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Di Luca aims to lock up ProTour in Zürich

Thankfully, there’s still some bike racing on tap for those true junkies who are simply can’t get enough. Three ProTour races highlight the dwindling 2005 racing calendar along with a handful of other races in Belgium and Italy to close out the racing season with the Giro di Lombardia in the middle of October. Sunday’s Züri Metzgete (or Championship of Zürich for the rest of the world) is the first of three one-day races to conclude the inaugural ProTour series. The hilly course always seems to deliver a surprising, but deserving winner. The 236km circuit course loops in and around Zürich

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Interbike 2005: News from a week in the desert

While the 2005 Interbike International Bicycle Expo has wrapped upanother busy week in Las Vegas, we're still sorting through our briefcases,hard drives and digital cameras for those things that left a big impressionon us. Here's a list of stories that our staff produced over a week inthe desert, but keep checking back, we'll be adding to the list for thenext few days.Interbike - Las Vegas '05Leaving Las VegasHighbrow saddles; Hi-Zoot technology; High-end carbonMore product; more photosOrbea:High-end bikes from the Basque countryInsidethe hall, a Day 1 photo galleryTanned,

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Inside Cycling with John Wilcockson:
Greg LeMond’s first rainbow jersey

“I’ve always felt, tactically, that I was a fairly smart rider. Everything’s timing, and you’ve got to be feeling good for that one moment when it’s gonna make the difference.” Those words could well have been spoken by Tom Boonen, who timed his effort so perfectly at last week’s world road championships in Madrid that the first time he was seen at the front of the race was when he crossed the line as the winner. But it wasn’t Boonen talking about his rainbow-jersey victory in 2005, but Greg LeMond after winning the world’s in 1983. LeMond seemed destined to become the first American to

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Friday’s EuroFile: CVV renews; Maggy’s hour; Guidi cleared; GP Zürich

It looks like Christian Vande Velde will be staying with Team CSC for at least another year. The 29-year-old confirmed to VeloNews that he reached a verbal agreement with Bjarne Riis’s red and white team Wednesday night and will likely sign the contract during this weekend’s GP Zürich to make it official. Vande Velde joined Team CSC this year along with compatriot Dave Zabriskie and rode strongly in both the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España. Despite crashing three times, Vande Velde toughed it out to help Carlos Sastre finish third overall. In other team news, Sastre has decided to

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Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood: Focus group mentality

Ah, fall is in the air here in Colorado. The evenings are growing shorter by the day, bringing with them a somewhat-forgotten crisp in the air. The leaves of the Aspen trees are changing from green to yellow, and all over town Boulder roadies can be seen breaking out the knee warmers and rediscovering their mountain bikes for the last few months of the year. Of course the Boulder mountain bikers are all smiles, prodding the roadies, ‘See? I told you riding singletrack is more fun.” Mix in an ever-growing population of cyclo-cross racers — with everyone hoping to squeeze every drop out of

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Road Gear

Interbike ’05: More product; more photos

Thecustom 11.9-pound bike on which Tyler Hamilton won the 2005 Mt. WashingtonHillclimb was on display in the Parlee booth (Parlee makes a Tyler HamiltonFoundation model, the proceeds from which go to Hamilton’s foundation).Parlee also showed a carbon bike with sculpted carbon lugs decorated withthe new superlight Alpha Q orange metallic GS-10 fork and matching Orangemetallic panels on the frame. Built up with Lightweight wheels, there washardly a steel part on it, but it was meant to evoke the steel frames ofold with sculpted lugs and painted frame panels. All Parlees can be

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Interbike ’05 – Orbea: High-end bikes from the Basque country

Produced in the heart of the Basque country, Orbea has a long history of producing carbon fiber bicycles. The company has invested heavily in monocoque molding technology and constantly refines and updates one of the broadest lines of carbon bikes in the business. The company is sure enough of its quality to offer a lifetime warranty on all of its frames, even the lightest of its carbon models.

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PRESS RELEASE – CSC extends with Cervélo

Cervélo and Team CSC extend partnershipCervélo Cycles and Riis Cycling, the management company of Team CSC, are pleased to announce that they have extended their collaboration through to 2009. The day Cervelo and Team CSC signed their first contract in August 2002, the Team was 14th in the UCI team rankings and Cervélo was just another small bike manufacturer. Today, Team CSC is the #1 team in the UCI ProTour rankings and Cervélo is generally acknowledged as one of the most innovative bike companies in the world. “Essentially that's because of our design and engineering philosophy,”

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Thursday’s Eurofile: Ballerini gets the boot: Peace Race comeback?

Italian national team coach Franco Ballerini got the boot Wednesday after the fall-out following the Madrid world championships. Paolo Bettini’s 13th was the second-worst world’s result since Giuseppe Saronni was 17th in 1983. Ballerini joined the national team in 2001 and earned two gold medals, with Mario Cipollini taking the world title in 2002 and Paolo Bettini the Olympic title in 2004. The Italians also scored a silver with Bettini in 2001 and bronze with Luca Paolini last year. That wasn’t good enough for the demanding Italians and the national cycling federation didn’t renew his

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Interbike ’05: High brow saddles; Hi-Zoot technology; High-end carbon

The heavy and retroSurely the most elegant, no-holds-barred booth at the 2005 Interbike Trade Show in Las Vegas has to bethat of Brooks Saddles. The recreation of an English sitting room (exceptfor the fact that smoking is not allowed in the show) drove home the pointof how English this product remains since its purchase and re-vitalizationby an Italian saddle company, Selle Royal.The factory remains in Smethwick, on the outskirts of Birmingham, whichis where the gawdy red carpet with yellow flowers for the booth came from.All of thesaddles remain the same, made entirely out of thick leather

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Wednesday’s EuroFile: Zajicek knocking on Euro doors; Tours ready to go their own way

By now, Phil Zajicek is somewhere in Europe checking out the sights in a 10-day trip around the continent after racing in Sunday’s world championships. The 26-year-old admitted it was tough going in the hilly 273km circuit course in Madrid after flying to Europe just three days before the race. Zajicek did his job protecting team captain Fred Rodriguez before dropping out with two laps to go. “My legs were kind of blocked, but I was there to keep Freddie out of the wind as long as possible,” he said. “When the attacks started, it just blew up the bunch.” Zajicek’s season is over, and after

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Interbike ’05: Bucking Bull at Bootleg

As Day 2 dawned on the most fun part of Interbike, namely riding cool bikes all over the great trails in Bootleg Canyon, the mechanical bull waited, its single horn barely attached but its pride and determination intact. Soon enough, in Yakima’s Bucking for IMBA promotion, one attendee after another came to be spun and tossed about by it while hanging onto a little stub of rope, all under the laughing gaze of people wearing pink foam Yakima-labeled cowboy hats. And sure enough, every would-be bull rider found themselves on his or her back soon enough, thrown off into an inflatable swimming

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Outdoor Demo – Day 2; Sun, wind and gears

Fighting desert heat and a big afternoon windstorm, bike manufacturers did their darndest to keep Interbike tradeshow attendees happy for the second day of Outdoor Demo Tuesday, a task made easier by offering up a ton of new and interesting equipment. Giant Bicycles has big news for 2006, two new mountain bikes based on the company’s Maestro suspension technology. Our old colleague, Andrew Juskaitis, now Giant’s communications manager, said the two new bikes are the “bookends” of the Maestro series, offering the suspension design on both cross-country and downhill models. Billed as

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Interbike ’05-Tanned, rested and ready: Ibis is back

Ibis is back and doing its thing... but this time in carbon.Tuesday marked the official return of both Ibis and its founder, ScotNicol, to the bike industry after a three-year absence. The brand thathad a devoted following in the 1990s and floundered on hard times sinceNicol sold the company in 2000.While Ibis fans have suffered the absence of a favorite, Nicol has spent the last few years most constructively: "retired and riding my bike." Not bad work if you can get it. Still Nicol has felt the itch and finally found his way back into bike biz' as a "partner" (read unpaid employee) in a

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L’Equipe reports González positive

Aitor González, the flamboyant Spanish rider who won the Tour de Suisse in June, could be the latest star rider caught up in the anti-doping web. The online edition of the French sports daily L’Equipe is reporting that González failed a control for unnamed banned substance during the Vuelta a España. González, who won the 2002 edition of the Vuelta, abandoned this year’s race with three stages to go. Officials from the Spanish cycling federation would not comment on the case while officials from Euskaltel-Euskadi, where González raced this season after two sub-par years with Fassa Bortolo,

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Interbike ’05: Inside the hall, a Day 1 photo gallery

Interbike’s International Expo opened Tuesday, with more than 10,000 attendees swarming in among next season’s bikes on the red carpets of the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas. After two dusty days of testing product at the Outdoor Demo in nearby Bootleg Canyon, the show moved indoors to get down to business. More than 10,000 buyers for about 3500 bike shops have registered to check out the 2006 wares that some 750 companies — representing more than 1000 brands— have on display. The business they do here determines what will be cropping up in your local shop in the coming months. That

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