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Abbott didn't want a gift... and Armstrong wasn't handing any out.

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Stevic and Armstrong take overall titles at Nature Valley

Kristin Armstrong and Ivan Stevic both put a decisive stamp on this race Friday, but there was plenty of cake to go around for consolation. Toyota-United's Stevic, who regained the yellow jersey from Health Net's Kirk O'Bee in Friday morning's time trial by a six-second margin, had his hand firmly on the wheel for almost the entire race — the second of the day, run on an exciting 1km course set in the heart of Minneapolis in front of a captive audience of 30,000. With a fair sky and cool breezes, Toyota-United weren't just protecting Stevic's lead — they were

Who is he? And how did he do it? These were the questions being asked over and over again in at the finish line in Schwarzsee Saturday, after a complete unknown from Unibet escaped a ravenous bunch in the final kilometer to win the eighth stage of the Tour de Suisse. His name's Uran — Rigoberto Uran. He's from Colombia, and barely 20 years old. As a junior, he was four-time junior national champion, three times on the track and once on the road. Since turning professional for Italian team Tenax Salmilano two years ago, before switching to Unibet this year, he had no results to speak

Julien Absalon (Orbea) continued his dominance of the 2007 UCI World Cup of cross-country mountain biking, taking his third consecutive World Cup victory of the year at Québec’s Mont-Ste-Anne resort. The 28-year-old Frenchman chased down a surging Jose Antonio Hermida (Multivan-Merida) in the sixth of seven laps to take his second career win at Mont-Ste-Anne. Riding his way into third was a resilient Geoff Kabush (Maxxis), who scored the top North American result. Absalon now commands the 2007 World Cup standings, where he leads Hermida 950-680. “Jose started very fast, and I had to work

The penultimate stage of the Nature Valley Grand Prix was an 86-mile tour through the cornfields of Southern Minnesota. But in its final miles, the route dropped into the river city of Mankato, and finished on a brutal 1000-meter climb that was repeated three times. It was the Midwest's approximation of a mountain-top finish, particularly after a long day on hot and humid rollers. For the women, the cornfields were all prelude, with two small breakaways — one for 25 miles by Rushlee Buchanan (Apple Jazz) — that turned out to be fruitless. When the women hit the first circuit, Kristin

Cornfields, climbing and kids — our man Casey Gibson caught it all during Saturday's penultimate stage of the Nature Valley Grand Prix in Minnesota.

Race leader Stevic

O'Bee takes the sprint

Van Gilder wins the women's race

Armstrong holds the lead

The men race through downtown

Uran wins one for Unibet.com

Absalon en route to World Cup win No. 3

Kalentyeva rode into the World Cup lead in Canada

Another 'look,' from another Armstrong

The early break

Race leader Stevic was not having a super day

O'Neill on the front

Sutherland takes the win

Rushlee Buchanan of Jazz Apples was in a break for 45 miles or so

Abbott and Wrubleski lead the chase

Armstrong takes the win

Toyota chasing for race leader Stevic

Hey, it's more stylish this way

Is this kid destined to be a downhiller or what?

Colavita's next sprinter

One determined young athlete

Dave Zabriskie still doesn’t know if he’ll be racing next month’s Tour de France. Fresh off notching his best-ever European result with fifth overall at the mountainous Dauphiné Libéré, the Team CSC rider said he won’t know his Tour fate until team manager Bjarne Riis finalizes the nine-rider selection after the Tour de Suisse concludes this weekend. “He’s keeping me in the dark. I talked to him the day after the Dauphiné and he’s still waiting to make a decision,” Zabriskie told VeloNews. “I feel really good and I know I could handle it, but it’s up to him.” The 28-year-old reached new

It’s no secret as to why Quebéc’s Mont-Ste-Anne resort has become a favorite stop on the UCI World Cup of mountain-bike racing, having been on the calendar every year since the series’ inception back in 1991. Like Kaprun, Austria, or Fort William, Scotland, Mont-Ste-Anne is one of the sport’s hallowed venues, and it underscores the challenges offered by mountain biking in the Northeast. The rooty, rocky cross-country course is both a test of one’s fitness and technical skills, and the steep downhill course tests an athlete’s ability ride at extremely high speed. As sponsorship woes during

Atop the dizzying heights of the Grimselpass, 2614 meters above the sea, Discovery Channel's Vladimir Gusev emerged out of the mist, and after a 120-kilometer break, to claim the seventh leg of Tour de Suisse. A distant second was Predictor-Lotto's popular American Chris Horner, two minutes in arrears, while Astana's Andreas Klöden finished 2:37 back to round out the top three. Victory for 24-year-old Gusev came after he instigated a three-man escape less than 10 kilometers into the stage, on a day that contained three of the biggest climbs in the country. "It was my

Friday morning's time trial along the Mighty Mississippi turned out to be decisive - at least for the next ten hours, while the caravan returns to Minneapolis for tonight's much-anticipated downtown criterium. More than 20,000 cycling fans are expected to show up for the event - a massive party for this bike-loving community. As expected, Kristin Armstrong shot out of the chute like a roman candle, delivering a world champion performance and possibly the coup de grace to leader Catherine Cheatley of Cheerwine, who until today has protected her hold on the yellow jersey of the

Zabriskie hopes to have a shot at another yellow jersey.

Mont-Ste-Anne is always a big draw

Premont is a fan favorite in Quebéc

If Absalon gets on a bike, the odds are good he'll end up on the podium.

Gusev also earned himself a part on the Tour squad with this one.

It sure beats the tire you won at last week's local crit, eh?

Vladimir Efimkin spends another day in yellow

Armstrong knew she was favored in this stage.

O'Neill takes the top spot...

...Stevic takes third...

...which moves him back into the jersey.

Discovery Channel sport director Johan Bruyneel expressed confidence that a new title sponsor will be secured for the 2008 season. Discovery Channel announced February it would end its three-year title sponsorship with the team at the end of the 2007 season. Bruyneel, who, along with Lance Armstrong and Bill Stapleton, owns a part of the team, said the title sponsor hunt continues. “I’m confident. I am optimistic about the future of the team,” Bruyneel told VeloNews. “There are still a lot of things going on as we speak. We’re pushing hard and it could happen at any moment.” Bruyneel also

Hi Bob,First of all thanks for the "Legally Speaking" column. It's informative, sometimes empowering and always interesting. On a group ride last week on a country road with no auto traffic about 10 of us were pace-lining. As we came around a bend we startled a man walking a dog. The leader called it out, we slowed and gave him plenty of room and there was nothing close to contact. But this guy was furious and we rode off to his screams of "You have to ride single file!!!" Was he right? Also, could you direct me to where on the web I can look such things up? We often ride into New

JEFF OATLEY: TOP AMERICAN IN RAAM ‘07 Training for the Race Across America is a challenge for any rider. To have the stamina and conditioning to ride 20-hours a day for more than a week in June, a competitor must put in long rides in January, and beyond. How does a guy do that in Fairbanks, Alaska, where temperatures in January can drop lower than 30 degrees below zero? “You ride,” Alaskan Jeff Oatley said in a pre-race interview, explaining that he uses his “snow-bike” with double wide rims and tires. “We ride on sled-dog tracks, which when they’re packed down, is kind of like riding

With the Tour de France just weeks away, there’s a high stakes game of cat and mouse between a half-dozen so-called suspect riders identified by the UCI and anti-doping testers. Anne Gripper, director of the UCI’s anti-doping program, told the AFP that “six or seven” big-name riders have been subject to surprise out-of-competition controls which have yielded some“non-negative” results. Gripper added officials are waiting for the results of the second “B” sample before jumping to conclusions. “We have targeted six, seven riders considered a high risk because of their suspicious behavior and

Thursday's seventh stage of the Tour de Suisse that ended in Crans Montana saw the first sign that the fight for the overall classification is by no means decided. As overnight leader Frank Schleck faltered on what was on paper a relatively straightforward climb, Romandie champion Thomas Dekker of Rabobank showed when in Switzerland he's often at his best, victorious ahead of Volksbank's Gerrit Glomser and Saunier Duval's Gilberto Simoni. 22-year-old Dekker, who won the stage by attacking a select eight-man group towards the top of the final ascent, has no doubt cemented his

Building on Wednesday night's second place finish in the opening stage of Minnesota’s Nature Valley Grand Prix, Kirk O'Bee launched a perfectly timed attack on a long uphill finish in Thursday's Cannon Falls road race, putting his Health Net team back where its riders are most comfortable - on the top of the podium and in the yellow jersey. With a 15-second time bonus for first place, O’Bee managed to bump Toyota-United's Ivan Stevic out of the lead. Stage 2 Video Highlights There was no wind or weather to speak of on this normally tumultuous Cannon Falls road course

This space for rent: Bruyneel says he sees a world of opportunities out there.

Legally Speaking - with Bob Mionske: Two-by-two?

Jeff Oatley misses his two dogs, Hadley and Harriet. MacGregor was happy to fill in so Jeff could soak up some doggie love at the Rouzerville, Pennsylvania, time station.

In Gettysburg.

It may be a long ride, but at least it's a warm ride.

Sunny at the finish, but foul weather at the start forced the stage to be trimmed by half.

Vladimir Efimkin enjoys his time in the jersey

O'Bee scores the win and takes the jersey

The Jelly Belly boys get a bit of motor pacing in after a large crash in the peloton.

Nathan O'Neill leads the peloton early in the race.

Zajicek suffers to stay in the break

Brooke Miller wins for the second year in a row in Cannon Falls.

O'Bee takes over, Cheatley hangs tough at Nature Valley

Cadel Evans was more than satisfied with his Dauphiné Libéré performance, but the fighter inside the Australian couldn’t be held back when he had a chance for victory. The Predictor-Lotto captain couldn’t shake Christophe Moreau up the Col du Télégraphe in Saturday’s critical climbing stage and settled for second overall in his first crack at the Dauphiné. “I still have room for improvement before the Tour. I changed my program this year. The past few years I raced the Tour de Suisse before the Tour, but this year we decided to come to the Dauphiné,” Evans said. “I’ll tell you in July which

Proper dietary preparation is essential to your best efforts.

Riders’ commitment to a new cyclingThe Puerto affair highlighted the serious problem of doping in cycling.This, like all other doping cases, greatly harms my sport and me personally.The uncertainty surrounding the identity of riders and other peoplewho could be involved in the Puerto affair is also very harmful and willcontinue to be until the case is closed.Currently, there is a climate of suspicion. It is undermining the credibilityof my sport and is eroding the trust of the public, authorities, organisersand my colleagues.For these reasons, I want to make a contribution to putting the

U.S.-based Computer Sciences Corporation announced Wednesday that, "aftercareful consideration," the company will continue to sponsor the cyclingteam owned and organized by former pro Bjarne Riis.The future of the team was put in doubt last month when Riisadmitted to using EPO and other drugs over a five-year period thatincluded his 1996 Tour de France win. Riis had argued - with apparent success- that his own background might serve the team well in its efforts to controldoping."I don't want the mistakes of my personal past to stand in the way ofthe work we are doing today," Riis said in

With just four victories so far, compared to many more in years before, Robbie McEwen's Tour de France form was a little suspect. On Wednesday in Giubiasco, the pocket-rocket from Predictor-Lotto took a vital step in his quest for a fourth maillot vert by triumphing on Stage 5 of the Tour de Suisse. It wasn't easy, however, the 34-year-old veteran Aussie sprinter having to use each and every part of his compact, muscled frame as he fought with his bike more than anything else to eventually overcome Lampre-Fondital's Daniele Bennati and Milram's Erik Zabel, stage winner last

Former Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong issued a harshly worded statement Wednesday on the eve of the publication of a new book reviving claims that the American cyclist was a doper. Armstrong criticized "From Lance to Landis," the latest book by Irish writer David Walsh regarding Armstrong and doping accusations from the Tour de France, an English follow-up to his “LA Confidential,” published in French in 2004. "Predictably, on the eve of the Tour de France, I will be the subject of a repeated, baseless attack in yet another unobjective book," Armstrong said in a statement released

The possibility of thunderstorms after a long hot summer day did nothing to deter 5000 cycling fans from showing up for an evening of criterium racing in downtown St. Paul for the opening stages of the 2007 Nature Valley Grand Prix, won by Cheerwine’s Catherine Cheatley and Toyota-United’s Ivan Stevic. Minnesota's capitol city provided a tight one-kilometer crit’ course with six 90-degree turns punctuated by heavily painted crosswalks and lightning to the south. Under a sultry and threatening summer sky, the women's field was dominated by Stage 1 Video HighlightsKristen Armstrong,

Evans was pleased with his Dauphiné performance.

McEwen drives it home

An evening of racing. Downtown St. Paul hosts the kick-off of the NVGP.

Armstrong was the rider most of the field keyed on.

Cheatley said her odds were better with an early charge.

Health Net's Jeff Corbett directs his team from his perch

Stevic wins it.

Page looks at ease, despite the absence of mud and barriers

Toyota takes over at the front...

... a sets up Stevic for the win.