News

Stage 4 visits the slopes of the Ventoux

McCormack celebrates his win

Huff takes a flyer

Cruz gives it a shot

McCormack bides his time

Pic has been celebrating wins all season

Liberty Seguros cycling team director Manolo Saiz, arrested on doping charges, was released Wednesday after being questioned by police, the Civil Guard said. — The Associated PressManolo Saiz has found a new sponsor to underwrite his ProTour team, barely a week after insurance giant Liberty Seguros pulled the plug on its $8.5 million-a-year deal. — Andrew Hood, VeloNews So, Lance Armstrong is innocent and everybody else is guilty. Thank God we finally got that settled. Now we can say to hell with bicycle racing and find a respectable sport to follow, like cockfighting. Being a clean cyclist

Golden, CO - Bigfoot Productions (BFP), a newly formed event production and promotional company founded by industry veterans and Yeti Cycles principals Chris Conroy and Steve Hoogendoorn, today announces the acquisition of the assets of Cycle Cyndicate, owner and operator of the Mountain States Cup (MSC), one of the premier mountain bike (XC, STXC, DH, MX, DS, SD) race series in the United States. Mike McCormack, bicycle and ski industry veteran and co-founder of Breckenridge, Colorado-based Maverick Sports Promotions will serve as managing director of the new venture. Series originators Eric

Danielson was a worker bee at the Giro, not the role he will play in the Vuelta.

Saiz has a new title sponsor

Botero, seen here at last year's Tour, may spend the next few weeks waiting by the phone.

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.Vino’ didn’t steal anything: He got it fair and squareEditor:What does Andrew Hood mean when he writes that "Alexandre Vinokourov swiped [Levi Leipheimer's] hard-earned fifth place at the Tour de France" last year (see "Eye on the prize: A conversation with Levi Leipheimer")? Before

Phonak riders Santiago Botero and Giro d’Italia runner-up José Enrique Gutiérrez will not race again until their relationships with Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes are clarified, team officials announced Friday. Both riders have been linked by the Spanish media to Fuentes, who was among five people detained last month as part of an alleged blood doping ring. Phonak team officials said Friday that neither racer will compete until “examinations bring more clarity to the picture.” “Botero and Gutiérrez are neither dismissed nor suspended. In the interests of the team and to ensure calm for

World Anti-Doping Agency chairman Dick Pound rejected the conclusions from an investigation that cleared cyclist Lance Armstrong of 1999 Tour de France doping allegations, saying Friday it "borders on farcical." Dutch attorney Emile Vrijman was appointed by the International Cycling Union (UCI) last October to investigate the credibility of reports by the French newspaper L'Equipe claiming Armstrong used EPO in 1999, the first of his seven successive Tour wins. The newspaper said urine tests purportedly from Armstrong tested positive for EPO once tests not available in 1999 were applied

Dear Bob,In Texas, is it legal to ride two abreast or must all riders be single file? I appreciate your help,T.B.,Texas Dear T.B.,Grab yer ridin’ pardner, T.B., because riding two abreast is legal in Texas. Yee-Haw! To find out why, let’s mosey on over to the Texas Transportation Code. Section 551.103, which governs the operation of bicycles on the roadway, and states in part:Persons operating bicycles on a roadway may ride two abreast.Persons riding two abreast on a laned roadway shall ride in a single lane. Persons riding two abreast may not impede the normal and reasonable flow of

It seemed like Levi Leipheimer couldn’t catch a break last year. Despite some great racing and excellent form, victories were slipping through his fingers in the narrowest of margins. He lost the Tour de Georgia by four seconds and a time trial victory at the Dauphiné Libéré by less than one second. Then came the final insult when Alexandre Vinokourov swiped his hard-earned fifth place at the Tour de France with all the world watching on the Champs Élysées. But Leipheimer scored a sweet payback with the best victory of his career at the Tour of Germany two weeks later. It made all the hard

The French sports newspaper that accused Lance Armstrong of doping stood by its reporting Thursday, a day after an investigator cleared the seven-time Tour de France champion. ''There is nothing to retract from the revelations,'' L'Equipe said in an editorial that concluded: ''For our part, we remain convinced of the need to battle without compromise against the mafialike tendencies that still and always threaten the sport of cycling. Both in the method and the substance, L'Equipe stands firm.'' The newspaper repeated its allegations of last August

Team Wurth officials Manolo Saiz and Jose Ignacio Labarta, both implicated in the Spanish cycling doping scandal, were on Thursday asked to step down from their posts on the Associazione Internazionale Gruppi Sportivi Professionistici, the professional group representing teams and team staff at the UCI. Spanish cycling has been hit by the scandal which saw five people arrested last week on suspicion of involvement with blood doping. The five arrests came after a series of raids which uncovered a blood doping network involving taking samples from riders and oxygenating the blood cells

Ullrich rode Romandie in April and will return to Switzerland this month

Leipheimer has been showing good form all season

(L-R) Stevic, Frattini, and Lagutin

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.Simoni, please...enoughEditors,Can this man not take defeat graciously? His most recent tantrums duringand following the Giro are reminiscent of his loss to Cunego. I wonderwhat whiny comment he would have had if Basso had given him a stage win?Tony WhethamCourtice, OntarioJust drop the

Dutch investigators cleared Lance Armstrong of doping in the 1999 Tour de France on Wednesday, and blamed anti-doping authorities for misconduct in dealing with the American cyclist. A 132-page report recommended convening a tribunal to discuss possible legal and ethical violations by the World Anti-Doping Agency and to consider "appropriate sanctions to remedy the violations." The French sports daily L'Equipe reported in August that six of Armstrong's urine samples from 1999, when he won the first of his record seven-straight Tour titles, came back positive for the

Editor's Note The Union Cycliste Internationale, Lance Armstrong and the World Anti-Doping Agency both issued statements following the release of a UCI-requested investigator's report regarding allegations of doping by Armstrong in the 1999 Tour de France.(Read the FULL REPORT)  Statement from the UCIThe International Cycling Union has learned with great surprise de declarations conveyed to the Dutch press by Mr. Emile Vrijman, independent investigator within the frame of the urine sample analysis during the 1999 Tour de France case.The UCI firmly deplores the behaviour of Mr.

A member of the Guardia Civil holds up blood transfusion equipment found during a raid on May 24.

Comunidad Valenciana director Vicente Belda may not be smiling after this week

Armstrong announcing plans to retire in 2005 (file photo)

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.New team for Gilberto?Editor,Say, is Gilberto Simoni trying to become the captain of the Bicciniand Monini racing team?An angry Simoni called Basso an "extraterrestrial" for hiscrushing performance and accused him riding unfairly by asking him to rideeasy on the perilous descent off the

We know that it’s been a while since our last weekly contest and we’ll try to get these back on track, folks. Our latest reader-submitted Photo Gallery is now up for your viewing pleasure. Of course, a new gallery also means the naming of the winner of ourmost recent contest. Take the time to wander through that gallery and see if you agree or disagree with our choice of winner. This past contest offered up an especially difficult set of choices, but we ultimately settled upon Steve Jacoubowsky’s shot of Robbie-Hunter taking on the prologue at the Tour of California. Congratulations

Maybe Simoni should just let his legs do the talking.

Hampsten in '88: Pretty darn tough for skinny little climber dude.

Robbie-Hunter-TOC Prologue

It seems like Ryder Hesjedal has been racing his bike forever. Whether racking up wins as one of North America’s most consistent performers on the dirt or bumping shoulders with the European peloton on the road, it’s sometimes hard to remember that the guy is only 25 years old. Since walking away from mountain biking after the 2004 World Championships, Hesjedal has quietly been making strides on the road. Despite crashing out of the 2005 Giro d’Italia, Hesjedal made important gains in form and confidence in what was his first full season racing on the road. A switch to Phonak in the winter

Hesjedal feels like he's fitting in at Phonak

Basso collects the trophy

Forster takes the finale

A team effort

The podium

Riis and Basso toast their victory

Okay, you just knew we were gonna lay one of these on you, right?

But it was Basso's day to shine

Göhl en route to victory

Absalon surges to the finish

A smiling Basso hoists a picture of his new son as he crosses the finish line

Basso was enjoying himself – Simoni less so

An angry Simoni called Basso an 'extraterrestrial'

Basso, meanwhile, just wanted to savor his victory

The main event: The Gavia

The pass separated the sheep from the goats

Another look at the Gavia

Gutierrez working the Mortirolo

Basso and Simoni, mano a mano

Savoldelli pulled out all the stops on the descent

Garate and Voigt joined the day's early break and stayed away all day.

Voigt rode up to Valjavec and then joined Garate when the Spanish champion bridged and attacked

Piepoli put the hurt on the peloton

Savoldelli lost contact and Danielson paced him up the final climb

Basso and Simoni swept up most of the break... and put time on Gutierrez and Savoldelli

Game Over? Basso enters the last big day in the mountains with 6:07 on Gutierrez

Garate wins

Class Act: After following Garate's wheel for 5km, Voigt declined to contest the sprint.

The after-shocks from the so-called “Operación Puerto” that rocked Spanish cycling in the wake of the arrests of Liberty Seguros team manager Manolo Saiz and sports doctor Eufemiano Fuentes and three others are already rippling through cycling. Liberty Seguros announced Thursday it’s immediately ending its multi-million-dollar sponsorship with the ProTour team while Spanish authorities are reporting that as many as 200 riders and athletes could be implicated in a widespread doping network. “The implications of Manolo Saiz´s detention are highly alarming: they damage our name and cycling’s

DOPERSSUCK.COM AND SOCKGUY DONATE FUNDS TO JUNIOR CYCLISTSBoulder, CO – May 24, 2006 – Dopers Suck and SockGuy have createda new sock featuring the Dopers Suck logo and will donate a portion ofthe proceeds to junior cycling development programs across the country.“Whether racing or training, I wanted to provide athletes with a wayto express their beliefs about performance enhancing drugs and what betterway to do it that with a sock! And, what better sock company to work withthan SockGuy? SockGuy makes the highest quality, best fitting custom socksin the cycling industry and they were really

Schumacher catches and passes Bruseghin in a charge to the line

Gadret's Giro is over.

A strong break on a course that favored a small group

Ullrich even tried to join in the fun...

The chase wasn't furious.

Forster on the descent

Jonathan Patrick McCarty

Wednesday's cold, rain and snow gave way to a beautiful Alpine spring day on Thursday.

No, not today: Officials eliminated the anticipated climb to Kronplatz.

The unsuccessful break...

... and the successful chase.

Perez Cuapio animates the climb....

The Spanish government warned Wednesday that it was committed to its zero-tolerance stance on doping in sports in the wake of the arrest of the manager of Spanish cycling team Liberty.Manolo Saiz was arrested Tuesday on doping charges and detained at the drugs squad's headquarters.Saiz and four others who were arrested - including the Valence team sporting director Ignacio Laberta and a former doctor to the Kelme and ONCE teams Eufemiano Fuentes - are part of a huge investigation into cycling by the Spanish police.The newspaper El Pais reported that more than 200 blood bags destined for

Madrid, Spain (AP) - Liberty Seguros cycling team director Manolo Saiz, arrested on doping charges, was released Wednesday after being questioned by police, the Civil Guard said. Saiz will still have to go before a judge. Four other men arrested along with Saiz, one of the biggest names in Spanish cycling, remain in custody. They still have to be questioned by the Civil Guard, a paramilitary police unit of the Interior Ministry. It was not clear when Saiz would go before a judge. The other four detainees include Eufemiano Fuentes, a physician who has worked for several Spanish cycling

Basso lengthened his lead, even as Piepoli won Stage 17

.. then Piepoli breaks things up