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The D.A. triple drivetrain

The Shimano crew is checking out ...

... Sram's entry into the road market...

The U.S. maker will offer a complete road group

Starting in 2007, Sram hits the road

Sram's new road brake

Stronglight incorporates a titanium BB in its carbon crank

Time's RXR TT: Michael Rogers' secret weapon unveiled.

Heras grabbed some bonus seconds to extend his overall lead

Trofimov takes the win

The Cricket jumps

Farrar wins his second career stage at Tour de l'Avenir

The win puts Farrar in the green jersey and fourth overall

The Cuesta escape

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

Heras and Beloki: The first, bedeviled by lackluster Tours; the latter, happy to be feeling like a bike racer again

Verbrugghe and the gang at work

Schurter saw the victory vanish along with the air in his tires

Teammate Flückiger took the runner-up spot

Schultz was content with his 17th-place finish

Stage 8: Tarragona/Rambla Nova – Lloret de Mar, 189Km

Cyclists can still race the Tour de France on the illegal drug EPO without testing positive, a top Australian doping scientist has revealed. Dr. Mike Ashenden, project manager of the international consortium Science and Industry Against Blood Doping, told The Saturday Daily Telegraph that an unreleased study shows how riders can still get away with EPO use four years after testing was introduced for the endurance-boosting protein hormone. "There have been persistent rumours over the past years that athletes have learned to manipulate their EPO injections to escape the urine test," Ashenden

A small pump of the right fist was all the emotion Roberto Heras was willing to display after crossing the finish line despite taking control of the Vuelta a España in Thursday’s sixth stage. There was nary a smile or celebration to reveal the damage the three-time defending champion delivered in just nine kilometers of Spanish asphalt. For Heras, it’s all business. “This Vuelta is just starting,” Heras said with a shrug. “It’s too early to say it’s all over after one mountain stage.” Heras’s haul included the stage win, the leader’s, mountain and combined jerseys, and Liberty got the team

Only 18 years old, Czech rider Tereza Hurikova has already begun to amass quite an impressive collection of UCI rainbow jerseys. The winner of the world junior time-trial championship in Verona last September, Hurikova added another rainbow jersey to her wardrobe Thursday by winning the world junior women’s cross-country championship in style, leading the race from beginning to end. Considering that Hurikova also led the junior XC race at world’s last year in Les Gets, France, before puncturing on the final descent, it’s clear the cycling world is looking at a rider with a very bright

Floyd Landis rode to the feed zone about halfway through Thursday’s 217km sixth stage and climbed off his bike. He stepped into one of Phonak’s team cars and drove back to the team hotel. For Landis, his 2005 Vuelta ended after less than a week. The Californian was one of the pre-race favorites, but he wasn’t feeling as well as he had hoped after putting everything into the Tour de France. “It wasn’t going well today for Floyd. He got dropped early in the race,” said Phonak sport director Juan Fernández. “Overall he wasn’t feeling like he wanted to. He thought he had recovered from the

Vuelta Stage 6As we head west towards the Mediterranean, the temperatures have droppedbut the wind and the speed at which we are racing has increased drastically.Both yesterday and today we started racing flat out as soon as the startersflag was dropped and never relented until the finish line was crossed.Yesterday's average speed was an impressive 47.5kph- I was in the breakawayfor the majority of the stage and noticed we were rarely dipping under50kph and were often up around 60. The amazing thing is we were going slightlyuphill for most of the stage.This morning I woke up feeling

Heras in a familiar color

Hurikova gets an off-road rainbow to shine alongside her time-trial title

Forsman bettered her previous best to finish ninth

Gehbauer shot away from the gun

Cares found the course shockingly steep

Heras knows it's just the beginning

Menchov missed out by 13 seconds

Danielson slipped into a chase group and limited his losses

Going up: The start in Cuenca

Piil continued his aggressive racing . . .

. . . even going it alone until the bunch gobbled him up

But then Heras got busy

Vuelta Notebook: Landis done; Casero happy; Mayo ponders future; what's next

Winning the points jersey in the Tour de France would make the season for most sprinters. But for Thor Hushovd, the stocky Norwegian who snagged the green jersey this year without winning a stage, taking a victory in Wednesday’s 176km fifth stage at the Vuelta a España is the highlight he’ll cherish most. “This is the biggest win of the year for me,” said Hushovd, who made it over a punchy climb 12km from the finish to drive home the sprint. “I won the green jersey at the Tour this year, but to win a stage in the Vuelta is very big for me.” Hushovd came off the fifth wheel and roared to a

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.Tuna Canyon: Cycling or psych-ling?Editor:Scheduling a race on road bikes down Tuna Canyon/Las Flores Canyon can only mean that insurance rates for promoters must have really dropped. Whereas its sister road on the north side of the coastal range (Stunt Road) does indeed have stretches

Italian national team coach Franco Ballerini can leave the Vuelta a España confident that Alessandro Petacchi is on track for the Madrid world championships. Somewhat surprisingly, Ballerini was still holding out judgment on the Italian sprinter. Back-to-back victories Monday and Tuesday went a long way toward shoring up his confidence in the Fassa Bortolo sprinter. “These victories give us confidence in Petacchi that we can build a team entirely around him. Because if he’s not where he needs to be, we might bring a team with two leaders,” he said. “Petacchi still needs to prove he’s

The half-dozen favorites for Sunday’s elite men’s world cross-country championship had best take notice: Spain’s Jose Antonio Hermida has come to Italy to take home the rainbow jersey. Indeed, the Spaniard earned rainbow jerseys of a sort for himself and his three relay teammates on Wednesday in Livigno, erasing a gap of nearly four four minutes as the team’s anchor man to cross the line alone, 19 seconds ahead of the home team’s elite woman, Joahnnes Schweiggl. France finished third, 30 seconds back. A world-championship staple since 1999, the team relay consists of four racers from the

He doesn’t have a huge client base or a high-tech, on-line coaching Web site, but you can’t argue with the success cycling coach Rick Crawford has achieved. The Durango, Colorado resident started out working with the likes of Lance Armstrong and Chann McRae in the 1980s, and today boasts a clientele that includes mountain-bike standout Shonny Vanlandingham, reigning USPRO champ Chris Wherry and 2005 Tour de Georgia winner Tom Danielson, who is currently riding the Vuelta a España, hoping to make it to the finish of his first grand tour. Recently VeloNews sat down with Crawford to find out

So if you go faster, is it cooler? We experimented with that idea today as we averaged almost 30mph over the course of the stage today. And the answer is, it just gets you to the finish line faster. It was still in the upper 90s today but, after the last few days, that now feels cool. I even saw some clouds today, but I still lost five pounds during the race. Michael Barry, our guy Jacob Piil and a few friends set off around the 60k mark today and I really thought that they were going to pull it off. If they had managed to stay away, it would have put Michael in the jersey with Jacob

Today, our little Discovery team supporter, Liam, got a chance to coo for daddy, as Michael went away in the early break and was virtual leader on the road for quite a while. Although, his luck ran out when the sprinters' teams decided to chase and the break of 8 riders was caught at the base of the final climb with 15 km to the finish. For Discovery, the plan was to have Benoit Joachim, Stijn Devolder and Michael cover the early breakaways and to help Max Van Heeswijk in the final sprint. The pace was high from the start and all guys commented that it felt like the Vuelta of years

Hushovd overpowers a swift bunch

Barry, shown leading Wednesday's break, hopes for a world's berth

McGee is enjoying his tenure as race leader

Heras and Sastres punched it on the climb

McGee stayed out of trouble and in the lead

Finot and Piepoli in a spot of bother

Leblacher and Piil on the move

Ardila at the head of affairs in the finale

Française des Jeux working for McGee

Crawford (left) has worked with Danielson dating back to his college days.

Crawford was very optimistic about Danielson's chances as the Vuelta neared the end of the first week.

Wherry moved to Durango to be closer to his coach.

Wherry shows off his stars-and-stripes cruiser outside his new home in Durango.

Get ready ... get set ...

Hermida and company are delighted

McConneloug awaiting her turn at the course

Crawford is also director of the successful Fort Lewis College cycling team.

Vuelta Notebook: Ballerini confident; Barry eyes world's; Gerdemann impressive; what's next

Two sprints and two victories for Alessandro Petacchi. This might be the Vuelta a España, but for the top sprinters taking part in the 232km fourth stage, the 2005 Vuelta’s longest stage played out as a preview for the September 25 road world championships in Madrid. “I was better than yesterday, so that’s encouraging,” said Petacchi, who won a wide-open charge to the line ahead of Thor Hushovd (Crédit Agricole) and Erik Zabel (T-Mobile). “This win gives me confidence that I am in good shape.” Brad McGee (FDJeux) enjoyed a relatively easy, but hot day in the leader’s jersey as a four-man

My friends, I want you to take a quick gander at this map of Tuna Canyon, a steep, narrow rut just north of balmy Malibu, California. See that squiggly dark line labeled “Tuna Canyon Road” that spins out of the park entrance? Looks a little twisty, eh? Well, that one-lane patch of asphalt drops more than 2000 feet in two miles to the ocean. Shooting down that thing on a road bike would be akin to bombing a giant-slalom ski course on a toboggan. Here’s a little write up I found online about what driving Tuna Canyon Road is like. “Owing to its narrowness and difficult sharp turns, Tuna Canyon

In Argamasilla de Alba, Spain… Danielson’s cool with itTom Danielson said he’s holding up fine under the heat of the opening stages of the 60th Vuelta a España. The Discovery Channel rider came across the line safely in the main bunch to remain 11th overall at 1:17 back. “I’m feeling good,” Danielson said at the finish line as he grabbed a drink from one of the team soigneurs. “We’re riding as a team. We’ve had no problems at all.” Danielson said he hasn’t been adversely affected by the scorching temperatures that have cooked the peloton in the opening four days of the race. The

Press Release: Follow the Vuelta and win cool stuff!If you tune into VeloNews.com's Daily Live Coverage of the Vuelta aEspana, you have a chance to win an Illes Balears team-issue helmet everyday of Spain's national tour and you might win a lightweight carbon Kuips Abyss frame set, when the peloton reaches Madrid.We're happy to announce that DPMSports.com - the sponsor of VeloNews.com's LIVE COVERAGE of the the Vuelta is giving away an Illes Balears team issue helmet by Spiuk to each of the winners of our daily contest, a name drawn at random from those who submitted the

The last few days have been tough, not because it has been fast, but rather because of the intense heat. The peloton is sluggish and the racing not very animated as a result. Only when the finish line is near does the pace pick up, the peloton becomes nervous and the racing gets exciting. Otherwise, the major objective of nearly every team has been to keep riders hydrated and not to expend too much energy. It’s easy to dig a hole too deep to climb out of when the temperatures rise over 35 degrees Celsius (95F) in the shade, of which there is little. Today’s stage was a little frustrating

Deep in the Alps of northern Italy, the village of Livigno is draped in orange. Orange ribbons hang from businesses and residences, orange posters adorn shop windows — a local bike shop’s employees have even dyed their hair orange. The chosen color of the 2005 UCI mountain-bike world championships will be visible everywhere in Livigno from the team relay on Wednesday through the elite men’s cross-country on Sunday. A small village of just 5000 residents situated between Milan, Munich and Zürich, Livigno has enthusiastically embraced the world championships it was awarded back in 2002. The

Petacchi does it the hard way after his silver train stopped a little short of the station

Express elevator to Hell, going down!

Kabush wants a top-10 at world's

So far, so good: Danielson is comfortable with the Vuelta

How hot was it?

Hot enough to keep slathering on the sunscreen

Leading the way through the Spanish sunshine

And then they were three

Joachim and Pasamontes tried a late dash, to no avail