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Under sunny skies on an afternoon that had seen rain in Minneapolis earlierin the day, Canadian Lyne Bessette took the opening time trial of the NatureValley Grand Prix, held along the Mesabi Trail in Virginia, Minnesota. The Quark rider posted a time of 11:23.90 (28.5 mph) over the narrow,rolling and often falsely-flat 5.4-mile pedestrian/bike path, 2.16 secondsfaster than RONA’s Katrina Grove, whose early time of 11:26.06 had heldup for most of the afternoon. After a hard-luck performance at the Liberty Classic in Philadelphia,where Bessette had multiple mechanicals followed by a crash

Some good days, some bad.

Riding with Davis

Fausto Coppi's bike at the church of the Madonna del Ghisallo

Lake Como

'The hardest thing I've ever done...'

But he made it.

After the stage win at Bordeaux in the 1987 Tour

Gutierrez still in the lead

Hamilton finished with Armstrong and Gutierrez

Bessette gets a win after her tough weekend in Philly

A sportsbook.com rider takes one of the course's fast, narrow turns

Trying to keep things in control

Lara,Mari, Kim, Dede and Samantha in the front

Dede's diary: Philly was fun, if you overlook the crashes

Irishman Stephen Roche, the 1987 winner, Frenchman Marc Madiot, a modernand shrewd team manager, and cycling sage and former directeur sportifMichel Gros put the American and German champions through a litmus test. EXPERIENCE: A TIE “THEY BOTH HAVE WHAT IT TAKESTO WIN”“Armstrong is a true leader. He never panics and knows how to keep a jersey,” Gros says without hesitation. It’s true. While Marco Pantani took the yellow jersey from Ullrich in 1998, Armstrong, once atop the classification, has never yielded since his first win in 1999. According to Roche, “Armstrong’s experience stems from

Not wanting to disappoint his sponsor, Spanish rider José Enrique Gutierrez Cataluña took the overall lead in the Dauphiné Libéré on Tuesday after winning the second stage, a 181km ride from Bron to St. Etiene. Gutierrez delivered the for the Chief Executive Officer of Phonak Hearing Systems, his team's sponsor, who had warned he would be at the finish and “did not want to be disappointed.” Gutierrez, who will be 30 on June 18, came home seven seconds to the good of the peloton with his teammate Cyril Gussel of France in second and Australian Stuart O'Grady in third, while overnight leader

Tale of the tape - How Armstrong and Ullrich compare

Michel Gros - Former Festina and Jean Delatour director

Marc Madiot, fdjeux.com manager.

Stephen Roche, 1987 Tour winner.

Armstrong is relaxed

Guttierez takes the jersey

Dear Joe and Dirk,I am fairly new to the cycling world and compete in duathlons. I have an entry level Trek bike and would like to know what basic equipmentI should add to improve my time without spending a fortune. I was thinkingabout getting aero’ bars and clipless pedals. Is there anything else thatyou can recommend? I am still learning basic technique and ride two days per week, whilerunning the other days. My aerobic capacity is good, I just need to developmy skills and learn how to climb.Lisa Leggett Dear Lisa,Good question. I see you'd like to invest some money into new equipmentin

The Mail Bag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com, appearing each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 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.Dear Editor:I found some of the opinions expressed in the June 4th Mail Bag regardingthe Gaggioli affair to be so misguided I felt compelled to respond. In the letter titled “SundtShould Get His Too”, Mr. Lechman wrote:“It takes two to tango;

Thor Hushovd (Credit Agricole) won the trench war in Monday’s 231km first stage of the 56th Dauphiné Libéré, taking a bunch sprint ahead of former teammate Stuart O’Grady (Cofidis) and Baden Cooke (FDJeux.com). Prologue winner Iban Mayo (Euskaltel-Euskadi) retained the overall lead on a sunny day dominated by a long solo break by Jimmy Casper (Cofidis). Casper took a page out of the Jacky Durand racing manual, attacking in the first four kilometers of the Dauphiné’s longest stage. The peloton was happy to let him ride away and at one point opened up an 18-minute gap. Once the bunch got a

Mayo: Still in yellow

Euskaltel gets to work

Armstrong tied with Hamilton at 0:01

Casper and Laurent

The earliest predictor came courtesy of the local weathermen. While it rained all day Saturday, the forecast for Sunday’s USPRO Championship in Philadelphia was for a cool but dry day. Just the kind of conditions that would make for a relatively easy trip during the 156-mile race held on a primarily flat circuit in the City of Brotherly Love. And while no one could have been feeling particularly fresh after this near-six-hour effort, 44 riders were still in play on the race’s long finishing stretch down Benjamin Franklin Parkway. That left both the race outcome and the U.S. national title in

Iban Mayo (Euskaltel-Euskadi) won the first round of the battle of theTour de France stars in Sunday’s prologue at the Dauphiné Libéré– but just barely. Mayo made up for being second in Saturday’s Classique des Alpes andupstaged Americans Tyler Hamilton (Phonak) and Lance Armstrong (U.S. PostalService) in the 5.4km prologue to open the eight-day race high in the FrenchAlps in what’s the final exam for many favorites heading into next month’sTour. Phonak’s Oscar Pereiro, fresh off his victory in Saturday’s Alps Classic,set a fast early time but Mayo came through less than a second faster

After surrendering the title for a year to Canadian Lyne Bessette (Quark), Petra Rossner (Nurnberger) reasserted her dominance in the Wachovia Liberty Classic, rocketing to a seventh win in a bunch gallop

World champions became World Cup leaders in the first round of the Downhill World Cup Sunday in Fort William, Scotland. Anne-Caroline Chausson (Commencal-Oxbow) and Greg Minnaar (Team G-Cross Honda) both rode totally new bikes to their victories as well. The 2.66km course required a complete range of skills, with fast, rocky, technical sections at the top, a high-speed section in the middle and a series of jumps spread throughout. Add the constant showers that swept through the region to make slick surfaces, and you had a true World Cup course. Despite not liking the course, Chausson was

Mayo works his way to a win

Armstrong can't imagine retirement

Hamilton

Leipheimer

Chausson doesn't like the course, but winning always feels good

It's all downhill from here

Minnaar airs it out

Sieben

The largest field ever

Bessette couldn't start a streak of her own

Rossner is a tough act to follow

He likes this color scheme

Great field and great conditions

Pate and Henderson

Sayers and the Health Net crew added power to the break

Julich gives it a shot

Horner and Barry

Rodriguez goes back to Spain with a familiar jersey

Grove's move was quickly covered by Arndt

Look introduced a line of high-tech, French-made carbon goodies during the company’s 2005 product unveiling Thursday in San Jose, California. Most impressive is the latest incarnation of the HSC fork line, the HSC 5 SL. Retailing for $500, this all-carbon fork is truly “all-carbon.” Using a new proprietary process working with super-high-modulus carbon fiber, Look has been able to produce the first road fork with a carbon steerer, legs and even drop-outs. No bonding is used in the production of this breakthrough fork; instead, the unit is molded as one continuous element. “This is designed

For the third consecutive week Gunn-Rita Dahle (Merida) won the women's World Cup cross-country race, and for the third consecutive week there was a new winner in the men's race, with Christoph Sauser (Siemens Mobile Cannondale) soloing in ahead of teammate and World Cup leader Roel Paulissen. It was no surprise to see Dahle off the front by the end of the first of four laps, but the woman chasing her was new: Marie-Helene Premont (Oryx). Premont rode an impressive race - only her third of the season - and only conceded 1:46 to Dahle by the end, the closest result of this season. "I was

Spain's Francisco Mancebo (Illes Balears) won the 186km sixth stage of the Tour of Germany on Saturday while Germany's Patrik Sinkewitz (Quick Step-Davitamon) courageously defended his overall lead in this difficult stage from Kulmbach to Oberwiesenthal. Mancebo was the strongest on the final 6km climb toward the Fichtelberg summit at 1214 meters, crossing in 4:54:49, beating German Jens Voigt (CSC), second overall, and race leader Sinkewitz. The 1997 Tour de France winner, Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile), finished 37 seconds back in 12th spot and dropped from third to seventh overall. The

The final — and most important — day of the three-race Wachovia Cycling Series is set to go, and the man to beat is American Fred Rodriguez. At least that’s the hot tip based on betting odds posted by Sportsbook.com. The online casino has made the winner of Thursday’s race in Trenton, New Jersey, a 5-to-2 favorite in the field of 178 riders that will contest the 156-mile USPRO Championship in Philadelphia starting at 9 EST Sunday morning. But Rodriguez, who is coming off three hard weeks at the Giro d’Italia, isn’t so sure the smart money will be on him. The Acqua & Sapone rider knows he

The all-carbon Look HSC 5 SL

The 585, also available in straight black

The Keo

A new cleat, too, with Teflon lips and heel

Mancebo was strongest on the final climb

Pereiro powers to the finish

Dahle dominates once more

Premont surprised herself and everyone else by finishing second

Paulissen and Sauser did their Alphonse-and-Gaston number again

This time, it was Sauser's turn to win

Chausson (surprise) won the women's 4X

But Tschugg was the upset winner in the men's race

“I’ve got a good mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.” Groucho Marx"Duck Soup" Roberto Gaggioli is out for the season, I hear. No worries. He should be able to find suitable temporary employment while he’s serving his suspension — say, as a debt collector for a New Jersey loan shark, a job in which going after someone with a club is all part of the day’s work. As all gossip-loving leg-shavers should know by now, thanks to the rumor mill, our own Neal Rogers and USA Cycling, the Monex rider-director is said to have armed himself with a 2-by-4 for a chat with Jonny Sundt

The Tour of Montréal is a three-day, four-stage race. It starts out with a 3km prologue in Lachine, the hometown of Geneviève Jeanson, the Machine from Lachine. We jet out and around a tiny peninsula on bike paths, making a few sharp turns along the wa, and winner and losers are separated by fractions of a second. This course is quick and suits a rider who corners well. Tina Mayolo-Pic, one of the best criterium sprinters in America, took top honors. She blazed the course and finished a half second ahead of me. A few hours later, we headed to Little Italy, where we had an evening criterium.

The Mail Bag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com, appearing each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 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.On Gaggioli and vengeanceEditor:Roberto Gaggioli better watch out. He may wake up with a severed headset, stem and handlebars in a puddle of Phil Wood grease in his bed after what he did to that poor bike. Craig ForesterCincinnati, Ohio We