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Bike fit is no joking matter for a professional racer. Fit is the single most important aspect of the bike. If the bike doesn’t fit, it really doesn’t matter how light or technologically advanced it is — it’s not going to be very fast. Take the case of Liquigas rider Daniele Bennati. He has short legs, long arms and a long torso. So the team’s bike sponsor, Cannondale, built him a custom SuperSix carbon bike, which he has been racing for two and a half months.

The highly anticipated Tour of Atlanta, May 22nd through the 26th, is less than two weeks away from its first event. This inaugural stage race will feature 7 stages in 5 days in, and around, the Atlanta area. The stages provide an exciting mix of time trials, criteriums, and road races to allow racers of all types with a chance to excel and win stages. The most unique aspect to this event will be the street sprints on the first day of racing. The time bonuses awarded for the street sprints may turn out to be the difference between winning and losing the general classification.

For the second day in a row, a breakaway stayed clear of the peloton, with another unsung hero from a smaller team in the form of Matteo Priamo (CSF-Panaria) taking center stage. Unlike yesterday, the attackers had enough rope to end Franco Pellizotti’s four-day run in the pink jersey. Italian national champion Giovanni Visconti (Quick Step) and German Matthias Russ (Gerolsteiner) ended the day tied on time, but Visconti took the maglia rosa based on differences taken in the team time trial.

Me & JJ after his stage 2 win in Augusta

Hmmm....SCOTT meets Ferrari...oh well.

The Mt. Hood Cycling Classic ventured into new territory Wednesday with a new venue for the sixth year of the event: a hilly criterium held in a verdant city park wrapping around a long-extinct volcano. The new event delivered large crowds and down-to-the-wire racing action that saw the mens and womens overall leads switch hands in the final meters of the crits. The fact that Portland was enjoying some of the nicest weather of the spring only helped improve the festive atmosphere in Mt. Tabor Park.

Brooks England announces collaboration with the New York City Bicycle Film Festival with the release of a limited edition Swallow. Only one hundred special Swallow models, manufactured with British racing green leather and each bearing an authentic serial number of authenticity, will be available to the public. Proceeds from sales will benefit the 8th annual Bicycle Film Festival which runs from May 28th through June 1st (www.bicyclefilmfestival.com ).

The 2008 Priority Health Tourde Leelanau will be lead by a record participation of 17 teams in the Men’s field and 11 teams in the Women’s field and will take place on Sunday, May 25th, 2008. The Men’s race will include the Bissell Pro Cycling Team of defending champion Garrett Peltonen, who is looking to repeat in a race that is very important to their Grand Rapids, Michigan based sponsor. Bissell has been on a hot streak recently, winning stages at the Tour of the Gila in New Mexico and the Joe Martin Stage race in Arkansas as well as leading the

Barry Wicks is already a household name in the domestic cyclocross and mountain bike scene, but this year he is trying his hand at joining mountain bike racing’s elite crowd on the World Cup.

Riders are at their wits’ end with the seemingly endless string of transfers, delays and hassles associated with the opening days of the 91st Giro d’Italia. In the first three stages of racing on Sicily, there were no less than 500km of transfers, nearly as much as the peloton has raced. Tensions came to a head following the botched ferry transfer across the Straits of Messina from Sicily to Italy on Monday evening, when what should have been a 20-minute ferry ride turned into a four-hour odyssey.

Tinkoff’s Pavel Brutt feinted and feigned his way to victory in the final kilometers of a five-man breakaway that held off the chasing peloton by 30 seconds in Wednesday’s fifth stage at the 91st Giro d’Italia.

Web site: www.serotta.com/paint/index.html Serotta Competition Bicycles offers 26 paint colors, several different carbon clear coat tints and a variety of decal colors and schemes. Now the Saratoga Springs, New York-company is offering buyers (and dreamers) the chance to design their bike's color scheme completely online.[nid:76148] Buyers first pick the frame design they want, then browse more than 700 examples, such as those shown here. Buyers can choose one of the examples or come up with their own.

Organizers of the Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling have announced the 20 professional women’s teams that will contest a three-race battle in southeastern Pennsylvania in early June. At stake is a $34,000 prize purse that includes $5000 for the overall series winner.

A pair of New Zealander track riders — in the States for some summer road racing to tune up before the Olympics — took the first two spots in the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic women's prologue on Tuesday. Joanne Kiesanowski of the Tibco team, a four-time national points race champion who has moved her focus to the road recently, finished less than a second ahead of Alison Shanks of Jazz Apple, a New Zealand-based team. Shanks is a pursuit rider on the track.

There are few active racers who can be described as a legend with no dispute. Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli, who has won 51 French and world championships, is at the top of the list. When Longo, a last-minute entrant at the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic, arrived at race headquarters Tuesday, many of the other women racers lost their pre-race cool, looking more star-struck than intimidated by Longo's racing ability. "I'm just in awe," said Flavia Oliveira, who will join Longo on the River City Racing composite team. "I just want to bask in all of her knowledge."