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With a few changes - and a cover over the turf - the dome may turn into the perfect venue for a new event.

There's already a track...

... which local roadies use year-round.

Riders report that you can ride the track at up to 23mph.

Friday's Foaming Rant: The gambler

You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. — Kenny Rogers, The Gambler Floyd Landis has decided to play one last hand, taking his case to the International Court of Arbitration for Sport. Is it time for some close friend to delicately mention Gambler’s Anonymous? When Big Tex finally cashed in his chips and left the game a winner, the Mennonite kid from Farmersville, Pennsylvania, finally took what seemed to be a well-deserved seat at the high rollers’ table. The deal went his way for a while, but the cards have not been his friends for quite some time now. In fact,

Bruyneel is headed to Astana for the next few years

Welcome to the dome

Dear Readers;In my last column, "Themthere's fightin' words, boy," we looked at two cases—Chaplinskyv. New Hampshire and Cohen v. California—as backgroundfor revisiting the question of whether “flipping the bird” is constitutionallyprotected speech. To recap briefly, in Chaplinsky, a 1942 case,the Supreme Court carved out a “fighting words” exception to free speech—words“which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediatebreach of the peace.” Twenty-nine years later, the Supreme Court held in Cohen thatthe words “Fuck the Draft” did not constitute

Sports publisher seeks product and e-commerce consultant for catalog business. Consultant will work closely with manager of the Velo Catalog department in advising on product acquisition and catalog/Velogear.com marketing. Consultation would include product price negotiation, inventory control, budgeting, revenue generation, web and direct mail marketing and catalog production. 5-7 years catalog and e-commerce experience preferred, knowledge of cycling and triathlon industries a plus. Please send cover letter and résumé to: Attn: HR, ICI, 1830 N. 55th St., Boulder, CO 80301-2700 or

Heras, who's seen his share of courtrooms these past two years, is anxious to get back on the road.

To the winner...

...come the spoils.

Daddy, I want one of those!

The local 'cross crowd packs the Boulder Theater.

New Challenge tires for Ohio!

After the races, it's journal writing time.

Ariel Lindsley

North American News and Notes: Tour of Utah is back; Single-speed world's

Legally Speaking - with Bob Mionske: Free Bird

Landis during last May's hearing at Pepperdine.

The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company,

Dear readers,     VeloNews.com recently experienced an unexpected technical problem with one of several servers used to host a large portion of our video content. As a result, several videos from this year’s Tour de France, Tour of Missouri and other feature items are not currently available.     Our technical staff is working on the problem and we are currently re-loading many of those items using back-up files. Missing videos will gradually reappear on our site over the next few days.     We apologize for the lapse and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve those

Calling for "an overhaul" of national and international anti-doping enforcement systems, Floyd Landis announced Wednesday that he has filed an appeal of the ruling that resulted in the stripping of his Tour de France title. Landis filed an appeal with the International Court of Arbitration for Sport ahead of Thursday's deadline for challenging the decision of a three-member U.S. arbitration panel that resulted in the 2006 Tour title being awarded to Oscar Pereiro. “Knowing that the accusations against me are simply wrong, and having risked all my energy and resources – including those

Cavendish earned his 11th win of the season this week.

Petacchi's Salbutamol case is far from over.

Hincapie rode his last Tour in Disco colors this July.

Jon Baker, Axel and enough gear to mount a European campaign.

Each bike has a name tag just in case some Euro dude has a 60cm bike painted hunter’s orange.

3. ROL’s new CX38 wheelset adorned with Dugast’s Rhino mud tire.

That nifty custom brake adjuster.

Denver VeloSwap - October 27VeloSwapis the world's largest consumer bicycle and sports expo. It is THE placeto see, swap, buy, and sell every imaginable bike, part, and accessory.This cultural cycling happening is a not-to-be-missed experience. Itis the place to feel the pulse of the cycling community and rub elbowswith like minded cyclists.Booth space is available to individuals, clubs, retailers and manufacturers.Come see why 15,000 people think Veloswap is the best event of the year.For more information, visit www.VeloSwap.com19th Annual Subaru Denver VeloSwapDenver, ColoradoSaturday,

Off the back

Wicks takes the victory

Wicks and Trebon tag-teamed the world champ again

Compton and Bissette hung together early

But the national champ eventually soloed off to win

Our latest reader-submitted Photo Gallery is now ready for your viewing pleasure. Of course, a new gallery also means the naming of the winner of our most recent contest. Roger Klepacki’s “Off the back” made us both cringe and remember the pain and frustration of when a racing day goes bad… really bad. Roger, please drop us a note at Rosters@InsideInc.comto work out the details and we’ll send you a copy of our new Coors Classic DVD. Meanwhile, go ahead and take a look at our latest gallery, decide what you like and let us know what you think by dropping a note to

The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company,

Vervecken and Wicks battled right to the line

Vervecken said winning was tougher than in his previous visits stateside

Bausch, Reed and Hammer in the the women's 3km team pursuit

The podium

Dear Readers,
Welcome to the latest edition of The Prologue, the weekly summary of news from the world of competitive cycling by your friends at VeloNews.com.

The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company,

Slipstream Sports LLC, the parent company of the Slipstream professionalcycling team, has developed a grant program designed to breathe new lifeinto American youth cycling.The organization today announced "Causing the Slipstream," a developmentprogram to provide financial support to outstanding youth cycling programsacross the country.U.S.-based cycling programs with a junior development program are encouragedto apply for grants through www.slipstreamsports.com.Grant winners will also receive access to private training from Slipstream/Chipotleteam members and renowned Sports Physiologist,

Good genes or the power of argyle? Either way, Taylor Phinney is flyin'

Stapleton isn't expecting a rapid resolution to the ProTour fight.

Slipstream supports juniors

With his bikes still in Las Vegas, Whitey Debroux does his best rendition of a crazy Belgian super fan.

The chase.

One hour before this photo was taken, Trek's Travis Brown rolled into Boulder, stole a mountain bike from Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski's garage, then came out for a little Las Vegas detox session.

Pereiro in the maillot jaune during the '06 Tour

Dear Readers,In Deliveranceof the bird man, a reader wrote in to ask about an incident in which his group ride was buzzed, and in response, the ride leader flipped the offending driver “the bird.” As you may recall, this immediately led to an altercation between the “bird man” and the “enraged and rather large passenger.” In that column, I wrote that “the bird” is not constitutionally protected speech, and may even be a provocation to fight. In response, I received the following letter. Hi Bob,Interesting discussion of the "bird," although lacking in brevity and accuracy. I take issue

Legally Speaking - with Bob Mionske: Them there's fightin' words, boy

Cyclocrossworld.com's Jeremy Powers raiding the Team Maxxis espresso stash.

Bright lights, big city. Boulder Cycle Sport's Colby Pearce makes his way back to Sin City after the race.

Boulder Cycle Sport Sales Manager Rob Ferola trying to put the moves of Cipo.

The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company,

Contador is ready to join Bruyneel at Astana

Look’s new 586 breaks the sub-1000 gram mark including an uncut integrated seat mast. The new frame is more than 130-grams lighter the 595, but not quite as stiff. The frame set, including fork, headset and E-Post will cost $3700.

Time’s Ergo Force handlebar is molded in one-piece, unlike many of its competitors who build handlebars in three pieces. The 230-gram bar comes in three widths, 42, 44, 46, and costs $420.

Mavic’s answer to Lightweight, ADA and Lew: the Cosmic Carbone Ultimate. Weighing only 1120 grams/pair (520g front; 600g rear), it sells for $3,000/pair and is worth buying Mavic’s MP3 no-questions-asked warranty for.

The E-Post seat post system offers three different clamps, which differ in offset. The standard comes with +/- 20mm of adjustment, while there are reversible 32mm and 5mm options (pictured from left to right).

Pairing Time’s ULTeam RS carbon shoe with an RXS style pedal gives you, as Time claims, one of the industry’s lowest pedal and shoe stack height combinations at 21.4mm. A pair of the RS shoes weighs 580-grams and costs $285.

Prologo has a rail-less saddle and offers cradles to fit various seatposts that will grab the grooved saddle base. The saddle is still suspended at the front and rear, despite having no rail.

Giro’s Xen mountain bike helmet is a fixture in the trail segment, its design and greater coverage remains unchanged for 2008, but its style continues to evolve. The finish on this helmet is actually a fabric.

19. Stan Koziak the founder of NoTubes.com has a new ZTR Race rim that only weighs 283-grams. He’s tested rims weighing as little as 262-grams in MTB World Cups. Koziak has been a long time sponsor of Seven’s Mary McConnelogue and Mike Broderick.

Hed’s new Vantage 8 aero bar weighs a mere 490 grams complete with extensions and elbow pads that swing up out of the way when grasping the bar near the stem. The name refers to eight different adjustments.

We first saw the $225 Ionos helmet in the 2007 Tour de France. It has 15-percent more vent volume than the Atmos thus keeps a rider’s head 15-percent cooler, says Giro.

A NoTubes ZTR Race wheelset built with American Classic hubs and DT Swiss Revolution spokes can weigh as little as 1230 grams.

Hed’s little 3rd brake lever attaches to the shifter. It can come attached to either the left or right bar-end shifter, in either Shimano or Campagnolo.

In the fall, winter and early spring 15-percent cooler isn’t always wanted, so Giro includes a winter liner with every Ionos it sells.

21. Hutchinson’s Marc Gullickson was showing the company’s new tubeless ready ’cross tires. Both Bulldog and Piranha 34c tread patterns feature a tubeless Kevlar bead and 127tpi casing that’s meant to be used with Hutchinson’s Fast’ Air latex sealant

Hed’s 3rd lever installed onto a rear shifter and into the right extension.

Bell’s $130 Drop full-face helmet meets CPSC and ASTM specific standards for Downhill helmets, which are specific to full-face helmets.

Early trip to the races

Devin Lenz built an entire chairlift chair including the pad in order to demonstrate how easy the Lenz Sport Ski Bike is to load on the chair.

Motor heads got the first look at Bell’s new Bell Star Moto GP inspired street helmet at Interbike. The design and Viper graphics all come out of Bell’s Santa Cruz facility. It will be available this coming spring.

Bruyneel's 'retirement' may have been shorter than you thought