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The waiting game: Pereiro is frustrated with the slow wheels of justice.

Team TARGETRAINING

The ongoing feud between the grand tours and the UCI turned nastier this week when Giro d’Italia organizers said they will guarantee invitations to only 18 of the 20 teams in the ProTour league for the upcoming edition of the corsa rosa. The decision shows just how deep the divisions are between cycling’s most important race organizers and the sport’s governing body. While there’s been no official word from the UCI, a strong reaction is expected. Giro organizer RCS Sport said new ProTour team Unibet.com won’t be allowed to race the season’s first grand tour (May 12-June 3) and said the

You can’t rest on your laurels in the world of cycling. The old adage that you’re only as good as your last race appears to apply doubly in the product world these days. Barely have consumers had time to get their hands on the stuff introduced at Interbike, when new, lighter, faster (and probably pricier) product is making early appearances in the peloton. This year’s Mallorca Challenge turned into a prime opportunity for manufacturers to try out new gear on teams and to offer reasonably orchestrated “sneak peeks” at the some beautiful product that will likely appear in shops by year’s

When half a dozen of the world’s top professional cycling teams showedup for the start of the inaugural Amgen Tour of California in February2006, they didn’t quite know what to expect. Was this going to be an early-seasonevent only half-heartedly contested by Tour de France riders nervous aboutpeaking too soon? Or would the stars allow their lieutenants to race forthe win while using the race as training for themselves?In the end, the efforts made by overall winner Floyd Landis and hismain challengers DaveZabriskie, BobbyJulich, GeorgeHincapie, LeviLeipheimer and Cadel Evans proved they could

SIMON SPOTLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT to Publish Floyd Landis’ POSITIVELY FALSEFor Immediate ReleaseFebruary 14, 2007 (New York City). Simon Spotlight Entertainment(SSE), an imprint of Simon & Schuster, announced today that it willpublish a book by cyclist Floyd Landis, the 2006 Tour de France winnerwho was accused three days after winning the race of taking banned performanceenhancing drugs and who is currently fighting these allegations. In POSITIVELYFALSE, Landis will tell his compelling life story–from being born intoa strict Pennsylvania Mennonite family where he cultivated an

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18: PROLOGUEINDIVIDUAL TIME TRIALPresented by Union BankSTART: Justin Herman Plaza,San Francisco, 1 p.m. to 3:23 p.m.DISTANCE: 1.9 milesLifestyle Festival Presented by Health NetHOURS: 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19: STAGE1Presented by HerbalifeSTART: Sausalito, 11 a.m.DISTANCE: 96.7 milesSPRINTS: Point Reyes, Tomales, Bodega BayFINISH: Santa RosaETA: 3:13 p.m. to 3:50 p.m.Lifestyle Festival Presented by Health NetHOURS: 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20: STAGE2START: Santa Rosa, 10 a.m.DISTANCE: 116.3 milesSPRINTS: Winters, DavisFINISH:

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,

Tour Wars: Angelo Zomegnan (Giro d'Italia), Christian Prudhomme (Tour de France) and Victore Cordero (Vuelta a Espana) are standing firm against the ProTour

Zomegnan may invite as many as six wild-cards to the Giro.

This year's race to the sun will be a tough one.

Tech Report: It’s only February, but look at all the new stuff

The Astana team was sporting new wheels, too.

Scenery like this and the chance for good weather may make the Tour of California an early season draw for years to come.

2007 Amgen Tour of California - stage details and host cities

2007 Amgen Tour of California - stage details and host cities

2007 Amgen Tour of California - stage details and host cities

2007 Amgen Tour of California - stage details and host cities

Not much has been revealed about the new stage race due to take place on the East Coast this August, but the Montréal-Boston Tour is likely to be the biggest cycling event New England has seen since the second Tour de Trump finished in Boston in May of 1990. The eight-day, 1200km race will feature four days in Canada’s Québec province, followed by one day in Vermont, two days in New Hampshire, with the finale in Massachusetts. Race organizer Daniel Manibal, who also runs the women’s Montréal World Cup race and Tour du Grand Montréal stage race in June, has indicated that there will be a

For the past few days, VeloNews European correspondent Andrew Hood has been chasing feature stories on the Balearic Island of Mallorca, a big draw for professional cycling teams hoping to shake out their winter kinks under sunny skies. The Mallorca Challenge serves as an early season warm-up that boasts an unusual format, allowing riders to compete in individual races or to vie for an overall title. This weekend saw a victory by ace sprinter Oscar Freire, who hasn’t raced since August. The three-time world champion hopes for a big year after injuries have forced him to miss the 2005 and 2006

Less than a week after SRAM announced a voluntary recall of a limited numberof Force frontbrake calipers, the company has expanded the recall to include rearcalipers. The expansion is due to incorrect grain structure in the titaniumused to manufacturer the caliper mounting bolts of both front and rearbrakes.SRAM urges consumers not to ride a bicycle equipped with the affectedbrakes. The mounting bolt can fail causing the brake caliper to detachfrom the frame of fork.SRAM assures its partners that the issue has been corrected and thatit has ended its relationship with the suspect supplier. The

February 13, 2007: This week’s issue of VeloNews includes a 54-page guide for the 2007 Sea Otter Classic, to be held April 12 – 15, 2007. The Sea Otter Classic is a four-day ‘Celebration of Sport’ welcoming enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels, from toddler to senior, recreational rider to world-class pro athlete. The festival hosts a non-stop schedule of events-- road, cross-country and gravity events for amateurs and professionals, road and mountain bike tours for non-competitive riders, and also features the world’s largest outdoor consumer bike exposition. In addition to planning

David de la Fuente only found he was going to the 2006 Tour de France a week before the start, but the plucky 25-year-old Spaniard made the most of the opportunity. The Saunier Duval-Prodir rider snagged the best climber’s jersey in the third stage only to recapture it in the Pyrenees and nearly ride it all the way to Paris before Michael Rasmussen surged late to take it away for good. His panache earned him the most combative rider’s prize and lots of attention from the Spanish press. “It was an amazing experience and once that I took advantage of from the start,” De la Fuente told VeloNews.

Angel Fire ski resort sits in a secluded corner of northern New Mexico, about two hour’s drive from Santa Fe. A far cry from the mega resorts in neighboring Colorado, Angel Fire prides itself as a winter and summertime playground where the crowds are light and the price of admission is low. Like many other ski areas, Angel Fire hosts mountain-bike races in the summer — the Chile Challenge is a regular stop on the Mountain States Cup. In 2005, the venue hit the pinnacle of its mountain-bike racing when it hosted a stop on the UCI World Cup — the first American World Cup since 2001. Angel Fire

Montréal-Boston Tour route set for August

T-Mobile's Patrik Sinkewitz is happy to be back at Mallorca. The team decamped here for more than two weeks in January and Monday's start was loaded with German fans. Mallorca's population includes 20 percent German-speaking residents.

Peter Van Petegem made his Quick Step-Innergetic debut on Sunday. The Belgian classics tough-man will be the team's wild-card during the northern classics this year, playing joker to Paolo Bettini and Tom Boonen.

Reigning world mountain bike champion Gunn-Rita Dahle enjoyed the action Sunday. She will stay for nearly a month in Mallorca to prepare for the 2007 season.

Jose Luis Chechu Rubiera doesn't look too concerned that sponsor Discovery Channel is leaving at the end of the 2007 season.

2006 Milan- San Remo winner Filippo Pozzato, in his new Liquigas kit, was hanging with a few of his old Quick Step buddies.

Santi Perez in his new Relax kit.

Oscar Freire looks pensive before his first race since winning the Vatenfall Classics in August. Plagued by back problems, the three-time world champion said he's riding without pain again.

Freire squirts past the right side of the peloton to win Sunday's Mallorca Challenge opener. He's hoping to regain his form after missing world's for two years running.

Riders spin by with Mallorca's towering cathedral in the background in Sunday's opening stage. The cathedral dates back to the 14th century and is one of the largest in Spain.

The Cat. 2 Coll de Soller will be one of the steep climbs featured in Tuesday's and Wednesday's climbing stages. This year's route includes 15 rated climbs and cuts through the spectacular Tramuntana mountains along Mallorca's rugged

Dutch veteran Michael Boogerd is still going strong. VeloNews spied the big-toothed classics star leading Rabobank on an intense training ride along the mountainous rugged coastline Saturday.

Who says the peloton hasn't gone international? Astana is the first top-level pro team registered in Kazakhstan.

The brother and sister of Isaac Galvez were overcome with emotion in a special homage to the late Illes Balears rider ahead of Sunday's start. Galvez died in a crash during a track race in November. He won two stages in last year's Mallorca C

David Millar is in Mallorca, working to hone his TT skills

Can he make another run at the climber's jersey?

Mancebo found a place to land.

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. We had a tough time picking a winner this week, we can assure you. There were two images that stood out in our minds and we kept going back and forth. Fortunately, it was a letter from a reader that settled the question for us. As reader Erin Hinnov remarked, “I like the stark imagery of the White Rim photo, but the story about Josh brought me to tears. If I had to go with just the artistry of the photos, I vote White

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,

International Olympic Committee officials have rebuked World Anti-DopingAgency (WADA) chairman Dick Pound for comments critical of cyclist LanceArmstrong, according to newspaper reports. The Los Angeles Times and New York Times reported thatthe IOC Ethics Commission censure was dated February 2 and came followinga complaint filed in 2005 by the American, a seven-time Tour de Francewinner."It's not common that the IOC comes out and issues a reprimand or awarning about one of their members at all. This is as close to a censureas it could get," Armstrong told the New York Times, calling

German attacker Stefan Schumacher says his planned Tour de France debut later this season will help him decide where his future lies. If he can get through the Tour in good shape, he might try to focus on improving his skills to perhaps battle for the overall prize in the future. If not, he’ll instead focus his energy into winning stages and shining in the classics. It all depends on how things go in July. “I don’t know if I can ever challenge for the Tour, but what happens this year will tell me a lot,” Schumacher told VeloNews before the start of Monday’s stage at the Mallorca Challenge.

February is the perfect time to come out to Arizona and test the early-season fitness. The temperature is ideal, the variety of terrain staggering, and the level of competition at the early races is typically top-notch. Pros, too, flock to Tucson for their warm weather training tune-up, and will often race a few local events before joining their teams for the full-on race calendar. Although the caliber of racing is typically high, participants were caught a bit off guard when Tom Danielson (Discovery Channel) and his wife Kristin (Velo Bella) showed up for the Bartlett Lake Time Trial on

In the 20 years that the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame has existed, morethan 100 individuals have been inducted — both in person or posthumously.Their names vary from 1899 world sprint champion Major Taylor to three-timeTour de France winner Greg LeMond. And now you can nominate your favoriterider for consideration in the “class of ’07.” The main requirements are that nominees be U.S. citizens and have notraced for five years — so that rules out nominating shoo-ins like LanceArmstrong and Marty Nothstein for another few years. There are actuallyfive categories of competitors eligible for the

White Rim Trail - Canyonlands National Park Utah

Josh

Schumacher wants to exploit his strengths

Calvente hopes he and the Agritubel team get invited to the Tour

Danielson gets ready to roll

The Danielsons look to be enjoying the warm AZ weather

Danielson in the desert

Local TT stud Drew Miller recovering after his effort, and heading out on the course to check out Tommy D’s ride

Danielson off to a strong start

Kristen lines up

Hall of Fame seeks nominations

With the 2007 Tour de Langkawi now a memory, it’s time to consider the event’s future. Now 12 and counting, Malaysia’s national tour almost didn’t happen this year. Bad debt and the inevitable bad blood that follows had the race on life support for most of 2006. Only an 11th-hour bailout from the government — and some hard work by the Malaysian National Cycling Federation — saved the race from a fate that’s claimed plenty of its brethren over the years. These are expensive propositions that don’t yield the more quantifiable revenue streams of stadium sports. Ask a dozen people whether the

Crédit Agricole’s Anthony Charteau wrapped up the overall victory at the Tour de Langkawi on Sunday as Alberto Loddo added yet another win to his tally, equaling the record of five stage wins in a single year.

Basque climbing sensation Iban Mayo once had the cycling world on edge. With his dramatic stage victory at Alpe d’Huez in the 2003 Tour de France and his impressive victory at Dauphiné Libéré in 2004, Mayo was hyped as potential candidate to dethrone Lance Armstrong at the Tour. But Mayo fell on hard times, abandoning the 2004 Tour in humiliation and struggling through health issues in 2005. He rebounded in 2006 with a stage victory at La Toussuire in the Dauphiné and overall victory at the Tour of Burgos to show glimpses of the former giant-killer This year, the Basque climber is hoping

Langkawi's dedicated crew celebrates another edition

The bike in Malaysia is more tool than anything else...

... and racing is still something of a novelty.

Will he race?

Giant-Asia takes the team prize.

Loddo adds another check to his win column

The final stage takes the peloton through...

The peloton rolls off for an 80km closer to a 10-day tour

... an assortment of Kuala Lampur neighborhoods.

Mayo is sporting a new kit this year

Anthony Charteau is well on his way to winning the Le Tour de Langkawi overall title, following a largely tactical ride from Putrajaya to Seremban on Saturday. Although the ninth – and penultimate – stage of the Tour put the Crédit Agricole rider up against the winding roads of Kuala Klawang, he kept up with the leaders over the course of day’s many climbs to maintain his 1:02 over Jose Serpa (Serramenti PVC Diquigiovannio), who won Thursday’s decisive stage to the Genting Higlands.

While soon-to-be overall winner Anthony Charteau and four-time stage winner Alberto Loddo will be the names most remembered from the 2007 Tour de Langkawi, arguably the most newsworthy accomplishment belongs to the Giant Asia Racing Team. By placing three riders in the top 30 on Saturday, the Taiwan-based squad all but locked up the 10-day race’s team title. And we are not talking about the Asian team title. They are going to beat everyone. Giant Asia entered stage 9 one second back of Charteau’s Crédit Agricole team, but more than made up that deficit during Saturday’s 173km run from

Some of cycling’s biggest names are scheduled to line up Sunday for the opening stage of the five-day Mallorca Challenge, but a breakout of the flu is keeping some top stars away from the annual Spanish season opener. A nasty bout of flu is taking its toll on the European peloton, with such riders as Oscar Pereiro and two-time champ Alejandro Valverde (both Illes Balears) and Gilbert Simoni (Saunier Duval-Prodir) all doubtful for Sunday’s 100km opener along Palma de Mallorca´s historic bay. "Several of our riders have been very sick with the flu and they’ve been sent home," Illes Balears

Elite USA Cycling Coach Presents Base Building Clinics in Santa CruzThomas Chapple will discuss early-season training techniques fromhis new bookBoulder, CO, February, 2007 - This February, elite USA Cyclingand Ultrafit coach Thomas Chapple will discuss the concepts of base trainingin Santa Cruz, CA. Cyclists often think that preparing for next seasonmeans piling on the miles, but long rides at high or even medium intensitiestoo early in the season can actually do more harm than good. In his comprehensiveguide BaseBuilding for Cyclists: A New Foundation for Endurance and Performance,Chapple

Tinkoff gets its first win

Saturday's ride appears to have given the boys from Giant Asia a lock on the team title

No one was conceding anything to Charteau on Saturday.