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The Beijing Olympic mountain bike course is punctuated by short, steep, smooth climbs that favor a powerful rider like Giant’s Adam Craig. The descents on the Chinese course, too, are smooth. It’s the sort of terrain that doesn’t offer advantage to Craig’s Anthem Advanced full suspension bike; rather it calls for a light, stiff frame able to transfer maximum power on smooth trails. Giant just delivered on Craig’s special request for an Olympic hardtail.

Foggy racing in California

Rding in Vermont in early spring

Despite suffering a mechanical near the finish, Rock Racing's Oscar Sevilla scored a win in the opening stage of the San Dimas stage race, a 3.8-mile uphill time trial in San Gabriel Canyon. While losing more than 30 seconds as he fixed his bike, Sevilla managed a seven-second win over second-placed Peter Stetina (VMG-Felt), who now leads the under-25 category. In the pro women's division, team High Road's Mara Abbott and Kimberly Anderson took top honors, finish first and second, with times of 15:27 and 16:13 respectively.

Far from the hullabaloo and pre-Olympic hype surrounding Great Britain’s track team, Jennie Reed of the United States was quietly making her resolute way into the medal positions in the women's sprint finals. Reed, 29, has maintained the good form that took her to runner's up spot in the sprints in the Los Angeles World Cup earlier this year, where she also won the keirin.

Britain's Chris Hoy made a mark in track cycling’s history books by winning his first try at a world sprint title in Manchester, England, on Friday Hoy, the reigning world keirin champion and a former kilometer and team sprint champion, claimed the gold medal ahead of Frenchman Kevin Sireau in a tense two-round final. Sireau, racing in white as the reigning World Cup sprint champion, finished second to claim the silver with his French compatriot Mickael Bourgain claiming the bronze after a two-leg victory over Italian Roberto Chiappa.

Comin' and goin' at the Exeter, CA ITT

Defending Tour de France champion Alberto Contador denied rumors Friday he was preparing to jump ship to defend his title in July with another team. Moments after securing the overall title at the Vuelta a Castilla y León on Friday’s fifth and final stage, Contador told reporters he won’t change teams to race the Tour even though Astana has been denied entry into the race.

If I were to write the perfect classified ad to recruit top female athletes to track cycling it would look like this:

Tired of your current sport? You might have an Olympic future in Cycling! Oarswomen, listen up – Rebecca Romero of England came from a top career as a single sculler to win a silver medal in cycling in less than 365 days. Add another year to that and she’s a double World Cycling Champion, supported by the best funding in women’s cycling. And to top it off, the crowds and media LOVE her, she’s a national hero. What more could a girl want?

Australia's reigning Olympic 500 meter time trial champion Anna Meares is celebrating after hearing she has qualified for the sprint event in Beijing. Australia's sole women's sprint spot at the Games was under threat because of Meares' place in the world rankings, but results from the world championships in Manchester, England, on Friday mean she can no longer be overtaken. Meares is absent from the world championships as she recovers from injuries sustained in a serious crash at the Los Angeles round of the World Cup in January.

The editors of Slate magazine's website have run across what they believe is the stupidest bike lane in America, so dumb they've even made a video about it.

Come on VeloNewsers, surely with all of the miles we're putting in on American roads, one of us can top it. If you run across a design that serves even less of a purpose, drop a line to Slate , but be sure to cc us on that email.

Professional endurance competitor Rebecca Rusch has tackled her fair share of adventure races and 24-Hour mountain bike races throughout the years. Now, the Idahoan is in South Africa competing in the Absa Cape Epic, a nine-day endurance mountain bike stage race across the country’s scenic Western Cape. And we’re along for the ride. - Editor

Trek-Volkswagen’s Susan Haywood and Jenny Smith took the women’s category while Kevin Evans and David George (MTN-Energade) won the men’s in the opening prologue of South Africa’s 2008 Absa Cape Epic on Friday. The two women completed the 17km course, which spun a hilly circuit around the port city of Knysna, in 42:51.2. The pair, both regulars on North America’s National Mountain Bike Series, crossed the line with a 40-second advantage on the Rocky Mountain team of Alison Sydor and Pia Sundstedt.

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the latest edition of The Prologue, the weekly summary of news from the world of competitive cycling by your friends at VeloNews.com.

We've got some more reader photos for you. Here's a good spectator's view of the Tour of California as well as some other great action shots. Keep 'em coming! Submit your photos here

Italian rider Valentino Fois, a former teammate of deceased champion Marco Pantani, has been found dead at his home near Bergamo, La Gazzetta dello Sport reported on Friday. The 34-year-old Fois, who turned professional in 1996, was arrested in 1998 for doping after testing positive twice during the Tour of Switzerland and the Tour of Poland. He was suspended for three years in 2002 while he rode for the Mercato Uno team of Pantani, who died of a drug overdose four years ago. The cause of Fois' death is unknown. He was found by his mother with whom he lived.

Crédit Agricole’s ace sprinter Thor Hushovd says he is prepared to boycott the opening ceremony to the Beijing Olympics in August to protest Chinese repression in Tibet. "We sports people do not have any particular responsibility to take a stance over what is happening in China," he told Norway’s Faedrelandsvennen newspaper. "But all the same we can have some influence by snubbing the opening ceremony in Beijing. That would be a valid form of protest and I am prepared to do it,” Hushovd said. "However, from there to boycotting the Games entirely is a huge step.”

On a foggy December day in 1983 the newly formed National Off Road Bicycle Association held its first event in the Los Padres National Forest outside of Solvang, California. A bushy haired Kansas kid named Steve Tilford escaped with the win that day, riding in his first ever mountain-bike race on a rig slapped together just a day earlier.

You know the guy who couldn’t pass a calculus exam even if the fate of the human race depended on it, but who can count blackjack cards like one of those brainy MIT kids or Rain Man? Well, I guess don’t really either, but I do know I am not that guy. After being put through my paces at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine testing lab, I did a similar battery of threshold and power exams outdoors a week later. Much to my chagrin — but not surprise — the outdoor results were very similar to the indoor ones. I remain average.

Bobby Julich is never afraid to speak his mind. Like many inside the peloton, Julich is worried about the growing tensions between the UCI and the major race organizers led by the Amaury Sport Organisation, noting that the split may permanently damage the sport. This weekend, the veteran CSC rider lines up for the Critérium International, a race he won in his big comeback season in 2005. Julich’s big goal of the year is to perform well in ASO’s flagship event, the Tour de France.

Vermont Training Ride, Feb '08

Slickrock in March

When newly crowned world women's pursuit champion Rebecca Romero first climbed onto a track bike, she fell off. Any hardened trackie knows that such a tumble is not an unusual experience, but it is a measure of the former Olympic rower’s determination that two years to the day that the Team GB rider first made close acquaintance with the boards of Manchester velodrome, she became world pursuit champion.