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This just in from Northwave: The company is starting to show some early releases from the 2010 shoe line, including the Rebel SBS mountain bike shoe. The Rebel SBS is positioned as a mid-priced, high performance trail shoe that includes many features from the top-line product.

The Astana team said it intends to enforce its current contract with two-time Tour de France champion Alberto Contador and promises the Spaniard will be the unquestioned leader of the team next season. The two-time yellow jersey winner is reported to be reviewing offers from rival teams following a tumultuous three-week race in which much of the focus was on his rivalry with teammate Lance Armstrong.

Phillip Gaimon defended his title at New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb on Saturday, as Canadian Sue Schlatterer easily won the women’s division. After near-record-setting spring and summer rains, Mother Nature blessed the 37th edition of one of the toughest hillclimbs in the country with a warm and near-perfect day. At race-time the temperature at the base of the Auto Road (1565 feet) was an unusually warm 75, while the summit (6,288 feet) posted a balmy 60, with wind speeds at just 20 mph.

Lance Armstrong (Mellow Johnny's) won Colorado's Leadville 100 on Saturday, knocking more than 15 minutes off of the old record, about a half hour ahead of six-time winner Dave Wiens. Armstrong rode about 60 miles alone off the front, finishing with a nearly flat rear tire. Armstrong ally Matt Shriver helped drive the pace in the early miles, powering a group of eight along the relatively flat mid-section of the course and into the base of the turn-around climb. Shriver hung on, despite problems with his cleat, to finish third.

Transition. In the hotel in San Sebastian the atmosphere was different than that which I left at the Dauphiné Libéré. There had been a switch in mentality in the six weeks between the two races. Like a student entering the final semester, there now seemed an eagerness as we neared the end the season. Although there are still dozens of races to ride, the end, somehow, now seemed in sight as we had passed the midway point.

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Matt Shriver, one of the Trek-sponsored riders expected to ride in support of Lance Armstrong at Saturday's Leadville Trail 100, says he has his own goals, too. Armstrong told VeloNews Thursday that while he did not recruit a team of domestiques or pacers for the race, his sponsor Trek was "sending some fast guys" who could drive the pace in the first half of the race, making it more likely that Armstrong could break the course record.

American Chris Horner is not yet signed for 2010, with Lance Armstrong’s RadioShack squad or any other team, he told VeloNews Friday. Horner said that while he was in discussions with Armstrong, he’s also in discussions with “at least four English-speaking” ProTour teams, adding that reports that riders have signed when they in fact have not can be damaging to their contract negotiations.

Columbia-HTC’s Kim Anderson claimed overall victory of the Route de France Friday. The American rider and her teammates celebrated the win after the 132km stage from Blanzat to Chatelguyon.

Back in June, Levi Leipheimer and his Astana teammate Lance Armstrong were joking about using the Tour de France as training for the Leadville 100. But things got sideways when Leipheimer crashed and broke his wrist on stage 12. Still in a cast, Leipheimer will not be racing the 100-mile mountain bike race high in the Colorado mountains Saturday. But that hasn’t stopped him from talking some friendly smack. VeloNews asked Leipheimer how he would have expected the race to play out if he had been able to compete.

Levi Leipheimer signed yesterday to ride with RadioShack in 2010, a source close to the team told VeloNews. “It’s not 100 percent, but it looks pretty likely on (Chris) Horner as well,” the source said. (Horner later told VeloNews that he is still weighing offers from several teams.) The two American riders were widely expected to follow Lance Armstrong from Astana to his new team. Contacted Friday, Leipheimer said he wasn’t at liberty to discuss his team situation for next year.

Pedro's new portable tool does many things, including paying tribute to one of cycling's early innovators by being, well, innovative. Singletrack.com talks to the guy who brought it to life.

As we've already reported, several Trek-supported riders are on hand in the high country of central Colorado to keep the pace high as Lance Armstrong takes his second stab at the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race.

Jens Voigt is one tough customer and the German all-rounder is determined to return to racing following his harrowing accident at this year’s Tour de France. Recovering nicely from his high-speed fall, the hugely popular Voigt could mark his return to competition at next month’s Tour of Missouri, where his Saxo Bank team is among the starting teams.

Three-time cyclocross world champion Erwin Vervecken of Belgium will race the CrossVegas in Las Vegas next month, race organizers announced Friday. Vervecken won the world title in 2001, 2006 and 2007 and, at 37 won the Roubaix World Cup last winter. He has announced that he will retire at the end of this season. Vervecken's teammate Ben Berden also will race in the September 23 event.

Alberto Contador doesn’t have a home for 2010, but he’s not worried about it, at least not yet. The two-time Tour de France champ says he methodically considering his options as he looks to secure his future following a tension-filled run at Astana this season. “I have various possibilities, and some of them are quite attractive, and I am analyzing them with without a great deal of stress at this point,” Contador told the Spanish wire service EFE. “The offers might be abundant, but firm offers there aren’t so many.”

“Lance in Leadville” has a nice ring to it. The high altitude, 100-mile fire-road-heavy mountain bike race looks like an MTB event made in heaven for the Aspen-dwelling Texan. But seeing the man himself astride a mountain bike is still a touch odd, after his chiseled visage has been photographed for so long on road bikes.

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Other than the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, few countries award a national championship jersey for criterium racing. The UCI does not even recognize it as an event and, therefore, does not recognize the national championship, but at least it kindly looks the other way, because criteriums are the most popular form of racing in these countries. In the U.S., criteriums dominate the racing calendar over road racing, culminating in the middle of August for the past 17 years in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove for the U.S. national criteirum championships.

Former Gerolsteiner rider Bernard Kohl said Friday that scientists working in laboratories accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) were bribed by his former manager, the alleged head of a doping network. Austrian Stefan Matschiner, who managed the careers of several top Austrian athletes including Kohl, is accused of organising an elaborate doping network which helped top athletes in Europe to cheat by using performance-enhancing drugs and methods.