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Portuguese rider Hugo Sabido (Paredes-Beira Támega) upset some biggernames to take the final stage and the overall title as the Tour of theAlgarve wrapped up Sunday. A year ago, U.S. Postal Service swept to victory with Floyd Landis.Discovery Channel tried to use the same strategy with José LuisRubiera, but “Chechu” couldn’t quite match the pace set by Sabido in thefinal ramps of the Cat. 2 climb in the 165km stage from Lagoa to Alto doMalhao. Rubiera earned a spot on the final podium thanks to his efforts, takingthird just behind Stuart O’Grady (Cofidis), who finished second overallto

The peloton was sparsely populated by the end

T-Mobile wasn't content to just phone it in as the Valley of the Sun stage race kicked off Friday with the Trek Individual Time Trial, held on a 12-mile course at Sun Valley Parkway west of Phoenix. Despite the unseasonably rainy weather, Kristin Armstrong won the race against the clock in 25:58 – and she was joined on the podium by two teammates, Kimberly Baldwin and Mari Holden. And three other T-Mobiles – Kori Seehafer, Rebecca Much and Lara Proepsch – made it into the top 10. In the men’s race, Brian Sheedy (Advantage Benefits) took top honors in 23:21, followed by Ryan Blickem

World sprint champion Theo Bos claimed his second win of the Sydney UCI World Cup track cycling meet in Sydney with victory over Australian Jobie Dajka in the sprint on Saturday. Bos won his final 2-0 and led another night of Dutch success at the Dunc Gray Velodrome with compatriots Marlijn Binnendijk winning the women's individual pursuit and Yvonne Hijgenaar claiming the 500m time trial. Bos, who won the world title in Melbourne last May, beat eight-time world champion Laurent Gane of France for the keirin title on Friday's opening night along with Levi Heimans win in the

Eisel back on top in AlgarveA day after slipping back into the overall lead, Austria’s Bernhard Eisel (FDJeux.com) emphatically won his second stage of the Tour of the Algarve to confirm his lead with one day to go. Eisel held off Stuart O’Grady (Cofidis) and Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner) to take the victory and consolidate his hold on the overall lead. The win marked Eisel’s third win during his early season stop in Portugal, with one stage win in the GP Costa Azul and two in Algarve. Sunday’s finale ends with a climb, giving the climbers a chance to make up some lost time on the

Ina Teutenberg (T-Mobile) and John Murphy (Krystal-SCV) took their respective field sprints on Saturday to win the Landis Cyclery Road Race, stage 2 of the Valley of the Sun. The stage, run on a 16-mile loop in the desert near Casa Grande, south of Phoenix, was rolling to flat with a moderate climb to the finish line. Teutenberg handed T-Mobile its second consecutive stage victory in the 57-mile women’s race, beating Genevieve Jeanson and stage-1 winner Kristin Armstrong to the line. Armstrong held onto her overall lead, with teammates Kimberly Baldwin and Mari Holden second and third at

So we awoke this morning to the sound of rain again. Today (Saturday) was the 57-mile road race, held – not without some irony – in the desert of Casa Grande. The team was psyched and ready to start the day. We started with the normal team meeting where director Andrezj asked us all “so what are you going to do today team?” To which Brooke quickly replied “whatever we feel like, gosh.” I don’t think she got enough sleep last night. We decided that rain or shine we were going to race hard. Lesson Number 1 from the Rex Kwan Do School of fighting. We wanted to win and maintain our

Eisel takes the stage in the leader's jersey

The bunch barrels along

Alexei Markov (Milaneza-Maia) won the third stage of the Volta ao Algarve in Portugal on Friday, outkicking Bernard Eisel (Française des Jeux) and Hans Dekkers (Rabobank) in the bunch sprint to claim the victory. By finishing second on the 200km stage from Vila do Bispo to Lagos in southern Portugal, meanwhile, Austria’s Eisel collected a six-second bonus and took the overall lead from Belgian Tom Steels (Davitamon-Lotto). Steels, who crossed in 25th place, slipped to second overall, at two seconds behind. Australian Stuart O’Grady (Cofidis) sits third at three seconds back. –Agence France

MARBLEHEAD, Mass. – February 9, 2005 – The Tyler Hamilton Foundation today announced an online auction to raise money for the two causes closest to the gold-medal-winner’s heart: multiple sclerosis and youth cycling. The auction is now live at www.thfgala.cmarket.com and will be open through March 3; new items are being added daily. Anyone can log on and support the foundation with bids on vacations, sports gear and the once-in-a-lifetime experiences that make this auction unique. Among the priceless offerings is dinner for four at the home of Tyler Hamilton and his wife, Haven, with Tour of

World sprint champion Theo Bos led a Dutch hat-trick of victories on the opening night of the fourth and final UCI World Cup track event at Dunc Gray Velodrome on Friday in Sydney. Bos claimed the keirin title while Levi Heimans won the men's 4km individual pursuit and Wim Stroetinga took out the men's 15km scratch race. Bos beat eight-time world champion Laurent Gane of France in the ride-off for first and second place with Czech Republic's Pavel Buran beating Australian Joel Leonard for third. “We've trained very hard here and done a lot of kilometers on the road,” said

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.Making the UCI look goodEditor:I've been pretty upset about the state of cycling and its leadership lately. But then I read today's newspaper (February 17) and realized that the NHL's Gary Bettman makes the UCI's Hein Verbruggen look like the NFL's late, great Pete

N.H.L. Cancels the Rest of Its SeasonAs Labor Talks Fall ApartArmstrong Sends a Message,Seeking 7th Straight Tour Title– headlines on The New York Times website, February 17, 2005 You have to feel the pain of America’s professional hockey fans, if any remain. On the same day that pro cycling’s Wayne Gretzky finally confirms that he’s going for a seventh consecutive Tour de France victory, the National Hockey League announces that it’s going away. No wonder there were so few hockey stars acting as presenters at the Grammys. They were all at home, updating their résumés. “Yo, babe? How do you

Earlier this week, on this site, Peter Nye told the fascinating story of Joseph Magnani, an American pioneer whose European racing career was virtually unknown back home. That’s because Magnani moved to Europe in his mid-teens and learned how to race in France, where he lived from 1928 until the end of his cycling career 20 years later. Magnani’s impoverished Illinois family sent him to live with friends in the south of France, where he took up bike racing at age 16. He turned pro seven years later because he could make more money racing bikes than he could in his job of delivering coal and

Riders from the T-Mobile women’s team, TIAA-CREF and Health Net-Maxxis are among those stretching their legs in Arizona this weekend during the 13th annual Valley of the Sun-John Earley Memorial Stage Race. The race, hosted by the White Mountain Road Club, begins today with the Trek Individual Time Trial, held on a 12-mile course at Sun Valley Parkway west of Phoenix. Racing continues Saturday with the Landis Cyclery Road Race in Casa Grande and concludes Sunday with the Orpheum Lots Downtown Capital Criterium at Wesley Bolen Plaza in Phoenix. More than $15,000 in cash and prizes is up for

I can’t believe the first race of the year is already here. I guess that there have been a couple of smaller races in California and Arizona, but for those of us from states where there is winter, this is a complete shock to the system. It’s still snowing in Colorado Springs! I was just out shoveling my driveway a couple days ago. The T-Mobile Professional Cycling Team is kicking off its season at the Valley of the Sun stage race in Phoenix, Arizona. This race has a great reputation for tough early season racing in the warm sunshine. I always look forward to any early season racing in

Ocaña took big risks when challenging Merckx

A child donates his lunch money to the NHL's No Millionaire Left Behind drive

Eighteen-year-old Michael Hiltner in 1959 at Canada’s Tour du St. Laurent, which a newspaper said he won with sensational brillance

Markov brings it home

Steels lost that pretty jersey by just two seconds

Mari was nervous at the start - but not for the usual reasons

Alessandro Petacchi (Fassa Bortolo) used his stalwart train to catapult him to his second straight stage win in the Ruta del Sol while Francesco Cabello (Comunidad Valenciana) realized a career-long dream of winning on home roads after securing the overall title. The rolling course from Sevilla to Chiclana de la Frontera in Spain’s Andalucía region looked to favor the sprinters, but two riders slipped away early and nearly stole the spotlight. José Antonio López (Kaiku) and Carlos Castaño (Paul Versan) attacked early and built up a 3-minute advantage halfway through the stage, but the pair

Dear Readers,In our lastcolumn, Attorney Bruce Epperson described how Colonel Albert Pope,the “Rockefeller of Bicycles” manuvered in 1878 to acquire all the significantpatents covering the basic features of the bicycle, including Pierre Lallement’s1866 “Improvement in Velocipedes,” the first bicycle patent in the UnitedStates. This Week, in Part 2 of “The Monopoly Machine” we look at how theColonel tried to use those patents to create a monopoly over the entirebicycle industry.-BobThe Monopoly Machine, Part 2Once he held the patents, Pope moved quickly. In June, Charles Pratt,Pope’s patent

British cyclist David Millar's two-year doping ban was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Thursday, but the starting date was changed to make the suspension end six weeks earlier. Millar was banned by the British Cycling Federation last summer after telling a French judge he had used the endurance-boosting drug EPO. “The CAS panel considered that the two-year suspension imposed by the BCF was proportionate to the circumstances of the case,'' the Lausanne-based court said in a statement. The ban went into effect August 6, but Millar argued it should have started

Well, it's finally over!The 2005 VeloNews Buyer's Guide has been printed and will be hittingmailboxes and newsstands next week. The late nights, frantic flipping throughtattered productcatalogs, desperate searches through image CDs and annoying late-nightcell phone calls to product managers are over...for the time being. The end result? The largest Buyer's Guide that VeloNewshas ever published (at 156 pages). With a feature section on14 of the coolest ProTour bikes available in 2005, a report on custom buildersand five detailed race scenarios features, I'm certain you'll

Canadian Lyne Bessette says she wants to relax and experiment a little as she tries her hand at mountain-bike racing and cyclo-cross as a supplement to a “scaled back” road schedule this season. The first sign of Bessette’s new approach is the way she plans to kick off her racing schedule this year. “My first race of the year will be the NORBA national in (Comfort) Texas on March 5,” the 29-year-old Bessette told VeloNews. “Starting my year off like that is something I’ve never done before.” Bessette said she'll also take a stab at racing the cross-country events at this year's Sea

No one seems too surprised at Armstrong's plan to be back in '05

Tech Report: Post-Buyer's Guide reflections

Alessandro Petacchi (Fassa Bortolo) blazed to victory in Wednesday’sfourth stage of the Ruta del Sol. It’s the second win of the year for theItalian sprinter, who kept Max Van Heeswjk (Discovery Channel) from snaggingthe win. Tom Boonen (Quick Step) came through third while Oscar Freire(Rabobank) and Erik Zabel (T-Mobile) rounded out the top 5. The pace was furious in the 161km stage from La Guardia de Jaénto Córdoba, with the peloton finishing some 30 minutes faster thanexpected. Petacchi’s winning time came with an average time of 44.3 kphthanks to a gusting

Many cyclists are currently building their aerobic endurance, muscularstrength, and flexibility in anticipation of more specific training inthe coming weeks and months. Just as this training cycle requires you followa specific mix of volume and intensity, your nutritional intake must matchup so that you have the required energy and fluids at the most optimaltimes for your training and recovery.As you continue to build your volume, your energy and carbohydrate requirementsincrease. During this base cycle, you may also be interested in losingweight. This is a good time of year to adopt

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.Roots!Dear VeloNews,A great article about Joseph Magnani (see "Pioneersin the Peloton: The unknown American"). If I have the opportunityto return to Southern France and ride I will certainly think of the firstAmerican to race those roads through towns and villages where not a lothas

Armstrong finds room in his closet for a few more

Petacchi barely edges out Van Heeswijk

Despite teasingly suggesting the contrary, logic says Lance Armstrong will be only in one place come July. Everyone expects him to line up July 2 for the 19km time trial from Fromentine to Noirmoutier-en-l'Ile in France’s Vendee region for the start of the 92nd Tour de France. After a history-making six consecutive victories, a run at the seventh seems a no-brainer, but Armstrong’s “will he or won’t he” has become cycling’s equivalent to “who shot JR?” Everyone seems to have a theory, but no one really knows. Those close to the Texan, however, insist he’s truly undecided about whether

From the era of snub-nosed cars and dirt roads, of cyclists wearing goggles over their eyes to keep out the ubiquitous dust from the roads and racers wrapping spare tires over their shoulders and across their backs in a figure-eight, a lone U.S. rider enjoyed success as a professional on the roads of Europe. Joseph Magnani of Illinois raced professionally from 1935 to 1948 on French and Italian teams. He was so ahead of his time that few in his homeland knew of him. In the 1947 world championship professional road race in Reims, northeast of Paris and famed for its champagne vineyards,

It's lemmony fresh, too!Dear Lennard,Could you recommend a good method and/or product to clean and maintaina titanium frame (unpainted finish)? Also, do you have any suggestionsto keep aluminum parts (i.e. Campy hubs, etc.) clean and shiny?E.J.Dear E.J.,You can clean the titanium frame first with soap and water and thenwith a solvent on the greasy patches that did not come clean. Be carefulyou don’t remove decals, if you use a really strong solvent like acetone(and make sure you wear gloves and a respirator). Usually, a biodegradabledegreaser is sufficient to clean it up. After cleaning,

Serge Baguet (Davitamon-Lotto) used his wile to win his second stagein a row in a wind-blasted Ruta del Sol while perennial runner-up FranciscoCabello (Comunidad Valenciana) slipped into the overall lead.Russian workhorse Viatcheslav Ekimov put Discovery Channel into thewinning break in Tuesday’s blustery third stage that saw overnight leaderCarlos García Quesada lose grip of the leader’s jersey.Strong crosswinds blasted the bunch right from the start in the 164kmmarch from just outside Granada to Jaen across the heart of Spain’s spectacularAndalucia region. García Quesada and Johan

Born in Illinois, Joseph Magnani made his mark in the European peloton of the 1930s and '40s

Magnani's win at Marseille-Nice sparked interest in the American

Magnani posing with friends, teammates and his future wife, Mimi

Paris-Nice 1938

The Olmo team primed and ready to take on the Giro d'Italia

Andalucia in the spring.

It’s been a year since Marco Pantani was found dead in room 5-D of the Hotel Le Rose in Rimini, Italy. The autopsy later confirmed the iconic Italian cycling hero had died of a cocaine overdose. A year later, Italy continues to mourn his tragic death and is still trying to come to grips with the loss of Italy's most successful grand tour racer of his generation. Pantani’s life slowly unraveled after being kicked out of the 1999 Giro d’Italia just a few days short of winning a second consecutive title. The UCI’s “vampires” discovered his red blood cell count too high and Pantani left the

Before I launch into my special Valentine’s Day column, I’ve got to ask – did anyone else watch The Grammy Awards last night? Obviously I did, which is why I’m typing away after midnight on a Monday morning instead of sleeping. But since I once fancied myself a music journalist in a past life, I have to point out a few of the highlights from a not-bad broadcast — even if it did dish up an agonizing live performance of “Free Bird” by the remaining members of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Sorry, but what year is this? Best acceptance speech: Kanye West, winner of best rap album for “The College Dropout.”

Nationwide Alert: Senate Bill Threatens California TrailsA U.S. Senate committee will vote this Wednesday, Feb. 16, on a reintroducedWilderness bill that would ban mountain biking from 170 miles of singletracktrails in Northern California. Mountain bikers nationwide are urged toask their senators to delay action on the bill until suitable compromisesare reached and bicycling is accommodated. Your call is especially importantif your senator is a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committeelisted below.Senate Bill 128 (S. 128), the Northern California Coastal Wild

Belgian rider Serge Baguet (Davitamon-Lotto) held off climbing specialistLeonardo Piepoli (Saunier Duval) to win Monday’s second stage of the Rutadel Sol in southern Spain. Carlos García Quesada (Comunidad Valenciana) held onto the overalllead after crossing the line fourth just nine seconds slower than Baguet.Piepoli and Belgian John Vansummeren (Davitamon-Lotto) attacked early onthe climbing finish to La Zubia while Quesada and Baguet followed the aggression. A six-man break went away early, carving out a three-minute lead onthe bunch, but Comunidad Valenciana did the work to close down

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.Thompson, Twain, Mencken and . . . O’Grady?Editor:I thoroughly enjoy O'Grady's foaming rants. One of the reasons I subscribe to VeloNews is that he's in it. A touch of Hunter S. and a hint of Twain, shades of Mencken, riding a 1970 Raleigh Pro. Dave EvansMadison,

A club of young riders visits the grave of the Italian cycling star on Monday

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood: My Funny Valentine

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood: My Funny Valentine

Baguet takes the win

Carlos García Quesada still has the jersey

The appeal of the Ruta del Sol

García Quesada kept a close eye on the other favorites

García Quesada is in a solid position after Monday's stage

The six-man break looked promising, but was caught in the closing kilometers

Hincapie tries his hand in the escape

The World According to Wells……Some of you may be familiar with my stories from my columns in the VeloNews magazine. These online journal entries will follow the same pattern trying to give you a racer’s perspective on the mountain bike and cyclo-cross circuit through out the year. As you may or may not know, the mountain bike season officially kicks off the first weekend of March with the Texas NORBA National. Since I do a full domestic schedule of cyclo-cross through the fall and winter that leaves only a few months to recover from a season of traveling the world and gear up for the next

Carlos García Quesada and his Comunidad Valenciana team delivered what might be the knock out punch in the opening stage Sunday in the Ruta del Sol in southern Spain. Quesada won the hilly 150.5km route from Benalmádena and Comares thanks to heavy pressure that split the peloton early, leaving only a group of 19 riders to contest for the spoils. With a start list heavy with sprinters, many of the big teams had riders present in the break and no one seemed interested in putting up a chase. Quesada, a runner-up last year to Juan Carlos Domínguez, attacked hard on the final climb coming into

Quesada

Still no phone at our house in good old Girona. I think that sums up a modern-day house. Okay, maybe you have high-speed cable and then a cell phone; that is more than intelligent. But here in Spain you can't have one without the other. So I'm sitting here choking down second-hand smoke. Tyler used to always comment on how he would "smoke a pack of cigarettes" while he checked his e-mail. Being from Chicago I thought he was being a bit extreme, until I found myself in the same situation. I feel like I have to throw my clothes in the incinerator after going down there. Okay,

The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) performed a total of 8,051 doping control tests in 2004 in 69 Olympic, Paralympic and Pan American sports, including 7,630 domestic tests, USADA Chief Executive Officer Terry Madden announced today. Out-of-Competition (OOC) testing comprised approximately 58 percent (4,447) of the domestic tests USADA conducted in 2004. USADA conducted 526 tests in cycling during 2004. “We reached our goal of increasing the number of out-of-competition tests in 2004,” said Madden. “More than 90 percent of U.S. athletes consistently provide their whereabouts

Jens Voigt consolidated his lead in the Tour Méditerranéen on Saturday as Team CSC won the stage-4 team time trial, a 36km run between Bouc-Bel-Air and Berre l'Etang (Bouches-du-Rhône). Liquigas-Bianchi, whose leader, Italian Franco Pellizotti, was second overall going into Saturday’s stage, had a 17-second lead over CSC and 20 seconds on Rabobank at 16km. But CSC turned on the power in the final kilometers, and Liquigas – despite the best efforts of Pellizotti, Mario Cipollini and Swede Magnus Backstedt – saw its lead evaporate. At the end, CSC crossed 16 seconds up on Liquigas and

CSC helps Voigt add to his lead in the Tour Med

And he causeth all . . . to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads; And that no man might buy or sell, save that he had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

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.Rights versus responsibilitiesEditor:Neal Rogers did a really great job of pointing out the crap that some employers want versus the rights of citizens (see “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood: Who draws the line between rights and responsibilities?”). For one job I had to sign an agreement that I

Voigt scores again in Tour MedJens Voigt (CSC) padded his lead in the Tour Méditerranéen on Friday, soloing to victory in stage 3 from La Garde to the summit of Mont Faron in Toulon. The 137km stage was animated at the foot of the day’s first climb, Fourches, at 32km. Five riders – Frenchmen Mickael Delage (Francaise des Jeux) and Lénaïc Olivier (Agritubel), Italian Alessandro Donati (Acqua & Sapone), Estonian Janek Tombak (Cofidis) and the Belgian Kristof Trouvé (MrBookmaker.com)– broke away and built a four-minute lead by 80km. Behind, Voigt’s team began a chase, assisted by the

While British and Irish cyclists were making breakthroughs in Europe’s top road races during the 1950s and early 1960s, North Americans were still very much in the twilight zone of world cycling. There were many reasons why road racing remained undeveloped on this side of the Atlantic; but one big reason was apparent in the very name of the body that controlled the sport in the United States, the Amateur Bicycle League of America (my italics). Professional cycling was anathema to the ABL, which was founded by a group of New York cycling clubs in 1920 to counteract alleged corruption in the

Number, please

Voigt wins again

Art Longsjo at Somerville

Bobby Julich and the CSC gang on the march