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The day's early break would not survive the “Gila Monster”

Swenson won the Cima Pantani prize at the summit of Anderson Vista

Frattini and Moninger drive the lead group

Swenson tries to leave the lead group in the final miles of the stage

Hamilton's reprise

... but Hamilton got them both.

Scholz set the early standard...

... topped by McGee...

Danielson: Ready for a Giro start?

Moninger had a chance to relax while Sayers went off the strut his stuff

Wherry, Jones and Lokkesmoe in control.

Sayers scores!

The women's cresting the hill on Cooper St.

Rubelt was the only one who could follow Sayers.

Holden drives what became the winning move.

The big Pole -- aka Darius Baranowski (Liberty Seguros) -- is ready to help new team captain Roberto Heras take on Lance Armstrong in July's Tour de France.

Tim Johnson (Saunier Duval) rolls out. The team's half-joking wish that the cold, snowy stage would be canceled went unfulfilled in Saturday's fourth stage of the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon.

Tim Johnson (Saunier Duval) strikes the perfect pose fully kitted out in his team colors for a cold day in the saddle.

The next Ekimov? Vladimir Karpets (Illes Balears) - fresh off his victory at the Tour of the Rioja last weekend - looks not-too-pleased to talk to the Russian media before the start of Saturday's stage.

How cold will Koldo Gil (Liberty Seguros) get? The rising Spanish star hopes not very much.

Spain's Alejandro Valverde (CV-Kelme) is content after winning Friday's third stage. Castilla y Leon is his last major race before taking a break to build up for the Olympics and the Vuelta.

Jeker takes the win; Hamilton takes the overall lead

Jeker sets the pace

The Col Ovronnez

Hamilton's in charge with the final time trial on deck

Al Stiller, a leader in U.S. road and track racing from the late 1940s to the early 1960s and who had witnessed one of the Tour de France’s epic finishes, died April 20 in Boulder, Colorado. He was 80 and suffered from heart problems. Chicago born and bred, Stiller recalled in a 1991 interview that he became intrigued with cycling as a youngster in the late 1920s after watching six-day racers whirling around a steeply banked wooden velodrome in Chicago Stadium. “I joined a local club in 1939, and won my first race—a 400-yard event on the grass in a park. I was 16. There was no holding

Moninger patrolling in pink

Health Net masses at the front

Neben keeps a grip on the lead

Who says pros are spoiled? Joseba Beloki (La Boulangere) adjusts his seat before the start.

Breakthrough performance: Winning Langkawi in 2003 got Danielson noticed

Moos is ecstatic at his stage win

Defending champ Hamilton shows his strength

Poetry in motion

Moos owns the podium today, but says the overall is for Hamilton

The underpinnings of the new track

It's a hard-hat area ...

... especially if you try riding this section

But things will be smooth as silk, eventually

Check out the corner

Hey, dude, when can we ride?

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. What’s up with Sevilla?Editor:I just saw the overall standings for Romandie, and I noticed Oscar Sevilla was present, but well down in the ranks. Is he being prepped as a "super-domestique" for Tyler's Tour bid, like Roberto Heras was for

With two full months of the USCF's National Racing Calendar in the books, it's a good time to look at how the numbers stack up on the NRC circuit. The most recent NRC standings up on the USA Cycling Web site are from April 18, before the start of the Tour de Georgia, so they really only tell part of the story of the 2004 season. Those standings, taking Sea Otter into account, show Chris Horner with a commanding lead over Cesar Grajales in the individual standings, and Horner's Webcor team with a big cushion over Health Net-Maxxis in the team standings. The women's standings show Lyne Bessette

Look on the bright side. Someday, we'll all be dead.Anonymous Even considering that this is an election year, the national discourse seems to have sunk to a new low – to somewhere around my level, actually – and it pains me to see all these teensy little feet mincing about on my muddy turf. If I enjoyed company, frankly, I’d try being a nicer person. Nevertheless, here you all are, shoving and elbowing and trying to drown each other out, each of you telling me and all the other readers of VeloNews.com just what, in your feeble opinion, sucks. Missy Giove sucks. People who think Missy

Ever wonder just what’s under the boards under your tires when you race on a wooden track? Thanks to the folks at the Home Depot Center and photographer Greg Page, we can give you a sneak peek at a work in progress – the ADT Event Center on the campus of California State University-Dominguez Hills in Carson. The ADT Event Center, billed as the first and only permanent indoor track of international standard in North America, is scheduled to host USA Cycling’s Junior National Championships June 28–July 3. The actual grand opening will come during the UCI Junior Track World Championships,

Danielson hopes to make a good impression riding at Romandie this week

It was supposed to be a quiet day in the idyllic Swiss countryside

Hamilton on the offensive

McGee defends his jersey

A quiet day in the idyllic Swiss countryside

Hamilton on the offensive

McGee defends his jersey

Scott's vice president of U.S. bicycle sales Scott Montgomery shows off the hyper-light (895 gram) Team Issue CR1 carbon road frame

The complete Dura-Ace 10-speed equipped Team Issue CR1 will be available later this year

Thomas Frischknecht piloted this RC-10 at Sea Otter. Notice the funky Scott pull shock.

Manzano's recent testimony has closed the door to the Giro for Kelme

Vicenza, April 28, 2004 - Campagnolo has decided to go a stepfurther than the simple compact crankset, and develop a fully integrated10-speed drivetrain so that there are no half measures where safety, performance and longevity are concerned. This project has resulted in the new CT crankset and CT derailleur, which is why we can now introduce the first compact drive train. Campagnolo CT CranksetThe cranks are born of a project that skilfully unites Multidirectionaland Unidirectional Carbon Fiber technology. The Campagnolo CT crankset will be available in the Record, Chorusand Centaur

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. This reader doesn't miss MissyHey Velo,What's the deal with keeping your readers informed on Missy Giove? (see "MTBNews and Notes: Missy on being Missy") Nobody wants to hear abouther spats with Anne-Caroline Chausson, or her marital

See ya! Astarloa's stint in his Cofidis kit was short-lived

Spring time in Switzerland

Hamilton and teammate Oscar Sevilla

Danielson is holding his own

Coming to the CLIF BAR Headquarters Thursday evening, May 13th! CLIF BAR & VeloNews are excited to present: First we'll tap a few kegs and fire up the pizza oven, then we'll sit back for an evening all about the Luna Chix Mt. Bike Program, highlighting the '04 Luna Chix Women’s Mountain Bike Team . Alison Dunlap, Marla Streb, Shonny Vanlandingham, Katerina Hanusova, and Kathy Pruitt will all be joining Gary Erickson on stage in the CLIF BAR Performing Arts Theater for an evening of fun and chat. Please join us! Hang out with fellow cycling fans, chat it up with the folks from CLIF BAR, and

For immediate release (Boulder, CO) -- America's most grueling bike race -- the 2,959-mile Insight Race Across America (RAAM) -- has chosen VeloNews to produce its 2004 event program. The program will be featured in a special RAAM cover-edition of VeloNews and as a special tabloid-sized section inside the magazine, plus have over-prints that will be distributed full run-of-book in Tailwinds and UltraCycling magazines. Total distribution is 100,000 copies. Now in its 23th year, RAAM starts on June 20th in San Diego and finishes in Atlantic City on approximately July 1. The event was

Mayo wants to arrive fresh for the Tour

Technical Q&A with Lennard Zinn - More tire talk

McGee put his pursuit talents to use

Hamilton

Danielson

The courses are set, the athletes are ready, and the 2004 TREK Bikes Collegiate National Cycling Championships Presented by TIAA-Cref are only four weeks away. The Nation's top collegiate cyclists will converge in Madison, Wisconsin on the weekend of May 21, 2004 for three days of intense racing to crown this year's Collegiate National Champions. Racing begins on Friday, May 21 with the TIAA-Cref Criterium (Lapped Race) held on historic State St. in downtown Madison (Racing begins at 1, Men's D-I race at 5:30). Saturday sees action in the 86 mile road race that passes through Black Earth,

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.All that and SNOOKER, too!Dear Editors:With OLNTV cycling coverage on the classics deteriorated to the point that it is just not even worth the wear-and-tear on my TiVo's hard-drive letalone for me to watch, I have half-started looking into

Norristown, PA – The first five juniors qualified for the JuniorPro Cycling Tour to be held Sunday, June 6, as part of the Wachovia USPROChampionship, now celebrating its 20th year in Philadelphia.  MichaelChauner, 17, West Chester, PA high school senior and a member of the Colorado-based,Team Rio Grande, blistered to a solo finish, followed by Chad Young, 18,from Lancaster, PA, Main Line Cycling, both over a minute ahead of thefield of 24.Colton Valentine, 16, Philadelphia, Quaker City Wheelmen, Elliot Gaunt,17, Williamsport, Main Line Cycling and Chris Ruhl, 17, Quakertown andalso on

If bike racing was only about legs, lungs and fitness, we'd all be racing nothing but time trials and concentrating only on aerodynamics and gear selection. But anyone who has toed the line at anything from a local office-park crit' to the Tour de France will already know that the real beauty of bicycle racing is in its tactics.Competitive cycling is about using good technique and having a strong tactical sense - "race smarts," if you will. While it's true that the most physically prepared cyclists usually survive, they don't necessarily always win. One of this country's premiere cycling

Julich marked his return to American racing with a solid performance

Eki' drops back for a feed