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Big names and big teams have dominated the world’s for the past several years, with established stars such as Oscar Freire, Tom Boonen and Paolo Bettini from Spain, Belgium and Italy, respectively, taking the rainbow jersey in the elite men’s road race. Is it time for an outsider to hold off the favorites? On paper, the 19.1km circuit in Stuttgart looks like it could be challenging enough to serve up an attack-laden finale and perhaps deliver a breakaway victor to end the run of relatively large bunch sprints that have dominated the world championships for the better part of a decade. Each

Demo Days are here again as part of the 2007 Interbike trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada. The show starts the way it should, with people riding bikes in Bootleg Canyon, Nevada, a well-maintained mountain bike trail system roughly 20 miles outside of the Las Vegas city limits. The area offers riders multiple cross-country trails, a dirt jumping area, BMX track, road course and downhill mountain bike course. The clear skies and comfortable 75-degree temperature made a perfect day for the event. For 2008 the Outdoor Demo's booth expo area moved to a more developed area with more pavement and

The following is a statement from Anne Samplonius regarding GenevieveJeanson'srecent admission that she used EPO during her carrer:Overall I am happy that Genevieve Jeanson has finally been able to begin to come to terms with everything, with herself, to admit what she did was wrong, very wrong.I understand to some degree what the influence and control of both her father and (Andre) Aubut had over her, and realize that she was for the most part a victim. I knew that all along and my disgust over the entire situation was always more against those in control of GJ, which were Aubut and her

In less than two days I will be lining up with some of the premiere cyclo-cross racers in the world at Cross Vegas during the Interbike trade show in Las Vegas. It’s safe to say I am completely unprepared. An extremely busy summer at the bike shop kept training time to a minimum, but you know what they say, “duty calls.” I guess I shouldn’t really complain because just nine months ago I was standing on the front porch of my Boulder, Colorado, town home staring at a letter from the United States Anti-Doping Agency stating I had committed a doping violation. Me, the guy who first took the

Professional cycling teams have agreed to cover the significant cost of random doping controls as the sport continues to look for effective solutions to weeding out drugs cheats. The Tour de France was hit with several doping scandals in 2007, a year in which the ongoing Operación Puerto doping affair in Spain dominated the headlines for the troubled sport. The latest anti-doping initiative is the brainchild of the International Professional Cycling Teams (IPCT) association. It has been inspired by the internal anti-doping programs of the CSC, T-Mobile and Slipstream teams, and will be

One more in the bag. That brings my tally of grand tours to nine out of 10 finished. None have been the same, all have had their ups and downs, but one thing is 100-percent certain and that unfortuneately is that there is nothing like the Tour de France. For instance, on Sunday I was in the bus on the way to the airport, watching the podium presentation on TV, instead of sipping Champagne with my team. In fact, I was already checked in to my flight to Barcelona before Carlos had finished all his interviews! That kind of scenario leaves you with a strange feeling, but one you quickly get

Our latest reader-submitted Photo Gallery is now ready for your viewing pleasure. Of course, a new gallery also means the naming of the winner of our most recent contest. Maurice Hessel’s “Climbing ‘The Snake’ in Burlington, Iowa memorial day weekend” is one image we kept letting our eye drift back to. We’ve seen a lot of images of “The Snake” before, but Maurice managed to capture the essence of the climb and gave viewers reason to understand why that cobbled hill earned its name. Nice work, Maurice. Please drop us a note at Rosters@InsideInc.comto work out the details and we’ll send you

The weather was perfect, the venue is great and getting better, and the attendance was abundant for the first day of the Outdoor Demo at Boulder City’s Bootleg Canyon. The sunny, yet unseasonably cool 75-degree weather meant perfect conditions. Not hot, not cold, sunny, only occasional strong wind – those are nice conditions to ride a bike in. The display booth area is a lot bigger now, with much of it even paved, making road riding a more viable option for bike testing than in the past. Whereas in past years I have rarely taken a road test ride, given that the mountain bike riding is

Cordero says it requires a commitment to keep the sport credible

We spotted Chris King’s new 68mm tall carbon cyclocross wheelset under the command of Molly Cameron at the September 22 Seattle Star Crossed race. Edge, the rim manufacturer, is based in Ogden, Utah. The turquoise hubs are King’s new 'cross model

Along with King’s Pretty in Pink program, which benefits the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation, King is investing a portion of the profits from its DreadSet rasta colored headsets that will benefit Hans Rey’s Wheels 4 Life foundation.

A regular King headset base plate is on the left, and the new High-Five base plate is on the right. The High-Five plate adds 5mm to fix bikes with a problem of fork and downtube interference. It costs a mere $12.

The 1516 gram Edge-King carbon wheelset is not yet ready for public consumption, but the $699 Classic Cross clincher wheel set is. It’s built with DT’s RR1.1 aluminum rim, King’s Classic Cross hubs and DT’s Competition spokes. The set weighs 1590 gr.

Classic Cross hubs (the two sets at the lower right) are available in an array of colors. The front weighs 136-grams and the rear is 278 grams. The have a five-year warranty and cost $479 for the set. King offers them in 28, 32 and 36 hole versions.

Magura’s new $175, 415-gram (front, with 160mm rotor) Louise brakeset is available for sale in the U.S. The model accepts all of Magura’s rotors including the Venti, which flows air over the caliper to keep it cool.

Each year Magura picks a color of the year and offers some special edition products with it. This year the color is pink. 300 sets of the Louise BAT brake will be available in pink.

120 Menja forks will also be available in Magura’s color of the year.

Tires are the talk of the tent at WTB. Here a new Prowler MX 2.1 cross-country tire is compared to its older brother the Prowler XT all mountain tire that was introduced last year. The MX features aggressive siping and widely spaced knobs.

Also part of the Prowler family is the new Prowler SL 29-inch tire. It comes in a 2.1 size and features a more consistent center tread for faster rolling.

Spot Bicycles and its new subsidiary Carbon Drive Systems had one of the buzz booths of the day. It seemed everyone was talking about its carbon belt driven single speed drivetrain.

12. Fulcrum’s mountain bike wheels will be ready for retail sale come October. Three weeks ago the Red Metal Zero disc supported Julian Absalon’s latest world championship win. The wheelset is said to weigh 1570 grams will cost roughly $1100.

The Red Metal Zero’s aluminum spokes have been lightened from those first seen at Sea Otter this past April, but they are still laced using Fulcrum’s 2 to 1 drive/disc to non-drive/disc spoke count.

Those familiar with off-road dirt bike competition will know that Tire Balls are small air chambers that fill out a tire in lieu of a tube. They’re more puncture resistant and allow tires to stay in service even with major sidewall gashes.

Wade Summers, the father of nine-time GNCC national championship winner Scott Summers is the creator of Tire Balls for motorcycles and now bikes. A wheel’s worth of tire balls weighs 300-grams for the 2.5-inch downhill size.

Tomac is officially back, to date, there are roughly 550 new Tomac Snyper and Caliber bikes in riders’ hands worldwide. In fact, Japanese Olympic mountain bike team member, Takei Forza won his country’s professional title on a carbon Tomac Caliber.

Tomac's downhill bike the Primer 220 is close to its production form. The 220mm travel bike is designed by Doug Bradbury and is similar to the old Tomac Magnum 204 in function.

You may remember the 5-inch travel Trance X from Eurobike reports, but I was able to ride on in Bootleg Canyon.

Giant’s communication manager Andrew Juskaitis was our personal tour guide on Bootleg’s Caldera trail, a hour and a half long loop with embedded volcanic rock that will bite back if one gets to brash.

At the end of the ride, it was perfect to find Chris King serving gourmet beef tip sandwiches back in his booth, and yes we all took him up on his offer. Thanks Chris.

This is a letter you never want to receive.

Boulder Cycle Sport Wrench, Mike Doyle, dials in the nicest cross bike I have ever ridden.

Ahhhhh.... The fresh smell of tubular glue. It must be 'cross season.

This bike is fast, but I'm not so sure about the motor.

Climbing ‘The Snake’ in Burlington, Iowa memorial day weekend

SRAM's superlight Red cogset is totally hollow inside.

The Red rear derailleur is shockingly light to pick up, and it shifts great and has precision-ground pivots.

The cage of the Red front derailleur is all titanium. It is tightened up in spacing and shaping to produce its best performance specifically with SRAM chainrings and chain. It only comes in braze-on style. You can use a superlight spring-steel band.

Red's Double Tap lever guts. The shift lever and the brake lever are both adjustable for reach, making this the only high-end road lever that can be adjusted to fit small hands.

Zinn's own marketing targets an often over-looked segment

The Mavic TraComp features composite spokes working in both Traction (i.e., in tension) and Compression. In a crash with another rider, a test rider caught a pedal in the wheel that broke four spokes. The wheel was still true.

Since the spokes in the TraComp are not under high tension at all times, the spoke heads could move in the hub as the wheel rolls but the red cylindrical insert prevents that.

Shimano's new Dura-Ace wheel now uses normal nail-head straight-pull spokes with nipples at the rim so that wheel truing is done conventionally, by tightening and loosening spokes at the rim, not at the hub.

IRC's Formula Pro Tubeless road tire has a thinner, more supple casing and stickier rubber than Hutchinson tubeless road tires to further close the gap on performance versus a tubular tire.

Fizik's 2008 high-end mountain-bike saddles are now built to go with specific types of bike riding, which is also dictated by the bike’s suspension travel. So you select the saddle model based on how much suspension travel the bike has.

Fizik's free gelato was a big hit – who wouldn’t like gelato on a sunny day?

Pivot's Mach 5 full-suspension trail bike with five inches of rear travel utilizes the tried-and-true DW Link suspension system. Pivot was founded by Titus founder and former owner Chris Cocalis

Thus far Pivot has six bikes using two DW Link frame models, the Mach 5 and the Mach 4 four-inch-travel cross-country frame.

The Bianchi Camos has a flexing carbon chainstay for lateral stiffness, vertical suppleness, and low weight.

The Camos chainstay is flippable by unscrewing bolts at the bottom bracket, thus making the rear end stiffer or more compliant.

Masi's elegant internal-gear town bike is enough to make any Italophile swoon.

WTB co-founder Mark Slate has launched a new independent venture in addition to his WTB duties, which he still fulfills. OSBikes.com are one-speed 29er bikes, yet the OS stands for Of Spirit.

Yakima's Big Wheel was at the demo showing its smaller nephew the ropes.

The BH Speedrom is a stiff, precise, great-riding monocoque carbon bike. The frame weighs under 1000 grams, yet this Ultegra SL-equipped model I rode retails for under $2,800!

The UCI cyclocross season had its West Coast kickoff this past weekend in Washington state with Star Crossed, a Saturday-night party disguised as a ’cross race at Marymoor Park Velodrome in Redmond, followed by Sunday’s Rad Racing Gran Prix at Steilacoom Park in Lakewood.

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Veteran cycling team director Len Pettyjohn and 17-year pro Scott Moninger have joined the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team as director and assistant director, respectively. Harm Jansen will direct his final race for Toyota-United at the World Championship Sports Network USA Crits Finals on Thursday in Las Vegas. Pettyjohn, 66, has worked with the likes of Greg LeMond, Davis Phinney, Alexi Grewal and Moninger while directing a number of domestic teams, from the Panasonic squad of 1980-81 to the dominant Coors Light team of the early 1990s. Moninger, 41, has 275 victories to his credit and

Barry Wicks and his new Kona Major Jake

The team is using KORE’s new Kross Race cantilever brake

FSA provides many of the team’s components including the top-end K-Force Light crank with a ceramic bottom bracket

Wicks uses a 44cm K-Force carbon bar

Ryan Trebon’s steed mirrors his teammate's, with a few slight differences. Trebon has a Dura-Ace front derailleur (Wicks uses an FSA model)

Trebon also prefers an SLK crank

The 2008 Major Jake has brazed cable stops that accommodate a full-length rear brake housing. They also retrofit with stops for a more conventional setup

Heule's carbon Stevens

The Swiss champ has lots of carbon on his bike. The brakes are by Spooky, while the Ritchey WCS fork may set the bar for mud clearance

The wheels are custom with DT Swiss hubs, fitting for a Swiss rider, laced to seldom-seen Ritchey aluminum tubular rims

Dura-Ace SRM crank is fitted with a custom 46-tooth Dura-Ace outer ring, produced for sponsored athletes only

Ritchey alloy cockpits can be found on both of Heule’s bikes

Molly Cameron was sporting new wheels from sponsor Chris King. The 68mm Edge carbon rims were laced to new high-flange, cyclo-cross specific hubs

Danish national champion Joachim Parbo has been riding SRAM for three weeks and gives it a thumbs up

Parbo's cockpit is a mix of Selcof

The brakes are Ridley’s 4ZA brand with BBB’s pads and post mount carriers

Andy Jacques-Maynes's Specialized Tricross S-Works carbon frame

He relies on a single 42-tooth Rotor chainring mounted onto a 175mm Specialized S-Works carbon crank

SRAM Double Tap shifters operate short arm Tektro linear-pull brakes that don’t require adapters to work with road levers

And the Phnom saddle is up to the rigors of cyclocross, says Jacques-Maynes. It has tougher titanium rails than the road-oriented Toupe

Pettyjohn

After three long weeks of sometimes exciting racing, the remaining 145 riders rolled into a festive welcome in the heart of downtown Madrid to conclude the 2007 Vuelta a España with an exhilarating finishing sprint. Daniele Bennati (Lampre-Fondital) used his lethal bike stab to hold off Alessandro Petacchi (Milram) to win his third stage in Sunday’s final romp into Madrid and bring an end to the season’s final grand tour.

The final podium

Bennati v. Petacchi at the line