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Cannondale: Custom is customary

FIRMIN LAMBOT (Belgium) 1919, 1922

FERDI KUBLER (Switzerland) 1950

B. HINAULT (France) 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985

Last week’s column about the USPRO Championship drew a flood of e-mails. Sorry I couldn’t respond to everyone, but here’s a dip into the mailbag for some of the best, along with my take. It feels very unfulfilling to me to award the USPRO champ jersey to a guy who doesn't win the race. I am in favor of an all-U.S.-citizen race -- perhaps somewhere else than Philly, or just on another day. Your point about attracting riders like Fred Rodriguez is a good one. How do they do it in Europe? Surely there are similar cases. What about talented riders like Allan Davis or Jorg Jaksche, who are the

LÉON SCIEUR (Belgium) 1921

HUGO KOBLET (Switzerland) 1951

J. ZOETEMELK (Netherlands) 1980

YELLOW JERSEYThe yellow jersey — or maillot jaune — is worn by the overall race leader, the rider who has covered the overall distance in the least amount of cumulative time. Time bonuses (12 seconds for winning a road stage, six seconds for winning an intermediate sprint) are deducted, and time penalties (for infractions like dangerous riding or accepting pushes from spectators on the climbs) are added to riders’ stage times before calculating their GC (general classification) times. 2002 winner: Lance Armstrong, U.S. Postal Service   POINTS LEADERThe green points-leader’s jersey is awarded

WINNING AND LEARNING Armstrong won on Alpe d’Huez, but still needed to adjust his strategy and training

HENRI PÉLISSIER (France) 1922

LOUISON BOBET (France) 1953, 1954, 1955

L. FIGNON (France) 1983, 1984

Italian Vincenzo Di Falco, who rides for the Mercatone Uno team, has been banned from competing for a year by the Italian cycling federation's disciplinary commission, the panel announced on Friday. The 22-year-old Di Falco, a teammate of former Tour de France and Giro d'Italia winner Marco Pantani, tested positive for Nesp, a banned endurance-enhancer similar to EPO (erythropoetin) during a stage of the Lombardy International week race on May 10. His compatriot Giampaolo Caruso, a 22-year-old with the Spanish ONCE-Eroski team, was handed a six-month ban for testing positive for nandrolone

Chris Carmichael says Lance Armstrong has prepared more intensely for this Tour than for any other.

O. BOTTECCHIA (Italy) 1924, 1925

R. WALKOWIAK (France) 1956

GREG LEMOND (USA) 1986, 1989, 1990

With each passing year, winning the Tour de France gets more and more difficult for Lance Armstrong. To win, Lance has to be prepared to handle every racing strategy devised to defeat him. One of my jobs as his coach is to work with him in collecting and analyzing data each year. Some of our most useful information came two years ago during Lance’s victory in stage 10. Before the Tour that year, Lance selected the Alpe d’Huez stage as one he really wanted to win. As someone with a true appreciation for cycling history, Lance saw winning on the Alpe as a way to honor the race and the great

Lyne Bessette didn't expect to win ...

LUCIEN BUYSSE (Belgium) 1926

J. ANQUETIL (France) 1957, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964

STEPHEN ROCHE (Ireland) 1987

If you’re reading this, you’d probably give anything to be in France this July. For most of us, however, jobs, family and budgets don’t allow for a month of tromping around the Alps and the Pyrénées, sleeping on the sides of mountains or snapping a photograph of the peloton as it speeds through fields of sunflowers. But if you can’t make it to the Tour, at least keep track of it on VeloNews.com. This year, VeloNews.com continues its tradition of providing live up-to-the-minute coverage of each stage throughout the Tour. Keeping track of events will be even easier this year, with clear

... but Eric Wohlberg surely couldn't have been surprised by his eighth maple-leaf jersey.

NICOLAS FRANTZ (Luxembourg) 1927, 1928

CHARLY GAUL (Luxembourg) 1958

PEDRO DELGADO (Spain) 1988

Numbers 1 - 10Numbers11 - 20Numbers21 - 30Numbers31 - 40Numbers41 - 50Numbers51 - 53

MAURICE GARIN(France)1903

M. DEWAELE (Belgium) 1929

F. BAHAMONTÉS (Spain) 1959

M. INDURAIN (Spain) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995

Clifford visits Cannondale

FIVE THE HARD WAY Merckx (left) struggled against Poulidor in the mountains in 1974, but still managed to win his fifth and final Tour.

THE ONE TO CHASE: Armstrong will attempt to match Indurain's five consecutive wins.

PERSEVERANCE Leipheimer got stronger as the race wore on in last year’s Tour.

HIGH EXPECTATIONS Leipheimer hopes to improve on his eighth place finish last year.

Robbie McEwen wants all of them to count at the Tour.

Rogers has had a kiss-filled spring

Bob;What are the most common types of bicycle accidents?Mike APhoenixDear Mike;For many years, there was vehement debate over this question. Virtuallyall statistics relating to bicycle accidents came from police accidentreports, and critics maintained that this database systematically under-reportedbicycle wrecks that did not involve a motor vehicle. Finally, in 1999,a team of researchers at the Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC) of theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill performed a large-scale studyof bike wrecks based on emergency room admissions. Their findings largelysupported

Anniversaries are big in France. Take the year 1989, which was the bicentennial of the French Revolution. The bicentennial’s big celebration came on the Fourteenth of July, and the Tour de France organizers just happened to schedule that day’s stage finish in Marseille, the city after which the French national anthem, the Marseillaise, is named. The race saw plenty of attacks by French riders that day, and the stage was won in a late solo attack by the blond rider from Normandy, Vincent Barteau. Acelebration followed on a hot, steamy night, as huge crowds watched a mammoth fireworks display

Improving on last year, that’s the goal for American Levi Leipheimeras he heads into his second Tour de France. In an impressive debut in 2002,the Rabobank rider fought his way to eighth place after a spectacular finalweek in the Alps. And despite emergency surgery for blocked intestineslast August, the 29-yearold says he is back in winning shape and wantsto inch closer to the Tour podium. “I want to improve on last year, for the sponsors and everyone else,”Leipheimer said. “The expectations are higher. I want to keep doing mybest and put into effect everything I’ve learned.” EXCITING

It's been a long time coming but the Aussie presence at this year's Tour de France is going to reach record levels. A potential seven Australian professionals, riding for four teams, are being lined up for this year's centenary race and although that's no mean feat, just wait till the race itself gets underway next Saturday, July 5. No-nonsense Queenslander Robbie McEwen, who rides for the Belgian Lotto outfit, pulled off a coup of sorts when he ended Erik Zabel's bid to win a seventh straight green points jersey. However McEwen, who goes into the race a little less primed than at this

Subaru-Gary Fisher rider Nat Ross called the other day, and I could almost hear him grinning from across the Atlantic after his big 24-hour solo win at the UK’s June 21-22 Saab-Salomon Mountain Mayhem event. Held near Birmingham, England, the race is now in its sixth and most successful year, with online registration selling out its 80 solo and 380 team spots in, coincidentally, just over 24 hours. Ross — who took second at the NORBA 24-hour national championship earlier this year — didn’t have to worry about registration; his boss, mountain-bike legend Gary Fisher, co-sponsored the event

Mark Gorski will step down July 1 as chief executive officer of Tailwind Sports after eight years in the sports-marketing company’s top job. Vice president Dan Osipow, director of operations for the Tailwind-managed U.S. Postal Cycling Team, will become interim general manager. "It is with a mixture of sadness, satisfaction and new opportunity that I announce my resignation," said Gorski. "After many months of consideration, I decided that it was best for me personally, professionally, and most importantly, for my family, to step down." Gorski will be leaving the sports-marketing business

Cooke captures the stage win

Zipp 404s

Zipp 303s

Vino's fifth was good enough for first

Tri shoes for The Champ?

Red, white and you...if you hurry.

Zipp's in the bar business too

A solo win

Casagrande still in charge

Casagrande leads

Ullrich took second on Sunday

Gracia

Steb

Pecharroman

McConneloug

Green and McGrath

The new leader

San Bernardino Pass

Casagrande wins stage and takes lead in Switzerland

After what seems like months, finally, a column about … cycling. Last week, after the USPRO Championship in Philadelphia, VN.com reader Michael Batley e-mailed the following question: “Do you think it’s time for us to go to a U.S.-citizen-only pro championship? It seems like we have the numbers in the peloton to do it now. Why the continual inclusion of the Euro pros?” It’s a topic that comes up from time to time, often as a reaction to the “race within a race” situation, such as this year, where the USPRO champion and the race winner aren’t necessarily one and the same. So, I figured I’d

USA Cycling has announced its automatic selections for the U.S. team attending the 2003 World Track Championships July 30-August 3 in Stuttgart, Germany. Many of the automatic selections earned their world's-team selections by winning their respective events at the 2003 Pan Am and World Championship Qualifier last weekend in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The U.S. team includes: Giddeon Massie (Colorado Springs) - team sprint, sprint,keirinJames Carney (Boulder, Colorado) - scratch raceColby Pearce (Boulder) - points raceStephen Alfred (Santa Cruz, California) - team sprint and keirinAnton

An all-American USPRO championship probably ain't gonna happen.