News

The cobbles start at Troisvilles

Alessio's Magnus Backstedt triumphs on the Roubaix velodrome

Without Museeuw, Backstedt and the others knew they had a shot.

Aldag

Mayhem in the Arenberg Forest

Kirsipuu tries his luck

Hincapie saw his chance and went for it.

Museeuw launched the winning move, but....

Who knows what would have happened if those tires had held?

Museeuw revisits the pavé he knows so well after three wins in the Hell of the North

Defending champ Van Petegem test-drives the cobbles

If it’s on the Internet, it must be true. So, when a recent “What’s ahead on VeloNews.com” item listed “Notes From the Road with Bryan Jew” as a regular Friday feature, one thing was painfully obvious to me. I’d failed in an attempt to make the VN.com editor forget about my column by going into hiding for a month. And sure enough, it was confirmed when the “Are you doing a column this week?” e-mail hit my in-box the other day. So, after a four-week hiatus, I’m back. No truth to the rumors that I’ve been in rehab to kick a junk-food habit. In fact, for part of that time I was off at Redlands,

American track rider Walker Starr has been prevented from taking part in round three of the UCI Track World Cup Friday in Manchester, England, after an abnormal result from a random blood test, according to official sources. Starr, from San Diego, had been scheduled for the scratch race. He has been barred from competition for 15 days, in accordance with UCI rules. Pre-competition or random blood tests focus on a rider's hematocrit level (the volume of red blood cells in the blood); a reading over 50 is an indicator, although not proof, of the use of banned blood boosters. Thirty five

Menchov rinses off with a little bubbly

L'Equipe faces a lawsuit over today's coverage

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@7Dogs.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.Regarding ManzanoEditors,The current situation in cycling has gone from bad to worse, and notjust because new allegations of drug use have surfaced.If true, these revelations are certainly shocking, more for their boldprevalence than any "I can't

The Olympic aspirations of Britain's top cyclist David Millar could be under threat after he was directly implicated Friday in the doping scandal which has engulfed France's top team Cofidis. A potentially damaging report in L’Equipe newspaper claims that Millar, the world time trial champion who will bid for Olympic track gold in the Athens velodrome this summer, has been actively involved in doping and works closely with a shady doctor from the Spanish Euskaltel team. The Cofidis doping affair was exposed in January when police, who had for months tapped the phones of several team

While working on a story this week about Webcor Builders women’s team rider Christine Thorburn for our upcoming VeloNews issue No.7, I dialed up Quark’s Lyne Bessette to get a comment or two about Thorburn’s surprising third-place overall finish at Redlands. And along with getting the quote material I was looking for from the recent Redlands winner —“I was impressed by her amount of fight,” Bessette said of Thorburn’s second-place finish on the Oak Glen climb. “I knew that she was a good climber, but I was surprised that she could hang on that long.” — what surprised me was the voice that

Scots cyclist Graeme Obree has abandoned his bid to reclaim the world hour record held by England's Chris Boardman. Obree, who held the record before Boardman set his mark of 49.441km under new rules in 2000, told AFP of his decision after a test ride on Sunday at the Manchester velodrome suggested he was too far away from record-breaking fitness. Obree, 38, has been retired from top-level cycling since 2001. He called off Sunday's test after 12 minutes in which he averaged 47 km/h, significantly below the pace required to break Boardman's record, established on the same track on October

Herbold can not only handle a bike better than most, he can also tell the guys in engineering how to improve it

To Herbold, the nuts-and-bolts of suspension can be the most fun

Tomac isn't afraid to do a little hands-on work to improve product

Obree in 1995 after winning the individual pursuit at world’s in Colombia

CSC's Bobby Julich is among four Americans contending for the overall in the Basque Country

Menchov celebrates his stage win

Ullrich is content to build slowly toward his date with Lance Armstrong

ruffcobblegif2

image files - April 7+

image files - April 7+

Fleche Map

Eyes

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@7Dogs.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.What? Huh? Hey, that's pretty good!Editors,Holy crap!Is he for real?It's like Jack Kerouac on wheels. “On the road...” with AgnettiSheldrake? (see “YoungGuns: "It's all just so caray-zee"”)Pretty good stuff. Keep it coming.Tim McDonaldRichmond,

SUN VALLEY, ID – Scott USA announced its return to theUSA in the coming months and offer a full line of bicycles and selectedcycling accessories for the 2005 model year. Beat Zaugg, President of ScottSports Group said, “We have always wanted to return to North America. Wefelt this was the perfect time as our bicycle line has been extremely wellreceived for years and is already sold in some 37 countries around theworld. We have been getting many requests from enthusiasts in the UnitedStates asking to purchase our cycling related products. Our brand is verystrong but we did not have the right

Map Gent-W 04

cobbles

cobblegif

Hincapie is ready for Sunday

Wind early in the day set the tone for the entire race.

Are you getting a theme here?

Technical Q&A with Lennard Zinn - Same ratio, different result?

Technical Q&A with Lennard Zinn - Same ratio, different result?

Technical Q&A with Lennard Zinn - Same ratio, different result?

Zberg takes the stage

Zinc Man flashes between two cars, moving melodically in opposite ways. There he is again. I’m in a numb parade of bones as I take a morningpassagiata with my inept vocabulary and listening of birds. Just the cock-a-hoop morning and my whirling derby mind absorbing a controlled chaos of external influx. I thought he was gone. I know he’s homeless and crazy, and even a pervert, and I know he’s a local-legend cyclist, emerging like some nudnik superhero, but I don’t want to ride with him! Luckily this time I’m sans bike, just doing a morning reconnaissance for an espresso and a chocolate chip

(4/5/04) Cannondale is celebrating the imminent delivery of its new,featherweight Six13 road racing models by issuing a unique challenge toriders attending the upcoming Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, California.The Connecticut-based bikemaker will be running “The Six13 Challenge” throughoutthe race, inviting riders to pit their bike against the Six13 in a head-to-headweight comparison. Any rider whose bicycle is actually lighter thanthe Six13 will win a free Saeco team jersey. The first 613 riderswho fail the challenge will each receive a free Six13 waterbottle for participating.“Our Six13

In some places, it's all about the bike...Dear VeloNews.com,Just to let you know, this happens all over (see ''Friday's foaming rant: Wave dynamics revisited"). I lived in Spain from 1981-1983. I rode a Schwinn LeTour, wore a t-shirt and shorts and topped it off with one of those old styrofoam helmets. When I went riding, I would wave at the Spaniards as they went by, but they never returned my waves. Then, I upgraded to a Zeus 2000 equipped ALAN bike, got bike shorts and some Mirko jerseys. Not only did they wave back, but I was invited to join the local bike club, the Club Ciclista

April , 2004 – The CCA is pleased to announce that Curt Harnett has been appointed as the new Chair for the High Performance Committee. Harnett will serve on an interim basis until the next Board of Directors meeting which will take place later in the year. Curt is one of the most recognizable faces of cycling in Canada and he is a true advocate and voice for the sport. For a complete biography of the former World Champion and Olympic medalist, view attached pdf file. The HPC mandate is to guide the planning, evaluation and establishment of standards for national team programs. The HPC

Belgium's former world road racing champion Alberic "Briek" Schotte died Sunday at the age of 84, only minutes after the start of Sunday's Tour of Flanders, a race he'd won twice over the course of a 20-year pro career. Schotte died shortly after 10:00 a.m. Sunday at a clinic in Courtrai after suffering from lung problems, according to his son Johan. Born in September 1919 in Kanegem, in Flemish speaking Belgium, Schotte was a professional rider between 1940 and 1959. He became world champion in the Dutch town of Valkenburg for the first time in 1948, and won the rainbow jersey again two

In a bid to secure its place among the ranks of the top teams taking on the UCI’s ProTour, the Dutch banking consortium Rabobank has extended its sponsorship of the cycling team that bears its name for an additional two years. The bank, which has sponsored the team since 1996, will continue to do so until the end of 2008. Beginning in 2005, teams on the ProTour circuit will be able to have four-year licenses, in accordance with new UCI regulations. Milan-San Remo winner Oscar Freire, American Levi Leipheimer and Dutch riders Michael Boogerd and Erik Dekker are among the team's most

The day's first major move had some real horsepower...

...including Postal's Tony Cruz

Briek Schotte (R) hands a magnum of champagne to Belgian sprinter Tom Steels for winning the first stage of last year's Tour of Belgium

The best sprinter in the break, Wesemann lived up to expectations

The winning move

Despite appearances, these three actually won the race

Hincapie works his way up the Grammont

Springtime in Flanders

Despite troubles en-route, Freire managed to hold on to the World Cup lead.

Not wanting to pull a 'Zabel' Wesemann waited to celebrate

MONTEREY, Calif. (April 2, 2004) — Building on its reputation as North American cycling’s most inclusive cycling festival, the Hyundai Sea Otter Classic has partnered with top professional road cyclists and coaches to offer a road cycling skills clinic at the April 15-18 event, held at Laguna Seca Recreation Area in Monterey, California. On Sunday morning, April 18, Team Basis, along with Wenzel Coaching, will run a road cycling clinic as part of the Sea Otter Road Bike Tour. The clinic will start concurrently with the Sea Otter Classic’s new Road Century, and will include a 40-mile ride

The hardest working man in show business is bringing down the curtain on his career

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@7Dogs.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.A VN cover-up? Dear Editors Why doesn't the picture of the "English photographer" enlarge? (see "Harvest of Shame: What Price Beauty?") My guess is the culprit is Graham Watson, and you buy lots of his pictures. An honest piece of journalism would

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commissionannounces the following recall in voluntary cooperation with the firm below.Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwiseinstructed. Name of product: Mongoose aluminum 20-inch-wheel “D-XR AL” mountainbicyclesUnits: About 14,000Manufacturer/Importer: Pacific Cycle Inc., of Madison, Wis.Hazard: The rear shock absorber allows the aluminum, dual-suspensionframe to flex severely, causing the frame to become unstable and break,posing the risk of injury to riders.Incidents/Injuries: Pacific Cycle Inc. has received two reports

You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man’s actions are, such must be his spirit.DemosthenesThird Olynthiac A colleague recently described one of those cheery encounters that help make American cycling what it is today: an obscure, cliquish activity whose elaborate and inexplicable pecking order would be the envy of any chicken run. My colleague was out for a ride on his ’cross bike, saw another cyclist on a road bike, and had the audacity to give him a friendly greeting — which, naturally, was haughtily ignored. Three times this

What looks like an asterisk? (Hint: It's riding a bike, and won't return your friendly greeting.)

The Lion of Flanders in last year's Ronde

'The Englishman' in 1994

April Lawyer rides the lightweight air-sprung Reba

The key to RockShox's new damping system-the Motion Control damper system found inside the right leg of PIke and Reba forks.

The PopLoc and PopLoc Adjust remote shifter allow the rider to activate/deactivate the amount of pedaling platform

Steve Peat hammers the longer-travel Pike fork through Bootleg Canyon

By now, the image is standard on posters in dorm rooms, bike shops and offices all over the western world: The peloton of the Tour de France zooming across the sunlit country roads of France, weaving its way through fields of golden sunflowers; bright, beautiful and precisely the tone of the legendary maillot jaune. The image is a classic, emoting visions of idyllic country life, families peacefully enjoying France’s spectacular summer, interrupted only by the momentary passing of the world’s greatest bicycle race. Sadly, a Thursday news conference in Paris underscored just how much of a

Five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and his new companion, nine-time Grammy Award winning Sheryl Crow, have recorded a duet at Armstrong's home in Girona, Spain, and will release the single in conjunction with this year's Tour. The song, titled "Love and Life," features both lead and backing vocals from U.S. Postal Service-Berry Floor rider. "I'll probably catch a little flak about this from the guys on the team," Armstrong said, "but it won't be the first time. Besides, you only live once, right?" As reported in the Spanish newspaper AS, the song was recorded over the March