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Astana is sending Tour of California champ Levi Leipheimer to the Tour of Missouri next month, in what will be Leipheimer's first race sine he broke his wrist during the Tour de France. Joining Leipheimer on the team will be 2007 Tour de Georgia winner Janez Brajkovic and Yaroslav Popovych, a Tour of Italy podium finisher and stage winner at the Tour de Georgia. "I'm still recovering from my broken wrist," Leipheimer said. "But anytime I have the opportunity to line-up for a race of this caliber in my own country, I'm going to make my best effort to participate."

Chris Horner will finally get a crack at the GC in a grand tour when the Vuelta a España clicks into gear on Saturday in Holland. That’s according to Astana sport director Sean Yates, who said the team will let Horner give it a stab for the overall classification. “Horner has progressed a lot this year, but he hasn’t had a chance to show on his own what he can do in the GC because he’s always been working for others,” Yates said. “I think he’s very motivated for the Vuelta. First he has to avoid a crash and then it’s a question of following.”

Preliminary Start List – Vuelta a España 2009

The Greenville Hospital System USA Cycling Professional Championships return to Greenville, South Carolina for the fourth year August 29-30 and pit the bulk of the domestic peloton against select ProTour riders in a battle for stars and stripes jerseys in the time trial and road race. 2009 marks the 25th anniversary of the one-day road race national championships.

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Garmin-Slipstream's sprinter Tyler Farrar will be looking for stage wins at the Vuelta a Espana starting Saturday, and the team is sending a squad of all-rounders and sprinters to help him get his first grand tour stage win. Farrar is coming off a string of successes at the Tour de France and the Eneco Tour. Team CEO Jonathan Vaughters says he expects the success to continue.

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Spin doctors?

As if the last two years hadn’t happened at all, Alexander Vinokourov is back at the Vuelta a España and back on the Astana team. Ignore that two-year racing ban for illegal blood transfusions and forget about the behind-the-scenes power struggle at Astana involving Johan Bruyneel, Vinokourov and the power cadre of Kazakh backers. At least that’s what Vinokourov wants everyone to do.

Press Release

Just in time for fall, Fort Bicycles is rolling out some great deals on cyclocross frames. A Fort all-aluminum Cross.Max frame is now selling for $349, and the carbon-aluminum Cross.Max.SSC is just $549. Both are sold as frames only (no forks), but Fort does offer SRAM, Campy, or Shimano build kits as special order items.

Press Release

In the first Mountain Bike World Championship event since the Beijing Olympics, American XC athletes will square off against rivals from across the globe in the only Olympic discipline of off-road cycling.

Sentencing for Chris Jongewaard is scheduled two days after upcoming World Championships in Canberra, Australia.

Every style of riding you could ever hope to find can be found in this Canadian mountain biking hot spot.

@lancearmstrong: Good morning Dublin. Who wants to ride this afternoon? I do. 5:30pm at the roundabout of Fountain Road and Chesterfield Avenue. See you there. What started out as a simple Tweet from his mobile phone just hours earlier turned into a Lance Armstrong frenzy when over a thousand riders turned up at 5:30 in Dublin’s Phoenix Park Tuesday evening. An army of Armstrong fans turned up from all over Ireland, and indeed from various other countries, in the hope of getting to ride with their idol, and they were not disappointed.[nid:97151]

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.

How can I fix my creaking cranks?

My SRAM Force shift lever broke, what can I do?

Are Shimano external bottom brackets interchangeable?

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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