All Content

A record field of nearly 1,400 racers and their cowbell-clanging families, friends and fans spilled onto the fields of Alpenrose Dairy in southwest Portland Sunday to ring in the start of the 2009 River City Bicycles Cross Crusade series. Home of the Alpenrose Velodrome, the dairy-turned-corporate-headquarters also features a Wild West town, a go-kart race track and a world-class baseball field that plays host to the Little League Softball World Series every summer. And just about all of it played a part in the race Sunday.

The UCI has rejected charges that its doping testers showed preferential treatment to the Astana team at this year's Tour de France. The governing body's response was in reaction to published reports that the team of Tour de France winner Alberto Contador and third placed Lance Armstrong were given an easy ride during dope tests at the 2009 event.

With the Gravity East Finals at New York's Plattekill Mountain coming up Oct. 10, can Neko Mulally continue his late-season charge and win the 2009 series championship?

Why do my feet slip inside my cycling shoes?

The sun shone on Massachusetts' Cape Ann on Sunday, as local boy Tim Johnson (Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com) and Canadian Natasha Elliott (Louis Garneau) won on the second day of the Great Brewers Gloucester Grand Prix of Cyclocross, in much different conditions than the first day.

Katie Compton (Planet Bike) and Niels Albert (BKCP-Powerplus) won their respective races on Sunday as the 2009-10 UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup opened in Treviso, Italy. Compton hit the line 28 seconds ahead of Daphny Van Den Brand with Christel Ferrier-Bruneau (Vision 1 Racing) third at 34 seconds. World champion Albert, meanwhile, crushed the competition, finishing 42 seconds ahead of Zdenek Stybar (Telenet-Fidea) with Klaas Vantornout (Sunweb Pro Job) third at 52 seconds back. The second round of the World Cup will be October 18 in Pizen, Czech Republic.

Check out CyclingTips's author page.

Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream) won the four-stage Circuit Franco-Belge on Sunday. The final stage win went to Juan José Haedo (Saxo Bank), who out-kicked Yauheni Hutarovich (Française des Jeux and Roger Hammond (Cervélo TestTeam) in a bunch dash to the line after 147.1km of racing from Mons to Tournai. Farrar punctured in the final 5km, but chased back on to finish 53rd on the day, in the same time as the stage winner, to take the overall by eight seconds over runner-up Tom Boonen (Quick Step) and 14 on Roger Hammond (Cervélo TestTeam).

Check out CyclingTips's author page.

Sitting in the middle of the peloton, riding along at a steady tempo as a team controls the pace on the front, I hear our director in the radio: “There is a dangerous descent coming up in four kilometers. Move to the front to stay out of trouble. There is gravel on the corners and many switchbacks. Get to the front.”

Jonathan Page (Planet Bike) scored a rare win on this side of the Atlantic on Saturday, riding away from all challengers on a muddy course in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Quick Step's Tom Boonen won the third stage of the Franco-Belge stage race on Saturday in a sprint finish ahead of England's Roger Hammond (Cervélo TestTeam) and American Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream). Farrar continues to hold the overall race lead after winning the first two stages in the race which finishes Sunday at Tournai.

Reigning Vuelta a España champion Alejandro Valverde has brought his season to a premature end admitting he needs rest before beginning to plan his race objectives for next season. Valverde was originally slated to compete in the Paris-Bourges race on Thursday and the Paris Tours one-day classic next weekend, but after discussions with his Caisse d'Epargne team he has decided to hang up his bike. "I need to rest both mentally and physically before thinking towards next season and resuming training," said Valverde, who will compete in a few criterium races in the coming weeks.

We could start this year’s first cross’ diary by talking about racing, but for the moment we’re gonna talk about flyin’.

The owners of the Austrian laboratory Humanplasma, already at the center of a huge doping scandal, admitted tax evasion on Friday but denied any role in doping athletes. Officials for the lab admitted not declaring 300,000 Euros earned from taking blood tests from athletes but continued to deny accusations of being involved in doping. "We have informed the authorities for several months," said lab spokeswoman Michaela Eisler. "The blood tests were simply stocked on lab premises. There were no transfusions."

Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream) made it two in a row Friday at the Circuit Franco-Belge. Just a day after winning the opening stage of the four-day race across the French-Belgian border, Farrar kicked his way to his 10th win on the 2009 season. Farrar won ahead of Alexandre Usov (Cofidis) in the 225.7km second stage from Maubeuge, France to Poperinge, Belgium, with French rider Jimmy Casper (Chausson-Sojasun) coming across the line third.

Had Chicago won its bid for the 2016 Olympics, the MTB venue would have been in Wisconsin. Rio's mountain bike venue hosted the 2007 Pan American games, where Adam Craig took gold.

Rio de Janeiro will become the first South American city to host the Olympics after the International Olympic Committee voted to award the 2016 Games to the former Brazilian capital on Friday. The city of Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympics came to an early end after the city was eliminated in the first round of voting during the IOC's site selection meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Press Release

Emboldened by his bronze medal at last weekend’s world championship, Spanish rider Joaquím Rodríguez now wants to win the Giro di Lombardia. Called “Purito” within the peloton, the pint-sized puncheur still has a full racing calendar, with scheduled starts at Paris-Bourges, Paris-Tours, Giro del Piemonte, Giro di Lombardia and the Japan Cup. That heavy end-of-season schedule means there’s no time for celebrating a well-deserved worlds medal that helped save the honor for the heavily-favored Spanish team.

Thor Hushovd wants to make it loud and clear: he’s intending on racing the 2010 Tour de France and defending his green jersey. There were some conflicting reports that the Norwegian winner of the 2009 sprinter’s jersey might skip the Tour, but the Cervélo TestTeam rider confirmed that next July will be much like this year.

An expected 3,500 cyclists will take to the streets of Santa Rosa, California, at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning for the start of the inaugural King Ridge Gran Fondo, a mass-participation ride promoted by local cycling star Levi Leipheimer.

Check out CyclingTips's author page.

Lance Armstrong said he still hasn’t decided whether he’ll race at the Tour of California or the Giro d’Italia next season as he prepares for the 2010 Tour de France. That’s according to an interview in the newest issue of Vélo magazine in France. Armstrong provided the first glimpse of what his racing schedule will look like with his new RadioShack team. Like he did in his comeback season last year, he will debut at the Tour Down Under in January in Australia.

he 2009 USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships opened in the velodrome at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, on Wednesday as Cody O’Reilly (Bissell) and Cari Higgins (Proman) were awarded the first-ever elite omnium national titles. In all, three national champions were crowned on the first day of competition inside the country’s only 250-meter indoor velodrome.

Lennard Zinn has been spending time in the shop (as always) and had a chance to try out a new hacksaw specifically designed for cutting carbon fiber tubes (like fork steerer tubes, handlebars, and seatposts). He and test editor Matt Pacocha reviewed several additional tools in our November issue, which is on sale now. Also in that issue, we have a rundown of 12 must-have tools for your shop or garage. Effetto Mariposa CarboCut hacksaw Retail price: $65

IMBA will celebrate its sixth annual International Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day on Oct. 3 with events in a dozen countries for 2009.

Recently crowned world champion Cadel Evans promises to honor the rainbow jersey with aggressive racing for the remainder of the 2009 season. The 32-year-old Aussie isn’t wasting any time, and will make his debut in the famed rainbow jersey on October 8 in the Coppa Sabatini in Italy. “I will try to honor the rainbow jersey even if my legs are understandably a little tired after a grueling season,” Evans said during a press conference Thursday at the Silence-Lotto team headquarters.

Tyler Farrar is back in the winner’s circle, sprinting to victory Thursday in the opening stage of the Circuit Franco-Belge. Farrar out-kicked Danilo Napolitano (Katusha) to claim victory in the 213.6km stage from Templeuve, France, to Mouscron, Belgium. Tom Boonen (Quick Step) came across third in the mass gallop and Saxo Bank's JJ Haedo rounded out the top four. The win also puts the leader’s jersey on Farrar’s back after the opening stage of the four-day Franco-Belge race.

Alexander Kolobnev is quickly earning a reputation as a rider who delivers in major international competition. With his second world championship silver medal in three years, and a fourth-place that could turn into bronze from last summer’s Beijing Summer Olympic Games, the consistent Russia knows how to pack a punch come crunch time. “They call me the sniper,” Kolobnev told VeloNews. “You have one shot, then you have to wait 364 days until the next chance.”

We all saw how well American Tyler Farrar performed at this year’s Tour de France, where he placed in the top-five of field sprints an astonishing five times. Sure, like every sprinter, he was overshadowed by Columbia-HTC’s Mark Cavendish. But given that it was Farrar’s first Tour, his consistency was a success in itself. But when Farrar won the Vattenfall Cyclassics on August 16, and then followed it up with three consecutive stage wins at the Eneco Tour of the Benelux, we knew it was time to write a feature on the 25-year-old gentleman sprinter from Wenatchee, Washington.

Check out CyclingTips's author page.

Check out CyclingTips's author page.