Normally, Tyler Hamilton would love to race flat out down a descent like the one included in the final-stage time trial at Spain’s Tour of the Basque Country on Friday evening. After all, the New Englander on the Danish team CSC was one of the country’s best alpine skiers, specializing in the slalom, before he became a pro cyclist. Those downhill skills, plus his low center of gravity, make him one of the best descenders in the European peloton, particularly on a narrow, twisting course like the one he encountered in this time trial. Starting the 13km test, Hamilton was equal on time with

I’ve got all of my fingers and all of my toesI’m pretty well off, I guess, I supposeSo how come I feel bad so much of the time?A man ain’t an island... John Donne wasn’t lyin’---“Hard Day On the Planet,” Loudon Wainwright III“You gonna rant this Friday?” the editor asked. “You gotta be mean; we don’t want people thinking we’re reining you in.” Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Like, with a couple hundred e-mails running 95 percent in favor of my continuing to act the fool - including a number of readers who think pretty much everything under my byline is as wrong as Dura-Ace on a DeRosa - I’m suddenly

Day three of racing at the Sea Otter Classic pro stage race saw no major changes on the leader board, as Saturn’s Lyne Bessette and Prime Alliance’s Michael Creed took stage wins in front of an enthusiastic crowd. Originally planned to be a criterium in Santa Cruz, Friday’s course was, at the last minute, changed to the raceway circuit of years past, due both to concerns over the integrity of the Santa Cruz course and a push to intensify the stage race after the pro men protested the controversial Redwood City circuit. Instead, the circuit race course was used, a course that includes a steep

In cycling, you know you’re a bad ass when you get an Italian nickname. While il professore might not rank up there with il diablo, il pirata, or il grillo in sheer gravity, Steve Tilford’s Italian nickname is still cool. The 42-year-old Tilford (Verge Sports) won the second stage of SOBE Sea Otter mountain bike stage race in his specialty, the fat boy criterium, and proved that having a niche, however small, can’t be a bad thing. Run along a scenic coastal course in Santa Cruz, the fat boy crit allowed (forced?) mountain bike racers to shed their knobbies for slicks and then try keep from

For 2003, Sea Otter promoters decided to add a new twist to the off-road gravity events. Chief Operating Officer Rick Sutton felt there was a need to reward those riders who take on all events with an overall goal of their own, thereby creating the "Gravity Omnium" a collection that includes mountain cross, downhill and dual slalom. It’s a sort of gravity variant of the “Iron Otter” that reserves a special prize for riders who take on both road and cross-country events at Sea Otter. Sutton explained, "we saw there were some riders who placed consistently well in all three events, but never

Museeuw wants another

The easy part

The fun part

The cobbles of Paris-Roubaix

A look at SRAM 2004

A look at SRAM 2004

A look at SRAM 2004

A look at SRAM 2004

Propaganda Remix Project

Redden still holds the overall

Creed celebrated his first win as a pro

Creed in the lead

Bessette and Jeanson: The all-Quebec break

T-Mobile's Amber Neben leads the chase

Wow, the silly season is certainly upon us again with a veritable truckloadof road and mountain bike races gearing-up just about everywhere. In fact,I just got back from a solid weekend of riding and racing in Moab, Utahwith VeloNews' own Jason Sumner and Jon "SlimJim" Stierwalt. Sure, we were primarily there on assignment to cover the 2003 Tour ofCanyonlands event (check out Jason's race reports earlier this week righthere at velonews.com and also in our upcoming issue #8), but you can'tfault us for also sneaking in a day of freeriding on the amazing PoisonSpider/Portal trails. We even

It always seemed like a natural fit for mountain biking: the Jeep King of the Mountain series. But until now you had to be involved in snow sports to wear one of those crowns. That could change come this summer’s latest rendition of the KOM, when the fat-tire sect may be battling for a total prize purse of $100,000 during a three-race series, which will receive three hours of television coverage. And while some of the i’s and t’s still need to be dealt with – mostly regarding scheduling – this is a done deal according to Eclipse TV’s Denise Lavaroni. “It’s definitely happening,” said

After being stuck on replay for three days, the Tour of the Basque Country changed the script in Thursday’s 171-km fourth stage. The five-climb stage didn’t end in a bunch sprint and there wasn’t a new leader, as has been the plot line since Monday. With the overall fight coming down to a nail-biter in Friday’s dual-stage finale, the leading protagonists didn’t want things to get too far out of control. Lampre’s Marco Pinotti scored a huge win after going on a mega solo break to finish just three seconds ahead of the surging peloton while Kelme’s Alejandro Valverde led the bunch across just

Day two of the Sea Otter pro stage race — a 12-mile time trial course finishing with a long, sustained climb — brought few surprises on the leader board, as Nathan O’Neill (Saturn) and Genevieve Jeanson (RONA-Esker), both time trial and subsequent overall winners last week at Redlands, again put their stamp on the general classification. Often called the race of truth, Thursday’s time trial lived up to the name. It was a case of déjà vu all over again, as the strongest riders from the Redlands time trial rose to the top: the women’s event contained the same top-five as the Redlands time

Don’t always believe the rumors. They often prove unreliable. There were whispers around the pits here in Monterey that Roland Green was sick. The two-time defending world champion withdrew from the Redlands road stage race last week with two stages to go, citing a lingering illness. Green’s would-be challengers at the Sea Otter Classic were licking their chops, believing that the 2002 Sea Otter champ was vulnerable. But Green (Trek-Volkswagen) stormed Thursday’s five-mile time trial, the opening stage in the four-stage mountain bike stage, showing yet again why he’s the guy with the

Work, work, work, work, work... it never ends for us.

Tech report: Two scoops in every box

Tech report: Two scoops in every box

Tech report: Two scoops in every box

Tech report: Two scoops in every box

J.H.K. is A.W.O.L.

MTB News and Notes: Jeeps, Web sites and Whistler

MTB News and Notes: Jeeps, Web sites and Whistler

MTB News and Notes: Jeeps, Web sites and Whistler

Pinotti

Healthy... and fast.

Chrissy got her groove on

Jeanson

Danielson

Vaughters

Hey Monique;As a nutritionist you will probably shriek in anguish, but I’m a fast (in my dreams) recreational cyclist who for the past two months has been following the Atkins nutritional method. The positive news is that I have dropped 17 pounds. However, as spring approaches and I start doing longer rides, I am concerned whether I will be visiting bonk-land more often with my reduced-carb approach. Currently, I am consuming about 40 to 50 grams of carbs a day and ride 3 to 4 times a week (50 to 200 miles a week depending on the time of year). Is there a general rule of thumb of how many

Andreas Klier was in no hurry to leave on Wednesday afternoon. Perched in a dirty brown chair in a smoke-filled room of reporters in Wevelgem, Belgium — the finishing town of the 65th running of the midweek classic known as Ghent-Wevelgem — the blond-haired, blue-eyed German was soaking it all in.

Another stage at the Vuelta al Pais Vasco and another bunch sprint? Yes, and another photo finish in a race in what's usually a shoot-out between the mountain goats. This time it was Kelme's Alejandro Valverde who had the thicker tires to snatch the win away from Gerolsteiner's Davide Rebellin in Wednesday's 191km stage from Plentzia to Vitoria. Gerolsteiner's Fabian Wegmann was already pumping his arm in celebration, thinking that Rebellin had won when Valverde came from six riders back to score his second win this season. "We went all day thinking it would come down to a sprint, so I was

Sitting at the start-finish line before the Sea Otter’s opening Redwood City road race, Saturn’s Chris Horner was concerned. Relaxed, of course, as he always is, but concerned. In lieu of the Sea Otter’s traditional Fort Ord road race, which was replaced after permit issues hindered a full road closure, the Northern California stage race designed a new circuit race, in the hometown of Sea Otter chief operating officer Rick Sutton. But many of the riders that had pre-ridden the tight and twisty residential course, with its sharp, short climbs and narrow, technical streets, felt it was too

I'm sure there are going to be two very different points of view regarding what happened in Wednesday's opening stage of the Sea Otter Classic. Some will say that a bunch of whiney professional cyclists just ruined the sport, and alienated sponsors by protesting a so-called “dangerous” course. Others, meanwhile, will say that the riders finally put aside their differences and acted in a unified fashion by standing up to race promoters who have little regard to riders’ safety, and only want to impress sponsors. Well, as a whiney professional, here’s my take on the matter. The problem today

Flanders Image Files

Enlargement is big enough to set as a desktop background

Vogels, Klier and Boonen

Vogels: Tough guy at work

The wind broke things apart

Cipollini: Before the fall

Knaven takes a gamble.

Knaven gets some company

Mid-race stop: riders, race officials and promoters discuss the decision to neutralize the course

Jeanson wins the day's only real race

Should I stay or should I go? A delay at the men's start.

Neben and other T-Mobiles fell victim to poor marshalling

Fraser becomes riders' spokeman

And the 'winner' is...

Gord Fraser, Vaughters and road race director Terry Tupper discuss safety

Flanders/Ghent/Roubaix Image Files - 2005

Flanders/Ghent/Roubaix Image Files - 2005

Flanders/Ghent/Roubaix Image Files - 2005

Flanders/Ghent/Roubaix Image Files - 2005

Flanders/Ghent/Roubaix Image Files - 2005

Ghent map

Roubaix Map

Zabel

Tafi

Flanders/Ghent/Roubaix Image Files - 2005

Flanders/Ghent/Roubaix Image Files - 2005

Flanders/Ghent/Roubaix Image Files - 2005

Flanders/Ghent/Roubaix Image Files - 2005

Flanders/Ghent/Roubaix Image Files - 2005

Flanders/Ghent/Roubaix Image Files - 2005

Wauter

The weather in Belgium has turned more seasonable. In other words, if it hasn’t been raining, it’s been really windy, and sometimes both. The north wind cuts through every fabric know to man; chilling me to the bone. This morning I rode in a Windtex thermal jacket with a Windtex thermal vest over the top. I was still cold! For those of you that saw the Tour of Flanders live (I was not lucky enough to see it), you have an idea of what the weather has been like. The irony of this climate is that in training one must always wear thermal clothing, but only shorts and jersey in races. I do not

Dear Lennard,With the unfortunate event at Paris-Nice, I thought I would ask. Ihave read in various forums, that helmets should be replaced every-so-many-years (Lance Armstrong's book, for example, places this number at five years).However, most citations I see are closely connected to a helmet manufactureror a bike store. Setting aside the obvious ("because it was in a crash"), why would Ineed to replace an otherwise good helmet? Also, does this imply a "shelflife" for helmets (say, I find a deal on a new old stock Air Attack)? Isuppose what I'm after is, do helmets need to be replaced like

FDJeux.com’s Carlos Da Cruz won a sprint finish to take the first stage of a star-studded Circuit de la Sarthe in Fontenay le Comte, France, on Tuesday. In a race featuring American four-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and Germany's Jan Ullrich, Da Cruz stole the limelight after 188km ride from Nantes, taking the leader's jersey in the process. The 28-year-old Frenchman crossed the line in 5:10:13, beating Russian Alexei Sivakov in a sprint to the line. The rest of the main peloton arrived almost six minutes later, with Ullrich placing 22nd at 5:52, and Armstrong finishing