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Going up: The start in Cuenca

Piil continued his aggressive racing . . .

Get ready ... get set ...

Hermida and company are delighted

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. 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.Tuna Canyon: Cycling or psych-ling?Editor:Scheduling a race on road bikes down Tuna Canyon/Las Flores Canyon can only mean that insurance rates for promoters must have really dropped. Whereas its sister road on the north side of the coastal range (Stunt Road) does indeed have stretches

McConneloug awaiting her turn at the course

He doesn’t have a huge client base or a high-tech, on-line coaching Web site, but you can’t argue with the success cycling coach Rick Crawford has achieved. The Durango, Colorado resident started out working with the likes of Lance Armstrong and Chann McRae in the 1980s, and today boasts a clientele that includes mountain-bike standout Shonny Vanlandingham, reigning USPRO champ Chris Wherry and 2005 Tour de Georgia winner Tom Danielson, who is currently riding the Vuelta a España, hoping to make it to the finish of his first grand tour. Recently VeloNews sat down with Crawford to find out

Crawford is also director of the successful Fort Lewis College cycling team.

Hushovd overpowers a swift bunch

Vuelta Notebook: Ballerini confident; Barry eyes world's; Gerdemann impressive; what's next

Barry, shown leading Wednesday's break, hopes for a world's berth

McGee is enjoying his tenure as race leader

Heras and Sastres punched it on the climb

McGee stayed out of trouble and in the lead

Finot and Piepoli in a spot of bother

Leblacher and Piil on the move

Ardila at the head of affairs in the finale

Française des Jeux working for McGee

Crawford (left) has worked with Danielson dating back to his college days.

Crawford was very optimistic about Danielson's chances as the Vuelta neared the end of the first week.

Wherry moved to Durango to be closer to his coach.

Wherry shows off his stars-and-stripes cruiser outside his new home in Durango.

Express elevator to Hell, going down!

Vuelta Notebook: Danielson keeping cool; Petacchi looks toward Madrid; but not Valverde

Kabush wants a top-10 at world's

So far, so good: Danielson is comfortable with the Vuelta

How hot was it?

Hot enough to keep slathering on the sunscreen

Leading the way through the Spanish sunshine

And then they were three

Joachim and Pasamontes tried a late dash, to no avail

All together now

McGee pays a visit to the doc on an otherwise uneventful, if hot, day in the saddle

Does this place scream mountain-bike racing or what?

The village within a village

The cross-country profile

My friends, I want you to take a quick gander at this map of Tuna Canyon, a steep, narrow rut just north of balmy Malibu, California. See that squiggly dark line labeled “Tuna Canyon Road” that spins out of the park entrance? Looks a little twisty, eh? Well, that one-lane patch of asphalt drops more than 2000 feet in two miles to the ocean. Shooting down that thing on a road bike would be akin to bombing a giant-slalom ski course on a toboggan. Here’s a little write up I found online about what driving Tuna Canyon Road is like. “Owing to its narrowness and difficult sharp turns, Tuna Canyon

Going down . . .

Press Release: Follow the Vuelta and win cool stuff!If you tune into VeloNews.com's Daily Live Coverage of the Vuelta aEspana, you have a chance to win an Illes Balears team-issue helmet everyday of Spain's national tour and you might win a lightweight carbon Kuips Abyss frame set, when the peloton reaches Madrid.We're happy to announce that DPMSports.com - the sponsor of VeloNews.com's LIVE COVERAGE of the the Vuelta is giving away an Illes Balears team issue helmet by Spiuk to each of the winners of our daily contest, a name drawn at random from those who submitted the

The longest world's four-cross yet

Petacchi does it the hard way after his silver train stopped a little short of the station

Take me to the bridge

Cycling’s international governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale said Monday it will investigate reports of positive drug tests at the 1999 Tour de France, but stopped short of specifically naming seven-time winner Lance Armstrong. The allegations, which surfaced last week in the French daily sports newspaper L'Equipe, said Armstrong used the performance-enhancing drug EPO to help win his first Tour de France in 1999. Armstrong has denied the allegations. The UCI said it regretted the breach of confidentiality in the disclosure of samples, but said it was pressing ahead with

Wow, so much to discuss this week. This column is coming to you from the pressroom of the world mountain-bike championships in Livigno, Italy, so I want to crank this puppy out and get to putting together a nice preview of the week ahead. The recent allegations surrounding Lance Armstrong and EPO at the 1999 Tour de France have obviously taken center stage, not just on our Web site but across the world. And once again, it’s hard to know whom or what to believe. Clearly the editorial staff at L’Equipe felt ready to take this story to press, risking its professional reputation to bring down

Petacchi pummels 'em at the end of a hot day in Spain

Stick a fork in him. Vande Velde was cooked slowly throughout the entirety of today's stage

No pressure for Danielson at the Vuelta

It was a hot time in the old town of Montoro

Pascual Rodríguez has a go

Aldag's kit is a little the worse for wear after a spill

Gutierrez took a digger, too

FDJeux works for race leader McGee

McGee enjoys another appearance with the podium girls

Hoste and Van Heeswijk sweat under the Spanish sun

Vuelta Notebook: Discovery's youth movement; Landis hopeful; Phonak realistic; heat unrelenting

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. 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.A smokescreen for the uninformed?Editor:In 1999 you didn't need to worry about surprise out-of-competition tests for EPO, nor did you have to administer microdoses to stay under the radar. You brought your hematocrit up to your desired target level with twice- or thrice-weekly shots,

Bertagnolli wins

Hincapie adds another ProTour feather to his cap

McGee gets the jersey

Stage 3: Córdoba to Puertollano

It was a hot one in Andalusia

Bertagnolli solos away

Bettini gets a visit from the doctor

Boonen loads up on water

The lead slips away from Menchov

Craig wraps the season up the way he began

Vanlandingham makes the most of Hanusova's leadout

Pizarro loves the mud and made it work for her

Tall knobbies made the difference for Riffle

Rabobank's recruit shows he's worth the paycheck

Heras rode a strong prologue and remains a favorite

Denied: Verbrugghe was oh-so-close

Vuelta Notebook: Danielson's on-track; Vande Velde feeling good

Danielson is primed to take on the Vuelta

Sastre did himself - and Spain - proud

Lance Armstrong vehemently denied fresh doping allegations and attacked lapses in anti-doping protocol that allowed a French newspaper to gain access to his stored urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France. Armstrong said something is wrong with an anti-doping system that allowed his six-year-old urine samples to be retested after they were supposed to be stored anonymously. "This thing stinks," he said. "It's not good for me. The unfortunate thing is that you're dealing with something you could be faced with the rest of your life. Protocol wasn't followed, and there was no

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. 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.Let the facts do the talkingDear Velo,I am writing this amidst what is likely to become one of the most provocativeand contested issues in the Lance saga, let alone in the cycling worldin the last few decades. But the core issue to me is not about Lance'semphatic denials,