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... but had to settle for the ProTour lead.

Haedo makes it look easy

odium girls beware! Georgia could signal a long string of big wins for the 23-year-old from Slovenia.

Millar was aggresive all week...

... but Grajales got the prize.

Chengyuan Ren is one of the few mountain-bike racers to beat Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjaa

José Antonio Hermida Ramos scores

It’s been a long dry spell for the man they call “Fast” Freddie Rodriguez. But on Saturday the American blazed back into the winner’s column, taking a blistering bunch sprint that concluded the Tour de Georgia’s stage 6 run from the Lake Lanier Islands to Stone Mountain Park. The win was Rodriguez’s first since stage 4 at this same race exactly a year ago to the day. The victory also moved the Predictor-Lotto rider out of a first place tie with Canadian Gord Fraser on the race’s all time stage wins list. Rodriguez now stands alone with four.

A Spanish cycling armada is threatening to spoil Dutch hopes of securing an elusive victory in the Amstel Gold Race on Sunday. The eighth race on the ProTour, and the fifth one-day classic of the series is the only Dutch race on the calendar apart from the Eindhoven time trial. But the hosts’ annual expectation of seeing a tough challenge from the orange-clad home riders, most of whom ride for Rabobank, has taken on special significance this year. Former winner Michael Boogerd will saddle up for his home race for the final time having announced in midweek that he will retire at the end of

It was a long day in the saddle on the way to the Confederate Memorial at Stone Mountain, near Atlanta in Georgia. Our man Casey Gibson was, as always there from start to finish. Here's what he sent home.

Close... but Freddie gets it

Rodriguez takes a close one in Georgia

CSC chases the break with 20 k to go

Johann and Eki are feeling pretty good.

Finishing ceremonies included 'America the Beautiful' on the fiddle.

A nice finish line crowd at Stone Mtn.

This finish line fan is very happy.

Keeping priorities straight: Good friends Freddie Rodriguez and George Hincapie and daughter wait for the podium.

Freddie leads out the sprint, 12 wide.

A welcome feed on a warm day.

Carl Menzies wins the day's first sprint and $2000.

David Millar went off the front early, and worked on his time trial skills

The peloton in Stone Mtn park.

The peloton winds through rural Georgia.

Freddie Rodriguez find himself on the front of the peloton, where he does not like to be at this stage of the race.

The honor guard at the start.

Toyota sets the pace at the front of the chase.

The day's most aggressive rider, Maarten Wynants, in the break.

Wyants leads the break into the first circuit at Stone Mtn.

Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said Friday that Ivan Basso's chances of competing in this year’s edition of the race could be hampered by a failure to resolve the Italian star’s implication in the Spanish doping affair. Basso and 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich were among dozens of cyclists implicated in Operación Puerto, which uncovered an alleged blood doping and doping network run by a doctor, Eufemiano Fuentes, in Spain. Both riders were among over a dozen banned from racing last year's Tour de France, which also ended in controversy when American winner Floyd Landis

Boogerd to retire Holland will lose another one of its biggest stars to retirement at the end of this season after Michael Boogerd says his days as a professional are winding down. The big-toothed Rabobank rider, who turns 35 next month, told Dutch journalists Thursday this will be his last season in the peloton. Erik Dekker, who along with Boogerd carried the Dutch torch in the peloton for much of the past decade, retired last year. “It’s a special moment, emotional but not dramatic,” Boogerd said at a press conference. “I want to finish this season in style starting on Sunday.” Boogerd

Lest any doubt remain about Discovery Channel’s Tour de Georgia dominance after the team took the stage win and the race lead on Thursday, the team repeated the feat Friday atop Brasstown Bald. Storming away from the peloton on the heels of an all-day breakaway, Levi Leipheimer and then Tom Danielson roared up the mountain to finish one-two. And the mountain roared back. Throngs of fans created a wall of sound up the steepest parts of the hors categorie climb to Georgia’s highest point, Brasstown Bald, at 4784 feet.

The second phase of the Spring Classics season begins Sunday with the 42nd running of the Amstel Gold Race on a 252km route of three differing but concentric circuits that begin in the city of Maastricht and end in nearby Valkenberg. Left behind with the cobbled classics are the unseasonable heat and dust of Paris-Roubaix; the weather forecast for Sunday’s race through the rolling green hills of Dutch Limburg in the southeastern Netherlands is 74 degrees and sunny. Also absent will be the majority of hard men who spent the past few weeks racing over the cobblestones of Belgium and northern

While it was another Discovery Channel dominated day at the Tour de Georgia, Colavita-Sutter Home rider Anthony Colby earned a measure of respect for the domestic ranks Friday, placing third on stage 5’s run to the top of Brasstown Bald. The climbing specialist from Durango, Colorado, made it into the day’s prominent breakaway, then held his ground while the rest of that eight-rider move were pushed out of the top five. “Honestly, I did something different,” said the 28-year-old Colby who won a pair of collegiate mountain bike racing titles in 2003 before making his move to the road. “I

It was a tough day in the saddle on Brasstown Bald – not just for the racers, but for the shooters, like our man Casey Gibson, who once again was there from start to finish. Here's what he sent home.

Plenty of climbing ahead

Leipheimer does it again

Vande Velde and Brajkovic stuck close to each other

Colby's face shows the pain of making the podium on Brasstown Bald

Raisin leads the rollout — by quite a margin

Saunier Duval on the front

The gritty Moos

Leipheimer guns it

Danielson working his way through the fans

Grajales guts it out

Jittery Joe's represents out front

Padrnos keeps an eye on the race leader

It's hungry work

It's a good day to race

And so he did

Another angle

Danielson gets busy

Devine cranking out the revs

Millar towing Simoni

The race leader and his shadow

That's all – for today

Chris Eatough appeared less of a world champion mountain bike racer than a movie star as he entered Monterey’s Golden State Theater for the debut of "24-Solo" the new feature documentary based on his 2006 season. Dressed to the nines and accompanied by his wife, Alison, Eatough received a red carpet treatment worthy of Hollywood’s best. It was Friday, April 13, the second night of the 2007 Sea Otter Classic, and exactly two years since 24-Solo’s filmmakers Ken Bell and Jason Berry debuted their first film, “Off Road to Athens” at the same theater. I stood in line to shake Eatough’s hand, and

Magnus Bäckstedt was hoping for more in Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix when he finished 47th at 9:39 back, but simply finishing the punishing “Hell of the North” tasted almost like victory for the big Swede. Bäckstedt has been cursed with bad luck and injuries since his breakthrough 2004 Roubaix victory. He missed last year’s Roubaix after crashing early in the season and then blew out his shoulder in a nasty, high-speed track racing accident in October. And then doctors found a melanoma on Bäckstedt’s chest that required two surgeries. “Stuff keeps getting thrown at me,” Bäckstedt told VeloNews.

The Discovery Channel juggernaut continued its rampage through the 2007 race season on Thursday, with American Levi Leipheimer taking victory in the Tour de Georgia’s stage 4 time trial, while teammate Janez Brajkovic moved into the overall race lead. Now, with massive climbing horsepower behind him in the form of Leipheimer and Tom Danielson, it’s all but assured that the lithe, 23-year-old Slovenian will be wearing yellow three days from now when this seven-day race finishes up in downtown Atlanta.

A Fred’s Eye View: Chris Eatough, movie star

Eatough signing posters for fans

A Fred’s Eye View: Chris Eatough, movie star

Up close and personal: Camera crews often trailed Eatough on course.

Bäckstedt has had a tough year.

Unwanted hardware: Bäckstedt just recently had this stuff removed from his shoulder

Leipheimer rides to the stage win

Brajkovic time-trialed well enough to move into the overall lead

Zabriskie zipped into second on the day

Must be 5 o'clock somewhere

Millar enjoyed the course, despite riding it blind

Baldwin was crowded out of his course preview

O'Neill knows the course well, and has the scars to prove it

The new race leader

[nid:38252]Janez Brajkovic wasn’t even supposed to be at the Tour de Georgia. Originally the lithe Slovenian climber was slotted to race Pays Basque for Discovery Channel, while Tour de France veteran Jose Rubiera was coming to America.

Britain's Mark Cavendish claimed his biggest road race win to date by outsprinting Australian ace Robbie McEwen into Schoten, Belgium, in the Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen semi-classic on Wednesday. T-Mobile's Cavendish thus succeeds Belgium's former world champion TomBoonen as the Scheldeprijs champion on the 100th anniversary of the Flemish semi-classic. The 21-year-old from the Isle of Man, who won Commonwealth Games track gold in the men's scratch race in Melbourne last year, inched past McEwen in the closing meters of the largely flat 197km race to seal a surprise

Georgia's on his mind

Cruz at Roubaix - happy to be back.

Meersman collects his first pro win

And suddenly Brajkovic looks like a contender