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... with help from Saunier Duval and Liberty Seguros

Iban Mayo is here to get in shape for July

Petacchi moves into the leader's jersey

SPOT ON - Santa Cruz framebulder Rick Hunter is known for his fine fillet brazing.

Petacchi makes it look easy

Zaballa

Talabard leads the escape

Saunier Duval gives chase

Chavenel and Mayoz

Garzelli is riding into form

Make VeloNews.com a regular part of your surfing schedule:Mondays “ A Fred's Eye View" with Fred Dreier (weekly)Tuesdays“Continental Drift” with Andrew Hood (weekly)“Technical Q&A” with Lennard Zinn (weekly) Wednesdays ”Nutrition Q&A” with Monique Ryan (every other week) “Training Bible Studies” with Joe and Dirk Friel (every other week) Thursdays “Tech Report” with Andrew Juskaitis (weekly) “Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood” with Neal Rogers (weekly)“Legally Speaking” with Bob Mionske (weekly) Fridays”Inside Cycling” with John Wilcockson (weekly) “Friday's Foaming Rant” with

It could be Millar Time once again in the 2006 Tour de France after the Court of Arbitration for Sport gave David Millar something of a reprieve last week. Millar – who lost his 2003 world time trial crown after admitting to taking EPO – unsuccessfully asked the sporting world’s highest court to reduce his doping ban to one year, but won in his appeal that his ineligibility should begin from the date of his arrest by French police in June of 2004 rather than from his disciplinary hearing before the British Cycling Federation in August. By changing the date of the two-year ban, CAS opened

The Kona Bicycle Co. announces 2005 Kona Factory-Les Gets team rosterFormer XC World Champion and NORBA XC Champ, Roland Green, and four’crossexpert, Kamil Tartakovic, make squad strongest ever.KONAWORLD (February, 2005) – The Kona Bicycle Company today announcedthe roster for the 2005 Kona Factory – Les Gets team. The 2005 Kona Factory– Les Gets team includes the additions of 2001 cross-country World Champion,Roland Green, and Czech Four’Cross specialist, Kamil Tartakovic.Green joins the most dynamic team on last year’s cross-country circuitthat features Kris Sneddon, Ryan Trebon, Peter

Vitamin Cottage Cycling Team Announces 2005 Riders, Sponsors, andPlansThe Vitamin Cottage Cycling Team, Pro-1-2 winner of the American CyclingAssociation’s 2004 Best All Around Team Competition, has announced its2005 rider and sponsor lineup.The Men’s Elite Team will consist of Alan McCormack, Andy Bajadali,Brian Hludzinski, Chad Taylor, Christian McCarthy, Chuck Coyle, Dirk Friel,Joe Taddeucci, Joey Pinkerton, Jon Tarkington, Rob Holland, Michael Schilling,and Sean Bragstad.  The Women’s Elite Team will consist of JennerYaeso, Martha Meyer, Missy Thompson, and Renee Eastman.2004

SEA OTTER CLASSIC CREATES CYPRESS YOUTH FUNDFund Focuses on Combating Childhood ObesityMonterey, Calif. – Sea Otter Classic, LLC announced todaythe development of a philanthropic arm, the Cypress Youth Fund. The Fundfocuses on distributing funds to organizations that benefit their communitiesin the areas of Youth, Sports, Education, and Environment.“The mission of the Sea Otter Classic is to make peoples lives betterthrough participation in sport and recreation, and through celebrationof an active outdoor lifestyle”, says Frank Yohannan, President and CEOof Sea Otter Classic, LLC. Sea Otter

Zinoviev dies in OhioAlexandre "Sasha" Zinoviev, a captain of the Soviet team that won the world team time trial championship in 1983 and 1985, died at a Cincinnati hospital Monday of gastric cancer, his family said. He was 43. Zinoviev, who turned pro and raced on the Alfa Lum squad in the late 1980s, also coached the Soviet national team in 1990. He retired completely from the sport in 1992. He later emigrated to the United States and became a citizen in 2001. Zinoviev was a computer analyst for a medical resource company in suburban Blue Ash, Ohio. He is survived by his wife, Lora, and

Millar - seen here leaving court last fall - hopes to be wearing a team kit next year

Zinoviev

Wild Bill in 1979

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.Ride where you can, preserve where you can’tVeloNews,In response to Kurt Bickel’s letter in Friday’sMailbag. Poach if you have to, but don't oppose wilderness designation. Flawedas it is, wilderness designation affords the best possible legal protectionfor our dwindling wild lands;

RECKLESS DRIVING: Any person who drives any motor vehicle, bicycle, or motorized bicycle in such a manner as to indicate either a wanton or willful disregard for the safety of persons or property is guilty of reckless driving. Colorado Driver Handbook. Pg. 24 sect. 12.5You hear the grumble of an approaching engine and ease closer to the shoulder’s white line, only to have your eardrums shattered by a long horn honk and an angry yell. Instinctively, you raise your hand and offer the irate driver’s rearview mirror the one-fingered international sign of goodwill, and a nice ear to ear grin.

Boulder, Colo. (February, 2005)  - This spring, only tenwomen will get the chance to spend a long weekend mountain biking withworld-class mountain biker Juli Furtado, in Fruita, Colorado, April 22through 24.A course for riders of all levels, the course is put together by TheWomen’s Wilderness Institute and offers the chance to ride trails in theKokopelli and 18-Mile road trail systems ranging from beginner to technical,all in the growing mountain bike community of Fruita.Though she has been mountain biking since 1985, this course is the firstthat Juli Furtado has ever hosted. She is the

Hondo tries his luck at a solo break in the 0th stage of the 2004 Tour de France

The peloton was sparsely populated by the end

Eisel takes the stage in the leader's jersey

The bunch barrels along

N.H.L. Cancels the Rest of Its SeasonAs Labor Talks Fall ApartArmstrong Sends a Message,Seeking 7th Straight Tour Title– headlines on The New York Times website, February 17, 2005 You have to feel the pain of America’s professional hockey fans, if any remain. On the same day that pro cycling’s Wayne Gretzky finally confirms that he’s going for a seventh consecutive Tour de France victory, the National Hockey League announces that it’s going away. No wonder there were so few hockey stars acting as presenters at the Grammys. They were all at home, updating their résumés. “Yo, babe? How do you

Earlier this week, on this site, Peter Nye told the fascinating story of Joseph Magnani, an American pioneer whose European racing career was virtually unknown back home. That’s because Magnani moved to Europe in his mid-teens and learned how to race in France, where he lived from 1928 until the end of his cycling career 20 years later. Magnani’s impoverished Illinois family sent him to live with friends in the south of France, where he took up bike racing at age 16. He turned pro seven years later because he could make more money racing bikes than he could in his job of delivering coal and

Ocaña took big risks when challenging Merckx

A child donates his lunch money to the NHL's No Millionaire Left Behind drive

Eighteen-year-old Michael Hiltner in 1959 at Canada’s Tour du St. Laurent, which a newspaper said he won with sensational brillance

Markov brings it home

Steels lost that pretty jersey by just two seconds

Mari was nervous at the start - but not for the usual reasons

MARBLEHEAD, Mass. – February 9, 2005 – The Tyler Hamilton Foundation today announced an online auction to raise money for the two causes closest to the gold-medal-winner’s heart: multiple sclerosis and youth cycling. The auction is now live at www.thfgala.cmarket.com and will be open through March 3; new items are being added daily. Anyone can log on and support the foundation with bids on vacations, sports gear and the once-in-a-lifetime experiences that make this auction unique. Among the priceless offerings is dinner for four at the home of Tyler Hamilton and his wife, Haven, with Tour of

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.Making the UCI look goodEditor:I've been pretty upset about the state of cycling and its leadership lately. But then I read today's newspaper (February 17) and realized that the NHL's Gary Bettman makes the UCI's Hein Verbruggen look like the NFL's late, great Pete

Dear Readers,In our lastcolumn, Attorney Bruce Epperson described how Colonel Albert Pope,the “Rockefeller of Bicycles” manuvered in 1878 to acquire all the significantpatents covering the basic features of the bicycle, including Pierre Lallement’s1866 “Improvement in Velocipedes,” the first bicycle patent in the UnitedStates. This Week, in Part 2 of “The Monopoly Machine” we look at how theColonel tried to use those patents to create a monopoly over the entirebicycle industry.-BobThe Monopoly Machine, Part 2Once he held the patents, Pope moved quickly. In June, Charles Pratt,Pope’s patent

British cyclist David Millar's two-year doping ban was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Thursday, but the starting date was changed to make the suspension end six weeks earlier. Millar was banned by the British Cycling Federation last summer after telling a French judge he had used the endurance-boosting drug EPO. “The CAS panel considered that the two-year suspension imposed by the BCF was proportionate to the circumstances of the case,'' the Lausanne-based court said in a statement. The ban went into effect August 6, but Millar argued it should have started

Canadian Lyne Bessette says she wants to relax and experiment a little as she tries her hand at mountain-bike racing and cyclo-cross as a supplement to a “scaled back” road schedule this season. The first sign of Bessette’s new approach is the way she plans to kick off her racing schedule this year. “My first race of the year will be the NORBA national in (Comfort) Texas on March 5,” the 29-year-old Bessette told VeloNews. “Starting my year off like that is something I’ve never done before.” Bessette said she'll also take a stab at racing the cross-country events at this year's Sea

No one seems too surprised at Armstrong's plan to be back in '05

Tech Report: Post-Buyer's Guide reflections

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.Roots!Dear VeloNews,A great article about Joseph Magnani (see "Pioneersin the Peloton: The unknown American"). If I have the opportunityto return to Southern France and ride I will certainly think of the firstAmerican to race those roads through towns and villages where not a lothas

Armstrong finds room in his closet for a few more

Petacchi barely edges out Van Heeswijk

Magnani's win at Marseille-Nice sparked interest in the American

Magnani posing with friends, teammates and his future wife, Mimi

Paris-Nice 1938

The Olmo team primed and ready to take on the Giro d'Italia

Andalucia in the spring.

Despite teasingly suggesting the contrary, logic says Lance Armstrong will be only in one place come July. Everyone expects him to line up July 2 for the 19km time trial from Fromentine to Noirmoutier-en-l'Ile in France’s Vendee region for the start of the 92nd Tour de France. After a history-making six consecutive victories, a run at the seventh seems a no-brainer, but Armstrong’s “will he or won’t he” has become cycling’s equivalent to “who shot JR?” Everyone seems to have a theory, but no one really knows. Those close to the Texan, however, insist he’s truly undecided about whether

From the era of snub-nosed cars and dirt roads, of cyclists wearing goggles over their eyes to keep out the ubiquitous dust from the roads and racers wrapping spare tires over their shoulders and across their backs in a figure-eight, a lone U.S. rider enjoyed success as a professional on the roads of Europe. Joseph Magnani of Illinois raced professionally from 1935 to 1948 on French and Italian teams. He was so ahead of his time that few in his homeland knew of him. In the 1947 world championship professional road race in Reims, northeast of Paris and famed for its champagne vineyards,

Born in Illinois, Joseph Magnani made his mark in the European peloton of the 1930s and '40s

Nationwide Alert: Senate Bill Threatens California TrailsA U.S. Senate committee will vote this Wednesday, Feb. 16, on a reintroducedWilderness bill that would ban mountain biking from 170 miles of singletracktrails in Northern California. Mountain bikers nationwide are urged toask their senators to delay action on the bill until suitable compromisesare reached and bicycling is accommodated. Your call is especially importantif your senator is a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committeelisted below.Senate Bill 128 (S. 128), the Northern California Coastal Wild

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.Thompson, Twain, Mencken and . . . O’Grady?Editor:I thoroughly enjoy O'Grady's foaming rants. One of the reasons I subscribe to VeloNews is that he's in it. A touch of Hunter S. and a hint of Twain, shades of Mencken, riding a 1970 Raleigh Pro. Dave EvansMadison,

A club of young riders visits the grave of the Italian cycling star on Monday

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood: My Funny Valentine

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood: My Funny Valentine

Baguet takes the win

Carlos García Quesada still has the jersey

The appeal of the Ruta del Sol

García Quesada kept a close eye on the other favorites

García Quesada is in a solid position after Monday's stage

The six-man break looked promising, but was caught in the closing kilometers

Hincapie tries his hand in the escape

Before I launch into my special Valentine’s Day column, I’ve got to ask – did anyone else watch The Grammy Awards last night? Obviously I did, which is why I’m typing away after midnight on a Monday morning instead of sleeping. But since I once fancied myself a music journalist in a past life, I have to point out a few of the highlights from a not-bad broadcast — even if it did dish up an agonizing live performance of “Free Bird” by the remaining members of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Sorry, but what year is this? Best acceptance speech: Kanye West, winner of best rap album for “The College Dropout.”

Quesada

The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) performed a total of 8,051 doping control tests in 2004 in 69 Olympic, Paralympic and Pan American sports, including 7,630 domestic tests, USADA Chief Executive Officer Terry Madden announced today. Out-of-Competition (OOC) testing comprised approximately 58 percent (4,447) of the domestic tests USADA conducted in 2004. USADA conducted 526 tests in cycling during 2004. “We reached our goal of increasing the number of out-of-competition tests in 2004,” said Madden. “More than 90 percent of U.S. athletes consistently provide their whereabouts

CSC helps Voigt add to his lead in the Tour Med

And he causeth all . . . to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads; And that no man might buy or sell, save that he had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

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.Rights versus responsibilitiesEditor:Neal Rogers did a really great job of pointing out the crap that some employers want versus the rights of citizens (see “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood: Who draws the line between rights and responsibilities?”). For one job I had to sign an agreement that I

While British and Irish cyclists were making breakthroughs in Europe’s top road races during the 1950s and early 1960s, North Americans were still very much in the twilight zone of world cycling. There were many reasons why road racing remained undeveloped on this side of the Atlantic; but one big reason was apparent in the very name of the body that controlled the sport in the United States, the Amateur Bicycle League of America (my italics). Professional cycling was anathema to the ABL, which was founded by a group of New York cycling clubs in 1920 to counteract alleged corruption in the

Number, please

Voigt wins again

Art Longsjo at Somerville

Bobby Julich and the CSC gang on the march