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Dear Explainer, It’s another August day and I’m reading yet another story about riders planning to switch teams for next season. I’ve been reading about potential roster changes for 2010 at least since early July. Isn’t there a rule that is supposed to keep people from discussing that until later in the year? How are riders and teams getting away with all of the early talk and isn’t anyone getting fined for that? Rich Burleigh Dayton, Ohio You’re right, Rich.

Race tested bikes and bodies through technical lava rock sections, lots of challenging singletrack and more than 11,000 feet of climbing outside Bend, Oregon.

As we drove to the course, the small team camper bounced and creaked as it followed the motorcade of team cars along the small sinuous roads through the rural Brittany countryside. We passed dozens of cyclists ranging in age from 12 to 70, dressed in a mosaic of pro team and club colors, who were also on their way to the circuit to watch us race in Plouay.

Suspended rider Danilo Di Luca said Wednesday that he may have been the victim of a conspiracy after twice testing positive for banned blood booster CERA during this year's Giro d’Italia. Di Luca purportedly finished second in the Italian tour, which he won in 2007, but subsequently returned positive tests for the third-generation of EPO, called a Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator (CERA), on both May 22 and 28. Di Luca won two stages during the Giro and held the leader's pink jersey for eight days before eventually losing to Rabobank’s Denis Menchov by just 41 seconds.

Despite his horrific crash during this year’s Tour de France, there’s no stopping the irrepressible Jens Voigt. Without suffering any permanent damage in his high-speed fall coming off the Col du Petit-Saint-Bernard in the Tour’s stage 16, Voigt has accepted a one-year contract extension that will keep him a Saxo Bank jersey into the 2010 season.

Quick Step’s Tom Boonen has been told that all criminal charges relating to his use of cocaine will be dropped if he pays a 1000 Euro fine, the public prosecutor in Turnhout said Wednesday. The prosecutor said that if Boonen, the 2005 world champion and current Belgian road champion, paid the fine the case would be closed. "We consider Boonen as just another consumer of drugs, not as a famous sportsman of whom an example should be made," the public prosecutor was quoted as saying in Het Nieuwsblad newspaper.

European newspapers are reporting that Belgians Sébastien Rosseler and Gert Steegmans have signed deals to ride with Lance Armstrong's RadioShack team in 2010. According to Het Nieuwsblad, the 28-year-old Rosseler will leave the Quick Step team at season’s end, having signed a two-year deal with the RadioShack team, managed by former Discovery and Astana director Johan Bruyneel.

The Feillu brothers will be racing together on a new team for 2010, but it won’t be with Lance Armstrong’s RadioShack team. Despite hints that the promising French brothers might be headed to Armstrong’s new outfit, the pair signed a two-season deal that will keep them together at the Dutch Vacansoleil team. “I am very proud with these new signings,” said team manager Daan Luijkx. “Romain and Brice are young and have a lot of talent. They are different type of riders and fit well within the team.”

Australian cyclist Chris Jongewaard was convicted on Wednesday of hit-and-run charges stemming from an accident which left his training partner fighting for his life. The four-time national mountain bike champion was found guilty in the South Australian District Court of aggravated driving without due care and leaving the scene of an accident. Judge Wayne Chivell dismissed another charge of serious harm by dangerous driving leveled at the 30-year-old over the 2007 incident, which resulted in cyclist Matthew Rex being placed in an induced coma with severe injuries.

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Levi Leipheimer (Astana), who won the road race national championship on the Paris Mountain course in 2007, will not be competing in this weekend's USA Cycling Professional National Championships in Greenville, South Carolina. Leipheimer, who suffered a fractured wrist in stage 12 at the Tour de France, will miss nationals and hopes to return to the peloton at the Tour of Missouri in September.

Whiteface's "Downhill" Mike says the best parties have three ingredients; they're big, cheap and involve somebody you know doing something memorably stupid.

A new cycling product brand is sure to leave a footprint despite the unfamiliar (for now) name.

The final Tour of Colorado 2009 race will be August 30th in Superior, Colorado. The Koppenberg Road Race, a 5.5 mile circuit features only 300 ft elevation gain per lap but much of that is jammed into a two-mile section of dirt road with one very short yet steep 17-percent climb. Final overall Tour of Colorado jerseys will be presented to the overall winners in four classes. If race organizers are lucky, maybe Governor Bill Ritter will show up in his Tour of Colorado jersey.

Greenville, South Carolina, resident Craig Lewis (Columbia-HTC) will miss the start of the USA Cycling Professional Championships this weekend, having been diagnosed with the H1N1 Flu Tuesday morning. When reached for comment on his hometown race, Lewis' wife Courtney reported that the 24-year old had been diagnosed with Swine Flu at the hospital Tuesday morning. Lewis was expected to support neighbor and teammate George Hincapie in a bid to win the road race championship Sunday.

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Columbia-HTC's Edvald Boasson Hagen won the Eneco Tour on Tuesday after winning the final stage, a 13.1km individual time trial in Amsfoort, the Netherlands. The 22-year-old Norwegian finished ahead of France's Sylvain Chavanel in the overall standings after the Frenchman clocked the fourth fastest time in the time-trial in the seven stage ProTour race through Belgium and the Netherlands. American Tyler Farrar, second in the overall standings, withdrew ahead of the final stage, saying he hoped to rest up for this weekend's start of the Vuelta a España.

Australian Allan Davis will have the chance to make amends for missing the Tour de France in July after he was named in Quick Step's squad for the upcoming Vuelta a España. Davis, a sprinter, was Quick Step's “tenth man” for the Tour in July, but missed out on a place after teammate Tom Boonen was given 11th hour clearance to race despite having tested positive for cocaine, for the second time in his career, two months previously.

Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream) will take a pass on Tuesday’s final time trial at the Eneco Tour despite sitting second overall just 21 seconds out of the lead. With three stage victories in the bag and the ever-important Vuelta a España looming ahead this weekend, the American sprinter decided that it was better to rest for more important goals in his third grand tour of the year.

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Ivan Basso is taking aim at nothing short of overall victory for the 64th Vuelta a España, which clicks into gear Saturday in Holland. The Italian said he’s better prepared for the Vuelta than the Giro d’Italia earlier this season, where he finished fifth overall. “I trained myself in the best way without any stress,” Basso said in a team statement. “The final victory is a concrete goal.”

Should I rebuild my Campy 8-speed shifter, or switch to 10-speed?

For 2010, Scott's Voltage line gets a new chassis addition — the Voltage FR, an 180mm-travel freeride bike built specifically for park riding.

American Pua Sawicki notches a top-10 finish at Marathon World Championships in Austria while Belgian Roel Paulissen and German Sabine Spitz take men's and women's titles.

Six-time national criterium champion Tina Pic (Colavita - Sutter Home) is ending her career with a bang as she outsprinted Tibco's Lauren Tamayo and Brooke Miller at the Marion Classic Two-Bridge NRC Criterium in Indiana on Sunday. It was a double-win weekend for Pic's team as Luis Amaran solo'd to a classic win in the men's race, holding off a late charge by OUCH-Maxxis' Karl Menzies.

Technical course

Team Columbia-HTC believes powerful German sprinter André Greipel can help continue its impressive 2009 season once the Vuelta a España clicks into gear this Saturday. Mark Cavendish's stunning haul of six stage wins from this year's Tour de France took his tally to 10 in two participations, and was the highlight of a hugely successful season for the American outfit so far.

Alexander Vinokourov is now officially part of the Astana team and is set to ride the Vuelta a España. The back-room wrangling over the return of Vinokourov went down to the wire, but team officials reached an agreement Monday to ease the way for his return to the Kazakh-backed team. Astana team manager Johan Bruyneel and Rinus Wagtmans, the authorized representative for the Kazakh sponsors, hammered out an agreement Monday. Vinokourov will be immediately welcomed into the Astana team and has a contract to race through the 2010 season.

Cyclocross star Katie Compton has a new 'cross team and bike sponsor for the 2009-2010 season, and a new competitive focus for the season. But first, Compton has a little something else to focus on: the mountain bike world championships in Canberra, Australia, in two weeks. Compton will ride for the Planet Bike team for this season, joining old friend and fellow cyclocross world medalist Jonathan Page on the squad sponsored by the Wisconsin bike accessories maker.

Daphne van den Brand, Kupfernagel and Compton battle at the 2008 Koksijde World Cup. | Photo: Frank Bodenmüller/CBGPhoto.com

There won’t be a late-hour bid to include Michael Rasmussen in the 64th Vuelta a España. At least Rasmussen isn’t expecting one. “All I can say regarding the Vuelta is that the team did not register me in time and that Unipublic did not want to make an exception by letting me in,” Rasmussen told VeloNews via e-mail. “They did, though, make exceptions with three Lotto riders that were not on the preliminary start list. Anyways — no Vuelta.” Rasmussen did not disclose the name of the team.

Press Release

Organizers of the Cincinnati UCI3 Cyclocross Festival have released details of an unprecedented $10,000 women’s prize purse for the three-day UCI event on October 9-11.  The $10,000 in prize money for the weekend will be just a portion of the nearly $27,000 in published prize money for the weekend of races.   

Press Release

UCI president Pat McQuaid told Reuters on Sunday that there were no positive tests at this year’s Tour de France. Based on controls taken so far, McQuaid said he is optimistic about the future of the sport. "At this point in time I haven't heard of any positive tests at this year's Tour de France or that we're checking samples to confirm positives,” McQuaid told Reuters’ Stephen Farrand. "It's looking like the Tour de France will not have any positive tests for a number of years.” McQuaid spoke to reporters Sunday during the final stage of the Tour of Ireland.

Edvald Boasson Hagen (Columbia-HTC) consolidated his lead in the Eneco Tour by beating some of the more specialist fast men in a sprint for the finish of Monday's sixth stage. Boasson Hagen grabbed precious bonus seconds for the win, extending his lead over American Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream) to 21 seconds going into Tuesday’s final 13.1km individual time trial. Farrar, the winner of three stages so far here and the leader until Boasson Hagen took over on Sunday, finished third on the stage, just behind Australian Matthew Goss (Saxo Bank).

Spanish rider Alejandro Valverde will lead Caisse d'Epargne at this year's Vuelta a España, the team announced on Monday. The 29-year-old, who finished second in the 2006 Vuelta, did not compete in this year's Tour de France after being banned from competing in Italy for two years by the Italian Olympic Committee after he was implicated in the Operación Puerto doping scandal. The decision, which Valverde has contested, kept him out of the Tour, the 16th stage of which passed through Italy. The Vuelta takes place from August 29 to September 20.

Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay resort is sponsoring a prize for riders who score the best overall at the criterium and cyclocross races being held next month during the Interbike trade show. The week in 'Vegas includes the CrossVegas cyclocross race on Wednesday night, September 23, and the USA Crits Finals, held at the Mandalay Resort on The Strip in Vegas on the Thursday night, September 24.

Cadel Evans will lead Silence-Lotto at the 64th Vuelta a España with hopes of reaching the podium in the season’s final grand tour. Evans struggled through the recent Tour de France, finishing out of the top 10 for the first time, but will be riding to make amends for a frustrating performance in July with something big at the Spanish tour. The Aussie all-rounder has raced the Vuelta three times, abandoning in 2004, finishing 60th in 2004 and just missing the podium with fourth in 2007.

Interchangeable lenses are nothing new to performance eyewear. But historically, removing and replacing the lenses required a clenched jaw and careful application of force. Often, flexing the frame to pop out a lens felt like the frame was about to break. A revolution in sunglass technology has changed all that, to the point that a number of novel solutions to lens interchangeability now share space in the marketplace. We’ve assembled several sunglasses to look at their approach to lens removal and replacement.

Armstrong sat on one of the conference's many discussion panels, which also included former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, former Jordan prime minister Faisal Al-Fayez and European Parliament member Alojz Peterle.