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Then it was Valjavec, Contador and Rebellin fighting it out for the win

Contador gets it

Megan and Gu

The artist currently known as Brintoni

Our latest reader-submitted PhotoGallery is now ready for your viewing pleasure. Of course, a new gallery also means the naming of the winner of our most recent contest. Like this week, we received a wealth of images from the Tour of California, among them a great shot of George Hincapie riding at the front of the peloton as the race works its way up Balcom Canyon. C. Starr Hathaway’s “Wristy Business” captures the heroic effort put in by one the hardest-working men in the peloton, as Hincapie rides nearly 100 miles with a broken wrist. Congratulations, C. Starr. Please drop us a note

You can’t blame Tom Boonen if he shot his arms up in triumph thinking that he had won a hard-fought, rising sprint into Maurs at the end of the lumpy 215.5km third stage at Paris-Nice. When he heard over his course radio that Russian rouleur Alexandr Kolobnev -- the lone holdout from the day’s four-man breakaway -- was dangling 20 seconds off the front with 7km to go, he assumed like everyone else his Quick Step henchmen would finish off the job to set up the mass gallop.

Many pros traveled to warmer environs early this in 2007 for early seasonteam training camps and plenty of quality miles on the open road. You mayalso have your own travel plans sometime over the next few weeks, in orderto train and get a jumpstart on your own race preparation. Chances arethat this cycling vacation includes plenty of restaurant eating, includingthe fast food, diners, and a variety of ethnic cuisines. Like the proswho have plenty of roadside eating experience, you too can make good foodchoices and prevent greasy platter predicaments that would normally thwartyour body

Australian Robbie McEwen held off two of his biggest rivals to win the first stage of Tirreno-Adriatico Wednesday in Civitavecchia, Italy. Predictor-Lotto’s 34-year-old sprint specialist, winner of 11 stages in the Tour de France, pulled clear of Oscar Freire (Rabobank) and Thor Hushovd (Crédit Agricole) on the last curve with one of his trademark bursts of speed to win the 160km race in 4 hours, 38 minutes and 24 seconds. Freire, a former three-time world champion, crossed second with the Norwegian Hushovd third. McEwen said he called on his experience of two years ago to help him win the

The ongoing Spanish doping investigation, Operación Puerto, entered a new phase on Wednesday when a Madrid magistrate's court lodged an appeal against the case's dismissal. The inquiry, which came to light in May 2006 when police raids discovered an alleged blood-doping network run by the Madrid-based Dr Eufemiano Fuentes, considered to be the mastermind behind the network, was thrown out due to a lack of evidence. The probe uncovered an alleged doping network said to involve 58 cyclists out of some 200 athletes being treated by the doctor. Nonetheless, on Monday presiding

North American pro road racers and team staff, as well as racing fansaround the country, can breath a collective sigh of relief as officialsfrom both the Tourde Georgia and the U.S. Open Cycling Championships have confirmed that their respective events are all systems go. As reportedtwo weeks ago both events, the second and third on the USA CyclingPro Tour calendar, were without title sponsorship and facing large financialhurdles with their respective start dates quickly approaching. And whileneither race organizer has announced a high-dollar title sponsor, bothsay they are confident their

Hincapie-Wristy Business in Balcom Canyon

Kolobnev guts it out for the stage win

Baldato leads the four escapees

The Dordogne River

A long line through the meadows

Liquigas in pursuit

Kolobnev in full flight

Pellizotti gets to keep yellow for another day

And Kolobnev gets to celebrate a narrow, narrow triumph

It's gonna happen, after all.

I spent a couple of days last week in Las Vegas, with Paul Lew, ridingand inspecting his new superlight Pro VT-1 wheels. The pair I rode weighedless than – get this - 850 grams for the set. That’s not a claimed weight, either. I pulled the tires off after theride, checked the scale by using my standard calibration unit (otherwiseknown as a good old American quarter) and then measured the front at 350.5grams and the rear at 501.1. Keep in mind that includes what I’d guessto be about 10-15 grams of rim cement on the wheels. Now here comes the hard part. The wheels cost $5000 a pair with

[nid:37751]The 177km second stage of the eight-day Paris-Nice started with a lot of high hopes. David Millar was talking a wire-to-wire yellow jersey run. Thomas Voekler almost held off the peloton to steal a dramatic breakaway win. Everyone else was looking at Daniele Bennati and Tom Boonen. No one was looking at Franco Pellizotti.

Italian cyclist Danilo Di Luca has been ruled out of the Tirreno-Adriatico one-week stage race, his Liquigas team announced Tuesday. The 31-year-old rider, a former winner of the ProTour series, has been ruled out after he and teammate Leonardo Bertagnolli came down with flu. Their places will go to Francesco Failli and Finn Kjell Carlstrom. The team will be captained by Filippo Pozzato, the recent winner of the Het Volk semi-classic last week. Di Luca signaled his early season form by winning the Milan-Turin one-day semi-classic earlier this month. His best season was in 2005 when he won

A 501.1-gram rear wheel

It is very tough to cut boron fiber – and don't get any of the splinters in your fingers.

Zinn feels really comfortable in a hotel that welcomes bikes in the lobby

Zinn and Paul Lew take the Pro VT-1s out for a test ride.

Pellizotti takes stage, lead at Paris-Nice

Pellizotti takes the stage and the lead

Fischer takes his turn at the front of the break

Fischer and Voeckler soldier on

Saunier Duval chases

Lampre lends a hand

Millar sees that yellow jersey slip off his shoulders . . .

. . . and onto those of Pellizotti, who took the podium alongside Raymond Poulidor

[nid:37738]It was expected to be a showdown between Daniele Bennati and Tom Boonen in the first stage of Paris-Nice, but it was French sprinter Jean-Patrick Nazon who surprised everyone with a long charge to the line in Buzançais on Monday. Nazon, who’s been all but invisible since winning a pair of Tour de France stages in 2003-04, burst down the left side of the peloton after sniffing out a hole with 200 meters to go.

So here I am in Dalton, Georgia, the town where I was born and raised. Asyou probably know by now, my life was thrown into turmoil last April whenIcrashed in the opening stage of the Circuit de la Sarthe. It’s been a tough, tough year, but I count my blessings every singleday. After I began to emerge from the coma, I eventually learned that Ihad been within minutes of dying last year. I was lucky to be in one ofthe world’s greatest hospitals, with one of the world’s best neurosurgeons,who was not only on staff, but in the building when it counted. You can’tget much luckier than that.As I

Puerto inquiry tossed outA Spanish doping investigation that implicated 58 top cyclists two days prior to the Tour de France last year has been dismissed from court, Spanish judicial sources said Monday. The case, which came to light in May 2006 when police raids discovered an alleged blood-doping network run by a Madrid-based doctor, Eufemiano Fuentes, was thrown out due to a lack of evidence and the fact that there was no Spanish anti-doping law when the inquiry came to light. Residing magistrate Antonio Serrano ruled that five people at the center of the affair, including Fuentes, were

At a very unexpected moment at mid-stage today in West Flanders I realized that bicycle racers can occasionally resemble ancient gladiators. When and why did this pop into my head? When: 130km into a windy, crazy-dangerous race at 500 watts bouncing over Belgian pavé. Why: I looked down at an unidentifiable rider, unconscious, his face awash in a mix of mud and blood, yet all I cared about was shoving people out of my way and getting back on my chariot and around this “obstacle.” A minute later I was at absolute maximum sustained effort and would stay that way for a few more moments,

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you havea comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen incycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write toWebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name andhome town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writersare encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month.The letters published here contain the opinions of the submittingauthors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, policies or positionsof VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, InsideCommunications,

Nazon wins at Paris-Nice, Millar stays in yellow

Raisin at the Tour of California

Nazon celebrates

As does Millar

A lovely day for a ride

The break

Saunier Duval on patrol

Lampre lends a hand

Tilting at windmills

Danielson and Leipheimer motoring along

Tom Boonen starts Sunday’s Paris-Nice as a man on a mission. The Belgian sprinter is building his form for his annual assault on the spring classics, where he has ruled with an iron fist the past two seasons. A back-to-back winner of the Tour of Flanders and the rare Flanders-Roubaix double in 2005, Boonen entered the 2007 season with new motivation and maturity. After an emotional and demanding 2006 season that saw him shine as the world champion, Boonen said he’s more than happy not to have to carry the burden of the rainbow jersey. That’s not to say Boonen is any less ambitious this

[nid:37731]Last year, David Millar underwent wind-tunnel testing for the first time and settled into a new, sleeker aerodynamic position that on paper should have made him faster. Instead, the Scot found he actually lost power — so this season he chucked the scientific posture and replaced it with his tried-and-true position, honed over years of trial and error.

Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) won the Tour of Murcia on Sunday after finishing safely in the bunch during the final stage, a 151km leg from Ceuti to Murcia. Danilo Napolitano (Lampre-Fondital) won the finale, outsprinting Graeme Brown (Rabobank) and José Joaquin Rojas (Caisse d’Epargne). Valverde crossed 52nd to take the overall, 35 seconds ahead of runner-up Angel Vicioso (Relax-Gam). Manuel Lloret (Fuerteventura-Canari) was third at 52 seconds. Valverde, who also won Murcia in 2004, had practically secured overall victory with a triumphant show of force in Saturday's

The United States Mountain Bike Team swept the elite women's podium and collected a total of eight medals - two of them gold - at the Continental Mountain Bike Championships in Nequen, Argentina, on Sunday. In a major step towards securing the maximum number of start positions at the 2008 Olympic Games for the U.S., Georgia Gould (Ketchum, Idaho/Luna) led the elite women's contingent with a win in the 24-kilometer race ahead of silver medalist Mary McConneloug (Chilmark, Mass./Kenda-Seven) and bronze medalist Willow Koerber (Horseshoe, N.C./Subaru-Gary Fisher). Heather Irmiger

Henk Vogels (Toyota-United) took his first win in three years on Sunday at the Tower District Criterium, the final stage of Bentley's Central Valley Classic. Multi-time national criterium champion Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home) celebrated her second win in three days when she flew across the line to take the women's crit. Alejandro Acton (Colavita-Sutter Home) and Ricardo Escuela (SuccessfulLiving.com) powered to the second and third spots behind an ebullient Vogels, while Suzanne de Goede (T-Mobile) and Kori Seehafer (Team Lipton) secured the second and third spots behind Pic. Ben

Boonen had a hectic but successful year as world champ

Millar hopes to take the jersey all the way to Nice

Millar's old time-trial position was good enough for victory

Young Kreuzinger nearly stole the victory

Joly slotted into third

Leipheimer was the top American in sixth

Paris-Nice, the first major stage race of the season, gets under way on Sunday without 2006 champion Floyd Landis and the Unibet.com team. The seven-stage, 1260km Race to the Sun will start with a 4.7km prologue around the Parisian suburb of Issy-Les-Moulineaux . Belgium's Tom Boonen (Quick Step-Innergetic)) and Italian rival Daniele Bennati (Lampre-Fondital) are expected to compete for the sprint finishes in the early stages. The riders will then make their way towards the south coast, with the seventh and final 129km stage being held in and around Nice on March 18. Being a short but

The Operación Puerto blood-doping inquiry has been dropped due to a lack of evidence that a crime was committed under Spanish law, the Spanish press reported Saturday. Spanish daily El Mundo said Judge Antonio Serrano had dismissed the case, ruling that “there was no law that penalized doping practices under Spanish legislation at the time this case was begun.” The reports said that while Serrano had determined that blood doping occured, there was no evidence of the practice harming riders' health. That was the requirement under previous Spanish law for charges to be filed against

Spaniard Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) won the fourth stage of Spain’s Tour of Murcia and seized the overall lead on Saturday. Valverde covered the 23.3km individual time trial between Alhama de Murcie and Aledo in 32 minutes, 57 seconds, beating José Angel Gomez (Saunier Duval-Prodir) by 31 seconds and Angel Vicioso (Relax-Gam) by a further four seconds. He now has 35 seconds on Vicioso and 52 on Manuel Lloret (Fuerteventura-Canari) going into Sunday’s final stage, a comparatively flat 151km leg from Ceuti to Murcie. Di Luca wins Milan-TurinDanilo Di Luca (Liquigas) outsprinted

Ben Jacques-Maynes (Priority Health) is two for two in Bentley’s Central Valley Classic, adding a win in Saturday’s individual time trial to his victory in Friday’s stage-1 road race and solidifying his grip on the overall lead. Meanwhile, 1994 national time-trial champion Christine Thorburn (Webcor Builders) rode to victory in the women’s race, vaulting from 16th place to take the white-and-black leader’s jersey from Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home). Australian Rory Sutherland (Health Net-Maxxis) was just four seconds slower than Jacques-Maynes, moving into second overall at 18 seconds

LAMPRE-FONDITAL1. Vila Errandonea Patxi (Sp)2. Fabio Baldato (I)3. Daniele Bennati (I)4. Claudio Corioni (I)5. David Loosli (Swi)6. Massimiliano Mori (I)7. Daniele Righi (I)8. Tadej Valjavec (SLO)CAISSE D’EPARGNE11. Joaquim Rodriguez (Sp)12. Vicente Garcia Acosta (Sp)13. David Lopez Garcia (Sp)14. Aitor Perez Arrieta (Sp)15. Francisco Perez Sanchez (Sp)16. Nicolas Portal (F)17. Vicente Reynes (Sp)18. Luis Sanchez (Sp)EUSKALTEL - EUSKADI21. Samuel Sanchez (Sp)22. Andoni Aranaga (Sp)23. Mikel Astarloza (Sp)24. Markel Irizar (Sp)25. Alan Perez (Sp)26. Ruben Perez (Sp)27. Ivan Velasco (Sp)28.

Last year's rivals for the overall: Landis, Sanchez and Vila

Valverde looks good for the win with only one stage remaining

Australian Graeme Brown (Rabobank) won Friday’s third stage of the Tour of Murcia in Spain. Brown crossed ahead of compatriot Baden Cooke (Unibet.com) and Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) to win the 146km stage between Puerto Lumbreras and San Pedro del Pinatar. Cooke, meanwhile, took the overall lead from José Joaquin Rojas, winner of Wednesday’s first stage. Brown and Danilo Napolitano (Lampre-Fondital) sit second and third overall, respectively. High winds forced the cancellation of Thursday’s second stage. Riders, commissaires and race organizers agreed that winds as strong as

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you havea comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen incycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write toWebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name andhome town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writersare encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month.The letters published here contain the opinions of the submittingauthors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, policies or positionsof VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, InsideCommunications,

Unibet.com has failed in an appeal to have Paris-Nice race organizers include them in the field for this year's race, a source told AFP on Friday. The Belgian-Swedish cycling team is one of 20 ProTour teams that are supposed to have guaranteed admittance to all ProTour races. However, ASO, the company that runs Paris-Nice and the Tour de France among other events, refused to comply with UCI rules and opted not to invite Unibet.com to the Race to the Sun, which begins with a prologue on Sunday. "We began a procedure at the Nanterre (Paris region) court to try to be included in the

The Union Cycliste Internationale launched its latest initiative in its battle to eradicate doping from the sport. Labeled “100% Against Doping,” UCI president Pat McQuaid said the aim of the new program is to “chase all drug-using cheats from cycling,” a which has suffered from nearly a decade of uninterrupted doping scandals. "Our objective is clear - to give cycling the best anti-doping program in the world," said McQuaid. "Only clean riders should win; those who cheat should be caught; those considering trying to cheat should be discouraged. Together we can eliminate doping from our

Boulder, Colorado – Inside Communications announced today the appointmentsof a new Publisher, Editor and Advertising Sales Director for its flagshippublication, VeloNews. Andy Pemberton has been promoted from InteractiveBrand Director to Publisher. Ben Delaney has been promoted from ManagingEditor to Editor. And Kevin Burnette has been promoted from Senior AccountExecutive to Advertising Director.As Publisher of VeloNews, Pemberton is leading the largest and mostsuccessful competitive cycling magazine. He will be responsible for businessdevelopment, sales and marketing for the entire VeloNews

Under sunny California skies in the small Sierra foothills town of Raymond, Ben Jacques-Maynes (Priority Health) and Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home) donned the leaders' jerseys after winning the first stage of Bentley's Central Valley Classic, the second race on this year's NRC calendar. Jacques-Maynes crossed solo in the men's 102.5-mile race, though Eric Wohlberg (Symmetrics) was bearing down on him in the final kilometer. "Wohlberg was closing fast,” Jacques-Maynes said. “This last 1K was the slowest 1K I've ever done. I was definitely hurting by that point. At the

Hincapie, after riding 100 miles with a broken arm.

UCI officials and riders discuss the wind in Murcia

Brown wins

Race leader Cooke

A healthy North American presence will highlight next week’s Paris-Nice with no less than eight riders from five teams represented. The robust contingent reflects the continued strong position of U.S. and Canadian riders in the European peloton. Paris-Nice will mark the continental arrival of most of the Americans. Tyler Farrar (Cofidis) has been racing in Europe for nearly a month while Michael Barry (T-Mobile) was in Mallorca for his team presentation and training camp last month. Tour of California champion Levi Leipheimer, joined by Discovery Channel teammate Tom Danielson, will be

French cycling federation president Jean Pitallier is calling for former UCI president Hein Verbruggen to completely remove himself from the leadership of cycling’s international governing body. Pitallier told the French sports daily L’Equipe that Verbruggen, who still holds influential positions on the ProTour council and as a UCI vice president, is largely responsible for the current crisis in professional cycling. Verbruggen, noted Pitallier, was the driving force behind the creation of the ProTour, the top-tier race schedule that is now at the center of a major dispute between the UCI