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Bobby Julich says fans and cyclists are in for a real treat come Saturday when the 15.5km individual time trial at Monaco opens the 96th Tour de France. The ex-pro — who retired after the 2008 season and now works with the Saxo Bank team as technical advisor, counseling his teammates on equipment and time trial preparation — says the Monaco time trial puts an exclamation mark on the front end of the Tour.

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The Garmin-Slipstream team announced on Thursday that Martijn Maaskant will replace injured Irish rider Dan Martin on its Tour de France roster. Martin, who has been suffering from tendinitis in his knee, concluded that he would be unable to ride the upcoming three-week race, leaving a gap on the team's roster, which will now be filled with Maaskant. The team said that Martin had been working closely with Garmin's medical staff to resolve the issue but finally concluded that competing in the Tour posed too great a threat to his long-term prospects.

Alexander Vinokourov said Wednesday he intends to ride for Astana later this year or there will be serious consequences for those who keep him from riding on the Kazakh-financed team. In a press conference held in Monaco in advance of Saturday’s Tour de France start, Vinokourov, whose suspension for homologous blood doping ends on July 24, said there’s no possibility that he would ride for any team other than the one he helped establish in 2006.

Italy's San Patrignano drug rehabilitation facility sparks passion for frame building among recovering addicts. Its framebuilding shop is directed by Gianni Pegoretti, Dario Pegoretti's brother, whose shop lies in the valley below. VeloNews' Lennard Zinn and Don Karle visited the San Patrignano and Dario Pegoretti facilities this spring. To read Zinn's article, you'll have to pick up an August issue of VeloNews, available on newstands this week. Here we are sharing some of Karle's photos that would not fit in the magazine."

Yellow jersey contender Cadel Evans remains upbeat despite the unwelcome news that his Silence-Lotto teammate Thomas Dekker has been ruled out of the Tour de France due to a positive doping control. Dekker, a two-time Dutch champion, was set to help Evans in this year's July 4-26 race but found out Wednesday that a sample from December 2007, kept for later re-testing, had tested positive for the banned blood-booster EPO.

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It seemed fitting that Wednesday's fourth stage of the 2009 BC Bike Race fell on Canada Day, as Stage 4 exposed the 400 or so racers to more of Canada than any day other of this year’s race.

Long before he was winning Tour de France stages, Mark Cavendish was formed into a professional cyclist by British Cycling’s Rod Ellingworth. As research for the current cover story on Cavendish, VeloNews interviewed Ellingworth.

East Burke, Vermont, is the singletrack capital of New England. The tiny town — which is closer to Montreal than to any major American city — has a 100-mile-plus trail system that includes a wide variety of super sweet, narrow, twisty trails.

Last month, the VeloNews staff (which contains several former coffee shop employees and many who set up residence in one or another of Boulder's many shops), held what’s known in the coffee world as a cupping at Saxy's Café in Boulder. The crew invited a handful of local pro racers plus two experts from the Coffee Syndicate roasting company.

Silence-Lotto's Thomas Dekker will miss the Tour de France after testing positive for the banned blood-booster EPO, his team announced on Wednesday. The sample was originally taken on December 24, of 2007, when Dekker was a member of the Rabobank team. The sample was re-tested using new techniques, which resulted in a positive test for EPO. "He found out on Wednesday morning that fresh analysis, carried out in May at the behest of WADA, on urine samples from a random doping control had turned up positive for EPO," the team said in a statement.

Jason Hill and Peter Butt rolled out of their tent at 6 a.m. to see the sun slowly rising over the snow speckled peaks on the western coast of British Columbia. Hill and Butt — two of the 400 or so riders competing in this year’s BC Bike Race — had endured a restless night in the tent village, situated alongside the beach in the small town of Parksville. The wind howled for most of the night, and Hill, who had forgotten his sleeping bag at his home in Anchorage, Alaska, was using a store-bought fleece liner as a blanket.

Dear Explainer, I just read in the local paper that a county judge hearing a lawsuit against the Tour de 'Toona ruled that a waiver, signed by a woman who was later injured and paralyzed in an accident at that race, will keep her from recovering any kind of damages. It's a sad case and it got me to thinking.

Weather is often the unnamed enemy at the Tour de France. Heat, wind, rain and cold can turn what would otherwise be a routine stage or climb into pure hell. A quick look at short- to mid-range weather forecasts calls for seasonable but unsettled conditions the first week or so of racing in the 2009 Tour. Forecasters are predicting moderately warm temperatures into the upper-80s for Saturday’s opening time trial in Monaco, but with a 20 percent chance of afternoon showers.

Seven Americans and one Canadian are among the 189 starters from 21 teams lining up for the individual time trial Saturday in Monaco to click the 2009 Tour de France into gear. U.S.-registered Garmin-Slipstream boasts the strongest North American representation, with Christian Vande Velde, Dave Zabriskie, Danny Pate and Tyler Farrar starting from the United States and Ryder Hesjedal as Canada’s lone representative.

In 2008, sunglass and apparel manufacturer, Oakley passed the $1 billion mark in terms of annual sales. That figure had been the goal of the company for the better part of a decade. That marked a milestone for an iconic brand whose futuristic building is perched atop a hill at the end of Icon road in Foothill Ranch, California. VeloNews visited Oakley’s Interplanetary headquarters this spring. You’ll have to pick up a copy of our August issue, on newsstands now, for the whole story, but as a supplement, we’re more than happy to take you on a photo tour, right here.

There’s a tight battle brewing at the front of the 2009 BC Bike Race between the Kona’s defending champions Kris Sneddon and Barry Wicks, and Canadian strongmen Chris Sheppard and Seamus McGrath (Santa Cruz/Jamis). After three stages the Canadian duo holds a slim 1:15 advantage in the overall ahead of the defending champions. Sheppard and McGrath won the first and third stages, both by small margins, and Kona grabbed stage 2 by a handful of seconds. And both teams know that in the topsy-turvy world of multi-day endurance stage racing, the fat lady is nowhere close to singing.

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Besides that little ol’ race starting Saturday in France, there’s not a whole lot on the menu in terms of racing this week. Butting heads against the biggest race of the year isn’t ideal marketing strategy (though there is plenty of racing throughout July on European roads). Save for a race in Poland and the Giro d’Italia Feminine, everyone else is letting the Tour de France take center stage.

19th Course de Solidarnosc et des Champions Olympiques